Constable by the Sea (13 page)

‘What’s that?’ There was a genuine look of curiosity on his happy face.

‘Mrs Parkin,’ I said, indicating her bow window with a sideways nod of my head. She was gazing out at him, and there was the fire of love and longing in her eyes. ‘How are you going to cope with her next week?’

A heady summer-time mixture of sunshine, sea, fresh air and freedom invariably gives rise to nature’s desires among healthy young people. That summer at Strensford also affected healthy older people. Perhaps it was the sight of bikini-clad beauties reclining on the sands that provided the necessary stimulus for the older chaps. But whatever the cause, it certainly brought more than a sparkle to their eyes because their wives seemed to spend all their time cooling down their husbands’ obvious ardour instead of nurturing it for their own enjoyment.

Perhaps they knew that any nurtured love would not be channelled in their direction? The sexual adventures of the mature British male are fairly well documented in books, magazines, the
News
of
the
World
and the divorce courts, so it is perhaps wise for middle-aged wives to keep a tight rein on their holidaying middle-aged husbands. Memories of a rampant youthfulness can be dangerous in advancing years. St Matthew summed it up succinctly when he said, ‘The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.’

During my early constabulary years, it was not considered seemly for young ladies to make overtures to young men, at least not in a way they would be noticed, although it must be stressed that, so far as cleverness and cunning are concerned in the eternal search for love (even if it is for a mere five minutes rather
than something earth-shattering and eternal), the female sex leaves the masculine far behind.

For all, therefore, whether young or old, male or female, a holiday at the seaside is like a second spring. There, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of young women, and an older man’s fancy heavily turns to thoughts of older women, middle-aged women and younger women. In those days, it was not considered normal for a young man’s fancy lightly to turn to thoughts of other young men; consequently, when such thoughts developed into positive action, it was very illegal.

For ladies to fancy other ladies, however, and then to take practical steps to achieve their desires, was not unlawful. This was due not to the efforts of early feminists but to Queen Victoria. I have been assured that when a statute, which would have outlawed lesbianism, was presented to Her Majesty for the necessary royal signature, she refused to believe that such disgraceful things happened and promptly crossed out the relative sections of the Act. Thus lesbians won some kind of privilege – which to this day they still enjoy in spite of apparent sexual equality.

When faced with a seaside resort full of randy young men and available young women, the coastal constable had to be very aware of the provisions of the Sexual Offences Act of 1956 which legislated for many curious facets of human behaviour. We learned to recognize prostitutes (purely for future action which might have to be taken in the course of our duty!) and to know what constituted indecent behaviour or exhibitions.

There were the mysteriously named ‘unnatural crimes’ which our instructors failed to describe adequately, and a curious set of laws about indecent exposure of what is euphemistically called ‘the person’. There were many legal discussions which tried to define precisely what our Victorian legislators meant when they made it illegal for a man indecently to expose his ‘person’; we noted there was nothing in that Act which made it illegal for a woman indecently to expose
her
person, whatever that would have meant. Such were the privileges of our ladies. But we never did find out what a ‘person’ was, and the name ‘flasher’ was given to those pathetic fellows who performed this curious
public display.

There were ‘peepers’ too, sometimes called ‘pimpers’. These were seedy men of all ages who spied on ladies undressing, either on the beach or in their homes, hotels or boarding house bedrooms. It is amazing how many women insist on undressing before a lighted window without curtains, and this attracts many men with binoculars. They are attracted to the light as moths to a candle flame. This activity also brought complaints from the neighbours, which was how we became involved. As a result, we frequently offered ‘suitable advice’ to the ladies in question – we told them to close their curtains properly when undressing.

It is men of that propensity who hang around car-parks, beauty spots and picnic areas, there to observe the events of nature which occur when courting couples are engrossed in their overtures to one another. Because this behaviour terrifies ordinary folk, we had to patrol in an attempt to deter these nuisances.

Armed with this knowledge, therefore, the constabulary set about keeping order among the frisky holiday-makers. It is true to say that this aspect of our duty did keep us busy. We received many complaints about men indecently touching women on buses and in queues, of men using the pay-telescope on the clifftop to watch women struggling to undress decently behind deckchairs on the beach, of pimpers galore and flashers by the dozen.

It was with the purity of the town in mind that the
Superintendent
was alarmed to learn that a newly formed local Working Men’s Club had hired a belly dancer as the finale for the entertainment scheduled for its opening night. He was rather worried about the town’s image in case this turned out to be a stripper, but he was also worried that the police could be criticized if they failed to take any action to stem this flow of overt sensuality.

Because such clubs had rather tight membership rules, he and his advisers considered it was impossible to smuggle a local police officer into the club as an undercover agent to observe the proceedings. This meant that subterfuge was called for. As the
club was a new one, the Superintendent decided that I and another young constable called Dave Carter would join the club, with the sole purpose of infiltrating that entertainment. We had to observe the proceedings in detail and report back to the Superintendent through our immediate superiors.

Both Dave and I were unknown to the committee, so we applied for membership, giving our lodgings as our addresses and stating we were employed by the Ministry of Agriculture as Contagious Diseases of Animals Inspectors. We were accepted without question and provided with membership cards. The Superintendent was delighted, and on the evening of the big event we dressed in civilian clothes and he took us aside to outline our final brief.

We were not to reveal our identities; we merely had to sit through the rumoured ‘indecent performance’ and take copious notes about the bodily actions, general behaviour and suggestive words or actions used by the belly dancer. We had not to arrest anyone or report anyone for summons – that possibility would be left for a decision by senior officers when they had carefully studied our report. We were there simply to report the facts. We said we knew what to do, and we were looking forward to this duty.

