Train Guard

Whilst waiting for my police application to be processed, and I was informed that it could take up to a year, I got a job for London Transport working as an underground train guard. Actually, I had applied to work as a double decker bus driver and in fact I drove the double decker red bus around the streets of London on ‘L’ plates from Chiswick Bus Garage, where at Chisiwck I would later be stationed as a police officer. I failed the bus driving course as I had problems reversing the huge double decker bus between two poles and I was subsequently sent on a course to be a train guard instead. It sounds a simple undemanding kind of job doesn’t it, just pressing buttons to open and close the train doors? Actually I had to undergo a highly intensive training course at their London Transport training school at the White City in West London. You had to learn all about the complete train driving and braking systems, and in the case of an emergency you had to be able to drive the train to safety by yourself. In fact, I got to drive a real underground train filled with actual fare paying passengers towards the end of the training course, without ‘L’ plates, by using the 2 different braking systems, one time at an underground station and the other at an outside train station. You then had to pass a very difficult technical written exam. So don’t just think that those train guards just open and close buttons shouting Mind the doors, because they all have all undergone intensive technical training, believe it or not!

 

I myself did fail to mind the doors one time when on duty working as a train guard on the Northern Line. I would pass by Hendon Police Training School every day as the Northern Line train tracks passed a few yards from the training school where the train would stop for passengers at nearby Colindale Station. My wife Dina and her father, who had come to visit from Israel, came for a ride on my train and whilst chatting to them and not concentrating on the task at hand, I had closed the train doors and had signaled for the driver to move off, but then had inadvertently closed my guards door whilst my head was still outside of the door and with the tunnel wall rapidly approaching and with my head about to smash into it! I luckily managed to push the ‘open door’ button and open the door and get my head back inside in the nick of time! After the initial shock it was laughs all round as I had a great big thick ring of black soot and dirt all around my neck and uniform shirt from the door being jammed on me!

 

Hendon Police College

 

Eventually I received the letter inviting me to a formal interview at the police recruitment office at Paddington Green, West London. Since I had no formal qualifications apart from an English ‘O’ Level pass and Sociology C.S.E. Grade 1, which is the equivalent of an ‘O’ Level pass, I undertook the police entrance exam, passed it and was sent for a 4 month residential training course at Hendon Police College in North West London. If I thought that learning about train braking systems was difficult, then what I had to study at Hendon was unbelievable! You had to learn most of the relevant English laws either as an ‘A’ Report, which meant learning almost word perfect, or as a ‘Star Report’ which meant learning word perfect and I mean word perfect, and you were tested on a daily basis. My life from the time of waking and well into the early hours of the night and sometimes early morning, was full of study, study, study! There were liesure and sports facilities provided at Hendon, such as a gymnasium, swimming pool and running track, in fact our class had a weekly sports day, which was usually at the swimming pool and we could use the other facilites but I really had no spare time outside of studying.

Male and female accomodation was in two seperate tower blocks with a security guard inside the entrance to the female’s accomodation block to prevent any males from entering, but access could be gained by an underground walkway that I understand was a meeting place for those with male and female romantic intentions. Since the gender revoluition exploded, I wonder today how the Metropolitan Police deals with potential recruits classing themselves as nonbinary, cisgender, genderfluid, transgender, gender neutral, agender, pangender and or the other 90 recognized genders?

There was also a general store on the other side of the wide grass sports fields near to the driving school where you could buy replacement articles of police clothing, momentos and confectionary. The shop would later be run by the dreaded Sergeant Butcher after he had retired from torturing us all on marching parade! Our marching parade ground was right outside the main classroom block from where everyone could look out of the windows to watch us embarrassing ourselves. Most of us had two left feet and Sergeant Butcher must have been ex-army as he held a short tip-staff under his arm and would shout, bawl and swear at us if we put a foot out of line. By the time of our passing out parade in front of invited guests and family we had got this marching lark down to a tee and I was never in my subsequent police career required to march again! There was also a licensed bar that was often crowded in the evenings after the various courses held at the college had finished, although some prefered to venture a local pub away from the gaze and scrutiny of the college course instructors. I only went to the college bar once because most of my waking time was filled with studying, but there was one of our classmates who claimed to have a photographic memory who was a regular frequenter of the bar, how he managed it with studying I don’t know, but whereas I would be studying well into the early hours of the morning, he would study for a couple of hours and then be free, and he did well in his final exam I understand.

 

 

I eventually got used to the work load and I enjoyed my time at Hendon and did quite well in the final exam gaining 82%, I remember the final passing-out parade with family and friends present as being a very proud moment.

 

Passing Out Parade

On 16 June 1980 I had officially joined the Metropolitan Police Force