Ive lived a life thats full.
Ive traveled each and every highway;
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
Regrets, Ive had a quite few;
But then again, too many to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.
I tried planningd each charted course;
Each big step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
Yes, there were times, Im sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.
Ive loved, Ive laughed and cried.
Ive had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all not so amusing.
To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
No, oh no not me,
I did it my way.
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it MY WAY
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
The Way We Were
If I come back in the next life, I want a bottle of the elixir of life and a double ration of hindsight the wonderful thing. Not that I believe there is an after life of souls, else it would be rather top heavy with all those Cavemen, Gladiators, Vikings and the Bosch up there in Valhalla. Maybe we recycle though and I was a shot down Spitfire pilot and a Centurion on Hadrian's Wall in former lives as we knew it. Like a full moon they both have some kind of strange influential mind pull on me.
No I am not a werewolf, but full moons influence the tides so why not my body, mind you these days its a case of I believe in miracles, where're you from you sexy thing.
So this chapter is about the downfall of mankind, including me, yes I did not get where I am today without women. In fact the rise and fall of Allan Sharpe is due to Allan Sharpe, snakes and ladders, river deep mountain high, and the dice he threw. He always got on better with females than males. With men he could talk about football, sport and women, but lots of men were seemingly jealous. Never being one to prop up a bar, but rather spending an elegant decadent time with a glass of dry white wine. Pinot Grigio was always at an affordable price, though the pricier Sancere did not touch the sides. Not that he did not like pubs, he just did not like the riff raff in them, yes he could be an arrogant snob, but he could also engage in banter, in conversation with any one, any class, any sex. He also liked a pint of real ale, though at age 18, the 8 pints each of us 3 of 4 (Ken, Keith, Kevin with a Consul Mk I parked outside) consumed in a Harefield PH is a distant memory. Where did we put the equivalent of a gallon of Duckhams 20/50 in our bodies, though truly most of it was dispensed of on porcelain walls and trees on the way back to Willesden.
Did I tell you I got banned from 3 dance halls in 3 weeks age 19, reason girls girls girls and their, unbeknown to me, boys boys boys who thought their name tag was round the girls neck, or finger.
So I could always chat and chat up. I always admired beauty, style, poise and grace, that hit my eyes not only across a crowded room, but could be in my face or could even be a sculptured piece of architecture, not only the Aphrodite female form.
But there are scattered pictures of the smiles I left behind, smiles we gave to one another, for the way we were. I learned as a 12 year old that demolition was easy, construction and reconstruction took much longer. In my love life, after learning to kiss, then eventually learning to please as opposed to being pleased, nod's as good as a wink to a blind man, I discovered to my cost that it took two to tango, but one to detonate and pull the plug. My mum said "fuck em and leave em" I don't think she got that from the Relate Manuals. My biological father was worse than me, at least I tried before giving up. My brother in law thought it was better they loved you, taking the easy route 66 to get his kicks. I guess my sister Pat has held that marriage together since the early sixties and Mick sat back in the armchair and watched TV.
That's what I always wanted, like Ken, like JT they married their child hood sweethearts and journeyed to the plateau of stability. Me, I was white water rafting.
I remember, Bill Butterfield at Westminster, coming in one day to work and saying over a lunch time pint, that his wife came into the room last night, he was watching TV feet on the coffee table and a can of lager in his hand. She said ok I am off then. He glanced down and saw there was a suitcase on the carpet. Where, he exclaimed in amazement. She said, the kids have grown up, I am not needed here anymore, I am off to get a life of my own, and woosh she was gone ....... blimey!!! Listening to that story was Chris Rogers, who had decided to shit on his own doorstep and have an affair with a gorgeous artist from ....next door ......blimey!!!
When my mum was a single parent society did not accept that situation. Women would be house wives and child minders. Hardly any married women worked outside the home and got paid for it. Husbands would drown their brains down the pub and come back for sex and fall asleep on the job. Sweeping generalisations are sometimes true, especially for a lad growing up in Willesden London NW10. Not that I was privy to the bedroom scenes of course, but it was generally known, that's what happened in Willesden life of the 50's. In the 60's that all changed, the mini was built, Britain's best selling car and the mini skirt arrived. Hail the permissive society, well in truth it was just more public rather than staying private. So girls would build up all that passion in boys which converted like potential energy into kinetic lust energy, only to discover that the mini was accompanied by the other new invention - tights, the ultimate passion killer, so near yet so far. E = mc2.
Some girls showed their bum as they walked along, but mind you that other great invention, the thong or gstring had not been invented as yet. On a Lambretta TV 175 with all the mirrors, chrome panels and front and rear racks, pulling was easy, pulling up by the law was also an habitual experience.
Dana was in the 4th year I was a prefect, she was too young for me, she was petite & stunning though, a pelmet for a skirt, as she sat pillion, her thighs wrapped around me, oh those were the days my friends, we thought they would never end.
I suppose I was always captivated, I went weak in the presence of beauty. Hilary Scarr was my 1st love, as I said before, she had an hour glass figure, trouble is all the boys could see what I saw. But its better to love than never loved at all, its just what becomes of the broken hearted, who had loved and now they were parted. Sometimes there are winners and losers. I would like to find these ex's now through the internet, but it is not easy. Only for curiosity reason, You spend time 24/7 with them, then time takes them away for ever, it is weird. They are out there somewhere just like life on Mars.
Helen Parry was my love after divorce, I should not have got married, but if I had not, Ian & Graeme would not be here and I am really glad they are. But Helen in truth could not cope with the young boys, even though she was not a surrogate mother and had no desire to be. She resented my time with them and holidays she had to share me with them. Sad that we drifted apart, both changed careers, both spent time at work and left notes on the fridge for each other, Compounded by my abject misery on the Sunday night drive home from dropping the boys back with their Mum.
BBCTV casting couch stories are true too. Sex was rampant. Girls chatted up boys now. Hold on I thought it was the caveman's role to stand around the edge of the dance floor and for girls to wiggle & giggle around their handbags in the centre of the dance floor. No, that was history, keep up with the changing times Allan, else you will end up like the manikins in a Co-Op shop window.
Monique, wow what a name, and a name that befitted what my eyes took in. I am sitting in the BBC Bar after the show with a few of the production team. Monique wiggles her way, target destination 3" from my left side. "Hello. you are Allan Sharpe, you are the Deputy Editor of Watchdog aren't you, I am Monique, I want to go to bed with you".
