Even the Lies are True Read online

  . . .

  Dedicated to my late father

  Frederick McMillan Morris

  and my loving mother

  Flora Lockie Morris

  . . .

  Contents

  . . .

  Title

  Dedication

  I’m Just a Man Like You

  Rambo

  Morris’s Safety Motto

  Guns in the Family

  Something’s Missing!

  The Canine Family

  He’ll Go Nuts!

  It’s Yours

  Cell Mates

  The Truth, the Whole Truth

  Window Cleaners

  The Mimic

  The Heilan’ Coo

  What’s in a Name?

  Short Cut

  Fishing for Jaws

  Speed Camera Excuses

  Peek-a-Boo!

  The Pacemaker

  Night Out, Now and Again

  Ye Cannae Park That There!

  All Bets Are Off!

  Friends Reunited

  Road Accident Excuses

  No Complaints

  Wee Polis

  BA with Honours

  Drugs Trial

  Budgie Airways

  The Adventures of Harry the Polis

  On the Buses!

  Canteen Patter

  German Knockers

  The Smell of Robbery

  Is That Right?

  Speeding Excuses

  That’s Entertainment

  Help the Aged

  Another Vacancy

  Don’t Call Me a Liar

  Ill Health Retiral

  Graffiti

  Paton’s Place

  TV Detectives

  The Glasgow Sheriff Court

  The Sheehy Report

  The Tasmanian Devil

  Legless in Auchterarder

  Football Crazy

  Face Like a Fish Supper … All Chips

  Pieces of Pizza

  Tulliallan Barbers

  You Said It!

  Housebreaking

  Reducing Crime

  Don’t Trust the Polis

  The Adventures of Harry the Polis

  No Chance

  How Did They Know?

  Toilet Graffiti

  Jacket In!

  Cruelty to Girlfriends

  The Carbolic Alcoholic

  I’m Sick, Sick, Sick up to Here!

  Michael Schumacher … Not!

  Vasectomy

  Moustache You a Question

  Pea and Ham from a Chicken

  The Snitch

  Taxi to Charing Cross

  Exam Results

  Police Proverb

  Kicking the Habit

  Cosmetic Surgery

  Talking Sex

  A Special Unit Burns Supper

  Karaoke? Not!

  The Adventures of Harry the Polis

  CSI Glasgow

  A Side Order of Vegetables

  Red Card for Pink Slip

  Ask Him Yourself

  Forgot Who You Were Today?

  Who’s Comforting Who?

  Road Accident Excuses

  In the Dark

  The Bar-L Strike

  Is that a Cannon I Hear?

  Trailer Bike

  Don’t Talk to Strangers

  Remind Me of Ramensky!

  Marmalade or Jam?

  Wood U Beleeve It?

  Road Accident Excuses

  More New Releases

  Mini a Bargain

  What’s Perjury?

  Control Room Story

  Road Accident Excuses

  Hello, Dolly

  Road Accident Excuses

  Lost for Words

  Road Accident Excuses

  DNA Not Required

  Crime Doesn’t Always Pay

  Who Was That?

  The Adventures of Harry the Polis

  Smoking Cough

  Barber’s

  The Job’s Fucked

  Now That’s Magic

  Canteen

  Bad Breath

  No Profit in Theft

  Who’s a Boot?

  Single White Male

  Toilet Paper

  Ladies and Gents, No Bother

  Straight from the Horse

  Kiss Me Quick

  The Battery Store

  I’ll Tell Him Tomorrow, Maybe!

  Road Accident Excuses

  A Secret Service

  Wanted

  Yuill and Dodds

  Cobblers

  New Release

  Speed Camera Excuse

  Everything is Free

  Three in a Bed

  Religious Exams

  Make Me Go Faster

  Football Detail

  Licensed to Bleed

  Roast Chicken and Chips

  Forensic Psychologist

  Credit Fraud

  Dr White at your Disposal

  Lucky Me

  The Adventures of Harry the Polis

  Sick Joke

  No Change

  Signing Session

  Disposing of Evidence

  The Ballad of Big Bad Alec

  No Hiding Place

  No Armchair Stampede

  A Clash of Personalities

  Hearing Things

  Don’t Blow a Fuse

  The Music of Life

  Funny Text from a Friend

  I Never Parked It Like That

  Ladies and Gentlemen – Ben Doon

  Grass is Grass

  Bombs Away

  Harry the Unknown Osmond

  Guess Who?

  To Hell with Tulliallan

  Anti-Abortion Demo

  What Are You Doing?

  The Court Jester

  Relief, for My Relief

  0 to 60 in Seconds

  The Demolition Man

  The Glasgow Olympics

  Parking Disability

  I’d Know Her Anywhere

  Learn to Drive

  The Adventures of Harry the Polis

  Post-it Thru the Window

  The Lord Provost of Russia

  Reality Television

  The Spark-le is Still There

  Surprise! Surprise!

