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In July 1972 I worked in the dungeon (Colony Polmil) prior to going on four and a half months full pay leave. Those were the days!

I may as well include this anecdote before it disappears forever:-

You’ve just -ucked the only shredding machine in Special Branch

 I joined the force in February 1969 and around July or August time in 1972 the end of my three and a half year first tour was in sight. I knew every bar in Tsim Sha Tsui and Wanchai, I was confirmed to the Permanent and Pensionable Establishment. I had just finished a PTU Company attachment - we disbanded a few days before the Po Shan Road landslip -  18^th June 1972.

 I was now a Duty Officer in Colony Polmil working A, B, and C shifts. Most Uniform Branch expatriates who were finishing their first tours ended up here for a period of four to six weeks before heading to Kai Tak and that big silver bird.

The work was not onerous at all and most of it was done by the C shift Duty Officer who had to prepare the morning report for Ops Wing and the CP.

 I think we must have presented Ops Wing staff with quite a challenge. I remember the day when Topper Brown came into the “dungeon” (Polmil was in the basement of Caine House) and he mentioned that since I had arrived on C shift the daily illegal immigrant totals had shot up dramatically. So how did I arrive at the total figure? “Well Sir, I just added up all the other numbers.” Apparently I was not supposed to do this.

 One day I arrived in good time for A shift, got changed into uniform, and went in to relieve Insp X who was a quite rotund man and the son of a clergyman. This particular officer smoked small cigars which were sold in aluminium tins - Mannequin cigars I think.

 Every morning around 09.30hrs Special Branch staff used to come along and collect a large brown paper bag which contained paper waste – memos, confidential memos, carbon paper, and so on. After collection a new bag would be set in place and the old bag eventually found its way to the Kennedy town incinerator.

 On one particular day I was chatting to the military duty officer across the table when in walked a very unhappy Special Branch officer. He said, “Which one of you -uckers down ‘ere smokes cigars”?

After three and a half years in the HKP as it then was, experience instantly tells you that trouble is afoot so feign complete innocence and deny anything about anybody to everybody.

 I asked what the problem was and it turned out that a cigar tin in a paper bag had found its way into the one and only Special Branch shredding machine and it was now completely -ucked! “-ucked is it”, said I. “Yes, utterly -ucked,” said he.

 I never let on, but I did let the rest of the ‘gang’ know, and after that incident we all lived happily every after.

 But that was not the end of the excitement. When an incident occurred one usually rang up the Duty Ops Wing officer and at that point he would decide whether it should go one rung higher. Well I had one of those cases and it kept going higher up the line. It was a Saturday and I knew that Deputy Commissioner Brian Slevin was in a particular Tsim Sha Tsui hotel bar. Yes, you can guess what happened next – “Inform the DCP.” “But Sir, Mr. Slevin is in such and such a place.”

 I knew what would happen and sure enough I got in first and said that “Assistant Commissioner X Y Z has directed me to contact you and pass on this message - blah, blah, and blah. Suddenly I could feel the hot breath of Slevin’s voice coming down the telephone line and he said, “Look, why are you telling me this”?

 The call eventually ended and I thought I would completely spoil the Assistant Commissioner’s weekend by ringing him back again and telling him what Slevin’s response had been.

 Well, we certainly did live happily thereafter from that point in time and not a whisper reached us about what was probably discussed at Monday morning prayers.

 Days later I returned my kit to stores, paid for everything damaged or lost, and then met Anne Calderwood for my farewell interview. What a lovely woman she was. She had time for people and offered me tea, and we talked about my three and a half years experience. I ended up giving her my warrant card and next day I was thinking of that familiar tune - ‘I’m leaving on a jet plane………………..