TAKING CHARGE -

“The duty sergeant told me to go to the intersections of Barrack Street and Riverside Drive, where I would see a pointsman controlling traffic. I was supposed to watch for a while and then go over and ask him to show me the ropes.

Just as I arrived, he spotted me and beckoned me to go over. He said, ‘Come ter take over have yer?’ I said, ‘Well sort of….’.

But before I had a chance to say any more, he said, ‘Good oh, see yer’ and he was gone.

So there I was on one of the busiest intersections in the city, in the middle of peak hour traffic, without a bloody clue in my head as to what I was doing .I remembered what they told us at the academy, ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, you’re in charge and the traffic must obey you.’

Well, I put my whistle in my mouth and held up my arms to indicate that I was about to give a signal. Then I blew on the whistle but nothing happened. I stuck the bloody thing too far in to my mouth and my lip was blocking the hole. A bloke put his head out of a car window and said, ‘Just got it fer yer birthday did yer sonny?’

Well at least he had given me an idea where to start. I got the whistle working and signalled the other line of traffic to move off first. Bad luck for the others behind him but that clever bugger could wait until I was good and ready.”

From: Gold Fever and Other Diseases by Peter Blyth

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