It all began when I walked into the spare room to do some tidying. I looked out of the window. In the parallel road, behind the line of garages in between the houses, a young man had his head poked in the bathroom window. Impossible for me to say what he was standing on, as my line of vision was restricted to the first floor of the house. He jiggled the window. Standing bolt in the middle of the room, I groaned. Is he fixing the window? Unlikely. I bet he's forgotten his key.
But.
So, rather addled, I got my camera out and proceeded to take several shots, one side long profile, and then finally the bottom of his feet as he disappeared through the window. And then, squeamish with the new experience, I picked up the phone and dialled 999.
There was a fair amount of confusion as to which house it was, as my angle was limited, but they came very quickly. 'They're descending on you from all directions,' the pleasant emergency service operator informed me. I was able to describe him extremely well, as I had a photograph in front of me. Every now and then she asked 'has he come out?' Then she informed me that the police were outside my door.
In fact, they were at someone else's door. I waved bashfully at them until one of them came over to me. I took her upstairs and showed her my view. I was relieved to discover that she struggled to describe the house to the officers on the scene, who were trying to work out which house it was from my - my! - description. The other officer came up the stairs then and, because pictures can be better than words, I showed him a couple of the photos. Meanwhile, much to-ing and fro-ing on the walkie-talkie and they worked out which house it was.
Of course, once they had managed to find the young man in question, he lived there and did not currently have a key. Of course. My two officers (as opposed to all the others crawling the area) informed me I had done exactly the right thing, especially as there has been a spate of burglaries in the area. Cue laughter and telling of anecdotes.
Imagine if it had been a crime scene, they pondered, laughing. There would be no problems with evidence at all. I had manage to get the entire sequence on camera, red soled Nike trainers and all.
But I still haven't tidied the spare room.
Image from BBC website
3 comments:
Well done you for being such a good neighbour. He COULD have been a burglar. I saw a very shifty looking bloke carrying anice chair out of my neighbour's home one morning. I knew they were all out at work - so I dashed outside and said "Where are you going with that chair?" [in my bossy teacher voice!] "I am C's brother, and she has given it to me" he said- and proved who he was. I felt daft- but C came round that evening and thanked me, as we have had a number of thefts round here.[she said she thought her brother could be shifty looking too!!]
But taking a PHOTOGRAPH -that was sheer genius on your part.
hoping the rest of your neighbours are not now worrying about the police activity at your house - you just can't trust these clergy people, you know!!!
As Angela said, well done you!
Wonderful piece of writing Lucy - you should write a book .. :) .. Excellent detective work ..
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