We were admitted without a second glance from the doorman and went to the bar, where we each purchased a pint of beer with our official expenses. Then, after half an hour, we were asked to take our seats in the big room for the evening’s entertainment. We found a discreet table close to one of the exits, just in case we had to make a hurried departure. I noted that the audience comprised men and women.

There were speeches of welcome from officials, who outlined the club’s future policies and who listed some forthcoming attractions later in the year. These included noted northern comedians, singers and entertainers. After the announcements, there followed a bawdy comedian who had us falling about with laughter. Very efficiently, he warmed up the audience. A male singer did a spot, then a trumpet player, who was followed by a group of singer-musicians with guitars. Finally, it was the turn of the belly dancer. She was top of the bill and had two spots;
the audience, suitably mellow after the earlier acts, eagerly awaited her turn.

Our moment had come, but we daren’t take out our notebooks. That would be too obvious – we decided to observe events and then jointly compile our report by relying upon our memories and powers of observation for the details.

A grand piano was pushed onto the side of the stage, and to resounding cheers the dancer’s pianist emerged. He was a young man in evening dress, and he took his seat with elegance and style. A hush descended as he began to play. To my surprise, it was a piece of classical music, and everyone sat in a hushed silence, awaiting the delights which were to follow. There was a ripple in the curtains at the side of the stage, and as they parted, a tall, lithe young woman emerged. She was as thin as bean pole, and she was dancing divinely – but she was performing a sequence from the Nutcracker Suite.

There was a momentary buzz of curious anticipation from the audience, but they settled down and watched her. She was graceful and beautiful, and she completed her first spot with charm and undoubted skill. But everyone was waiting for her suddenly to switch into a dramatic and sensuous belly-dancing routine.

After her first spot, which comprised several well-known ballet routines, she went off to polite applause, following which there were some urgent movements behind the curtains. They parted and the club secretary hurried onto the stage. We felt he looked rather sheepish and embarrassed as he caught us before we dispersed for a five-minute break.

‘Lads,’ he said. ‘There’s been a mistake. Sorry about it. I rang t’agency in London to book a belly dancer, but they don’t understand English down there. They’ve sent us this slip of a lass, she’s a ballet dancer …’

‘Bring t’lass back on!’ shouted somebody from the audience. ‘She’s worth watching.’

And this was followed spontaneously by a loud cheer. So after we’d replenished our glasses, she came back to complete a dazzling ballet routine. She was cheered to an encore and won more affection from that audience than any of the other turns.
She was given a right good Yorkshire welcome, and I was proud of my fellow club members. She would remember her visit to Strensford, just as I would remember my first spell of covert police work.

Flashers are probably the most harmless and ineffective of men and yet, by their peculiar behaviour, they are regarded as ogres, sexual maniacs or dangerous, evil monsters. These
unfortunates
are likely to be sexually inadequate so far as mature women are concerned and would probably flee home to the safety of mother if a woman responded to their weird form of romantic advance.

To go about their performance, they frequently conform to their cartoon image by dressing in dirty, loose-fitting raincoats and little else, for this device enables them to fling open the raincoat at an opportune moment and so compel some embarrassed women or girl to view their impressive, naked pride and joy, i.e. the male appendage known to the Victorian legislators as ‘the person’.

It is not the task of the police to understand why they behave in this curious manner. Their job is to deal with them in accordance with the rule of law, and there are three provisions by which this can be effected, all of which operate on the basis that such behaviour constitutes a nuisance.

The first of those provisions is Common Law. This is the ancient code of practice from which most of our legislation has descended, and this decided centuries ago that exposure of the naked person was a public nuisance. This means that men or women may be guilty of an offence if the incident occurs in public, but few men ever complained if they noticed a naked woman in a public place.

Then in 1824, a few years before Victoria came to the throne, our legislators produced their famous Vagrancy Act. This made it an offence for a man ‘wilfully, openly, lewdly and obscenely to expose his person with intent to insult a female’, and this offence could occur either in private or in public. However, it was necessary to show that the flasher intended to insult a female. ‘Insult’ is the word, not ‘impress’, and it was this Act
which appears to infer that only men may be guilty of exposing ‘the person’.

A few years later, in 1847, the Town Police Clauses Act, which was, and perhaps still is, in force only in certain urban areas, created another form of this offence. It said that it was unlawful ‘wilfully and indecently to expose the person in any street in any urban district where the act is in force, to the annoyance of residents or passengers’.

We had to learn the subtle differences between all three provisions. The Vagrancy Act appears to apply only to men, while Common Law and the Town Police Clauses Act do seem to cater for female flashers who misbehave in public, although the Town Police Clauses Act does specify that someone must be annoyed. The three variations of this offence do differ in various ways.

Suppose a female flasher operates in private, or on the top deck of a bus, or on a pleasure steamer? Or suppose that, even though she did flash in public, no one complained that they were annoyed? Is the law then broken or not?

In an attempt to understand these statutes, we would dream up situations which were designed to test the precise meaning of these three provisions, because every word is important. For an offence to be committed, every word counts. And then, in the present century, we encountered streakers, naked people of either sex who dashed through busy places for a laugh. Did they offend against any of these provisions? Was anyone insulted or annoyed, or was it just a laugh? The law is so precise in the use of its words that policemen must think carefully before they act or make an arrest.

If the academic side of these three laws exercised our minds and gave us lots of laughs, the practical aspects also provided a good deal of amusement during that summer in Strensford.

The first occasion came from a middle-age spinster living in a flat on the West Cliff. Her complaint was that a neighbour, a man in his late twenties, regularly indecently exposed himself to her, and so I was despatched to interview her about it. I listened to her tale of woe and asked her to show me from where the man operated. She took me to her bedroom and made
me stand on a chair so that I could look into his bedroom …