The British Policeman [1959]

Following a ‘typical’ day in the life of Police Constable Jack Edwards, the film shows his ‘typical’ duties over an eight-hour shift. The film portrayal of PC Edwards as a guardian of law and order in 1950s Britain, understandably looks dated, when compared to today’s modern Police Service.
Most public information films were made for domestic consumption, publicising initiatives or campaigns; but not all were. This portrait of a British Policeman was commissioned by the Colonial Office to promote Britain’s Police Service to the colonies and Commonwealth states.
Released in 1959, this film upholds one of the Central Office of Information’s (COI) founding principles and the reason for its commitment to producing Public Information Films. In December 1945 the incumbent Prime Minister Clement Attlee stated it was important “a true and adequate picture of British institutions and the British way of life should be presented overseas” through such films.
The anonymous British city appears to be Leicester.

[@mobileentertainment575]

'By his mere presence he will deter many wrongdoers'... Pity the police have forgotten that. If I see a policeman on the beat I will ask for his/her autograph.

[@itsweb1584]

You say that like it’s the police officers fault

[@BlatentlyFakeName]

The police were more effective back then because they were pro-active and there was a lot more of them on the streets. Would you see police checking buildings were secure now? Would you ****, they don't care even if someone does break in, they just tell you to phone your insurer.

[@hanndonfield91]

Because back then the police didn't have to tolerate as much bullshit

[@Aperturespacecore-3A]

@@hanndonfield91yep

[@Jack-sd3hh]

See loads on foot in my area. We have a named beat officer

[@daimontilley9860]

I had the pleasure and honour of being the Inspector in charge of that police station between 2000-2003. It was a bit different then, and sadly the station was closed in 2003.

[@brianf3791]

Old saying “the public get the police force they deserve” 🤔

[@wetleyrocks3092]

At any moment, I was expecting to see Wallace & Gromit come flying around the corner in an Austin A30 van

[@kaithescreaminglemon8768]

Ahhhh the good old days (I’m feeling nostalgic for a generation I weren’t even born in😂😂😂)

[@harbourcycles7756]

A different world

[@AFaceintheCrowd01]

A better world in many ways.

[@MrTrevor181]

Complete contrast in british policing compared to now.

[@robertsmith-qb2ke]

Interesting film - might be worth adding 'Leicester' to the title, as of definite local interest. In fact my late partner came from the city, although we only visited it once together around ten years ago.

[@Zippsterman]

7:13 That stern look is something I gotta work on before I have kids

[@kaibroeking9968]

10:09 Wow: They found a way to have the 2009 Queen participate in a 1959 film. Time travel does work.

[@barbaraannecortina7899]

I thought that this film was set in Southampton...until I saw a BMMO S14 saloon (that's one of Midland Red's own buses to those not into buses) by the bus station, not to mention the municipal buses when I realised it was Leicester. Why they didn't mention Leicester as the city in question is beyond me; after all, this was fourteen years after the end of the war!

[@robnewman6101]

Law & Order of the Century.

[@barnabyhoofer8044]

His presence deters the wrong uns because he is tall and well built, and carries himself with an air of authority. Complete contrast with some of the oompa loompas and tramps in the force, I mean in the service today.

[@itsweb1584]

You think there weren’t fat slobby cops back then? 😂😂😂 You’ve got your rose tinted glasses on mate.

[@JD-eq4dp]

Perhaps you should join up and show them where they've been getting wrong all these years....

[@iwanttosleep5053]

"it's their duty to protect and befriend all" "he is taught that the policemen are the servants and not the master of the public" if only more cops today were like that.. Pity

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

Police in a capitalist economy are the servants of the ruling class in its war against the working class.

[@JD-eq4dp]

And how would you know that isn't the case !

[@robnewman6101]

Robert Peel (1788-1850) was the Founder of the first new Metropolitan Police Force at Scotland Yard in 1829.

