In My Humble Opinion

Mike recalls the time his neighbour Nick got nicked.

 Before I reverse around the corner once again into Nostalgia Gardens, can I say thanks to those who reached out after my column in the May issue, in which I touched upon motorway policing. It seems I’m not alone in mourning the slow disappearance of the traffic bobby. Current and retired coppers from the West Midlands, Warwickshire and North Yorkshire have got in touch via the editor – or directly to me through Facebook – to share a tale or offer the thumbs-up. So, I thought you might like another Old-bill-related caper involving an old neighbour of mine.

When I first lived and worked in the county metropolis of Bedford, I rented the ground floor flat of what was once a massive Victorian three-floor townhouse in Chaucer Road. It was perfect at the time – no stairs, and a 10-minute stumble home from one of the finest tandoori houses this side of Brick Lane. Not only that, but it was handy for work and close enough to hear the screams of high-speed trains on the Midland Mainline. Cars, curries and trains – some may say in my world, things never change. A few rum folk lived nearby but, looking back, it wasn’t a bad place to be.

The man who lived on the top floor was a chap called Nick. Time has eroded the memory of what he did but I think he ran a small engineering firm in north London. He knew I did something with motors, and we became acquaintances during my residence at Chateau Chaucer. He didn’t own a car, opting instead to commute to Mill Hill Broadway by rail, though after a gutful of sharing a late train to Bedford every Friday night with drunken revellers and strange-smelling fluids swishing around his feet he opted to buy a cheap car. This is when Yours Truly enters stage – he asked if I could help him find a cheap, reliable banger for his commute.

Auction goodies (and baddies)

I said I would put feelers out for a decent cheapie. Amazingly, little was suitable in our part-exchange collection at work, bar a couple of rusty Maestros, so I suggested we should take a look at one of the less salubrious places. We ventured over the county line into bandit country – Northamptonshire. Our destination was the long-closed Wellingborough Car Auctions. If you were looking for a cut-and-shut Transit Hi-top or simply something pacey and cheap for your next post office robbery – all roads led to Wellingborough.

Close your eyes and think of the film Snatch. Remember the scene where Gorgeous George fights Irish Mickey in the barn? Well that was the kind of buying folk and scenario we are looking at – oh, what great times they were. The usual trade rubbish rolled and rattled in and out, with Nick barely paying any attention. Slugging on a polystyrene sweet tea, his eyes then lit up like a paying-out fruit machine when a highmileage Vauxhall Carlton 2.0i GL – sporting three wheel trims – drove in. It was painted in that lovely shade of Hotpoint White, was taxed and tested, and attracted no interest from the madding crowd. Nick bought it there and then.

I followed him back home and, although it smelled to me like it was burning a bit of oil, Nick declared it to be fit for purpose. Over the weekend I serviced it, slung on a new cambelt and pulled off the offending wheel trims. Nick came down with some tea and biscuits, both alarmed and pleased at this new vista of a Carlton doing a strangely passable impersonation of an unmarked police car.

This was confirmed when we took it out for a road-test on to the A1. Traffic in the outside lane moved over almost akin to Moses parting the Red Sea – we were both rather amused at this. I suggested for a giggle that he should buy a couple of dummy stick-on mobile phone aerials (remember when they were trendy?) and guess what – the daft bugger did just that.

The following Monday around 10pm, the doorbell went. I opened it to Nick, armed with a six-pack of beer and £20 for me. It turned out his journey both to and from London went the same way as the Sunday road-test. “All I have to do is tailgate them and they just move over,” he beamed. He left me the money and beer and went back to his penthouse suite. After a few weeks he then got a bit cheeky – he went out and bought some blue short-sleeved shirts from a local workwear emporium. I advised him that this time he just might be nudging outside the envelope, but he was adamant he knew what he was doing. I never heard or saw him for a few weeks until the doorbell went one Saturday morning.

There stood Nick with a scalded puppy look on his face. Some water was boiled, and he told me about his run-in with the police the previous evening on the M1. It turned out he had unknowingly tailgated two CID officers in an unmarked Granada on their way to Bedfordshire Police HQ. They got him to pull into Toddington services where, in Nicks words, the two officers added two-and-two together, dished out a vicious 30-minute carpeting and reported him for dangerous driving. The threatened arrest for impersonating a police officer was thankfully not carried out.

The last I heard of Nick was a month or two later: he had met a woman and moved in with her somewhere in north London. His commuting problems were finally sorted.

“Nick came down with tea and biscuits, both alarmed and pleased at this new vista of a Carlton doing a strangely passable impersonation of an unmarked police car”