Just pants

THE claim by Tory leadership contender Boris Johnson that he would put thousands of extra police on the streets if elected reminds us of previous police stories in the Diary, including the reader who told us of a neighbour being stopped by traffic police who asked if she knew why she had been pulled over. When she said no, he gave her the clue: "What are you wearing now that you were not a little while ago?" She got embarrassed and blurted out: "Ma knickers" before the officer patiently explained: "Seatbelt."

Kick starter

A READER once claimed that his work colleague was stopped late at night by officers who made a quick investigation of his car and told him his rear lights were out. Knowing that had happened before, the driver got out, kicked the rear light nearest to him and they came back on. The unfazed officer merely told him: "That's fine, sir. Now if you kick the windscreen will your road tax come up to date?"

Up for a scrap

A RETIRED officer told us of directing traffic in Port Glasgow as the yards came out. Suddenly one chap tripped and fell, and lay there like a stricken insect, hands and legs flaying, as he tried in vain to get to his feet. Our reader stopped his traffic duties and went over to help him up – only to discover that underneath his coat he was cocooned in yards of welding cable around his body that he had been nicking for scrap.

Another retired officer said that raw recruits in Greenock were often told to take out a Panda and drive over all the cats' eyes on a lengthy rural road in order to clean them. The thought of the recruits bumping over the road for miles amused the veteran officers.

Walk this way

IT'S Orange Walk season, and a police officer once told us that one divisional commander, who was addressing the troops before they escorted an Orange Walk through the streets of Glasgow, told them that any officer marching in time to the band would have to answer to him. "I have to say," the officer told us, "it was really quite difficult not to."

Blanket ban

WE heard about a retired police officer attending a funeral in Holytown, Lanarkshire, who was asked by a local for a lift from the church to the cemetery. He agreed, but as the chap jumped in, the ex-cop was heard to remark: "Danny, I'm just thinking. This is the first time I've put you in the back of a car without a blanket over your heid."

A bit cross

HARRY Morris, who writes the Harry the Polis books, told of the young girl employed in CID to file case reports who perhaps wasn't the sharpest. This was brought home the day that she filed the theft of a Silver Cross pram under the heading "Jewellery".

It's murder

AND retired officer Alan Barlow in Paisley once explained: "On Friday and Saturdays nights in Greenock we used to take a police van round to pick up people for various minor transgressions. The trouble was that by the time we got a van full of prisoners back to the office we had forgotten what some of them had done. This was rectified by asking which one was in for attempted murder. Those who replied in the negative had obviously committed a breach of the peace and those who either replied in the affirmative or not at all were drunk and incapable."

Very Chic

ALWAYS room for a Chic Murray gag, and he once said he was knocked off his feet trying to cross a busy Argyle Street, and a passing police officer who came to help him up told the shaken Chic: "There's a zebra crossing just up the road." "Well, I hope he's having better luck than me," Chic replied.