[@andrewsimm633]

And the Special constables have been round since 1673. But modern day Special constables since 1831

[@robnewman6101]

Wow! Really?!

[@robnewman6101]

1673?!

[@andrewsimm633]

@@robnewman6101 yeah under Charles 2nd who ruled in that citizens of England can be sworn in to be Constables due to the rise in public disorder. Little know history fact from my current training.

[@andrewsimm633]

@@robnewman6101 yeah 1673 Charles 2nd who ruled that citizens can be temporarily sworn in as Constables due to the rise in public disorder. Weren't like today's to as we have access to Pava, Handcuff, baton and after training Tasers.

[@johnathandaviddunster38]

IT FELL OF THE BACK OFF A LORRY OFFICER HONEST!!!

[@aflaz171]

Picked up the owner of the store because his door was unlocked. Brought a dog along to sniff out intruders. No doubt, drove the owner home. Now that's a police force!

[@jkkay477]

They also knocked over a stack of shoe boxes lol

[@shepshep1868]

Such different times, if they attempted to make a documenty like this again it will be filed with hated and ridicule It saddens me.

[@OzonesElbows]

It would be something similar to ‘the policeman starts his early shift with a coffee, where he logs on to the computer to continue filling out the paperwork on one of the 15 investigations he’s got ongoing. Comparatively the policeman’s pay hasn’t changed much in 40 years but they have lost police housing, dental, respect and moral’

[@davids8449]

Nice film and enjoyable......... cannot help thinking the very start of the film was also the very start of P. R but there again I am old enough to remember all this .....The young of today are like dry sponges waiting for their first dose of water

[@Mike-om6kh]

7:55 as a millennial it surprises me that the police were expected to help everyone. I remember being told in my Citizenship classes that you should only ask police for help if you need help with crime, not for general help, otherwise you’re being selfish taking their time up!

[@petercdowney]

As an autistic man, I have a lot of respect for the police. I didn't exist during the 1950s, but I have only ever had good experiences with the police. Policing isn't just about catching criminals and maintaining order - much of what the police do is ensuring the welfare of vulnerable people, as well as providing assistance to those who are lost. I think it's important for autistic people to be able to trust the police, because autistic people are more likely to be victims of crime than they are to be offenders.

[@michaelisaacson9735]

Oh, how ADORABLE! "Ditch it, Jimmy, they're on to us! That's a copper! He's at least six feet tall and if we don't submit to his demands he might blow a whistle or brandish a truncheon in our general direction!" No wonder Python got so much mileage out of them.

[@78Showboat]

My old beat, Leicester city centre

[@michaelgiovanelli3417]

Lovely film but it’s ok going downhill but could you imagine coming home after an eight hour or 12 hour in the pouring rain and having a bad day,god I’d be knackered ! I was in the specials in London’s in 1970,the whistle and stick parade brought back memories. Truncheons weren’t used much,boots,fists and the police rain cape solved most problems, No cctv so what the policeman did was hidden ! I’ve seen an eighteen your old being drunk and very abusive to a grizzled old sergeant, that boy fifty years later must still be regretting it !

[@benji.B-side]

All leisure leaving for work going down that very long, steep hill. At the end of his shift, he has to pedal back up it. 😅

[@jkkay477]

At 10pm!

[@northlincsfox243]

‘Senior’ officer or supervisory, not ‘superior’.

[@WAC-qh6mk]

Wonderful to watch apart from Leicester clock tower never chimes still fun tho

[@petercdowney]

"The driver, having given his particulars to the policeman, is told that in the future, he must take greater care in tying down the boxes which he carries on his lorry." Indeed, it is a legal requirement to secure any load.

[@chopchung]

LEICESTER CITY policemen, judging from the Helmet badges.

