I READ with interest the notice stating that a police officer will be available to meet for an hour outside the pavilion in Arnold Park between 10am and 11am tomorrow.
This is an ideal opportunity to actually see a policeman in Arnold. They have been missing for a number of years, so therefore the thieves, layabouts, drunks, young villains and druggies have run riot.
We have the weekly sight of the police helicopter flying over, but you would need your binoculars to actually see him or them.
Being Arnold bred and born, and of an age when you didn't go a day without seeing a policeman, I can still feel my ears ringing from the clip round the head from Sergeant Needham for riding two on a bike down Coppice Road.
In those days all the police officers lived in Arnold – Kingswell Road actually had four police houses on it – and all the officers either walked or went to the station on a bike.
And with three shifts per day that meant the police station, actually in Arnold, was manned 24 hours a day 365 days a year and, as I said, this meant you saw a policeman every day.
Also in those days you didn't need to lock your doors, or nail or glue everything down with the fear of having your possessions pinched.
So now we are down to an hour outside the pavilion to see a policeman?
Form a queue and wait your turn, just hope you're not last as he or she will probably finish on the dot of 11am because he or she has been outside for too long!
STUART BARNES
Central Avenue South
Arnold