Page 93 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

For a brief second, I stood
staring down at the sheet,
wondering what lay beneath
it. With more fearful stupidity
than courage, I bent down to
lift the sheet when suddenly a
body sat bolt upright from the
drawer and said, “Thank fuck
for that I thought you’d
bottled it!” After my shrieks of
panic calmed down and he
stopped his uncontrollable
laughing, the mortuary door
opened and the ‘van driver’ Figure 40 Dark humour helped cope with death
from earlier appeared. “I see
you’ve found the coroners officer then” he said joining in the hilarity. I said
something about me having “PRAT” tattoed on my forehead as I had fallen
for this blag hook line and sinker.

The cadaver a.k.a. Coroners Officer stepped out of the drawer and warned
me that my shift Sergeants had set me up once they’d heard this was a non-
suspicious death and that the coroner would undoubtedly determine was
due to natural causes (the old fella was 89 after all). In these times of political
correctness, I don’t think these antics would be encouraged, but this was
another humorous and harmless example of the ‘Gallows Humour’ release
from the stresses of everyday police-work.

I was the target for a fair bit of stick from the shift the next day. As I was
learning, no one was exempt from the ‘blag’ and how you reacted
determined how well you fitted into the family of the unit. Take it with good
grace and humour and somehow it built friendship and strengthened
essential trust. Whilst not so gullible where it mattered, out on the street, I was
often a soft touch for blags from colleagues, but in all sincerity, I wouldn’t
change a second of it. As I approach pensionable age myself, I look back
with fondness at the times when I was the ‘punchline’ and remind myself of
the quote “He who laughs at himself, never runs out of things to laugh at”.

May we never get so self-important that we fail to appreciate the humour in
ourselves.

Page93