Now, believe it or not, this kind of every male fantasy and script for a lager TV commercial, was word for word fact. And as you all by now want to know......... we did spend a weekend in my bed. Unfortunately she was married, lived in Hemel Hempstead, to make matters worse he was an Arsenal supporter, and she could not get no satisfaction, so she thought, career status was an aphrodisiac and she would have the Deputy Editor of Watchdog. Fabulous dancer we had one special song "a real gone kid" by Deacon Blue. Just like Jesus and Mary Convent the BBC was a never ending production line of girl friends. In truth I was wanting longevity, in truth they were wanting fun, sometimes the two combined in more ways than one, but it was a roller coaster ride, short, expensive and not really value for credit card. They were all stunning, they all, Hazel, Arlene etc made me feel 10 feet tall with them on my arm. Richmond lifestyle was one of decadence, wining, dining, dancing, even eating in in front of the log fire and holidays abroad. Those were the days my friend we thought they would never end. But they did. I was trying to build a nest, they were there for their timeshare self allocated weeks, months even years but nothing lasts for ever. I also wonder why no relationships can never be 50 - 50. Some of mine have been 90 - 10, or even if it is 51- 49 and that goes on 24/7/365 it is not good enough for me, and its time to get Steve McQueen's motor bike out for the Great Escape. Despite the cost in human tragedy, in human resources and wallets. I have started again and again and rebuilt. They are lots of houses in West London that are still decorated the way I left them. I said to Ian once in the car, if I was Hugh Grant at a wedding reception, I would need more than a table for my ex's I would need the whole hall.
Both Natalia and Hazel walked out behind my back and stabbed me through the heart in doing so. Not enough just to stab me in the back. Yes I am no angel, but I do believe in negotiation, even compromise as I see it - all relative. Hazel left to see her parents on Boxing Day, we kissed at the airport, only for her never to return..................blimey !!!
Natalia did her trick in recent years while I was at work.................... words fail me !!!
A room is a still a room, even when there's nothin' there but gloom
But a room is not a house and a house is not a home
When the two of us are far apart
And one of us has a broken heart
Both renounced the home, support and love I had given them, and that was the way they paid me back..............not in continued love but in deceit, treason and treachery. How can someone make love to another only to leave and never see again a few hours later, it is cruel, callous and cowardly.
Women do like successful men, it is an aphrodisiac. But when you are at the top or even near the top there is only one way...........staying there is not a route, it is maintenance of the status quo. The only route is down, and then the rats leave the sinking ship. However, this memoirs is testimony that the Titanic has been raised, so has HMS Hood, still guns blazing to the last, we will never surrender.
to be contd..................
No I am not a werewolf, but full moons influence the tides so why not my body, mind you these days its a case of I believe in miracles, where're you from you sexy thing.
So this chapter is about the downfall of mankind, including me, yes I did not get where I am today without women. In fact the rise and fall of Allan Sharpe is due to Allan Sharpe, snakes and ladders, river deep mountain high, and the dice he threw. He always got on better with females than males. With men he could talk about football, sport and women, but lots of men were seemingly jealous. Never being one to prop up a bar, but rather spending an elegant decadent time with a glass of dry white wine. Pinot Grigio was always at an affordable price, though the pricier Sancere did not touch the sides. Not that he did not like pubs, he just did not like the riff raff in them, yes he could be an arrogant snob, but he could also engage in banter, in conversation with any one, any class, any sex. He also liked a pint of real ale, though at age 18, the 8 pints each of us 3 of 4 (Ken, Keith, Kevin with a Consul Mk I parked outside) consumed in a Harefield PH is a distant memory. Where did we put the equivalent of a gallon of Duckhams 20/50 in our bodies, though truly most of it was dispensed of on porcelain walls and trees on the way back to Willesden.
Did I tell you I got banned from 3 dance halls in 3 weeks age 19, reason girls girls girls and their, unbeknown to me, boys boys boys who thought their name tag was round the girls neck, or finger.
So I could always chat and chat up. I always admired beauty, style, poise and grace, that hit my eyes not only across a crowded room, but could be in my face or could even be a sculptured piece of architecture, not only the Aphrodite female form.
But there are scattered pictures of the smiles I left behind, smiles we gave to one another, for the way we were. I learned as a 12 year old that demolition was easy, construction and reconstruction took much longer. In my love life, after learning to kiss, then eventually learning to please as opposed to being pleased, nod's as good as a wink to a blind man, I discovered to my cost that it took two to tango, but one to detonate and pull the plug. My mum said "fuck em and leave em" I don't think she got that from the Relate Manuals. My biological father was worse than me, at least I tried before giving up. My brother in law thought it was better they loved you, taking the easy route 66 to get his kicks. I guess my sister Pat has held that marriage together since the early sixties and Mick sat back in the armchair and watched TV.
That's what I always wanted, like Ken, like JT they married their child hood sweethearts and journeyed to the plateau of stability. Me, I was white water rafting.
I remember, Bill Butterfield at Westminster, coming in one day to work and saying over a lunch time pint, that his wife came into the room last night, he was watching TV feet on the coffee table and a can of lager in his hand. She said ok I am off then. He glanced down and saw there was a suitcase on the carpet. Where, he exclaimed in amazement. She said, the kids have grown up, I am not needed here anymore, I am off to get a life of my own, and woosh she was gone ....... blimey!!! Listening to that story was Chris Rogers, who had decided to shit on his own doorstep and have an affair with a gorgeous artist from ....next door ......blimey!!!
When my mum was a single parent society did not accept that situation. Women would be house wives and child minders. Hardly any married women worked outside the home and got paid for it. Husbands would drown their brains down the pub and come back for sex and fall asleep on the job. Sweeping generalisations are sometimes true, especially for a lad growing up in Willesden London NW10. Not that I was privy to the bedroom scenes of course, but it was generally known, that's what happened in Willesden life of the 50's. In the 60's that all changed, the mini was built, Britain's best selling car and the mini skirt arrived. Hail the permissive society, well in truth it was just more public rather than staying private. So girls would build up all that passion in boys which converted like potential energy into kinetic lust energy, only to discover that the mini was accompanied by the other new invention - tights, the ultimate passion killer, so near yet so far. E = mc2.
Some girls showed their bum as they walked along, but mind you that other great invention, the thong or gstring had not been invented as yet. On a Lambretta TV 175 with all the mirrors, chrome panels and front and rear racks, pulling was easy, pulling up by the law was also an habitual experience.
