"Why Tango in Paris, when you can Foxtrot in Kowloon?"
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    • Family Guy Star Wars
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  • Walter's Blog.
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • About Walter
    • 1980 Joining Up - Grafton Street >
      • Arrival and First Impressions
      • First Week
      • Training
      • Passing Out
    • Yaumati Cowboy >
      • Getting on the Streets
      • Tempo of the City
      • Jumpers, pill poppers and the indoor BBQ
      • Into a Minefield.
    • Why Tango in Paris, when you can Foxtrot in Kowloon? >
      • Baptism By Fire
      • Kai Tak with Mrs Thatcher.
      • Home; The Boy Returns
  • 1984 - 1986
    • PTU Instructor & Getting Hitched
    • Having a go: SDU
    • Starting a Chernobyl family
    • EOD - Don't touch anything
    • Semen Stains and the rules
  • 1987 to 1992 - Should I Stay or Go?
    • Blue Lights, Sirens & Grenades
    • Drugs, Broken Kids & A Plane Crash
    • 600 Happy Meals Please!
    • Hong Kong's Best Insurance
  • Crime in Hong Kong
    • Falling Crime Rates - Why?
    • Triads
  • History of Hong Kong Policing
    • History 1841 to 1941
    • History 1945 to 1967
    • Anatomy of the 50 cent Riot - 1966
    • The Fall of a Commissioner.
    • History 1967 to 1980
    • Three Wise Men from the West
    • The Blue Berets.
    • The African Korps and other tribes.
    • Getting About - Transport.
    • A Pub in every station
    • Bullshit Bingo & Meetings
  • Top 20 Films
    • 2001 - A Space Odyssey.
    • The Godfather.
    • Blade Runner
    • Kes
    • Star Wars
    • Aliens
    • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    • The Life of Brian
    • Dr Strangelove.
    • Infernal Affairs
    • Bridge on the River Kwai.
    • This Is Spinal Tap.
    • Chung King Express
    • An Officer and a Gentleman
    • PTU
    • Contact
    • Saving Private Ryan
    • Family Guy Star Wars
    • Zulu
    • Hard Day's Night
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Walter De Havilland

Some history, a few opinions, the odd rant and other noises from one of the last of the colonial coppers.

The moment compressed time and distance. A moment in time that baffled me. The absurdity. The sudden interruption of events, with flashes of memory. A different place, a different time, a different world. 

There was pandemonium around me. I was holding a bandage on the chest wound of a stabbing victim. His rasping breath was failing through a mouth spotted with spittle and frothy blood.

The usual gawking Hong Kong crowd pressed in around me. Sweat was trickling off my forehead, with the oppressive heat of a July evening.  

​A constable arrived beside me with a first aid kit. I reached for another bandage, as I ripped the package open, holding the first in place with my elbow.


As the wrapping fell away, I caught sight of the words ‘Smith and Nephews’. In an instant, I was back home in the UK, riding to work on my bike as the night shift girls huddled together at the factory gate. The chill of the morning air. In a sudden displaced, the world around me was so alien, disconnected. I was out of place.

​Then, I was back in Hong Kong. All business-like. Handing the dying man into the care of an ambulance crew, pushing back the crowds. Then clearing the road and securing the scene for the nicotine-stained CID officers. 
This is the life.

​Another call comes in … “Robbery in progress.”   So its blue lights and sirens down Nathan Road. Lighting up the faces of startled onlookers as we barrel our way through the heavy traffic. Jesus Christ … this is fun! I’d pay them to let me do this job.
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