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After a good look around, and being desperately like Nigel O'Connor in, we went into one of the larger cells, where drunkards stopped. This was identical except the bed was at ground level for obvious reasons. The normal large cells were also the same except the beds were at usual height.

Next was the room where photographs were taken of the criminals before they were to be locked up. It was an instamatic camera which had a double exposure. The face-on picture was taken in front of a white screen and so was the side-on view. One of our Scouts, namely Andrew Powell, stopped up to have his picture took. The exposure work out great but we were very disappointed that he wasn't locked up in a cell.

As we carried on we came to the prisoners' exercise yard, which is as its name suggests. It was quite small and absolutely impossible to escape out of.

The next part of our tour was in an office. It was all the clever stuff behind the Wednesfield Police Station. At this point Mr Mackenzie took a rest, and the P.S. who was in charge of the equipment began. He showed us a monitor, which was called a V.D.U., visual display unit. It was a clever piece of machinery and the information that was needed was a registration of a car, and within 10-15 seconds the name of the owner, his address and absolutely every detail including when the car was last registered came up on the screen.

While we were there a call came in. It was a policeman who had to break a window of a house to see if an old lady was there, after the neighbours had reported her missing for several weeks. This part of the tour was very interesting although a certain number of Scouts were more interested in a calendar hanging on the facing wall.

After a brief summary of the rest of the equipment, our guide P.C. Mackenzie took over again and showed us outside where two more policemen were waiting to tell us about the police dogs. We stood underneath a good type place where the police cars parked, and three fellow policemen gave us a small talk on the dogs. He told us that they always use Alsatian dogs because they are the best all round type, although some police stations use giant poodles, he added.

One of the policemen took from his car one of those arm padding pieces for the training of dogs, while the other took from his car a big black Alsatian police-dog. After he had put on the padded arm piece, the dog and his master did a small drill on obedience, using all the commands. When the two policemen had answered questions, we returned into the waiting room, and P.C. Mackenzie was there to tell us that it was the end of our tour of Wednesfield Police Station.

On that Thursday night not only did we have a very enjoyable and interesting evening, but we learned how the Police Force of today are such a credit to Britain. Andrew Quinton.

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