RICHARD ALLEN SCOTT - Through the Years

RICHARD ALLEN SCOTT
THROUGH THE YEARS
1968
Heading out on patrol - 1968
Late in 1968, having shown some capabilities with the
paperwork of the job, I became the ‘court clerk’ with
responsibility for all scheduling, document preparation,
reporting dispositions, and liaising with ‘His Honour’.
Everything had to be typed…without errors, no
computers in those days.
Annual assessments back then consisted of one page
with a bunch of check boxes with 6 columns, the first
column being the highest level. My Sergeant completed
mine showing almost all checks in the first
column…well…the Sub-Division Officer-In-Charge
(OIC) bounced it with the notation that no member with
only one year of service could possibly be that good.
The Sergeant was ordered to reduce my scores. He
refused. Pretty soon thereafter, the OIC arrived for a
Detachment inspection, where we were all called in,
individually (I think it was a formal red serge inspection),
and grilled on our knowledge of laws, etc., and had our
‘daily diaries’ inspected (we had to transpose our
notebook contents to a legal-size, hard-cover diary,
which the Sgt. had to review also). Other than sweating
bullets in front of this disciplinarian Officer, I survived.
Me in the police car, the red roof
light simply flashed, front and
rear, and the siren was one of
those wind-up ones applied by
pressing the horn ring on the
steering wheel. Oh yes, and AM
radios and air-conditioning, if it
was available in particular models,
was removed from the vehicles
before delivery as police cars!
But police dog cars got air
conditioning. Summer uniform
was long sleeves and tie, winter
dress was the brown serge.
Shirts were like canvas and
wrinkled as soon as you looked at them. Had to spray them with starch when ironing.
Impossible to appear neat.
June 2017
93