LONDON POLICE

Hokitika Guardian, 9 July 1934, Page 8

LONDON POLICE

LIFE “NOT A HAPPY ONE.” COLD AND CRAMPED QUARTERS. LONDON, July 2. (According to the report of the Commissioner, Lord Trenchard, on- t.hc London Metropolitan police, the lot of the .unmarried policeman is far from a happy one, The section houses In which they live are cold and cramped, lacking in privacy, badly .lighted, and faulty in internal organisation for study, recreation and the provision of m.pals. Some of the conditions under which nearly 4000 single policemen are compelled to live are described in detail.

‘Tjractically all the section houses date from pre-war days,” the report says, “and about half from the Victorian era (1850 onwards). They were built and. equipped when the standard acquiesced in as regards comfort and amenities was far below what can be regarded as reasonable or tolerable today. The outstanding defect of the section houses is the complete lack of privacy.. There are no separate bedrooms—only Wrrow cubicles in a cheerless dormitory?., “Apart from the cramped space, which ig insufficient even for a man to keep his clothes in, he is prevented from retiring to his cubiclo, except to sleep, because the only lighting is in the dormitory corridor, where the lights have been made as few and n-s dim as possible, in a rather unsuccessful attempt to compromise between illumination for those who wish to see and darkness for those who are trying to sleep. Electric light has so far been ■introduced into only a few section houses. The dormitories and cubicles ■are also very cold in winter, and, although central heating is being gradually installed, a large proportion are still unheated.

“As 'regards meals, the men make their own messing (arrangements under which, as a general rule, one hot meal a day is provided—usually at 1 p.m.— other meals, being cooked by each man for himself. The catering •arrangements larc in meed of entire overhaul, with a view to securing that the men, who come off duty at all hours, can obtain well-cooked and properly-serveu ■meals as and when they require them in a room furnished after the manner of a comfortable restaurant. This is essential not only as a matter of comfort but for the health of the men, which undoubtedly suffers at present from unsuitable and insufficiently varied diet, a trouble which cannot be remedied under existing condition^;.