  My Appreciation

  Copyright

  I’m Just a Man Like You

  . . .

  This is a poem which, to a lot of police officers in the service, including myself, epitomises what policing is all about. I know for a fact that many officers retain a copy of it with them at all times, in the back of their police-issue notebooks. Read on and see why!

  I’m Just a Man Like You

  I have been where you fear to be,

  I have seen what you fear to see,

  I have done what you fear to do.

  All these things, I have done for you.

  I am the man you lean upon,

  The man you cast your scorn upon,

  The man you bring your troubles to.

  All these men, I have been to you.

  The man you ask to stand apart,

  The man you feel should have no heart,

  The man you call the man in blue.

  But I’m just a man, just like you,

  And through the years, I’ve come to see

  That I’m not what you ask of me.

  So take these handcuffs and this baton.

  Will you take it? Will anyone?

  And when you watch a person die,

  And hear a battered baby cry,

  Then do you think that you can be

  All these things that you ask of me?

  Anon.

  Rambo

  . . .

  During my probationer period in the police, I
worked in the Oatlands area of Glasgow, which bordered on the infamous and notorious area known as the Gorbals!

  Whilst there, I worked with an older cop called Geordie Gunn, better known as ‘Geordie Bang! Bang!’ He was, to put it mildly, ‘completely aff his heid’! ‘Puggled’! A ‘total fruitcake’!

  Now this was the opinion of every officer on the shift, but, being fairly easy-going and able to get on with most people, I decided to make my own mind up about him.

  We had a few ups and downs during our working relationship, but nothing unduly worrying. That is, until our nightshift roster came around.

  Now during the nightshift, part of our duties consisted of checking the security of shops and factories in our ‘beat’.

  As a pairing, one would check the front of the property and the other would check the rear. What you are looking for is any break-in or an attempt to breach the security of the property.

  However, if there was a line of shop properties, then you would check the front and the rear yourself, doing each of the properties alternately.

  One particular nightshift, about four in the morning, this was the procedure we had adopted as we walked along checking a line of shops.

  I had gone to the rear of a property to check it and was coming back through the close to the front of the building.

  As I did, I thought I heard something, so I quietly made my way out to the front entrance and glanced out and saw Geordie, with his back tight against the building, peering into the entrance of the next close.

  I immediately assumed he had seen or heard something, so I remained where I was, kept quiet and took observations.

  Watching Geordie from my nearby position, he simulated taking a hand grenade from his breast pocket and pulling out the imaginary safety pin. He then appeared as though he was throwing it into the property’s close entrance.

  Using perfect sound effects, he made the noise ‘Boom!’ as if it had exploded and then, giving the impression he was holding a sub-machine gun, he jumped in front of the tenement close entrance and began making a shooting sound: ‘Bang-bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!’ Only he was more realistic, so it sounded like the real thing exploding and a machine gun being fired.

  From then on I viewed Geordie under a totally different light and was extremely careful about coming out of any property entrance suddenly, just in case I surprised ‘Geordie Bang! Bang!’ and he mistook me for the enemy!! And shot me with friendly fire!

  Morris’s Safety Motto

  . . .

  ‘Feel secure at night – sleep with a policeman!’

  Guns in the Family

  . . .

  One day a telephone call was received at the CID office from a male informant who wished to remain anonymous.

  The information said, ‘There are several guns in the house at …’ and the informant supplied the young detective with the address.

  The young detective, convinced that the call was genuine and keen to make a good impression, coupled with a discovery like this, arranged with other armed CID officers to attend the house address with a warrant, to make a search of the premises for the alleged firearms.

  As the CID officers made their final preparations prior to leaving the police station, David Turner, an elderly bespectacled uniformed officer, who was presently performing indoor duties as the CID office clerk, overheard the entire episode of events and entered the room with his gold-rimmed half glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and carrying a copy of the public Voters Roll log for the entire area under one arm.

  Opening it up at a page he had previously marked off, he handed it over to the eager young detective and said, ‘Aye, son, your informant was spot on, there are “Gunns” at that address … In fact, there’s an entire family of them!!’

  Something’s Missing!

  . . .

  While on police patrol at a busy shopping centre, I was walking about, speaking with some of the shoppers, when I saw a buxom young woman coming towards me with one of her breasts blatantly exposed and protruding from her blouse for all to see.

  I reacted immediately and took her to one side and asked her to explain this totally unsociable behaviour.

  The young woman stared at me for a moment, then a look of complete horror came over her face and with her eyebrows raised, she blurted out in all sincerity, ‘Shit! I’ve left my wean up in the canteen!’

  The Canine Family

  . . .

  On attending the report of vandalism to an elderly couple’s home, I was informed that a neighbour’s ten-year-old son had entered their private garden and pulled out some of their flowers.

