THANK you for your kind words Mrs Kate Phillips (You Say, Friday, September 10) who seems to enjoy stories of my lighter moments in the local police.

So here's another tall tale from years gone by...

Every night in Worcester City Police days, bobbies examined business properties, what we called "shaking hands with door knobs".

One night an old copper found a little window open in a large departmental store.

He called out the keyholder who lived on the premises and when this person saw the small open window he said: "Fancy getting me up for that. Any idiot can see no one could get through a window that size!"

The old copper was a bit miffed by the bloke's words and pondered how he could annoy him a bit more.

The next day he was on the same patch, and in the middle of the night, he rang the bell of the keyholder's flat and the guy came to the window above him and said: "Don't tell me you've found a window open tonight because I've checked them all!

"What about the one you've opened to speak to me?" The old copper said. "Any idiot can see that's open."

Police work can be a serious job, but we had our light-hearted moments to keep us normal - or nearly so!

JOE WALTER,

St John's, Worcester.