The long arm of the law

13th January 2026

I reckon I’ve had four careers. The first was brief – 18 months as a ‘Saturday boy’ in the record department at WHSmith when I was at school. I earned £9.10 per day and my main aim each time was to get the boss to let me play one Black Sabbath or Judas Priest song on the turntable late in the afternoon. My second career was by royal appointment – washing dishes at Buckingham Palace during the garden party season in 1985 when I was a student. Main aim – reduce the mountain of dirty dishes to be washed by ‘accidentally’ breaking a few (imagine clay pigeon shooting with saucers as clays and cups as bullets and you get the picture) – treason! Obviously this didn’t last long either – just one halcyon summer. Skipping to my current – fourth – career as garden labourer and general dogsbody at Pollards Mill, the main aim here is not falling asleep before 9pm each night – we’re keeping active all right.

I can’t say how long this latest career choice will last, but it’s a fair guess that it won’t get very near the 38 years I spent in the law, beginning with my degree studies in 1983 and ending with the pop of a bottle of Bollinger in 2021. Main aim? Staying sane. Nah, it was an amazing life experience, and I’m privileged and very grateful to have had the opportunity, and hopefully made a decent fist of it.

Well – if I thought I’d escaped the clutches of the legal system nearly five years ago, I was mistaken. The long arm of the law sought me out once more on New Year’s Eve, when I bagged a parking ticket on the south coast. “I didn’t see the sign, officer!” No luck with that one, so today we headed into Bridgetown to pay the fine in person at District A Magistrates’ Court. This turned out to be a venerable building:

Note the police vehicle – I thought it wise not to pap the officers toting automatic weapons who politely but firmly asked us to wait to one side for a moment. Clearly there was a very bad man in the vicinity 😧

We’d never been to this part of Bridgetown before. It features several historic buildings connected with my former profession, and it was very good to see them recognised and cared for:

Obviously there was a less enjoyable aspect to our visit to follow, but we dutifully coughed up:

Quick, efficient and almost painless. A little different to my very first visit to a Magistrates’ Court – in Fishguard, west Wales, in September 1986, when I found myself in a rather tighter spot than having to settle a simple parking ticket. But that’s another story… 😉