drinking his tea.
When he next glanced up, WPC Jo Wade, the new-ish policewoman who had been working comms and the front desk earlier, came in, beaming, holding up a sheet of paper that had been ripped from the teleprinter.
Henry managed a sad half-smile in return.
She sat alongside him on the settee and declared, âYou and me are going to spend the night together.â
FIVE
H enry James Christie had been born and bred in East Lancashire and lived with his parents there until his very early teens before moving across to the Lancashire coast â Blackpool â for his fatherâs job. He was still living there when he joined the police at nineteen.
In the 1970s the organization still had a much skewed, authoritarian view on how it treated its employees and had an unwritten policy that all new recruits should be posted as far away from their homes as possible. This could not be applied to every rookie cop, but where possible it was.
Therefore Henryâs first posting was to Blackburn, thirty miles away. It made no sense, but it was a time when decisions made in the higher echelons of the force were never questioned or criticized.
It was believed it was the best thing for new officers to work in a completely strange and unfamiliar environment because there was less chance of them fraternizing or being abused by people they knew, nor could they ever be influenced by their own local knowledge.
It was completely ludicrous, of course, but it was a policy that was ruthlessly applied for many years.
So Henry â who considered himself a âsandgrown âunâ, as the denizens of Blackpool are known â found himself transported from the bright lights of the worldâs busiest holiday resort to dark satanic mill-land where, much to his surprise, he thoroughly enjoyed himself in the busiest town in Lancashire. What he didnât expect was to be then posted even further afield to Rossendale, which to him was then an unfamiliar area of green valleys, harsh moorland, derelict mills and unused railway lines and a population, half of which it was rumoured had never set foot outside the valley.
Whereas Henry had never set foot in it.
He still vividly recalled the morning he was told he was being posted to Rawtenstall. It was during his refs break on an early shift in Blackburn and his patrol sergeant came to sit next to him as he wolfed his full English breakfast in the station canteen. He could tell the sergeant was uncomfortable as he imparted the information that due to âoperational reasonsâ Henry was to be transferred with immediate effect.
âRawtenstall?â he blurted. âWhereâs that? And why ⦠Iâve only just got here, really.â
The sergeant shrugged. Back then, young, single cops were fair game for transfers, and Henry fitted that bill. Rawtenstall was desperately short of staff for various reasons and he was just the officer to plug that gap.
After his breakfast â which stuck in his gullet â he went to find a map of the county to find out exactly where he was going, his head still in a mush from the news. Sitting in the comms room at Blackburn nick, he unfolded a map and stared unbelievingly at it until he pinpointed Rawtenstall and try as he might, he couldnât even begin to work out a route to the place, which seemed isolated, wild and a little scary. There didnât seem to be any main roads to it, although he was sure there would be.
He emerged pale-faced from comms, shell-shocked at his fate: to be cast into the wilderness where, he had been told, men were men and sheep were very cautious. And not only that, it was rumoured that because the sides of the valleys in that part of the world were so steep, the sheep had shorter legs on one side of their body than the other, just so they could balance on the gradients. They could not, however, turn to face the opposite direction or they would topple over.
Despite what the sergeant
When he next glanced up, WPC Jo Wade, the new-ish policewoman who had been working comms and the front desk earlier, came in, beaming, holding up a sheet of paper that had been ripped from the teleprinter.
Henry managed a sad half-smile in return.
She sat alongside him on the settee and declared, âYou and me are going to spend the night together.â
FIVE
H enry James Christie had been born and bred in East Lancashire and lived with his parents there until his very early teens before moving across to the Lancashire coast â Blackpool â for his fatherâs job. He was still living there when he joined the police at nineteen.
In the 1970s the organization still had a much skewed, authoritarian view on how it treated its employees and had an unwritten policy that all new recruits should be posted as far away from their homes as possible. This could not be applied to every rookie cop, but where possible it was.
Therefore Henryâs first posting was to Blackburn, thirty miles away. It made no sense, but it was a time when decisions made in the higher echelons of the force were never questioned or criticized.
It was believed it was the best thing for new officers to work in a completely strange and unfamiliar environment because there was less chance of them fraternizing or being abused by people they knew, nor could they ever be influenced by their own local knowledge.
It was completely ludicrous, of course, but it was a policy that was ruthlessly applied for many years.
So Henry â who considered himself a âsandgrown âunâ, as the denizens of Blackpool are known â found himself transported from the bright lights of the worldâs busiest holiday resort to dark satanic mill-land where, much to his surprise, he thoroughly enjoyed himself in the busiest town in Lancashire. What he didnât expect was to be then posted even further afield to Rossendale, which to him was then an unfamiliar area of green valleys, harsh moorland, derelict mills and unused railway lines and a population, half of which it was rumoured had never set foot outside the valley.
Whereas Henry had never set foot in it.
He still vividly recalled the morning he was told he was being posted to Rawtenstall. It was during his refs break on an early shift in Blackburn and his patrol sergeant came to sit next to him as he wolfed his full English breakfast in the station canteen. He could tell the sergeant was uncomfortable as he imparted the information that due to âoperational reasonsâ Henry was to be transferred with immediate effect.
âRawtenstall?â he blurted. âWhereâs that? And why ⦠Iâve only just got here, really.â
The sergeant shrugged. Back then, young, single cops were fair game for transfers, and Henry fitted that bill. Rawtenstall was desperately short of staff for various reasons and he was just the officer to plug that gap.
After his breakfast â which stuck in his gullet â he went to find a map of the county to find out exactly where he was going, his head still in a mush from the news. Sitting in the comms room at Blackburn nick, he unfolded a map and stared unbelievingly at it until he pinpointed Rawtenstall and try as he might, he couldnât even begin to work out a route to the place, which seemed isolated, wild and a little scary. There didnât seem to be any main roads to it, although he was sure there would be.
He emerged pale-faced from comms, shell-shocked at his fate: to be cast into the wilderness where, he had been told, men were men and sheep were very cautious. And not only that, it was rumoured that because the sides of the valleys in that part of the world were so steep, the sheep had shorter legs on one side of their body than the other, just so they could balance on the gradients. They could not, however, turn to face the opposite direction or they would topple over.
Despite what the sergeant
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