Horse's Arse

    I
first sat down to write this book a few years ago to fill my days off work
whilst I recovered from an operation on my back that had gone wrong. The idea
of writing a book came initially from my wife who was probably increasingly fed
up with my 'cabin fever'. Had she not pushed me, I doubt
Horse's Arse
would have seen the light of day — some might say she has a lot to answer for.

    I
also owe my sincerest thanks to two old friends, Martin and Tracey Kosmalski,
who looked after me during an awful period and helped get me back on the path
to recovery. They helped me get admitted to the Lister Hospital in Stevenage,
and it was there that I began to recover from my illness. Some of the book was
written whilst I was there and I thank Martin, Tracey and their daughters Jo
and Gemma for their support and friendship at a difficult time.

    Vast amounts
of the book were written at the Police Convalescent Home at Goring where I
spent some considerable time recovering. My thanks to the staff there and to my
fellow 'raspberries' and 'window lickers' who offered encouragement when they
became aware I was attempting to write a book. Here it is: I hope you enjoy it!

    I
also owe a huge debt to my friend Richard Tucker, who pestered many of his
contacts in the publishing business and eventually got in to see Kerr McRae and
Martin Fletcher at Headline. They had a punt on an outsider and I hope this
Horse comes in for them!

    Finally,
I offer thanks to my wife Karen. She has been my sounding board, constructive
critic and proofreader throughout the writing of this book. She knows it inside
out, probably as well as I do, and still laughs at the same passages. She has
encouraged and supported me throughout and I dedicate this book to her.

    This
novel is from start to finish entirely a work of my imagination and the
characters, companies and their actions in the story are entirely fictional.

    This is
a story about a fictional sub-divisional police station, set in a fictional
county in the mid 1970s. The sub-division is phonetically known as Hotel Alpha,
but such is the disdain the officers feel for the town they police, it is
generally referred to as Horse's Arse.

    If
the world had an arse, then Hotel Alpha would be its piles.

    It is
not a popular posting, generally reserved for the more aggressive and
belligerent officers of the Force.

    This
is an account of how the Job used to be done. This is the way it was, but never
will be again.

    Handstead
lay about fifteen miles north of Manchester from which the town had been
aggressively populated and expanded during the 1950s, when a far-sighted
Manchester City council had indulged itself in early ethnic cleansing and moved
thousands of its most troublesome tenants out into the sticks.

    Promises
of a new life in new homes, and even jobs in the burgeoning petro-chemical
industry, had drawn them like flies round a dog turd to the brave new world
that was Handstead. The ancient old town that had merited a mention in the
Domesday Book all but vanished under the concrete sprawl of the New Town.

    The
dream proved short-lived, and by the early 1970s and the departure of its major
employer the town was a waste of ghettolike estates, desolate windswept
shuttered shopping parades and looming tower blocks. Many of its inhabitants,
long since released from the burden of gainful employment, lived out their
lives in alcoholic and drug-induced hazes between trips to pick up what the
state gave them without question. Their benefits were supplemented by petty and
occasionally serious crime, robbing and raping each other and creating a
reputation for themselves that spread to all corners of the county and beyond.

    Handstead
villains, men and women, had spread the word and their exploits were related
with pride from generation to generation.

    Without
question the very worst of the estates was the Park Royal. With its solitary
pub, depressing regulation shopping parade, featureless council houses, unkempt
gardens and abandoned cars, the estate was home to some six thousand
inhabitants. The few decent souls amongst them lived out their lives in silent
fear, dreaming of the day Handstead Council rehoused them. The place was a dump
and the local police had done little to address the problems. Efforts to house
a home beat officer and his family on the estate were quickly abandoned, after
the house was stoned and the officers children were attacked in their front
garden. Why the locals were so anti-police wasn't immediately obvious, but over
the years the mutual hatred between the residents of Handstead in general and
the Park Royal in particular and the local police had gone unresolved.

    The
Forces answer had been to use Handstead as its penal colony, and the town was
therefore policed by a motley collection of alcoholic, sexually promiscuous and
generally undisciplined misfits. None of them laboured under any
misapprehension as to their place in the food chain either. They knew they had
been condemned to spend their careers at Horses Arse; some because they were
serving 'sentences' for offences committed elsewhere, others because that was
how the dice had rolled when their initial postings were being decided.
Blissfully unaware, they were almost true Stoics. Powerless to do anything
about their fate, they calmly accepted the inevitable shitty end of the stick
and tried to make the most of their situation. The attempt regularly manifested
itself in outrageous abuses, but they took a perverse pride in policing Horse's
Arse notwithstanding. They recognised better than most what a hopeless task
they faced, but revelled in their Canute-like resolve to hold the tide of shit
at bay as best they could. They made a difference, albeit a small one, and
enjoyed the 'rather you than me mate' looks they got from colleagues who worked
elsewhere. It never occurred to any of them to apply to transfer out of the
sub-division. What would be the point? It would never be allowed: they were
destined to stay there so best get on with it. How often had they been told,
'If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined the Job'? Some joke. They
recognised their own frailties, but that was where they parted from the ancient
doctrine of the Stoics. The faults of others, particularly the local villains,
were never forgiven and they were policed with extreme prejudice. Making a
difference: that's what it was all about for the Handstead force.