It turns out that Northamptonshire Police Station is nothing like Windermere Police Station.
Windermere Police Station is small and scruffy. There are a couple of cells and some offices with people’s coffee cups and sandwiches in the in-trays and posters up reminding you to wash your hands, with a few pictures of known local idiots.
Northamptonshire Police Station is like a cross between a stately home and a high-security Butlins. It is massive. There are new buildings and old ones, a parade ground and a lecture theatre, garages and watchtowers. I can hear whistles, interrupted by the occasional siren, as if an alarming netball match were in progress somewhere. There is car parking sufficient for everybody in Windermere to visit all at once, and police vans everywhere.
They were expecting Lucy, so we were allowed to come in through the massive steel security gate, even though we were in the camper van.
It is only the middle of the afternoon, but since we are waiting for her, I have got some time to spare. I am writing this in the very space described above. I am here, in the camper van, in the middle of a law-enforcement hotspot, feeling very visible indeed, like a rabbit who has accidentally barged into a leopard’s birthday party.
Every now and again groups of policemen and women walk past us and stare hard. This does not bother Mark, who has gone to sleep in the bed at the front, but I feel as though I have somehow donned an inverse Invisibility Cloak.
I suppose I should be used to it by now. The camper van does not exactly lend itself to stealthy travelling.
Lucy has gone in for her interview, white and grim faced. Her lips had practically disappeared from being bloodless and bitten. I walked with her to the reception door, and hugged her good luck, then the Police Station opened its doors and swallowed her, and she was gone.
After Mark finished her car last night we chugged down the road to our favourite lay-by, splendid because it has a little path leading off it on to acres of farmland where we can walk the dogs. As well as all the normal stuff, the farm has ducks, probably for shooting really, you can hear them quacking and splashing about for miles. Dozens of them live in a pond beside a fallen oak tree halfway along our walk. Roger Poopy rolled in some of their poo this morning before we could stop him, and is not allowed near anybody any more, especially Lucy, who was looking smart for her interview.
We collected her and then practised interview questions all the way to Northampton. Mark drove, and Lucy and I talked about the Core Competencies for the police force whilst she took copious notes. We examined their website minutely, and considered their declared Objectives. Lucy said they were rubbish objectives because they were neither measurable nor included a timescale, and Mark said that this was the safest policy with objectives.
LATER NOTE:
The picture is us on the way back. Mark took it, naughtily, whilst driving, but we had both talked and thought so hard that we were suddenly completely exhausted.
We don’t know how well she has done. She told us what they asked her, and what she said, and it all sounded very clever to me, but that does not mean that the police will think so. We know that they have got a scoring system, but to be honest it seems completely incomprehensible. I do not know why you might get a credit for describing conflict resolution amongst adolescent girls in a boarding house, perhaps the police get called out to this sort of thing sometimes and they are looking for expertise.
We did not go straight back to school. We stopped, and bought fish and chips for a farewell dinner. These turned out to be rather indigestibly greasy, and were served by people who were busy airing the sort of political opinions that make you question your belief in universal suffrage.
We ate the fish and chips anyway, because we were starving, and tomato sauce helped disguise the worst.
Even the dogs did not want the leftovers.
We are still in the camper van. We are waiting outside Oliver’s school now, to collect him in the morning.
I will let you know how she goes on.
