This was an unusual visit to Richmond and the Orange Tree Theatre in many ways.
For a start, unusually, it was on a Friday. Following one or two “close shaves” after work on Friday evenings, Janie and I normally eschewed places like Richmond for theatre on a Friday.
But this was an interesting looking play on a short run, we had already arranged a theatre visit for the Saturday, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to take the afternoon off, visit mum at Nightingale that Friday afternoon and drive on to Richmond. Janie arranged to go to Richmond by cab and kindly volunteered to drive back to the house after dinner.
It was just before the start of the 2012 London Olympics and I recall that there were lots of “cops out and running about” in London at that time. I had a police escort almost all the way from Clapham to Richmond station – I was pretty sure that cop car had decided to follow me personally when it followed me, after the south circular, along my idiosyncratic route into Richmond.
I even recall mentioning the following to Janie when she got to the Orange Tree. We decided that the whole force was on visibility alert for the Olympics with not too much real policing to do.
Here is a link to the Orange Tree resource on Mottled Lines.
Mottled Lines was about the 2011 riots – basically a piece sympathetic to the rioters as well as to those caught up in them inadvertently.
We both rather liked the play – an interesting piece by a young West London lad. I think it was the comparison with this piece that made us somewhat luke warm to the subsequent, far more ambitious verbatim piece, Little Revolution by Alecky Blythe at the Almeida on the same subject:
Little Revolution by Alecky Blythe, Almeida Theatre, 30 August 2014
Mottled Lines didn’t get much press, but what it got was positive and a link to what there is can be found by clicking here. We’re certainly keen to see more from that young writer Archie W Maddocks.
Janie and I had dinner at Don Fernandos, then went and retrieved Nobby from the Richmond Station car park.
Janie hadn’t driven Nobby for a while, so started out a bit slowly/cautiously, sensibly reacquainting herself with the feel of that car.
Very soon after we set off I realised that we were being followed by police again – a different car/pairing of officers. This police car pulled Janie over on the north side of Kew Bridge.
“Why have you stopped me?” asked Janie, wondering what she might have done wrong.
“You were driving suspiciously slowly and cautiously”, said the male officer.
“I don’t drive this car all that often,” said Janie, “so naturally I was being cautious at first…I am insured to drive this car”, said Janie.
“We know that, Miss…Wormlington?” said the female officer.
Janie was then questioned as to where we were coming from and going to, then the male officer asked her if she had been drinking.
“I had one small glass of wine with my food”, said Janie, which was absolutely true.
The policeman then breathalysed Janie, pursuing a line of statements and half-questions which indicated, to me, that he was pretty much “expecting” to see a positive test.
While we were waiting, Janie tried to break the ice with the two of them by telling them about the play we had just seen. The female officer seemed interested and relatively friendly, the male officer merely seemed to be preparing himself to read Janie her rights, explaining what the different indications on the breathalyser would mean.
After what seemed like ages, the male officer announced the result of the test; it indicated that Janie had some alcohol in her breath but it was below the warning line and some way below the legal limit.
The policeman couldn’t disguise his obvious disappointment as he announced the result. He then “warned” Janie to be careful on the rest of her way home, because, if she was in fact over the limit but had merely “got lucky” because of the timing of her test, she might get stopped again and might register a positive breathalyser test later.
Janie restated the fact that she had taken a little more than half a glass of wine with her dinner more than an hour ago.
I couldn’t resist asking the officer why he was warning her, if her breathalyser was below the warning line.
The male officer then explained to me, in very convoluted terms, that he wasn’t officially warning Janie, because her reading was below the official warning level, but he was informally warning her that if she was in fact over the limit she should nevertheless not drive.
It seemed to me, on that basis, that the lines between “over the limit – you’re nicked”, “warning zone – you are dangerously close to the limit” and “below the limit – be on your way” were…to that particular policeman…to say the least…mottled.