Dana was in the 4th year I was a prefect, she was too young for me, she was petite & stunning though, a pelmet for a skirt, as she sat pillion, her thighs wrapped around me, oh those were the days my friends, we thought they would never end.
I suppose I was always captivated, I went weak in the presence of beauty. Hilary Scarr was my 1st love, as I said before, she had an hour glass figure, trouble is all the boys could see what I saw. But its better to love than never loved at all, its just what becomes of the broken hearted, who had loved and now they were parted. Sometimes there are winners and losers. I would like to find these ex's now through the internet, but it is not easy. Only for curiosity reason, You spend time 24/7 with them, then time takes them away for ever, it is weird. They are out there somewhere just like life on Mars.
Helen Parry was my love after divorce, I should not have got married, but if I had not, Ian & Graeme would not be here and I am really glad they are. But Helen in truth could not cope with the young boys, even though she was not a surrogate mother and had no desire to be. She resented my time with them and holidays she had to share me with them. Sad that we drifted apart, both changed careers, both spent time at work and left notes on the fridge for each other, Compounded by my abject misery on the Sunday night drive home from dropping the boys back with their Mum.
BBCTV casting couch stories are true too. Sex was rampant. Girls chatted up boys now. Hold on I thought it was the caveman's role to stand around the edge of the dance floor and for girls to wiggle & giggle around their handbags in the centre of the dance floor. No, that was history, keep up with the changing times Allan, else you will end up like the manikins in a Co-Op shop window.
Monique, wow what a name, and a name that befitted what my eyes took in. I am sitting in the BBC Bar after the show with a few of the production team. Monique wiggles her way, target destination 3" from my left side. "Hello. you are Allan Sharpe, you are the Deputy Editor of Watchdog aren't you, I am Monique, I want to go to bed with you".
Now, believe it or not, this kind of every male fantasy and script for a lager TV commercial, was word for word fact. And as you all by now want to know......... we did spend a weekend in my bed. Unfortunately she was married, lived in Hemel Hempstead, to make matters worse he was an Arsenal supporter, and she could not get no satisfaction, so she thought, career status was an aphrodisiac and she would have the Deputy Editor of Watchdog. Fabulous dancer we had one special song "a real gone kid" by Deacon Blue. Just like Jesus and Mary Convent the BBC was a never ending production line of girl friends. In truth I was wanting longevity, in truth they were wanting fun, sometimes the two combined in more ways than one, but it was a roller coaster ride, short, expensive and not really value for credit card. They were all stunning, they all, Hazel, Arlene etc made me feel 10 feet tall with them on my arm. Richmond lifestyle was one of decadence, wining, dining, dancing, even eating in in front of the log fire and holidays abroad. Those were the days my friend we thought they would never end. But they did. I was trying to build a nest, they were there for their timeshare self allocated weeks, months even years but nothing lasts for ever. I also wonder why no relationships can never be 50 - 50. Some of mine have been 90 - 10, or even if it is 51- 49 and that goes on 24/7/365 it is not good enough for me, and its time to get Steve McQueen's motor bike out for the Great Escape. Despite the cost in human tragedy, in human resources and wallets. I have started again and again and rebuilt. They are lots of houses in West London that are still decorated the way I left them. I said to Ian once in the car, if I was Hugh Grant at a wedding reception, I would need more than a table for my ex's I would need the whole hall.
Both Natalia and Hazel walked out behind my back and stabbed me through the heart in doing so. Not enough just to stab me in the back. Yes I am no angel, but I do believe in negotiation, even compromise as I see it - all relative. Hazel left to see her parents on Boxing Day, we kissed at the airport, only for her never to return..................blimey !!!
Natalia did her trick in recent years while I was at work.................... words fail me !!!
A room is a still a room, even when there's nothin' there but gloom
But a room is not a house and a house is not a home
When the two of us are far apart
And one of us has a broken heart
Both renounced the home, support and love I had given them, and that was the way they paid me back..............not in continued love but in deceit, treason and treachery. How can someone make love to another only to leave and never see again a few hours later, it is cruel, callous and cowardly.
Women do like successful men, it is an aphrodisiac. But when you are at the top or even near the top there is only one way...........staying there is not a route, it is maintenance of the status quo. The only route is down, and then the rats leave the sinking ship. However, this memoirs is testimony that the Titanic has been raised, so has HMS Hood, still guns blazing to the last, we will never surrender.
to be contd..................
Monday, 16 March 2009
Betrayal
All good stories have their essential ingredients to ensure the reader is on the edge of their seat and not sitting comfortably. Those ingredients include:- wit, intrigue, romance and betrayal.
People often view Allan Sharpe as a hard nosed, thick skinned character, who can mix it with the best of them. To a certain extent that is true, like the planet I stand on, I have an outer crust that can take abuse hurled at it. However I also have a liquid centre and an Achilles heel. Not many are allowed to see the inner sanctum, because of that vulnerability, deflector shields on maximum.
I was at Next Step again last week. I make her laugh with my life as I have known it. Like the compliment I got from Mohammad at Waltham Forest in about 2003, who said "Allan, you are the most politically incorrect person I have ever met".
I guess politics is the ultimate betrayal game. I always supported my staff, my team , often to consequences as the guns were re aimed at me as a result. Like when the Evil Woman, Nick Ross's wife, Sarah Caplan became editor of Watchdog and made the young girl reseachers cry if things went wrong...."its your finger pointing fault". But one has to do what's right. I am no angel, but as I have said before, I try to support good against evil. Another laugh from Mrs Next Step, was when I told her what the Doctor heard when he asked me about a prescription and was I allergic to anything, my retort was "yes incompetent management".
I have known the Ides of March at least 3 times at work, and at rest & play. So much for the theory of Rhino hide and off the duck's back. I didn't get where I am today by arse licking. In fact I can count on one hand people I have worked for that commanded my respect. The rest were ok, if they left me alone, did not interfere with their inadequate assessment of the situation and left me to get on with it and get results.
