Frosty The Snowman.......

ExBobby:
Back on the old C2 sub division of the West Mids, out of Ladywood nick in Birmingham, Winson Green was part of the patch.......many are the tales that came out of this area I can tell you. To give you an idea, Ozzy Osborne used to live there and he was one of the more normal ones........ But anyhow, during nights in the winter it was the practice among the troops to gather at the staff canteen in Dudley Road Hospital at around 4.30, 5.00am ish for hot chocolate and to tell lies. We had had some snow during the night and it had settled pretty well, several inches deep, heavy and good for packing. Snowball fights were often the norm then, but not tonight. Each of the officers mentioned has long since retired, but I shall use their nicknames anyway.

I was double-crewed (as was usually the case for the Winson Green car) with "Sid" Betts, and as we pulled in the the hiding spot (back of the bike sheds) there was already another car there, that of "Leapy" Price, who was usually the Hockley/Jewellery Quarter guy. We were using 1100cc Allegro pandas back then, remember those? This would date it at around 1978/79. But here I go, digressing again.

We walked past and Syd happened to notice that Leapy's car wasn't locked, and his flat cap was sitting on the passenger seat. So without further ado, he suggested making a snowman, which we did, and placed it in the driver's seat, placing the flat cap on his head. We then went inside and carried on as normal. During the course of the "meeting" a few other officers showed up, all of them seeming very cheerful about something. When it was time to leave of course Leapy went ballistic upon seeing his car.....everyone else just carried on as normal, of course, tut-tutting that anyone should do such a thing and denying all knowledge of the act. It didn't melt TOO much, and the seat was that awful blue vinyl, so it could have been much worse......all he got was a cold seat and had to put his car coat across it to keep dry.