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Harold Taylor had decided to take up athletics fairly seriously. He had joined Brighton Athletic Club to progress with his race walking, which some thought he had a penchant for.
They trained Tuesdays at East Brighton in the winter and in the summer at Brighton Greyhound Racing Stadium. Later this was changed to Withdean Stadium.
Harold joined the police force three years after the end of the Second World War, in which he served with the Merchant Navy. Harold shares with us some of the sporting events which took place in the police force in the early 1950's.
There was also a club event every week in the winter. In the summer there were events somewhere almost every week either within the county or in neighbouring ones. This meant that any overtime I could accumulate would be used to take part in events, much to the chagrin of my wife.
Things became easier later when we officially went on to a 44-hour week. This became a bit complicated, but it did mean that the weekend off came round a bit quicker, for instead of having every seventh day off and a weekend when you reached a Saturday, one now advanced as normal taking the seventh day off.
However, every time you reached Saturday, one took three days off, which meant that the weekend now came round every 5 weeks.
Powers that be did not seem to think you were entitled to this, and if you were lucky enough to find yourself with a weekend in your leave period it meant that you had nearly three weeks leave in the summer and they thought that was most unfair of you.
There were many liberties taken with police time, doing things for which the police were not meant to be used, which amounted to abuse of police power and embezzlement of police funds subscribed by the public through rates and taxes.
I first became aware of this when at Horsham, where the next Annual Police Sports were to be held the year after I was appointed to that division. First of all there was a great palaver about the supply of prizes, which were cajoled out of local traders.
Then there was the selling of tickets. Each constable was given a quota which he was expected to sell, and expected to come back to get more. In a way I suppose you could say that this opened up the way for on the spot fining, before it became law or was even considered.
Constables who would not normally see offences would suddenly become alert and would stop offenders of one sort or another and during the conversation get round to talking about the sports and eventually sell a ticket.
In its own way I suppose it had its desired effect, the person paid 2/6d instead of all the paperwork that would have taken him to court where he might get fined 10/-.
One classic case of this was a fellow who was brought in drunk one night and placed in the cells. It was before the days of breathalysers and conviction was very difficult.
When he was released the following day he was sold tickets for the Divisional Police Ball, which was due. This fellow was one of what would now be called the 'Hooray Henry' type.
With the cheek of the damned he turned up on Ball night and used the cells to change into his dress suit and returned later to sleep off the night's festivities in the cells before departing for home.
When I got to Worthing I found that things were done on an even grander scale. By this time it had been decided that all future sports events would be held in Worthing as they had shown the best profit.
The scheme that was devised there was to have six constables struck off the strength and exclusively on ticket sales for three months.
They canvassed all the houses, door to door, street by street until the town had been flooded. Of course selling many more tickets than they expected to see people at the ground.
A similar process was incorporated for the sale of the local ball tickets. For this however, even CID were involved by using some personnel who where well entrenched with some of the influential public.
For this, however the takers were thoroughly vetted. Persons who came to the office enquiring about tickets were very unlikely to receive them. They were more or less pre-ordered from the previous year or pressurised year to year to take them for if you came off the list you were not likely to get back on.
The balls were spectacular events and worked on a theme from year to year. Great band names like Victor Silvester were used regularly. I well recall the first time he played for us.
I was on office duty when he arrived and introduced himself and his band, who had come to the station to get changed for the performance. When he came in I mistook him for Vic Oliver. I did not dance, so never went.
It was surprising what the force could stretch to at the convenience of circumstances. For instance, fundamentally there were 17 beats, taking into consideration days off, leave etc. you were lucky to have 14 men covering those beats, so obviously several were coupled together.
When it came to Goodwood race meeting I have known the strength be down to five including the man in the office.
One had similar arrangements for the balls etc. The theory was that if need be everyone was available; that is until you wanted someone in a hurry, then it was impossible to get anyone.
I particularly remember one sporting event, because I again ran foul of the Welsh Boyo. I had changed my duty in order to compete in the Sussex 20-Mile Championship held that year at Crawley.
I do not remember why, but I missed my transport back, so another competitor who worked in Birmingham, but had some sort of home in Bognor, offered to drive me down till we could get me on a bus to Worthing.
Armed with a timetable we chased the Sussex roads, missing the bus at Pulborough and at Billingshurst.
We eventually saw it at Storrington, but not in time to board it and it was some time before we were able to overtake it for me to get on. I eventually got on duty about 10 minutes late and DAI was not amused.
Quite a few changes had taken place to make life a bit more humane for constables since I joined at Horsham. There we had been expected to do all our reports in our own time, either at home with our own typewriter or at the station with one of the spares.
Of course you might go to the station and find that there was not a spare. These items were not cheap, but time was valuable, so most equipped themselves with a portable. The cheaper ones were the older double shift models.
I still use a fairly quick hunt and peck system, despite having been to keyboarding classes quite recently.
