ROUGH OLD LONDON

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 750, 24 August 1929, Page 29

ROUGH OLD LONDON

EX-POLICEMAN’S MEMORIES FATHER OF THE FORCE On a fine summer day, nearly 70 years ago, a handsome young shaver in his early twenties marched up to the recruiting office in Loudon and enlisted as a policeman. A brave sight he was to be sure, with his natty sidewhiskers, top-hat, bobtailed coat, and staff—as stout a “Peeler" as could be found in the Force. Today the shaver, now an old man, with snowy hair and beard, hut handsome and straight-backed still, looks back on his youth and claims, with legitimate pride, to be the oldest living ex-member of the London Police Force. He is Mr. William Henry Skinner, who lives in a cottage in Merton Road, Wandsworth, and is now in his 94th year. A correspondent who called on the veteran policeman found him drinking tea in the bright sitting-room, the walls of which are almost covered by photographs of Mr. Skinner, in uniform and out, and of his family. His bearing is still perfect, and he talked with equal animation about the “bad old days,” and about the inspection of the Metropolitan Police by the Prince of Wales in Hyde Park on Saturday. “Yes, I was there, you may be sure,” said Mr: Skinner. “It was a grand sight. I never knew what a fine lot they were. It did me good, and I’m feeling as well as ever.” Mr. Skinner is a link with that disreputable old London whose sins have mercifully been forgotten. Those were the days when there was more brutality than science about the city criminal t and when a policeman’s chief weapons were his fists. “There was no training for policemen like there is now, you know,” said Mr. Skinner. “I remember I was sent out on a beat almost as soon as l"d 'listed, quite raw, and with very little knowledge of the law or of the topography of the city. “Nowadays legal training is one of the most important parts of a policeman’s education. In those days there were no telephones or telegraphs or motor-cars. We carried the oldfashioned rattle, of course, but a policeman then had to be a better fighter than scholar. “There was a lot more drunkenness then, and th' Ratcliffe Highway and Kent Street were at their worst—the most dangerous districts of London.” Mr. Skinner was born in Kensington, and can remember when the district around the gardens was both dangerous and insanitary. There were cholera and smallpox epidemics in the neighbourhood. Mr. Skinner worked for four years on patrol work, and eventually became a driver to the old horse-drawn Black Maria. His task was to drive | the remand prisoners from the old

gaol iu Horsemouger Lane to the Police Courts at Wandsworth, Southwark and Lambeth. In the blizzard o£ 'SI he was i snowed up with a load of prisoners, I who were eventually taken over by 1 warders and marched to the prison : on foot. “I had to wait with the horses," said . Mr. Skinner. "It was bitterly cold, and the icicles were hanging from my face.” Mr. Skinner is impressed by the ! more orderly conduct of the general public today, but he has still a deep distrust of the modern criminal and his "scientific ways.” After 20 years- as a driver Mr. Skinner left the force for the more peaceful occupation of dairyman. "I had my own cows and pigs,” he said. "The cows used to graze on green ! meadows where there are now rows j of houses. My fowls used to roost j iu the trees and fly into the house i for their food.”