On patrol?

1:54pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

Brian McIntyre, quoted in last week's Didcot Herald article about the proposed change of use of Denton's toy shop to a pub/restaurant, may have been inaccurate in stating that "there's no policing" on Didcot's Broadway.

Recently, one Thursday morning, I heard the sound of horses' hooves, clip-clopping past the Broadway flat in which I'm residing - at 12.30am, then about an hour later and again at 3.30am.

As horses seldom pass along the Broadway at any hour, and as on the third occasion the clip-clopping ceased directly outside the flat, I got out of bed and looked through the window overlooking the pavement.

Revealed below were the top of a short haircut, on a hatless head, plus part of a yellow jacket, on a person on foot and two other people, both wearing riding helmets, yellow jackets and black riding breeches and boots, on horseback.

As I don't know whether these three people have constabulary-issued warrant cards, I wouldn't swear an oath that they were police officers.

However, if they were and on duty at the time, what they were doing (apart from chatting for a few moments before clip-clopping off elsewhere), again I don't know.

Apart from them and the two horses, not even a particularly early bird was stirring there at that time - though there are certainly other occasions when there's quite a lot of noise there in the early hours of the morning and nary a police officer in sight.

T E M Cameron The Broadway Didcot

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