When I went to Worthing initially, the same system still prevailed, but they were more lenient in allowing you time to type your own reports. As there were so many of us we would be allocated a time, so that not too many were off the street, nor too many fighting over the too few typewriters.
This situated eased later when they took on a civilian typist/telephonist. The system was for the constable to scribble his report out on scrap paper (discarded reports). These would be handed in to the Sergeant, who would check them and pass them to the typist and they would come back for him to sign.
Some Sergeants took advantage of this system and expected one, when they were on relief or covering for weekends etc, to carry out the same function as the typist, despite having to function at the switchboard or attending to the incoming public.
The only advantage one had was that they would usually dictate their reports to you and it made it easier for the typing.
Referring back to the 'time off' situation for sport or related incidents. I was particularly annoyed over this. As I was participating in events mostly that did not involve the police I had to make specific requests to use my hard earned overtime, for which we were not paid, as time off in lieu.
People playing football, cricket, golf or tennis, however, for divisional or county force purposes were freely given the time off as though it was duty, and they were not expected to report back and finish their duty time.
The only time I could get official time off was to attend events promoted by other forces or National Police Championships.
Even here I was deprived. Whereas most forces allowed three days, I was only allowed two. This worked out very difficult and as the result I decided not to attend some due to the time factor.
The events were cultural for the force, as I later learned. At the time of my leaving, a senior Officer stated that I was the best Ambassador the force had.
One embarrassing incident for one of these visits resulted after I had competed in the Barking to Southend Walk. I had to refuse to attend the after race reception despite being approached by the Chief Constable himself. I explained that I was due to be on duty the following morning at 6.00 a.m.
Some months later I was parading for duty with the rest of the section in the yard at the rear of the station, preparatory to going on patrol.
The Chief Constable of Southend had arrived to see our Superintendent who had come out to greet him, but the Chief Constable broke away from him and came and greeted me in the ranks. A very embarrassing thing indeed.
Something similar had occurred after I attended the 10-mile Championship at Ludlow. There must have been a Chief Constables' conference somewhere, in which my name must have come up, because it filtered back down the line that the Chief Constable of Shropshire had enquired about me.
I was not a great athlete, perhaps I stood out because of my height, or perhaps it was my congeniality, because even at local club level, whilst I was not the best, I was chosen as a team leader.
I can recall times such as when we Sussex Clubs competed against a London Club that had greater strength. A combined team would be put forward and called Harold Taylor's Team. This could look interesting, as the other team was often Harold Whitlock's team.
He and his brother were both Olympic Gold Medallists.
Some of the venues I missed with the Police were Edinburgh, Leeds and Derby. The National Police track championships were held during the summer and generally known as the PAA. In1956 I gained third place.
That same year was the inauguration of a new competition between the National Police, the RAF and the Civil Service. The latter two had been competing against each other for some years.
I was selected from the Police forces throughout the country to compete in this event. I have forgotten my position and the outcome, but I was not disgraced.
I believe there were only three policemen who were not from the Metropolitan force, men with whom I had a good rapport. One of whom I met quite frequently, but was not alas at this event.
Les Denman volunteered for the Cyprus situation and was the first policeman to be killed in that undertaking. That same year of '56 I gained the Sussex 2-mile championship. I had been second for the previous two years, perhaps three.
Had the position of training been more conducive, who knows to what heights I may have achieved. I was always looked on at Brighton to have promise, but never really came off. I consider that I was lazy, but given the inducement one gets today, perhaps I may have been more ambitious.
I also had the handicap of getting to places where there were others of my ilk to train with. The training I did do was a drain on my home life, having a growing family. Police life restricts ones activities as well as producing commitments not included as ones daily work.
I could ill afford the costs. Events cost money to enter. Travelling was another drain on family income, without counting the cost of equipment.
I consider I did well to achieve what I did, because it had to be done on a give and take basis at home. My wife will always consider I took too much, but under certain circumstances, she did not give enough. Of course this depends on who is doing the considering.
The year I won the championship may not have seemed as genuine as it looked. There was a rail strike on at the time and it may have prevented other people attending.
The man who had beaten me the two previous years did not attend because he was a bit of an amateur photographer and was booked that day to take a wedding event.
That year I had taken part in a long distance race for the second time. This was the 33 and a bit mile event, Barking to Southend. I did not complete this event due to problems that were later defined as disc trouble in my back.
Eventually I had to wear a steel ribbed corset. I subsequently left the police and took up with an occupation that prevented me taking much part in athletics of any sort, although I tried to keep in touch when I came home on leave every two months.
Eventually I took part in the Hastings to Brighton race of 38 miles plus and did a respectable time of just under 7 and a half hours. I think that was in 1960.
In 1961 I tried the event again, but did not have a satisfactory back up, became despondent, with the result that I pulled out after I had completed two thirds of the race.
I had held a good position at a third of the distance, but was slowing and knew I would not do as good a time as before and finish the rest of the way in unattended. I went home for an early bath and that completed my walking career.
Harold Taylor, West Sussex, 2001
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