Hackney Church Tower
Bell..........
I left Ireland in 1966, came
to London and joined the police
service. After three months in Police College,
supposedly learning ‘the law’ and ‘police practices’, I
found myself posted to the East End of London – to a very old
police station named Hackney. It is not apparent from
the photo below but to the right of the station is a large church – Saint John’s. It
is surrounded by an old graveyard which has been turned into a recreation
area. Hackney in those days was a very old,
dilapidated and poor area whilst it is now one of ‘the in places’
for yuppies to live as it is close to the City Financial District.
(Incidentally, I was informed today by an old
colleague that it is intended to demolish the old station in the near future –
I shall be very sorry to see it closed).
The problem with the police service in those
days was that most of the older officers there were all ex-servicemen and well
into their forties. They did not want anything to do with
young officers such as myself and the two or three others who arrived about the
same time as I did. If they were tasked to take us out
for ‘beat familiarisation’ they would do everything in their power
to actually lose us in the side streets. With the poor street
lighting and regular smog of that era, one could spend the next few hours
trying to find one’s way back to base.
There were no personal radios then and our
only defence equipment was a small truncheon, a whistle and flash
light. Oddly enough you could only have a torch that held two
small batteries as anything larger was deemed to be ‘intimidating’.
Having completed about three such weeks
‘learning beats’ we were allowed to patrol on our own. I had a friend who
joined at the same time as I did and we would, especially on night duty, patrol as
a pair. Strictly speaking it was not allowed but most of the
supervisors turned a blind eye to the practice.
Night duty in the summertime was
tough. It was hard to get any sleep during the day and if the
temperature remained high during the night it soon became
unbearable. If we were having a very quiet period during the three
weeks night duty, we young officers, like all young men past present and
future, soon became bored. Nothing illegal of course, just
stupid shenannigans............
In the lower corner of the churchyard stands
an ancient church tower. It was as solid as a rock and had a
large street level old oak door which was always locked. This particular
morning at about 5am while we made our way back to the station to ‘book-off’,
we noticed that the door was swinging open. There were no
members of the public around. We looked in and saw a winding
staircase to the roof. I suggested to my friend that we
climb to the top............
How we did not get killed is a mystery as the
crumbling staircase was covered in pigeon muck and as slippery as
ice. When we eventually got to the top and stood on the roof
the view was amazing. You could see all the way down to the
Thames and St. Pauls and places that I had never seen before.
After a while, I noticed a large bell hanging
from an arch. It really was big. It had no clapper
or rope inside. I saw a large piece of wood
nearby. I said to my friend “What time is it?” and
he replied “Just about 6am”. “Right” I said and
grabbed the piece of wood. I took an almighty swing and hit
the bell. The sound was extremely loud in fact
deafening I did it another five times. Before
I had finished, my friend was practically running down the rickety staircase
and out into the street. I followed and we returned to
the police station and booked off duty.
I thought nothing further about the incident
until we paraded the next night at 10pm. The Inspector came
in and had a note in his hand. Apparently the local Vicar who
lived nearby in the vicarage had attended the station during the morning and
complained about some hooligans who had broken into the tower
and kept ringing the bell. “Can you keep your eyes open
Mike” he said to me, “it is on your Beat”. “Certainly
sir” I replied trying to keep a straight face.
It was then that he informed us that the last
time the bell was rung was on Armistice Day when
the Second World War ended. It would not be
rung again unless a Third World War commenced.
I’ll tell you something, the bell was
certainly ‘tolled’ that night but I was glad that the Inspector or Sergeant
were never ‘told’ the truth................
-------------Mike------------
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