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Police goodwill? This season of goodwill is now on its way out and no doubt I’ll have put back on all the weight I’d previously shed in order to leave some space for the good things in life – ie chocolates, nuts, the occasional glass of red wine and then a few more chocolates! But it began with very little goodwill, at least so far as I was concerned. If you discount the really serious things that happen to everyone as they progress through life, then you’re left with just the items that tend to irritate – the ones that make you fume at the time but don’t seem quite so bad by the next day. Brian Rice has a sensible philosophy in that if something has annoyed or upset you, wait 24 hours before you make a response. If you still feel irritated or upset, then you know that any response you make will be genuine rather than just showing annoyance at something that doesn’t seem quite so bad the following day. Well, I tried that on Tuesday 1 December – a day I may eventually forget, but of which there was little chance of happening within 24 hours. In fact I’m writing this two weeks after and the incident still irritates me. So what was it? Well, on that Tuesday Linda and I paid a visit to the land of the Westminster TaxiCard – ie St Johns Wood – to take Linda’s sister out for lunch. We don’t get the chance to see Daphne that often and usually take a leisurely lunch to catch up on all the gossip. We finally left her in Abbey Road just before 3pm with the plan being that I’d drop Linda off at home, jump into the cab and shoot out to work. By 3.15 we’d almost reached Finsbury Park. Then the traffic just stopped. After 10 minutes of not moving, I decided to continue the journey eastwards by going down to Lea Bridge Road. That was no better, so I made for the Marshes and the A12 – big, BIG mistake! By now it was almost three hours since leaving Abbey Road and whichever way we went, nothing was moving. The radio traffic reports said a police incident had closed the A12, but by then it was too late for us to try another route because everywhere was totally solid. At 7pm, we entered Homerton High Street. Two hours later we still hadn’t reached the end of that road in order to join the obvious jam there! At 9pm we reached where the entrance to the A12, which was still shut. A journey that should have taken no longer than 45 minutes with moderate daytime traffic had taken us over six hours and we were still in traffic. Bernie Silver (G08) phoned to say that his wife had been stuck in a terrible traffic hold-up around Hackney Marshes. I tried to sound sympathetic! In the meantime, this past mile or so had taken two hours with much of the time spent sitting with the engine switched off, the only movement being when the occasional vehicle turned round to try another way. There wasn’t any, a quick listen to traffic reports said the whole area was gridlocked. But you may be surprised to know that this appalling traffic hold-up – as bad as it was – is not the reason I wrote at the beginning of this piece about how irritated I was. That irritation – |
 no, that annoyance – came from the fact that while we sat for all those hours without moving, there wasn’t the remotest sight of a single policeman walking alongside to see if everyone was ok. In that never-ending stationery queue, there must have been women on their own, pregnant women, men or women with young children or those who had to get home to take their medication. As a diabetic, Linda falls into that latter group. She gives herself booster insulin shots before meals and always has that with her even if we just pop out for just 30 minutes. However, she also has an insulin jab at around 10pm every night and because we expected to be home by 4pm, she never took it with her. Even a 2-hour delay would still have only taken us to 6pm. Heading past the Olympic Park on the opposite side, it was now 9.15 and we were still not really moving and neither had we seen sight or sound of the police – not one. The sound of silence where thousands of cars are in a huge hold-up with their engines switched off added to the eerie feel of the evening. We’d now been making our way home for well over 6 hours and suddenly that 10pm marker became very real and for the first time, I began to feel real irritation at our "wonderful" police. In my mind I could see them with their hairdryers checking speeds on both sides of the Euston underpass or Cromwell Road or the police motorcyclists that now ride up and down the A12 itself while the temporary 30mph speed limit remains in force. I was tempted to dial 999 and explain about Linda’s situation, but I could imagine the response: "This line is for emergencies only. Please call your local police station." I started up the car and became the driver that everyone hates – ie driving in a manner that under normal circumstances could be considered dangerous. I went on the offside of the traffic, weaving in and out of those who would probably have tried to stop me but couldn’t restart their engines quickly enough! I was praying that a policeman would suddenly appear to do his ‘ello, ello, ello’ bit. But no, they had all vanished off the face of the earth. We finally got home at around 9.45, almost 7 hours since leaving NW8. We later heard that the hold-up had been caused by someone who had gone onto a rooftop and sat there for 9 hours playing the saxophone. He was also said to be throwing bricks and tiles down. Because of that, the police in their wisdom closed the A12 between Bow and Leytonstone for 9 hours, causing some of the worst jams ever seen in London. Yet not one member of the constabulary could be found to explain what was going on or more importantly, enquire if everyone was ok. By the next day, I was still as annoyed as I’d been whilst in the traffic and when a police car forcing its way through South Ken with blue lights flashing came up behind my taxi, I made no attempt |
to move over. A stupid protest and
certainly not something I’d have done had it been an ambulance, but it made
me feel better! As the car eventually reached my offside, the police inside
it stared at me with the uniformed passenger pointing to his ears as if to
ask if I was deaf! I was tempted to say that I didn’t know it was the police
as I couldn’t remember what they looked like after the dearth of their ilk
the previous day, but I kept my mouth shut and just returned their stare.
Then they were away into the distance, but it left me feeling just a tad
better...
Goodwill 2??? And finally... Alan Fisher |
