h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It is a very long journey from 1944 to the Millennium and beyond, the time span was just like a ride with The Time Traveller, and even more unbelievable because it really did happen.

From only three years education at a senior school, followed by many years at the University of Life and Hard Knocks,then polished to perfection by two Great Masters of their trade, the education was eventually complete. The final result being the emergence of a fully qualified Guardian of Her Majesty The Queen’s Peace, with not only the authority to carry out such daunting tasks, but also blessed by nature's own speed, agility, eyesight and hearing, to carry out those tasks efficiently.

In 1971, a great team was forged, the arrival of British Transport Police Dog Storm with his superhuman powers, cut the expanding crime wave on Manchester Railways and far beyond to a mere trickle. Over a thousand thieves and other criminals including two murderers, were arrested by Storm and his fame spread throughout the land.

Commendations from Magistrates, outside forces, schools and even Coroners were a constant reminder of his talents and great temperament, as he performed his superhuman crime detections, that included tracking lost persons and suicide victims at night, and socialising at school functions and police dog competitions during the day.

One of the largest hindrances today in the solving of crime, is the reluctance of Senior Police and C.I.D Officers to use police dogs efficiently and speedily. This is partly fear of an unknown quantity, and ignorance of a superhuman asset readily available at very little cost.

The same obstructions were there in the very early days of police dogs, the C.I.D. officers would not call out the police dog, except as an after-thought when the trail was cold, and usually ruined by large boots. Then miracles were usually expected, and generally they were performed, but after the officers had left the blighted crime scene.

Within a few short years, Storm was completely accepted by Detectives and Uniformed Officers of not only The British Transport Police, but by the outside forces as well. Even The Regional Crime Squad called for his services as his fame spread throughout the land and I heard him once referred to, as “Our Dog” by a Regional Crime Squad Officer, and a very experienced detective made the remark, "If Storm could type, we could all go home!" In 1969 Storm was chosen by Chief Inspector Shelton as the main stay of the Royal Protection Squad at Caernarfon for the whole of the night prior to the Investiture of The Prince of Wales.

Unfortunately, the trail-blazing path of superhuman crime detection, as taught by the Metropolitan Police Dog Training School and the Legendary Chief Inspector Terry Shelton, (real name Herbert) is now but memory. Like Terry and even Storm, the expertise and skills are now forgotten, and recent publicity highlighting the criminal behaviour of some, so called dog training establishments and their supervisory officers, has led to the imprisonment of two of the police officers and the current police dogs are no longer of a standard set so many years ago.

There used to be police dogs competitions and exhibitions, that were envy of the whole world, then later as dedicated civilians began to beat the professionals, the rules were changed, the title of Police Dog was restricted to police owned dogs only.

Cheers H.

morning H see you entered this as journal entry, a nicly put together entry it is to ,enjoyed reading it ,amazing the stupidity shown sometimes ,cuting costs no doubt led to the demise of the equine division much like the mounted division one of my freinds inlaws was seconded to them and the same stupidity was shown there .

ah well back to my wandering

Thanks Bob,
Still practising, but I see that posting here also places it on our old GW page too, not that it matters.

I thought that this entry would make a sound base to eventually make a full length epic, covering the years from wartime to the present time.

Just depends how the enthusiasm and subquent interest flows,I suppose. I used to have to write everything out with a pencil, then type it, now I just seem to be able to just type it out straight into the computer and with a sligtht check over it is a reasonable product.

Cheers H.

Interesting entry in your journal H. I used to live near a policeman who had two alsations, think they were police dogs.

A full history of police dogs would be a great entry for the guide.

spidey

Thanks Spidey,

The dog section of police work is a facinating subject on it's own, the practical side of the job as taught by the Metropolitan Police Dog training school no longer exists and the standard has deteriorated badly, the knowledge has gone forever.

The standard of training by the civilian enthusiasts has exceeded the quality of the police generally, and the recent death of Chief Inspector meant that many of his trade secrets went with him, he was made redundant with many years of specialist tuition and service still available from him.

He was hurt so badly by the establishment that he burned all of his documention before he left, since that time the expertice of police dog training,went to the dogs, metaphorically speaking.

While the civilian trainers have now overtaken the police in training performance, the end product can not be the perfect police dog in practice, because the actual training methods differ on one essential point. The civilian trainers use the circus method of training and give tit bits as a reward. The Metropolitan Police method is repetition and the only reward is purely companionship and a good hard patting.

To illustrate the point, imagine the situation where a police dog has detained a criminal and the handler has not yet arrived on the scene, the criminal throws the dog a meat pie, and when the handler arrives on the scene, the dog is eating the pie and the handler is now due for a good hiding or if he is lucky the prisoner is long gone.

Cheers H.

They don't use food around here- they give the dog a favorite toy as a reward. I've met drug sniffing dogs who would walk miles over rubble for a particular stuffed monkey.

Quite correct, Police Dog Handlers have always used a favourite toy, and good ideas do catch on, observant people do copy professionals as they work in public. The message regarding using food to train a dog is simple,it does work quite well for circuses and amateurs, but it is dangerous to use it to train fully operational police dogs, obviously drug dogs, usually spaniels etc are not in the same classification.

