The crime with 100 identical suspects

RECENT stories of people turning up to events and finding others dressed the same (ladies at the races...) took me back to the north of scotland in the sixties. Every Friday, the tallyman came round our council estate with a suitcase full of goodies. My mum would buy the odd towel or something and pay him a few bob a week. One year, he was doing a special line for kids — yellow T-shirts, khaki shorts and black plimsolls. My two brothers and I were kitted out ready for the school holidays. The first saturday we got ready with our new kit and at 10am ran out of the house onto the green, where we would play football for hours. But this saturday we stopped in our tracks, because opposite us were the Robson twins waiting by their house gate — wearing yellow T-shirts, khaki shorts and black plimsolls. Then the Lawson boys appeared — in the same outfits. we were all standing like statues when we heard chants of ‘Come on, Rangers’, ‘Come on, Celtic’ from the Green boys coming up the hill — all wearing the same kit as us. a few weeks later, we had a knock at our front door. In those days it could only be the local minister or the police. sure enough, the long arm of the law came in and we were ushered into our front room. First policeman: ‘Mrs Finlay on the edge of town says your boys were seen jumping on top of her henhouses and now her chickens have stopped laying. Looking at your three, her descriptions are spot on — yellow T-shirts, khaki shorts, black plimsolls...’ My dad: ‘well, I have news for you — we have more than 100 kids on the estate, all with the same kit. I think you should arrest the tallyman.’ second policeman: ‘But Bill, he hasn’t broken any laws.’ My dad (Bill): ‘That may be so, but he has made your job a b****y lot harder for the rest of the school holidays.’ we got off scot-free.

eric Moggach, Fleet, hants.