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/search/254965.Fine_for_jailed_Del_Boy/
Like my brother in law who wanted to create a garage business so that his son's Neil and Barry could take it on in later years, and it never quite made it,I have regrets. Some like my brother in law. I created Sharper Image TV & Video Productions Ltd. In 1994 My back was still healing after the knives attack at BBCTV, and I thought I could start an acorn for my sons Ian & Graeme. Alas it lasted just 4 years. Really a one man band, it did start Ian in a career though, but I had thrown in the towel before I could help Graeme make a start. In its hay day Sharper Image had a No 2 in the charts only to be pipped on the shelves by Walt Disney. But in truth that said it all. Sharper Image could not compete globally with multinationals, who remembers 2nd, only me (and Ian).
The biggest act of betrayal, getting back to the plot of this chapter, was in September 2004. LB of Waltham Forest was a poor area. Poor people are less well educated in general. I was poor as a kid, and well educated, so there are exceptions. However Walthamstow & Chingford and Leyton were depressing areas to work in, yet alone live in, which I did not have to fortunately. However I did have to serve the community and make their life better and fairer. The Council was one of the worse performers too, a fact named and shamed by the Audit Commission. Managers like the Environmental Health Officer Garry Seal, sat in his Arsenal festooned memorabilia, sat in front of his computer on his big fat arse. He knew little of what was going on in the streets outside his window. He only came out of his closed door office to go home, go to a meeting, go for a wee, go for a cup of coffee. One day in the kitchen I sellotaped a pound coin to his Arsenal mug, and said "that was the closest his team would going to get to win a trophy" haha said the Spurs supporter. His ugly face was a picture, even redder like their shirts, than when later I was to call him a "wanker" in front of the rest of the staff who cheered. All he cared about was his saving his big fat arse. I lost 50% of my staff over the 6 years I was there trying to do the reverse of what management did. All that time we had more statutes to enforce, and more demands from the public. Garry Nero Seal rose up the ranks of incompetency , I mean Peter's principle of management, and I had to suffer the Billy Bunter look a like for 10 months. He was aided and abetted by Linda Wacey, as Head of the Department. A people hater, spinster, poodle lover, and plastic smile perfectionist. Both were not on the planet High St Walthamstow. They were on the planet, budgets and saving bacon. Everyone else could get stuffed as far as they were concerned.
Now silly naive me thought I had a Liberal Democrat Councillor Allie in Barry Smith. But as with Dame Shirley Porter in Westminster 1982, I became a political pawn, and there are no winners, just losers and I lost. The build up was Seal's interference. He even pulled the plug on a crown court case, that had taken me 2 years to investigate. We were in Snaresbrook when he said we can no longer afford to proceed. So this business that had lost half a million pounds to some fraudulent ex members of staff, were left hung out to dry. The directors actually spoke to the slimmy Seal, actually that was their description, and later complained to the inefffectual Ombudsman. However worse was to follow. I used to say it was hard enough catching con men outside the office, but the worse thing was trying to undo the knots the inside office management tied me up in.
Our Price windows had a customer non service since computer records began in 1992. I had represented complainants at the small claims court. I and they had won. Still no redress often about poor workmanship, it was their track record, along with phoenix companies rising from the ashes and receptionists made into directors as the bosses were banned by the Department of Trade & Industry. Yes really good to do business with huh !!! Not the sort of thing you admit to on your newspaper advertising.
When I turned Trading Standards Officer into Investigative Journalist in 1982, I had realised before, that the best consumer champion was not the courts but the media. So my old friend Lynn Faulds Wood was trying to resurrect a consumer slot on GMTV. I telephoned all the outstanding Our Price Window complainants to give them Lynn's telephone number. There was a successfull programme. The bosses were shown up on camera, they paid up people that had been in dispute for over 5 years.
The Labour Leader of the council wanted to know why Trading Standards was NOT mentioned and was Allan Sharpe behind all this. Got it in one, he was, that's why there was no mention. Waltham Forest council were scared of the press, they had every reason to be, they were inept, incompetent, and thay had all that and more to hide. A success story like this was not down to them to feature in any glory, it was a success story despite them. They had long disciplined me for talking to the media and tried to shut me up. Funny thing was in the summer of 1998, my first job was to track down the Good Restaurant Guide. I was temping and I got the job because the previous management hoped I could catch a guy that had been at it for 6 months. He had every Thompsons telephone directory in the country and wrote a letter to every restaurant listed. "Congratulations, our inspectors have visited you site as customers and you got 94% for service and quality of food" "Please pay £19 for a certificate, your name will be published in our guide in 3 months". He made £500,000. Alistair Leslie Woods was the Good Restaurant guide. The Police and Trading Standards had searched for him for 6 months. In the mean time he was busy. There were no inspectors or inspections. The restuarants who fell for the scam, got a worthless computer print out certificate that resembled my 100 yards breast stroke certificate that I never got at school. So I found ALW in 3 days, yes not 182 and a half days , 3 days. ALW was arrested all his directories , letters printers computers seized. The Newspapers ran the story. The boss congratulated me in front of the assembled staff for a glass of water and a turned up at the edges sarny, very nice. I worked with the Press Office and my team would feature regularly on local and national news. It was good for morale, and showed the community that something was being done, it is called banging the drum.
The new mangement were jealous, their testicals had no ego, they tried to put a lid on me. Eventually in September 2004 at the 3rd attempt, they sacked me, after all those people finally got their rights from the crooked Our Price Windows.
I did take the Council to the Employment Bureau. But employment law is not on the side of an employee who is just good at his job, rather it is on the side of employers who are not good at their job, but make the rules up as they go along, move goal posts and hold all the computer recorded evidence. At least it took a week the trial, at least I cost them £10,000 employing a barrister. At least I had 8 witnesses who supported my stand, they had 3 trumped up establishment. At least Terry Brady my old mate from Westminster turned up and gave evidence, and we went to the pub after, came home on the train and had a good laugh at old times. Those were the days.........ah yes, Life on Mars.
David lost to Goliath that day, since then he has been sent into exile, branded as a maverick , a trouble maker. Maybe one day he will return, like Dirty Harry.... yesterday is history, today is a gift, tomorrow.......well that is just a mystery..........to be contd.
People often view Allan Sharpe as a hard nosed, thick skinned character, who can mix it with the best of them. To a certain extent that is true, like the planet I stand on, I have an outer crust that can take abuse hurled at it. However I also have a liquid centre and an Achilles heel. Not many are allowed to see the inner sanctum, because of that vulnerability, deflector shields on maximum.
I was at Next Step again last week. I make her laugh with my life as I have known it. Like the compliment I got from Mohammad at Waltham Forest in about 2003, who said "Allan, you are the most politically incorrect person I have ever met".
