London 1922

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England 1921 - A summer holiday at Staines

Germany 1921

London 1922

London 1923

London 1923, continued

London 1924

London 1924, continued

London 1922

One dark evening my Father asked me to put the car away in the garage, which was about a quarter of a mile away and when I came out of the house, which was in the street between Cavendish Square and Oxford Street, I saw a man examining the inside of the "dicky" of the car, as it was called then. He dropped what he was holding and ran over Oxford Street down Harewood Place towards Hanover Square. He was wearing plimsoles, but this was in my rugger days and I brought him down with a fine tackle. I hailed a passing taxi, opened the door, called "Marlborough Police Station" to the cabby and pushed him in by the scruff of his neck. Whereupon he opened the opposite door, jumped out and careered off round the square. I followed him through the cab, the cab itself went the other way round the square and we all three met up again on the sound side of the square. This time I pulled his coat half off his back, pinioning his arms and we set off on our 200 yard ride to Marlborough Street. By this time I was getting short of wind, but I managed a little chastisement on the way, hauled him up the steps and dropped him on the floor in front of the sergeant's desk. I was obliged to point out early in the proceedings that I had arrested him for attempted theft and that he had resisted arrest. He was charged, came up before the magistrate the next morning, reserved his defence for the sessions and, the police refusing bail, went inside for a fortnight. When the case came up, the taxi driver and I gave evidence and then his counsel put him in the box. I heard myself described as a great hulking lout, who had obviously been drinking and set about him, when all he had been doing was admiring the back of my father's nice new car and he had run for his life because he was afraid of what I would do to him. The detective in charge of the case whispered to me, "He's off the hook. Thank goodness we got him the fortnight and you handed him something of which he could do with a lot more." He was discharged by the jury and. as he passed the detective and me, he ceremoniously put his fingers to his nose. The detective showed me his record - aged 28, twelve times in prison. once for carrying a gun and once deported from Australia.

It was in that same car that I had another adventure a few weeks later. I was driving my father back from the city along High Holborn, which was quite deserted that Saturday afternoon, when we found we were following two cars, the one in front driven by anything but a gentleman, who was trying to get off with a very pretty girl driving the second with a little girl by her side - it turned out to be a niece. Whichever side of the road she went, he pulled his car over in front of hers and braked almost to a halt. My father and I both saw that the child was crying and terrified and he told me to do something. I passed them both, pulled across in true Z car fashion and he ended with his bonnet about six inches from the plate glass window of a furniture shop, Father got the policeman and this time there was no difficulty when the case came up. We were three grownup witnesses, without the crying child.

The extraordinary part of this affair was that the magistrate only heard my Father's evidence and before even he could be cross examined by defending counsel, he spoke these words in open court to the defending counsel, "In a case like this, I find that you have a certain duty towards your client and I shall suspend this court for ten minutes so you can carry out that duty, should you decide so to do." This did not sound very frightening but translated it meant, "Tell him to plead guilty at once or I'll throw the whole book at him."

Guilty he pleaded and got six months to think over the error of his ways. The case was heard in the morning and we all chatted with the detectives for a while. The girl in the case was a very pretty manicurist, who worked in Bond Street. Father had to go off to an appointment, but asked the detective whether there was some old statute on the books which compelled the two youngest witnesses to have lunch together. Apparently, there was and I am certain that that girl never saw Father slip me the note that made that delightful lunch possible.