COP COPPER!

David Wilcock says that he has never heard of anyone being ejected from Old Oak Common shed (SR470). Well, he’s just about to! As he says, getting into Old Oak by the front door was nigh on impossible. The gatekeeper wasn’t open to bribery (I know, because I tried), so it was an impenetrable fortress - until a friend at school told me about the ‘entrance’ off the canal towpath. I remember it as a chain-link fence rather than a wall; it was situated on a low mound of earth and enterprising gricers had burrowed though this and pulled up the bottom of the fence, enabling agile youngsters to wriggle through. On the occasion of my eviction I had padlocked my bike to the fence as usual and wriggled through to the shed. Halfway round, however, I was in for a nasty shock. Coming towards me was a young British Transport copper with the biggest (German Shepherd Dog) ever seen. It was more like than a dog! He (the copper, not the dog!) me what I was doing. have thought that that obvious, but I politely him of my purpose he asked me where I’d in. “Over there,” I replied, vaguely towards the side of the shed. “Over he wanted to know. Gulp! I had no option but lead him to the hole under fence, well known to local but clearly not to shed management or staff. Or the BTP. Or its dog. When we got there he at the hole and said, “So that’s where they’re getting in!” There was only one course of action open to me, and that was to wriggle back through the hole, unlock my bike and ride away. I felt like saying “But I’m only halfway round the shed”, but I doubt that that would have got me anywhere. To this day it amazes me that the combined brainpower of the Western Region management and the BTP couldn’t fathom out how we were gaining access to Old Oak when we clearly weren’t walking down the front drive! May I rather belatedly offer my sincere apologies to David Wilcock, and any other gricers of that era, who turned up at their usual entrance to 81A only to find that the fence had been repaired and the hole beneath it filled in. It was my fault, and I have to admit it. But what else could I do faced with such overwhelming odds?! Ron Fisher, Farnborough, Hants.