Chapter 1 - The Briefing
My
name is Jonathan Tavy. Now my wife has immediately rebuked me for my modesty.
"Superintendent Jonathan Tavy," she says with some degree of insistence. She's
always been very proud of my achievements in the Police-force. Actually it's Superintendent Jonathan Tavy Retired if I'm to
be perfectly correct about these things. My wife says I'm too modest when it
comes to my career, so she doesn't believe I was a bit of a big head when I was
young boy growing up in the sixties in the West Country. I'd always wanted to
be and knew I'd be a Policeman - a Detective. Never any doubt in my mind.
In
those days people didn't have computers or mobile phones. Us kids didn't have
play stations or the many other electrical gadgets available today. Nor was
there multiple TV channels to choose from, on demand, 24 hours a day. We'd only
two channels in black and white and there was little or nothing broadcast
during the daytime. Watch With Mother which was on for about 15 minutes during
the day was aimed at very young children. The likes of Picture Book, Andy Pandy,
Bill and Ben, Rag, Tag and Bobtail or the Wooden Tops was hardly riveting
entertainment for us older kids. Around tea time there were programmes on aimed
for us older ones. I vaguely remember Johnny Quest which I quite liked and, if
my memory serves me correctly, was a cartoon. I don't remember much detail now
but I believe Johnny Quest had
adventures so I probably liked it for this reason. Another programme I've vague
recollections of was the Range Rider. As the title suggests it was a cowboy and
the Range Rider's trusted younger companion was Dick West. I used to ride my
bike and pretend I was Dick West riding a horse. Most of the time though I'd
other things to do when programmes such as this were on so I didn't watch many
at least not in the summer time. There was no means of recording programmes
back then and catch up facilities weren't available either.
In
the main we made our own entertainment and we used our imaginations. Sometimes
we crossed the line with PC Plod who in those days either walked the streets or
got about on his bicycle. He'd have to find a Police Telephone Box if he wanted
to contact the station in an emergency or blow his whistle in the hope other
officers would hear. Life then was a lot more basic than it is now and yet I
wonder if I'd grown up in modern times whether I'd been so inspired as I was
then. I wonder what a young Jonathan Tavy would have made of the internet? I
think perhaps the sixties was the right time for me. There was an innocence; a
certain mystique which existed for me then when perhaps it might be missing
today. Who knows?
When
I was growing up I had my own gang but not the sort who gets into scrapes with
other gangs. No, I had my own little police-force - The Tavy Gang I called it.
The Tavy Gang sort out crime even when there wasn't any. I remember getting it
spectacularly wrong when I accused Mrs. Baker of burying human bodies in her
back garden. Poor woman. She was merely burying her two cats who had both died
of old age within a couple days of one another. Then there was the time when I
convinced my dad who convinced the army there was a man spying on the barracks
on the edge of Darnwall. I'd observed he was regularly cycling passed the
barracks at slow speed and I reasoned he was using his bike as cover and was up
to no good. One day the army stopped this man and questioned him. It turned out
the man had just moved into the area and had to cycle pass the barracks to get
to and from work. He explained he cycled slowly because he wasn't very fit and
a slow speed was all he could manage. By cycling home for lunch each day he
aimed to get fitter in the hope he could cycle a bit faster. Dad wasn't best
pleased I'd wasted the army's time although the man was all right about it. Yet
there were times when my intuition paid off and despite my successful career as
a Policeman I look back on those times with the greatest satisfaction. Like
Miss Maple or Poirot I had the knack of being in the right place at the right
time or in the wrong place at the wrong time depending how you look at it. Yet
it was Sherlock Holmes another fictional character who was the greatest
influence on me. His arch enemy was Moriarty and mine was The Man With His Dog
but more about him later. My father had been a high ranking police officer and
had also been some kind of agent for the Home Office.
He couldn't talk about this work and I never did learn what he actually did for the Government. Yet whilst I admired and
looked up to him it was the fictional Sherlock Holmes I aspired to. I was
fascinated by the way he used science to help solve his cases and I took a leaf
out of his book by conducting my own experiments in my room. I was good at
science always top of the class.
During
the period of my youth, before I became a grown up, I enlisted a number of kids into The Tavy Gang but it was my trusted
threesome I remember most fondly. My second in command was my lifelong friend
Roland Bates. He was my Dr Watson, loyal to the core. Roley faithfully obeyed
my orders throughout those times but as a grown-up he wisely opted for a career
in catering and now runs his own restaurant. Roley was always fond of his food.
Then there was my kid sister Betsy. Bets as an adult surprised us all by going
to University and still enjoys a successful career in teaching. I still find it
hard to get my head round this as I can vividly remember her forever
mispronouncing words or spelling them incorrectly. As a young girl at school it
took a long time before her potential was realised. Zoe Butler was first and foremost
Bets' friend who unwittingly found herself in the gang. Zee was the fastest
runner in the school, even faster than any of the boys. It was of no surprise
to me after leaving school she became an athlete and has won a
number of medals. Bonzo, Zip and Mickey were also, in theory, members of
the gang but I don't recall them ever being that much involved. Most of the
time they were either doing something else or their parents wouldn't let them
out of the house. Bets has suggested they probably thought I was a bad influence
and I'd get them into trouble. There's probably some truth to this but for me
Bonzo, Zip and Mickey only bothered with The Tavy Gang when they'd nothing
better to do. After leaving school I lost touch with them and the last I heard
they were living in London.
Thinking
back on those times I recall some of the adventures we got involved in. Oh,
happy days!