On the beat with Martin

The commendable sense of duty of those British Legion Police volunteers in 1938

Twice before in our magazine we have carried items on the British Legion Volunteer Police Force, and the subject crops up again in this issue. On this occasion our reason for returning to the BLVPF is that regular contributor Alan Cunnington has told us about a recent auction by Sparks Auctions (Canada), in which the archives of the late Conrad Charles Viner, a member of the British Legion force, were sold (see below).

It is possible that the British Legion Volunteer Police Force holds the record for being the shortest-lived police establishment the world has ever known. It was formed on October 6 1938 and disbanded on the 15th of the same month – barely time to get to know your colleagues, let alone qualify for a long-service medal!

As our article reminds us, the strictly civilian force was set up for a specific purpose at a time of massive importance in world history. That purpose was to oversee elections that were to be held in the Sudetenland, the hotly disputed strip between Germany and the then Czechoslovakia.

The 1200 men of the volunteer force embarked on two ships for the first part of their journey into central Europe on October 12, but they’d got no more than half-way across when the ships were ordered to return to England because the men’s services were no longer required. Thus ended their brief adventure, and then just three days later the order was given to disband the force.

“Just signed up with the British Legion Volunteer Police. Uniform’s a bit small though”

On the one hand this is an almost mundane episode in our history, but on the other it is a remarkable piece in the great jigsaw puzzle of British policing. The fact that 1200 men – none of whom would have been youngsters – so readily volunteered to carry out what would have been important duties in Europe, at a time when the war clouds were plainly gathering, says a great deal about their sense of duty.

But does the 10-day life of the BLVPF make it the shortest-lived police force ever? Well, it has to be a serious contender for that dubious honour, doesn’t it?

Yes, I know it was not a police force in the normal way, but nonetheless it was still officially a police force! And there have been all types of police forces in Britain, everything from the mighty Met, to Cathedral Police to College Police, but all have been imbued with the same sense of duty, honour and purpose.

And, with the commemorations of Armistice Day now just around the corner, for which the Royal British Legion proudly takes the lead, there couldn’t be a better time to remember possibly the briefest and almost certainly the least-known chapter in our policing history.

Every time we’re putting this magazine together I nominate, in my own mind, my favourite photograph. Usually I keep my thoughts to myself but on this occasion I’m going public!

The top picture for me this time is the 1954 (or thereabouts) image supplied by Ray Ricketts of an officer of the Northern Rhodesia Police offering a handshake to a civilian – who instead of putting his hand forward is looking down at the policeman’s hand in a rather strange manner! I’m sure there’s an explanation, lost in the mists of time, but it does strike me as funny.

Also grabbing my attention is the pristine Series I Land Rover. Firstly, I’m a Land Rover fan and secondly I’d love to know how it looks so spotless when most roads in Rhodesia (and neighbouring South Africa) at the time were loose surfaced and you couldn’t drive at more than 10mph without creating a dust storm that coated everything in the fine, reddish powder of that part of the world.

I spent a couple of wonderful years in the mid-1960s in South Africa’s Orange Free State and had occasion to visit Rhodesia many times. What a wonderful place it was, too, and very far from the ignorant, modern portrayal of being the preserve of the ruling white elite who kept the black population under their boots.

When the photo was taken there was Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia, essentially the same country but divided by the mighty Zambezi river, and then later it was simply Rhodesia. In 1964 the northern part became independent Zambia and, after a difficult period of self-proclaimed independence (from 1965), the south was turned into Zimbabwe in 1979 entering an ongoing period of being systematically destroyed by Mugabe and his Nazi-like thugs, who wrecked the economy, broke up all the once highly productive farms and created fierce racial tensions. The highly civilised and peaceful country that had once fed much of Africa became a begging-bowl state. Murder and other crime became among the worst in the world.

Yet, until these tragic changes, it was a remarkably peaceful place. So much so that the Rhodesian police usually patrolled unarmed – unheard of anywhere else in the African continent – and it is a fact that for the first sixty years of the twentieth century the BSAP, as they were known, held a proud record of not having taken a single life in the maintenance of law and order. How many police forces in the world could match that?

Anyway, I wonder if that Land Rover is still in use in Rhodesia (oops, sorry, I mean Zimbabwe)? It could well be, you know.

Martin 

From Police Review and Parade Gossip, August 7, 1893