A toy is also used to break a dogs concentration at the end of a successful track. Usually a good sized leather article is placed at the end of a track, this becomes the so called toy, but it is actually the third or fourth article that has been placed on the track, an old shoe is perfect for the purpose.

The end article creates the reward because it is thrown as a retrieve article, and on completion of the track the dog is allowed to chew it and pull it about. The articles retrieved en route, are accumulated evidence and the fully trained dog does not chew them, he holds them carefully while the handlers takes them off him.

My dog once recovered a woollen thread that had fallen off the target's coat in a twenty acre field. A pheasant flew up off the same track and the dog completely ignored it.

A word of warning regarding toys, never use a tennis ball or a golf ball as toys or laid track objects, many a good dog has choked to death on such toys, a proper dumbell or a larger object is needed to avoid a tragedy.

Also avoid the oven baked bones now being sold in pet shops, a dog can not digest them and they will also kill a dog, lamb chop bones have been known to kill dogs too.

Cheers H.

You know, you should turn this journal entry into a guide article. I've never heard of Storm, and I don't know a lot about how Police dogs are trained. It should get through Peer Review quickly, and you'll be on the front page with an Edited Guide entry!

Thank you, for your kind remarks, if you wish I will put couple of press photos on the anneymouse site, if you are a memberlet me know when and I will do it for you, they are copyright but I will allow you to make a print provided you mark it copyright Solo International and Tilting at Windmills, by LMScott.

I do not leave them on display for long, so let me know when and I will display them for you.


The book Tilting at Windmills is a very limited edition, it was written especially for Her Majesty The Queen's Golden Jubilee and it is in the Buckingham Palace Library.

Cheers H.

re deleted no only you can see it, you may be able to retrieve some of it if it is stored in the DNA code as opposed to the get writing code i would imagine, just nipped over to you page to see if i could but none showed up, like the contents of the post before this

Thanks Bob,

It only shows when I open this thread, there are twenty five of my stories on here now, they date back to October of last year and they were all deleted on GW. So the mystery is solved by your explanation, now I have to find out what to do with them, delete? or put them on review??

RE the photos I see that we can only use pictures from the photo library, therefore we would have to get help and approval from the mods to use our own pictures.

Cheers H.

Put those stories in the Alternative Writing Workshop! Don't delete them!

Actually, we're not exactly allowed to post our own pictures here- it's kind of like GW, in that respect. Pictures posted on the site have to go through the BBC, through the Community Artists volunteers. They make the pictures that go with the Guide entries. I'm sure that if you requested a graphic using your pictures as a starting point, there wouldn't be *too* much of a problem to get them posted here. Of course, you'd have to have a reason to use those graphics- like a Guide entry!

Thank you Scandrea,

It was my intention to use some of my photos eventually, on completion of another book. I see the reason why photos have to be firmly controlled, piracy and copyright are obvious problems.

As you say, for an honest cause someone would assist, but I have a lot of learning to do before I can find my way round here. Logicus and TT are a great help, without them I would not be here now.

I can put a photo of Storm on the anneymouse msn site if you want one, anne is a good friend, and she would most probably assist you to get the picture if there was a problem.

Cheers H.

Traveller in Time doing picture magic (dodo's appearing everywhere)
"I can do a lot, some just take some time to find. But there is no way I can really put images owned by someone else on this site. "

So what you are saying is if LM can find a picture of storm in the dna data base ,which no doubt there well may bee since the bbc may well have run a story on it at some time in the past and given that vast chunks of this very same data base is now linked together it may be possible to marry the two together for instence
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/westmidlands/series3/dog_lovers_crufts.shtml
this doggy picture is here somwhere in these same archives is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/westmidlands/series3/i/dogs_200.jpg
so all you need do is search your record H and bob may well be you uncle
or am i being to lateral

For once logicus, too lateral, T.T. also solves many problems faster than time itself.
But, now that is a good word, short sweet and to the point, there are no copies of Storm's photos any where else except in newspaper archives.

I do have copies of Storm that are my own copy right, but the ones I use for my books are the copyright of Solo International, they are very kind and I do have written permission to use them, being a bit on the quick side as young man I insisted on that priviledge before I even allowed the reporters to take the pictures.

If anyone wants a picture, and they are a real collector's item, perhaps the best way is for me to email a copy to them.

Cheers H.

just read your latest two journal entries ,very enjoyable ,wont say if jack warners voice was the one i used ,had to chuckle at the tape measure and the gaurds man ,yup and i could see her doing just that

Wonder where they got the geyser picture for this one?

A3740474

Traveller in Time guessing
"The italics sometimes write about the huge image archive of the BBC. Jimster makes regulary use of it for the 'Pick of the Day'. Although they have the archive it seems to involve some costs as he suggests not to encourage the use of the archive.

I can not imagine my 'reusing' of images is meant to be so at least pay credit to the original article if animage reused.

Great Entry of Yellowstone, sorry you will have missed the Monster Volcano documentary, though it will be shown on other channels soon.

As well as great writing by 'LMScott', you know how to keep people reading "