I guess politics is the ultimate betrayal game. I always supported my staff, my team , often to consequences as the guns were re aimed at me as a result. Like when the Evil Woman, Nick Ross's wife, Sarah Caplan became editor of Watchdog and made the young girl reseachers cry if things went wrong...."its your finger pointing fault". But one has to do what's right. I am no angel, but as I have said before, I try to support good against evil. Another laugh from Mrs Next Step, was when I told her what the Doctor heard when he asked me about a prescription and was I allergic to anything, my retort was "yes incompetent management".
I have known the Ides of March at least 3 times at work, and at rest & play. So much for the theory of Rhino hide and off the duck's back. I didn't get where I am today by arse licking. In fact I can count on one hand people I have worked for that commanded my respect. The rest were ok, if they left me alone, did not interfere with their inadequate assessment of the situation and left me to get on with it and get results.
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/search/254965.Fine_for_jailed_Del_Boy/
Like my brother in law who wanted to create a garage business so that his son's Neil and Barry could take it on in later years, and it never quite made it,I have regrets. Some like my brother in law. I created Sharper Image TV & Video Productions Ltd. In 1994 My back was still healing after the knives attack at BBCTV, and I thought I could start an acorn for my sons Ian & Graeme. Alas it lasted just 4 years. Really a one man band, it did start Ian in a career though, but I had thrown in the towel before I could help Graeme make a start. In its hay day Sharper Image had a No 2 in the charts only to be pipped on the shelves by Walt Disney. But in truth that said it all. Sharper Image could not compete globally with multinationals, who remembers 2nd, only me (and Ian).
The biggest act of betrayal, getting back to the plot of this chapter, was in September 2004. LB of Waltham Forest was a poor area. Poor people are less well educated in general. I was poor as a kid, and well educated, so there are exceptions. However Walthamstow & Chingford and Leyton were depressing areas to work in, yet alone live in, which I did not have to fortunately. However I did have to serve the community and make their life better and fairer. The Council was one of the worse performers too, a fact named and shamed by the Audit Commission. Managers like the Environmental Health Officer Garry Seal, sat in his Arsenal festooned memorabilia, sat in front of his computer on his big fat arse. He knew little of what was going on in the streets outside his window. He only came out of his closed door office to go home, go to a meeting, go for a wee, go for a cup of coffee. One day in the kitchen I sellotaped a pound coin to his Arsenal mug, and said "that was the closest his team would going to get to win a trophy" haha said the Spurs supporter. His ugly face was a picture, even redder like their shirts, than when later I was to call him a "wanker" in front of the rest of the staff who cheered. All he cared about was his saving his big fat arse. I lost 50% of my staff over the 6 years I was there trying to do the reverse of what management did. All that time we had more statutes to enforce, and more demands from the public. Garry Nero Seal rose up the ranks of incompetency , I mean Peter's principle of management, and I had to suffer the Billy Bunter look a like for 10 months. He was aided and abetted by Linda Wacey, as Head of the Department. A people hater, spinster, poodle lover, and plastic smile perfectionist. Both were not on the planet High St Walthamstow. They were on the planet, budgets and saving bacon. Everyone else could get stuffed as far as they were concerned.
Now silly naive me thought I had a Liberal Democrat Councillor Allie in Barry Smith. But as with Dame Shirley Porter in Westminster 1982, I became a political pawn, and there are no winners, just losers and I lost. The build up was Seal's interference. He even pulled the plug on a crown court case, that had taken me 2 years to investigate. We were in Snaresbrook when he said we can no longer afford to proceed. So this business that had lost half a million pounds to some fraudulent ex members of staff, were left hung out to dry. The directors actually spoke to the slimmy Seal, actually that was their description, and later complained to the inefffectual Ombudsman. However worse was to follow. I used to say it was hard enough catching con men outside the office, but the worse thing was trying to undo the knots the inside office management tied me up in.
Our Price windows had a customer non service since computer records began in 1992. I had represented complainants at the small claims court. I and they had won. Still no redress often about poor workmanship, it was their track record, along with phoenix companies rising from the ashes and receptionists made into directors as the bosses were banned by the Department of Trade & Industry. Yes really good to do business with huh !!! Not the sort of thing you admit to on your newspaper advertising.
When I turned Trading Standards Officer into Investigative Journalist in 1982, I had realised before, that the best consumer champion was not the courts but the media. So my old friend Lynn Faulds Wood was trying to resurrect a consumer slot on GMTV. I telephoned all the outstanding Our Price Window complainants to give them Lynn's telephone number. There was a successfull programme. The bosses were shown up on camera, they paid up people that had been in dispute for over 5 years.
The Labour Leader of the council wanted to know why Trading Standards was NOT mentioned and was Allan Sharpe behind all this. Got it in one, he was, that's why there was no mention. Waltham Forest council were scared of the press, they had every reason to be, they were inept, incompetent, and thay had all that and more to hide. A success story like this was not down to them to feature in any glory, it was a success story despite them. They had long disciplined me for talking to the media and tried to shut me up. Funny thing was in the summer of 1998, my first job was to track down the Good Restaurant Guide. I was temping and I got the job because the previous management hoped I could catch a guy that had been at it for 6 months. He had every Thompsons telephone directory in the country and wrote a letter to every restaurant listed. "Congratulations, our inspectors have visited you site as customers and you got 94% for service and quality of food" "Please pay £19 for a certificate, your name will be published in our guide in 3 months". He made £500,000. Alistair Leslie Woods was the Good Restaurant guide. The Police and Trading Standards had searched for him for 6 months. In the mean time he was busy. There were no inspectors or inspections. The restuarants who fell for the scam, got a worthless computer print out certificate that resembled my 100 yards breast stroke certificate that I never got at school. So I found ALW in 3 days, yes not 182 and a half days , 3 days. ALW was arrested all his directories , letters printers computers seized. The Newspapers ran the story. The boss congratulated me in front of the assembled staff for a glass of water and a turned up at the edges sarny, very nice. I worked with the Press Office and my team would feature regularly on local and national news. It was good for morale, and showed the community that something was being done, it is called banging the drum.
The new mangement were jealous, their testicals had no ego, they tried to put a lid on me. Eventually in September 2004 at the 3rd attempt, they sacked me, after all those people finally got their rights from the crooked Our Price Windows.
