An Inspector Calls -
Chief Inspector Barnaby aka John Nettles
Life as an Estate Agent or Undertaker is likely never to be dull in the fictional county of Midsummer!
You can just imagine the Estate Agent's blurb, 'Lovely cottage in the delightful village of Midsummer Whatever, unexpectedly available....' etc.
Well, there's a multiple choice too draw on the cause of the unexpected availability, the series seems to have come up with ever more complex and intertwined methods of promulgating human demise than you ever thought possible!
"It's another one Sir...Sgt Troy announces, "Oh great, thank you Troy."
The Midsummer Murders series are great viewing, two hour diversions from daily life, often with very complex storylines and well written by the people who have adapted the original stories. I would say that despite their having no experience of doing the 'job' of police work, they do seem to get it right, but I guess they have ex-job script advisors working with them.
John Nettles in a previous role as Sgt Jim Bergerac of the Jersey States Police
The series benefits from a plethora of good character actors, John Nettles as the lead character for one. His previous big television role was as Sgt Jim Bergerac of the Jersey States Police, fighting crime on the English principality and tax haven island of Jersey, off the French coast.
Again, with this series which ran for 9 series, the writing was top quality and reinforced by a core cast of quality actors and into which a number of actors came to that would sometimes go onto appear in Midsummer Murders, including Elisabeth Spriggs and actors who would later become more famous in the future, such as Louise Lombard in the House of Eliot.
I liked Jim Bergerac's apparently maverick style of policing, one factor that steered me into that career area perhaps? Coincidentally, my father photographed some locations in Jersey when he was with the BBC for the Bergerac series.
But back to Midsummer County, a perpetually summery procession of cricket green, oldy worldy cottages, gossipy neighbours and dark deeds.
Now living in the country, I see small village life with its intrigues and it is easy to see how you can extend out those paths to include the odd murder or two. In my crime writing work, I am no stranger to building characters and setting them in motion.
In my recent work 'A Change of Spots,' I do include a few old reminisces of my days in the job, but obviously nothing that is subject to the old OS act I had to sign. There were loads of funny stories I came across in my service and some made it into print. Some I adapted and added to, but mostly the storylines in the book evolved from my own planning and inspiration. Any publishers reading want to take it on?
One story from my job service that comes to mind is quite sad, but does connect in a way to an occurrence further down the page. I remember being recalled back to the Station as the duty Inspector was getting a search party together to look for a lady with dementia who had reportedly gone missing from a local nursing home.
As soon as he said that, a thought flashed into my mind, 'she's in the river.' I did not get a good feeling of the outcome, quite the reverse, I already knew she was dead. I just got the bad feeling.
We had the staff ready to go out on the search and the home contacted us a short while later and said she had been found, but unfortunately not alive, in the river. So we were stood down and it was down to the Coroner to investigate from then on. But strange don't you think? Not the first message I had in the job that turned out to be true.
Chief Inspector Barnaby's Midsummer stage prop Warrant Card you can buy on EBay.
Obviously different from a real one and the one in the picture above.
Thankfully murder is a rare occurrence, but it seems a staple of much crime fiction both in print and on screen.
I did help solve a murder case once, it was back in the day when I was in the job and I came across a person who I immediately felt was a 'wrong 'un,' despite him being in a supposed 'above board' job on a security industry contract for a hotel.
He gave me the creeps, I don't know why, but I can usually smell them a mile off. They don't just add up for some reason I feel.
I happened to talk to this chap and he gave me a creepy feeling, did not make eye contact and I just got a very bad feeling about him. Anyway, being the type I was, I covertly noted the registration number of his van down in my pocket book in the alleyway I conveniently ducked into out of his sight and went on my patrol.
I did see this character around a few times at the location in the week, but didn't speak to him, I think I mentioned him to some colleagues back at the Police Station, but it was just general advice, nothing specific, new face in the ville, that sort of thing.
Anyway, a short time later, the person was gone from our turf and nothing more about it was mentioned. Well, there was nothing was there? Except my gut feeling. I came across plenty of people I thought were dodgy in my years in the job, but they generally don't amount to much that comes to notice.
It was a few weeks later that I learned of a fresh murder enquiry just off our force area, the victim was an 18 year old girl from just on the edge of our side of the force turf who had been found by a dog walker.
She had apparently been chatted up at a nightclub and gone off with a man, friends had seen her leave with him, towards home, she never got there. It looked like he was expecting something in return for the lift and her rebuttal cost her life.
The Chief Superintendent of the area CID was conducting the investigation and information came up that seemed to ring alarm bells in my mind so I looked out my recent pocket book.
I got in touch with the Chief Superintendent and told him of my impressions of the man I had seen and passed on to him his description and the registration number of the van he had used in our area, plus my impressions of him being 'edgy'. The enquiries were done and an arrest promptly made.
The person I identified was arrested for the murder. Now he had been quite clever, but not clever enough. After he had left our area, he went back to his depot about sixty miles away and asked a mate of his he worked with to swap vans with him, who worked on a different area
Clever, but not clever enough, the local scenes of crime officer who processed his van found a hair from the victim in chummy's van and that was his lot. For about the next twenty years hopefully. He deserved to be on the end of a length of rope for that.
I did not claim any kudos from the result, it wasn't the right thing to do. The result of the conviction was enough, except it would have been better if it had not had to happen at all and she was still alive.
It was a hollow victory of sorts, yes the bastard had been nicked for it, but my thoughts were what about the girl and the life she could have had? What about her parents?
What really prompted me to record his van registration number? Had I not made my note and had I not had a gut feeling, he might have gotten away with it. Life is full of strange coincidences and connections, it seems.
A spot of Film Extra work, a bit like the old days
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