Elsewhere in this forum there is section for community police officers and for PCSO. There is also mention of Neighbourhood Policing. These are government initiatives from the "Let's Re-Invent the Wheel & Co Ltd" I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I think that the following poem that was given to me a few years ago when I was a Fed Rep sums it all up beautifully.

The Village Bobby

With all this talk of urban crime that blights our city streets,
There's often little mention of more pastoral retreats,
As though our rural hamlets lay untroubled and immune,
With open doors and windows on a sunlit afternoon.

For those of us who live here, it's a far cry from the truth,
We have our own invaders and that element of youth
Without respect or honour for the worthy and the wise
Who contemplate retirement with suspicion in their eyes.

So is it any wonder that we dwell upon the past
When the local village booby held the situation fast?
He lacked the skills of Poirot or of Doctor Watson's chum
But the job for which we paid him was appropriately done.

He didn't crave technology to know the good and bad,
The idle rogue, the reprobate, the decent, honest lad,
He'd little need for subterfuge or a large, persuasive stick
When a hand upon the shoulder was enough to do the trick.

He'd get to know his people and he'd get to know his patch,
More tuned to crime-prevention than the numbers he could catch,
He lived and worked among them without a place to hide.
Oh, yes, he wore the uniform, but they knew the man inside.

He'd get to know the farmers, with his bike against the wall,
Just a cup of tea, a social chat, an amicable call,
But he'd warm the seeds of willingness to tell him what they'd seen
Of anything that failed to match normality's routine.

It wasn't 'them and us', back then, we all were in the force,
An unappointed back-up squad of limitless resource,
We walked the local bobby's beat in that enlightened day,
Yet, just when he was needed most, we found him whisked away.

No more the wave, no more the smile or meeting-place of hearts,
Just faceless, fleeting panda cars en route to foreign parts,
No more the local ear to bend with matters of concern
And, in a while, the good-intentioned left the bridge to burn.

And, once that bridge was gone, despite the jargon and the toys,
The public's new perception was of traffic-chasing boys
Who lacked the old-time wisdom and the time to be a friend,
Now the partnership was over, the alliance at an end.

You'll rarely see a copper, now, a long a country lane,
It's not his fault, he does his best but money rules the game,
And so they buy computer links and fail to understand
That the finest link they ever had would shake you by the hand.

Now, when the evening shadows fall and problems cause a flap,
You make a phone-call, say your prayers, and hope they've got a map,
And, down the road, they'll pass a house their seniors ought to know,
That's where the local bobby lived, those many years ago

 Written in 1995 by a resident of a Cheshire Home in Cornwall.