nip or a kick if you let your guard down for an instant. I cleaned out Rippleâs stall each morning and groomed, fed and watered him before I had breakfast myself. I saved apple pieces and other titbits for him. After breakfast we carried out riding drills, with and without swords. We did some PT ourselves. After lunch we had lessons in law and police procedure. In the evenings we cleaned saddles and bridles and did some study. I enjoyed my association with Ripple but not much else. There is a lot to be said for the responsibility of looking after a large animal. For the first time in my life, I had a genuine dependant. We were left in no doubt: if our horses became lame, it was our fault.
The senior instructor was an ex-Indian Army Sergeant-Major, very pukka and proud of it. He wore the Mounted Police uniform of a navy blue jacket with a high collar and silver buttons, white riding britches and spurs. We called him The Rajah, although not to his face. He called us all âboyâ. He could bellow across the rough, gravel parade ground like a wild bull. But he understood men and he soon had us doing things on horses we wouldnât have dreamed possible. We rode bareback without stirrups. We learned to mount our horses on the run, while they cantered beside us. Out of the saddle we marched and spent a lot of time on drill. We were proud of our marching and worked hard to do our best, even with the local wharfies lined up along fence for a bit of free entertainment.
The depot was residential with two weekends off each month and no evening leave. We were allowed leave on alternate Sundays to attend a nearby church service. For this, Mavis would catch a bus from Torrensville to the city, then another to Port Adelaide, a rough area, where she would meet me outside the church. We would then sit together in a pew holding hands until the end of the service when I would escort her to the bus stop and she would return home. There was no shelter outside the church or at the bus stop. We had only a brief hug when the bus came. For this, Mavis left home early and undertook an hour-long journey alone. No trainee policeman would accept conditions like these today. Except for a small staff to feed and water the horses we could all have been released at noon on Saturday. There were no set duties for the rest of the weekend and we were left to our own devices. It is now interesting to record that none of the lads sneaked off to nearby hotels, nor did we devise any means of smuggling in some illicit grog. We were all well behaved. There were no clandestine initiation ceremonies and no outbursts of violence. The threat of dismissal kept us all in line.
I was sworn in on my twenty-first birthday as a probationary constable for one year, and posted to the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) for plainclothes duties. I was one of four so posted. The other three were also former police messengers with the Matriculation certificate. Although I was unaware of it at the time, I was joining a police force loosely based on an English model. In the early days of settlement, the founders of South Australia soon recognised the need for a law enforcement body to deal with bushrangers in the Adelaide Hills, apprehend runaway seamen, provide escorts for the traffic in gold, and protect settlers from marauding Aborigines. There was also disorderly behaviour within the city boundaries that needed controlling. South Australiaâs founders did not follow the practice of other British colonies of creating a para-military body, an armed gendarmerie, based on the Irish model. Instead they adopted the London Metropolitan Police model, but modified it by dividing the police force into a mounted division for country posts and foot police for the city âbeatsâ.
Before Commissioner Leane introduced cadets, messengers and junior constables in the mid-1930s, recruits for the South Australian force were required to be twenty-one years old, fit,
The senior instructor was an ex-Indian Army Sergeant-Major, very pukka and proud of it. He wore the Mounted Police uniform of a navy blue jacket with a high collar and silver buttons, white riding britches and spurs. We called him The Rajah, although not to his face. He called us all âboyâ. He could bellow across the rough, gravel parade ground like a wild bull. But he understood men and he soon had us doing things on horses we wouldnât have dreamed possible. We rode bareback without stirrups. We learned to mount our horses on the run, while they cantered beside us. Out of the saddle we marched and spent a lot of time on drill. We were proud of our marching and worked hard to do our best, even with the local wharfies lined up along fence for a bit of free entertainment.
The depot was residential with two weekends off each month and no evening leave. We were allowed leave on alternate Sundays to attend a nearby church service. For this, Mavis would catch a bus from Torrensville to the city, then another to Port Adelaide, a rough area, where she would meet me outside the church. We would then sit together in a pew holding hands until the end of the service when I would escort her to the bus stop and she would return home. There was no shelter outside the church or at the bus stop. We had only a brief hug when the bus came. For this, Mavis left home early and undertook an hour-long journey alone. No trainee policeman would accept conditions like these today. Except for a small staff to feed and water the horses we could all have been released at noon on Saturday. There were no set duties for the rest of the weekend and we were left to our own devices. It is now interesting to record that none of the lads sneaked off to nearby hotels, nor did we devise any means of smuggling in some illicit grog. We were all well behaved. There were no clandestine initiation ceremonies and no outbursts of violence. The threat of dismissal kept us all in line.
I was sworn in on my twenty-first birthday as a probationary constable for one year, and posted to the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) for plainclothes duties. I was one of four so posted. The other three were also former police messengers with the Matriculation certificate. Although I was unaware of it at the time, I was joining a police force loosely based on an English model. In the early days of settlement, the founders of South Australia soon recognised the need for a law enforcement body to deal with bushrangers in the Adelaide Hills, apprehend runaway seamen, provide escorts for the traffic in gold, and protect settlers from marauding Aborigines. There was also disorderly behaviour within the city boundaries that needed controlling. South Australiaâs founders did not follow the practice of other British colonies of creating a para-military body, an armed gendarmerie, based on the Irish model. Instead they adopted the London Metropolitan Police model, but modified it by dividing the police force into a mounted division for country posts and foot police for the city âbeatsâ.
Before Commissioner Leane introduced cadets, messengers and junior constables in the mid-1930s, recruits for the South Australian force were required to be twenty-one years old, fit,
Similar Books
