‘We walked the streets and had close contact with people’
IT WAS the same year that Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister, the year John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met and Humphrey Bogart died.
Sixty years ago today Grimsby’s Victoria Street police station was officially opened by then Home Secretary Richard ‘Rab’ Butler.
Officers had moved from Grimsby Town Hall into the newly-built police station, next to the magistrates court, under the leadership of Chief Constable Mr C. E Butler.
There were 168 sergeants and constables – just six were women – and 195 special officers. The cost of police services for the year was a heady £231,000 – less than the average price of a house in the UK today.
Len Rayner, 86, who had joined the old Grimsby borough force in 1953, remembers it well.
Everything was different: Len would carry truncheon, pocket notebook and a pair of handcuffs on his beat. It speaks volumes that today the list includes stab vests, Tasers, incapacitant spray and extendable batons.
Len, who was crowned the country’s top police dog handler in 1966, a feat marked by an appearance on
when the presenters were John Noakes, Valerie Singleton and Christopher Trace, recalls a
world, where drugs were a minor issue and officers would be round at a break-in within minutes.
An officer would start his 9pm to 5am night shift by reporting to the police box, where there would be cards outlining complaints from the public.
Mr Rayner said: “A woman might have commented there was a prowler peeping through her window.
“The first thing you did was go round and see her and tell her: ‘We’re on the beat for the next two weeks, and not to worry.’”
Last month Humberside Police Federation said officers were “wrestling” every day with what calls to attend and complained that neighbourhood policing had largely been washed away in “savage” spending cuts.
Mr Rayner believes in his day, the public “got very good coverage”, but recognises crime has escalated.
“You had 12 out during the day and 20 on night beats and in addition to that two patrol cars, two CID cars and two plainsclothesmen.
“There was zero tolerance – and believe me it worked.
“There’s been a lot of publicity now around certain areas, Cleethorpes Road and Rutland Street in Grimsby, where people are frightened to come out of their houses.
“In the 1950s, it would have been stamped on immediately.
“The relationship between the public and police was better in our day and that was down to the fact we walked the streets more and had closer contact with people.”
The personal touch, he believes, was much valued. He spent his last 14 years as juvenile liaison officer. Young offenders were sent to the Grimsby attendance centre where they would be paraded and inspected.
“They used to send for us: ‘My lad has been stealing from a shop. Can you come round, Mr Rayner?’
“When I see people who I dealt with as kids there’s no animosity at all. They come up and shake my hand.”
Chief Supt Christine Wilson says there are similar numbers of police constables on shifts – what is different is the demand.
Vast amounts of crime – cyber scamming of the elderly for example – doesn’t happen on the street.
“How do you prioritise walking a foot beat as opposed to sending multiple officers to someone who is intent on taking their own life, or someone else’s?” she asks. “Len said the worst thing he would get was a bloodied nose from a fisherman – we are confronted with knives, guns and all manners of violence.”