Interview with Stephen Flinn (b.1949) about employment and a career in the policeforce.

Stephen Flinn remembers the smell from brickworks in Newton Road, which made him wheezy. He never smoked, because it was too expensive. Discos were held at pubs like the Crown or the North Western, but he never drank, although ‘there was a lot of drink about’. He remembers a few scraps between people but little real violence.

Leaving school at 16, he first worked for Frames Travel, but this clashed with Saturday football so he took a clerical job at G.W. Every, but then joined the police cadets, which was a full-time job at that time. He found it very interesting; also it included a lot of sport. He was expected to behave well as a police cadet; this could cause difficulty about associating with some of his old friends, or being a Mod. He talks about various PCs, Sergeants and Inspectors he encountered.

When police forces were amalgamated in 1967 cadets were not guaranteed a place. Mr Flinn left the police at this point, but his office job bored him, so he applied for Beds and Luton police, joining in late 1969. He talks of housing difficulties at hat time for second-generation Londoners. He married, and they moved to a police house in Luton, but in 1971 he requested a transfer to Thames Valley Police and a post in Milton Keynes. He was told ‘You’re mad!’ – Milton Keynes was at that time seen as the ‘punishment area’ for Thames Valley. He was posted to Wolverton; this was quieter for crime than Bletchley (which was regarded as the busiest area, because it was bigger). He is now an Inspector in Bletchley and regards himself as ‘a Bletchley boy’ (he mentions the Bletchley accent). In his opinion Bletchley was a good place to grow up, with freedom and plenty of places to go.