  He then proceeded to scatter them about their lawn and pathways.

  I asked the couple if they had spoken with the parents of the boy regarding his malicious behaviour.

  The elderly woman replied, ‘No way, the father’s a boxer!’

  Quick as a flash, her husband retorted, ‘Aye and the mother’s a bit of a dog as well!!’

  He’ll Go Nuts!

  . . .

  During a refreshment period at work, one of the cops produced a bag of nuts from his food locker, which he added into his breakfast cereal.

  ‘What kind of nuts are they?’ I asked him.

  ‘Almonds!’ he replied. ‘The wife was given them as a present, from one of the old men she looks after.’

  Now, to let you understand, this particular police officer’s wife worked as a care assistant to the elderly and made regular visitations to their homes.

  With this in mind, I had an occasion to speak with his wife at a police function.

  During the conversation, I was speaking to her about the almonds and I suggested she talk the elderly man into buying walnuts and that she give them to me for a change.

  She appeared to blush slightly, before saying, ‘Do you know the full story behind the almonds?’

  Unaware of what she was talking about, I shook my head.

  She then confided in me (I love it!) and related the following story, which she made me swear I’d keep to myself!!

  Apparently, while she was visiting one of her elderly patients, he had asked her if she liked almond nuts. She stated she didn’t but her husband was very fond of them. At that, the elderly patient presented her with a glass jar, full to the brim with almonds, to give to her husband.

  Delighted by the old man’s kind gesture, the cop had tucked into them, munching them while watching TV, eating them in his breakfast cereal, adding them to his Indian curry; in fact, just about anything you could add nuts too, he added them.

  The following week, on returning to the elderly patient on her routine visit, she handed him a large Galaxy chocolate bar as a thank you for the jar of almonds.

  The old man thanked her kindly and, producing a full jar of sugar almonds, he said, ‘I’ll give you this jar as well, once I’ve sooked all the sugar icing off them!!’

  Yuck!!

  It’s Yours

  . . .

  One day whilst working away in the front of the police station, the door opened and in came little twin girls, with hair in pigtails and carrying a small puppy dog.

  ‘Hello there!’ I said. ‘And whose wee dog is this, then?’ Both girls answered in unison, ‘It’s weers!’

  ‘We don’t say it’s “weers”, we say it’s “ours”,’ I replied.

  ‘But it isn’t yours,’ responded both girls. ‘It’s weers!’

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ I said, pausing for a moment before continuing, ‘but if you both own something, then what we would say is, “It’s ours.” ’

  Both girls looked at me rather unconvinced, but said, ‘OK, then!’

  ‘Right now, let’s start again. Whose is the wee dog?’ I asked again.

  Both girls looked at each other for a moment, then replied in harmony, ‘It’s yours!’

  Cell Mates

  . . .

  Whilst working for a short time with the Courts Staff Branch, I was detailed, along with an elderly police colleagu
e, to form part of the police escort on the prison bus as it made its way around the various courts, uplifting the convicted prisoners bound for Her Majesty’s Prison Barlinnie, or ‘Bar-L’ as it is known.

  While we were performing this duty, an arrogant male prisoner, who had just received a very long custodial sentence, was trying to give the impression that he was a hard man to the other prisoners on the bus.

  This he did by mouthing off at my colleague and me in a derogatory fashion, using foul and abusive language.

  This received a minimal response of laughter from the other jail-bound passengers, most of whom were deep in thought.

  At this point my elderly colleague, who was the butt of most of his remarks, leaned over him and said, in a very calm and assured voice, ‘You have a good laugh while you can, son, because see tonight when I’m sharing my comfortable warm double bed with my lovely wife, Mary, you unfortunately, my son, will be sharing your hard single bunk bed with a nineteen-stone, tattooed, homosexual skinhead called Shuggie!’

  Along with the rest of the jail-bound passengers, he had to laugh, but it was such an obviously nervous laugh, that I almost felt sorry for him!!!! NOT!

  The Truth, the Whole Truth

  . . .

  A young, newly appointed police officer was cited to attend court for his first time in order to give evidence for the prosecution in a trial involving a breach of the peace.

  During his evidence, the young officer stated that the accused had been bawling, shouting, cursing and swearing in a public place.

  The procurator fiscal asked the young officer to tell the court what they had actually shouted during the disturbance.

  The young cop replied, ‘They were shouting that the police were a bunch of “effen bees”, sir!’

  ‘Yes, Constable, I appreciate what you are saying and realise that you are trying to spare our blushes, but I need you to tell the court the exact words they used,’ explained the fiscal.

  ‘They swore at us, sir!’ said the young naive cop.

  ‘Yes, we know that, Constable, but what I want you to tell the court today is the actual words the accused used toward you when they swore,’ explained the procurator fiscal, who was by now becoming exasperated by the inexperience of his young police witness.