I did take the Council to the Employment Bureau. But employment law is not on the side of an employee who is just good at his job, rather it is on the side of employers who are not good at their job, but make the rules up as they go along, move goal posts and hold all the computer recorded evidence. At least it took a week the trial, at least I cost them £10,000 employing a barrister. At least I had 8 witnesses who supported my stand, they had 3 trumped up establishment. At least Terry Brady my old mate from Westminster turned up and gave evidence, and we went to the pub after, came home on the train and had a good laugh at old times. Those were the days.........ah yes, Life on Mars.
David lost to Goliath that day, since then he has been sent into exile, branded as a maverick , a trouble maker. Maybe one day he will return, like Dirty Harry.... yesterday is history, today is a gift, tomorrow.......well that is just a mystery..........to be contd.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Gissa Job 21st Century
Most of my working life was spent trying to get fairness and justice for others. Ordinary people who were in a David and Goliath struggle. In these last few years it is now me in that David sling shot position.
I tried to right wrongs, and today in England's green and not so pleasant land, there are a lot of things wrong, like litter, energy waste, a tardiness to incorporate alternative energy sources, and a great waste of experience and education by this country. Strong stuff, but it is no wonder people just rely on the state and drift along. Why should they bother when the country, government and society does not bother about it's citizens. The Government pump billions of pounds into a black hole of banking institutions and watch from the balcony playing a fiddle as countless companies go bankrupt with no support from government or the banks. So the unemployed swell in numbers me included.
Today I go to Job Centre Minus to sign on again. £73 a week. They will say have you worked - No, are you looking for work - yes, I will say have you got any jobs , they will say no. I have argued 3 times about sending me on a Career Development Course which places the individual in a job at the end, by fine tuning skills that are transferable. All this funded by EU grants. I am waiting to hear, after trying all manner of routes to by pass Job Centre Minus who are an obstacle to progression. I even wrote to my MP, but that was a waste of time too. At the Government's Job Centre Minus they fail to put people back to work, as I sit there my bum hardly makes an impression in the seat, my question and answer period with an officer laughingly called an advisor, last for about 60 seconds. This is what is has come to after a couple of yearss working through private employment agancies as a lorry driver, apart from the year I worked fixed term to introduce the smoking controls in public places. So to resort to being a Job Centre Minus statistic is a true last resort.
I have sort advice from other non government organisations like Next Step and Jobsmaites. They have warned me about age discimination, so on my CV 30 years plus of dealing with the public, is not a selling point - delete 30 years. So sad.
It is a far cry from when I left school. I was still working at my Friday night Saturday job in Woolworths Harlesden on the delicatessen counter. I had a Lambretta TV175, £££, no tax as a student, and a job which was a source of girlfreinds too. I was ok. BUT, the Youth Employment Bureau thought otherwise. They told me off in their Pound Lane Offices. I told them I looked in the newspapers and applied for jobs, I had 3 A levels and 11 O levels. Not good enough. Go for these 6 jobs. OK.
Well the highest paid was in what was to become Trading Standards but in those days was still Weights & Measures, working for a local council but run by the Board of Trade. £19 a week, trainee assistant, checking up on factories and shops, sounded good to me.
It was a mile and a half to work. I started by going on the bus. I even made a girlfriend at the bus stop, a hairdresser, very pretty, lasted a week.
I had to drive a van when we checked petrol forecourts and factories, One inspector 2 assistants. Sometimes I drove the inspectors cars when just 2 went to check retailers. I still lived with Mum in Essex Road, but we worked in Ealing, Brent and Harrow, so we travelled to the edge of London and the countryside like Elstree and Stanmore. It was interetsing stuff. One of the best jobs was acting like a customer. I would go into a shop and buy something, then we would check it for correct weight and price back at the car parked round the corner. I often caught the shops. I had some knack of pretence innocence. So much so that Harry Stanton said once " Bloody hell, every time you go into a shop I get another case". Good old red faced, grey haired Harry, he never got promoted. He looked like an old Colonel Blimp, a Knight of St Columbus, got drunk every lunch time, so to keep death off the roads the assistant would drive in the afternoon. Else if he drove we would be swerving in a silver grey Singer Vogue Estate with the rotund Harry clutching the steering wheel but leaning on the curves with the wheel, TT Isle of Man style, pass the roseary beads Harry !!!
We had ex Kenya inspectors too. They were ex British Colonials, fluent in Swahili which came in handy in Southall, as the African Asians were being booted out of Africa to land at Heathrow Airport.
The Trade Descriptions Act November 14th 1968 changed the job overnight. Lots of people telephoned to complain for the first time. The car had broken down, the artist impression hotel in the holiday brochure had not been built in time, the special offers were over priced. The Harold Wilson Labour Government tried to protect the consumer, whereas today it is left to Brussels. We had counter inflation measures to stop traders making instant profit as they did in 1971 with decimalisation. Then a pint of Watneys Red Barrel went up overnight from one shilling and ten pence to twelve and a half p = to 2 shillings and sixpence in old money. Old Money that had served the anglo saxons well, so it was an excuse to profit and inflate prices. Lessons were learned and I was so good at getting prices down, I took over all the counter inflation complaints in 1973. One extremely camp gay ladies hairdresser in Ealing said to me after I had taken the red pen to his price list on the introduction of VAT.......... *Oooooooooo you are ruthless, you have taken me to the cleaners".
I was qualified by now, it took 4 years to pass a Government Professional series of exams on law and technology. I used to get lots of stories that I could dine out on. Only because I seemed to have a knack of finding trouble. My jealous counterparts would say I was a trouble maker, a maverick, a loose canon. I would counter and say I knew exactly where I was aiming. I did not need artificial targets. I did not want to tick boxes. My self motivation was about deterrence, and making the place fairer for all, a level playing field , where cheats did not prosper. Hard sometimes when you are in your early twenties and the only thing younger than you is a Page 3 girl in the Sun.
Coal men were always on the fiddle. We would roam the streets in residential areas in a specially equipped van with a big sliding scale in the back. Sacks of coal would be weighed and often they were well short of the cwt. So the lorry would be escorted back to the yard it had come from and the whole load reweighed.
