HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH A FISHMONGER’S STEEL

Hub has been beavering away at tracking down some of his ancestors, and has discovered this story about a first cousin called Albert Kitchener ‘Styx’ or Sticks Stapleton (nobody seems to know whether his nickname was because he was a drummer, or because he perhaps had thin legs …)

He was in the Scots Guards and then in the Buckinghamshire Constabulary, and family stories have it that he used to do duty at Windsor Castle, and take the present queen for rides on his bicycle when she was a child.  A fun story if true!

A newspaper report of the time said that ‘he was awarded the King’s Police Medal for gallantry. He attempted to arrest a burglar who threatened to shoot him with a revolver. The burglar had stolen £90 worth of property from houses in the district and attempted to escape. Sergt. Stapleton chased him for two miles across fields and eventually captured him by hitting him over the head with a fishmonger’s steel, which he seized from a cart, having lost his truncheon in tthe pursuit.’

!!!!! obviously a man of enterprising spirit.

(image from http://cyclestyle.com.au/6134/queen-rides-bike/  )

(PS Can’t help thinking …  what’s the betting that today, a judge would congratulate the thief for being brave … and the policeman would get a fine instead of a medal,  for misuse of a weapon … where did it all start getting so stupid??????????)