[@petercdowney]

"If a policeman draws his truncheon, he must later report this action to his superior officer." This remains the case today. Police officers are required to complete a use of force report any time they use force. This includes: - Drawing or using a baton - Use of PAVA spray - Any use of handcuffs (whether compliant or non-compliant), even when making an arrest - Drawing, "red-dotting" or discharging a Taser - Aiming or discharging a police firearm A good day for a police officer is when they don't have to use force.

[@robnewman6101]

On KZbin is a 90 minute documentary film called History of the British Police Force. Told by Brain Cox.

[@adamscott3304]

this is the difference between community policing and broken windows police, with a nice mix of austerity, a well funded police force who walk their communities streets and interact with everyone in a friendly manner is a police force who gains respect and not hate, if only we could all go back to when people had a real community and actually help each other. even back then the best solution to crime was getting people jobs or training people through military service.

[@michaelgiovanelli3417]

When the policeman leaves his home he travels to work on a heavy pedal cycle all down hill what would it have been like to travel on the same contratption after an eight or twelve hour shift !

[@robnewman6101]

Keeping Law & Order.

[@4kingace379]

When Cops were respected and liked.

[@jkkay477]

14:35 Public notice: Beware of the hydrogen bomb

[@andywjackson1135]

🤸🚴my days when I was a kid 🧎

[@yssunjoko]

It's an utopia that policemen work in this way. In my home town policemen may also be drug traffickers.

[@robnewman6101]

19th, 20th & 21st Centuries Emergency Services.

[@finnmanproductions9240]

The ’golden’ years of policing?

[@robnewman6101]

19th, 20th & 21st Centuries Police.

[@John-Yakuza261]

and actually kept the peace and caught criminals

[@robnewman6101]

Yes. Thank you.

[@joebiden213]

bob

[@hughbathurst1761]

Keystone cops

[@timpriddy349]

Z cars

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

David Oluwale drowned in the River Aire in Leeds in 1969. His killing was the first black death by cops in Britain-and shows that police racism, violence and cover-up are a very British problem. Police had written “Wog” on the nationality section of one of his charge sheets. Two police officers from Leeds City Police had hounded David, a Nigerian migrant, for two years. Sergeant Kenneth Kitching and Inspector Geoffrey Ellerker forced David to bow in front of them, kicked his arms away, and smashed his head against the pavement. During one beating, they pissed on him. On 17 April 1969, the cops beat David with truncheons and ran him out of town towards the river where his body was found. Eighteen months after David’s death, rumours about it reported by a police cadet triggered an investigation. It showed how other officers knew of and colluded in Kitching and Ellerker’s ­campaign of terror. The investigation led to criminal convictions. But during the trial the judge referred to David as a “dirty, filthy, violent vagrant”. Through his direction, charges of manslaughter and grievous bodily harm against Kitching and Ellerker were dropped. They were given 27 months and three months for the lesser offence of aggravated bodily harm. And, despite the whitewash, they are the only criminal convictions of cops in a police-related death since records began in 1970. The police would go on to murder 75 black and Asian people in the 1970s and 1980s. And between 1990 and 2019, 183 black and minority ethnic people have died in police custody or after otherwise coming into contract with the cops. socialistworker.co.uk/features/britain-s-not-innocent-a-history-of-racist-cops/

[@marine4lyfe85]

And now the criminal migrants run your country.

[@JD-eq4dp]

Boring boring borrrrr ing Change the tune for crying out loud

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

@@JD-eq4dp Boring that the police have always been targeting the working class and Black people for violence and unnecessary arrests? Strange set of priorities you have.

[@goodbadugly654]

Socialist Worker (oxymoron)

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

@@goodbadugly654 It is always revealing that anti-socialist, far right commenters rarely if ever provide arguments or counter-arguments, just personal abuse that makes them feel superior. If you have something worth debating, let's see it.

[@TezzaSonoftherich]

Police constable Jack Edwards House (1m:20) Today: 52.6676002,-1.1418173

[@stephenwain7928]

N.oh.yeh.the.cars.we.pay.for😂