One day in Northolt, I was still a trainee with John Taylor who had just passed. We used to go to day release college together. He had married his child hood sweet heart. He went on to be the Chief Officer in later years, never working outside Brent. We got on professionally, but I cannnot say we liked each other. So one day Mr Burns the coal man is in Carr Road Northolt delivering, his bags turn out to be light. Taylor tells him to go back to Charringtons in Neasden by that bridge I walked over after my tonsils were removed 17 years before. Burns tries to make a run for it, he drives a huge detour up through Harrow, even Stanmore, with me in a Comma Van at the wheel pinned behind him, even when he goes through red lights, even crossing the North Circular. Then in the yard after this chase, he stops on the weighbridge, goes into revers and before I can select reverse he has rammed us. The whole front of the cab is now in bits all around me. The steering column saved me, Taylor had leeped over the passenger seat into the back. The van was a write off, no windsreen, no doors, no grill. Burns sped off, the engine was still running on the Comma because the passengers sat on it, so I sped off after him, Sweaney eat your heart out. Bits of metal and glass fell off as I drove with the wind in my face. Burns jumped up on the back of his lorry tipping the sacks destroying the evidence. I drove back to the offices to get Masters the manager, he sat in the remnants of a passenger seat, and barked at Burns that he was fired Alan Sugar style.
In truth cases like this were unusual but the outcome was always the same, crime paid, the offender walked away from court laughing, the do gooder Magistrates were hopelessly out of touch. It was also safe not risk. If the first offender was fined £25 then the rest, all that day were fined the same, regardless of what they did.
For those sort of reasons, when I found myself on the front pages or the TV screen because of my job, I generally told it as it was, popular with some but deeply and jealously unpopular with others. Later I would make the transition and become an investigative journalist and the outcome would be more significant than the law of our land. Public shame would achieve more than judicial sentencing, alas.
Cynical yes, the life made you like it. I would catch all the west end hotels for short measure drinks and overcharging. I would catch all the petrol attendants in the west end for fraud. In certain trades conning the customer was trade practice. Management never wondered why their lowly paid staff would turn up for work in a brand new sports car !!!
One Fine Fare manager in Northwood Hills, had the old prices on the shelves and the special offers in the window and in the Daily Mirror advertisement. The result, the sales till staff overcharged everyone. He was petrified when I turned up, sometimes the job had that effect when they had something more to hide than their brown underwear. I think I got 3 cases that day on just routine visits, no complaints from the unknowing public that I was duty bound to protect. I got out of the van with Dave Smith and thought those punnets of strawberries were never 8 ozs. Guess what they weren't. One Greengrocer Case. Next Fine Fare, where the manager later had a heart attack (3 weeks later) and died. The Supermarket bosses were cruel to their staff if Trading Standards caught them out. Next a car dealer turning the mileage and therefore the history of the vehicle back on the odometer. One Christmas time, a Butcher's turkeys in the window were all £2 over priced. Because of the scale of the problem, a queue developed of his customers even queuing down the road. One customer mouthed off at me, saying leave the butcher alone, he had been a customer for 25 years it was the butcher down the road I should be checking up on. I could not tell this guy the truth. The Butcher, under caution, his excuse was "trade practice".
That was the day in the life of...........not every day, but not an untypical day. It was rare to find no trouble to deal with, not to make , but to deal with.
Of course all the troubles had to be written up. At least we had typists in those days to write up our reports, at least we had a team to go out with and do the job. Nowadays like most jobs its one man bands, no help, no corroboration. In fact if I knew at 18, what I know now, I would have never joined the service. Since the Thatcher years it has been decimated. More statutes given by Parliament to police and less manpower and financial budgets. Consumer protection these days is caveat emptor, buyer beware, and self assistance for the majority of the time. That is ok as quality of the product has improved, but the standard of service and the desire to make a fast buck remains the same as it always was. Other things like education and social work takes presidence, and the consumer has to watch out for himself more and more, but still pay his taxes.
to be cont'd ......................
I tried to right wrongs, and today in England's green and not so pleasant land, there are a lot of things wrong, like litter, energy waste, a tardiness to incorporate alternative energy sources, and a great waste of experience and education by this country. Strong stuff, but it is no wonder people just rely on the state and drift along. Why should they bother when the country, government and society does not bother about it's citizens. The Government pump billions of pounds into a black hole of banking institutions and watch from the balcony playing a fiddle as countless companies go bankrupt with no support from government or the banks. So the unemployed swell in numbers me included.
Today I go to Job Centre Minus to sign on again. £73 a week. They will say have you worked - No, are you looking for work - yes, I will say have you got any jobs , they will say no. I have argued 3 times about sending me on a Career Development Course which places the individual in a job at the end, by fine tuning skills that are transferable. All this funded by EU grants. I am waiting to hear, after trying all manner of routes to by pass Job Centre Minus who are an obstacle to progression. I even wrote to my MP, but that was a waste of time too. At the Government's Job Centre Minus they fail to put people back to work, as I sit there my bum hardly makes an impression in the seat, my question and answer period with an officer laughingly called an advisor, last for about 60 seconds. This is what is has come to after a couple of yearss working through private employment agancies as a lorry driver, apart from the year I worked fixed term to introduce the smoking controls in public places. So to resort to being a Job Centre Minus statistic is a true last resort.
I have sort advice from other non government organisations like Next Step and Jobsmaites. They have warned me about age discimination, so on my CV 30 years plus of dealing with the public, is not a selling point - delete 30 years. So sad.
It is a far cry from when I left school. I was still working at my Friday night Saturday job in Woolworths Harlesden on the delicatessen counter. I had a Lambretta TV175, £££, no tax as a student, and a job which was a source of girlfreinds too. I was ok. BUT, the Youth Employment Bureau thought otherwise. They told me off in their Pound Lane Offices. I told them I looked in the newspapers and applied for jobs, I had 3 A levels and 11 O levels. Not good enough. Go for these 6 jobs. OK.
Well the highest paid was in what was to become Trading Standards but in those days was still Weights & Measures, working for a local council but run by the Board of Trade. £19 a week, trainee assistant, checking up on factories and shops, sounded good to me.
It was a mile and a half to work. I started by going on the bus. I even made a girlfriend at the bus stop, a hairdresser, very pretty, lasted a week.
I had to drive a van when we checked petrol forecourts and factories, One inspector 2 assistants. Sometimes I drove the inspectors cars when just 2 went to check retailers. I still lived with Mum in Essex Road, but we worked in Ealing, Brent and Harrow, so we travelled to the edge of London and the countryside like Elstree and Stanmore. It was interetsing stuff. One of the best jobs was acting like a customer. I would go into a shop and buy something, then we would check it for correct weight and price back at the car parked round the corner. I often caught the shops. I had some knack of pretence innocence. So much so that Harry Stanton said once " Bloody hell, every time you go into a shop I get another case". Good old red faced, grey haired Harry, he never got promoted. He looked like an old Colonel Blimp, a Knight of St Columbus, got drunk every lunch time, so to keep death off the roads the assistant would drive in the afternoon. Else if he drove we would be swerving in a silver grey Singer Vogue Estate with the rotund Harry clutching the steering wheel but leaning on the curves with the wheel, TT Isle of Man style, pass the roseary beads Harry !!!
We had ex Kenya inspectors too. They were ex British Colonials, fluent in Swahili which came in handy in Southall, as the African Asians were being booted out of Africa to land at Heathrow Airport.
The Trade Descriptions Act November 14th 1968 changed the job overnight. Lots of people telephoned to complain for the first time. The car had broken down, the artist impression hotel in the holiday brochure had not been built in time, the special offers were over priced. The Harold Wilson Labour Government tried to protect the consumer, whereas today it is left to Brussels. We had counter inflation measures to stop traders making instant profit as they did in 1971 with decimalisation. Then a pint of Watneys Red Barrel went up overnight from one shilling and ten pence to twelve and a half p = to 2 shillings and sixpence in old money. Old Money that had served the anglo saxons well, so it was an excuse to profit and inflate prices. Lessons were learned and I was so good at getting prices down, I took over all the counter inflation complaints in 1973. One extremely camp gay ladies hairdresser in Ealing said to me after I had taken the red pen to his price list on the introduction of VAT.......... *Oooooooooo you are ruthless, you have taken me to the cleaners".
I was qualified by now, it took 4 years to pass a Government Professional series of exams on law and technology. I used to get lots of stories that I could dine out on. Only because I seemed to have a knack of finding trouble. My jealous counterparts would say I was a trouble maker, a maverick, a loose canon. I would counter and say I knew exactly where I was aiming. I did not need artificial targets. I did not want to tick boxes. My self motivation was about deterrence, and making the place fairer for all, a level playing field , where cheats did not prosper. Hard sometimes when you are in your early twenties and the only thing younger than you is a Page 3 girl in the Sun.
Coal men were always on the fiddle. We would roam the streets in residential areas in a specially equipped van with a big sliding scale in the back. Sacks of coal would be weighed and often they were well short of the cwt. So the lorry would be escorted back to the yard it had come from and the whole load reweighed.
One day in Northolt, I was still a trainee with John Taylor who had just passed. We used to go to day release college together. He had married his child hood sweet heart. He went on to be the Chief Officer in later years, never working outside Brent. We got on professionally, but I cannnot say we liked each other. So one day Mr Burns the coal man is in Carr Road Northolt delivering, his bags turn out to be light. Taylor tells him to go back to Charringtons in Neasden by that bridge I walked over after my tonsils were removed 17 years before. Burns tries to make a run for it, he drives a huge detour up through Harrow, even Stanmore, with me in a Comma Van at the wheel pinned behind him, even when he goes through red lights, even crossing the North Circular. Then in the yard after this chase, he stops on the weighbridge, goes into revers and before I can select reverse he has rammed us. The whole front of the cab is now in bits all around me. The steering column saved me, Taylor had leeped over the passenger seat into the back. The van was a write off, no windsreen, no doors, no grill. Burns sped off, the engine was still running on the Comma because the passengers sat on it, so I sped off after him, Sweaney eat your heart out. Bits of metal and glass fell off as I drove with the wind in my face. Burns jumped up on the back of his lorry tipping the sacks destroying the evidence. I drove back to the offices to get Masters the manager, he sat in the remnants of a passenger seat, and barked at Burns that he was fired Alan Sugar style.
In truth cases like this were unusual but the outcome was always the same, crime paid, the offender walked away from court laughing, the do gooder Magistrates were hopelessly out of touch. It was also safe not risk. If the first offender was fined £25 then the rest, all that day were fined the same, regardless of what they did.
For those sort of reasons, when I found myself on the front pages or the TV screen because of my job, I generally told it as it was, popular with some but deeply and jealously unpopular with others. Later I would make the transition and become an investigative journalist and the outcome would be more significant than the law of our land. Public shame would achieve more than judicial sentencing, alas.
Cynical yes, the life made you like it. I would catch all the west end hotels for short measure drinks and overcharging. I would catch all the petrol attendants in the west end for fraud. In certain trades conning the customer was trade practice. Management never wondered why their lowly paid staff would turn up for work in a brand new sports car !!!
One Fine Fare manager in Northwood Hills, had the old prices on the shelves and the special offers in the window and in the Daily Mirror advertisement. The result, the sales till staff overcharged everyone. He was petrified when I turned up, sometimes the job had that effect when they had something more to hide than their brown underwear. I think I got 3 cases that day on just routine visits, no complaints from the unknowing public that I was duty bound to protect. I got out of the van with Dave Smith and thought those punnets of strawberries were never 8 ozs. Guess what they weren't. One Greengrocer Case. Next Fine Fare, where the manager later had a heart attack (3 weeks later) and died. The Supermarket bosses were cruel to their staff if Trading Standards caught them out. Next a car dealer turning the mileage and therefore the history of the vehicle back on the odometer. One Christmas time, a Butcher's turkeys in the window were all £2 over priced. Because of the scale of the problem, a queue developed of his customers even queuing down the road. One customer mouthed off at me, saying leave the butcher alone, he had been a customer for 25 years it was the butcher down the road I should be checking up on. I could not tell this guy the truth. The Butcher, under caution, his excuse was "trade practice".
That was the day in the life of...........not every day, but not an untypical day. It was rare to find no trouble to deal with, not to make , but to deal with.
Of course all the troubles had to be written up. At least we had typists in those days to write up our reports, at least we had a team to go out with and do the job. Nowadays like most jobs its one man bands, no help, no corroboration. In fact if I knew at 18, what I know now, I would have never joined the service. Since the Thatcher years it has been decimated. More statutes given by Parliament to police and less manpower and financial budgets. Consumer protection these days is caveat emptor, buyer beware, and self assistance for the majority of the time. That is ok as quality of the product has improved, but the standard of service and the desire to make a fast buck remains the same as it always was. Other things like education and social work takes presidence, and the consumer has to watch out for himself more and more, but still pay his taxes.
to be cont'd ......................
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