West Sussex, UK - I was burgled three times last year: twice at the yard and once at my house. The house was a nasty little shock - an Englishman's home and all that! Some years ago another thief had once entered the cottage and rifled through drawers in the search for cash or jewellery, neither of which they found, but the place did not in any way resemble the grossly-violated, spoiled void with yawning gaps where possessions once were, that this thief and his accomplices achieved. An invisible yet tangible stain of harm and violence combined to provide a noxious atmosphere that pervaded the air in all the rooms and almost seeped into the very fabric of the building itself. It upset me considerably. They had even pinched my old carved Victorian bookcase that my grandmother, Elsie had given to me when I was eleven when she recognised my love of books that remains to this day. I don't steal. I think it is wrong but I half understand how desperation can drive people to this act. In the case of my burglaries I know who it was that burgled me and that, it seems, is often the case. The person who burgled me did it out of malice and greed. Of this, I can assure you. Desperation did not come into it!

There were various thefts at the yard in my youth. One of the boldest involved doping our guard dog, Digger, who was usually a formidable deterrent. This of course was in the days before one had to have a 'handler' with a dog which of course is a modern invention. In those earlier days one had a sign on the gates (or not as the case may be) that stated 'Beware of the Dog' and that was it. Dogs bit, back then, and Digger was a great night-time burglar biter. He unfortunately had the postman in broad daylight once or twice too!

The night they doped Digger, my family as usual, were in the house (the same house I live in now) and fast asleep. That is my mother and father, sisters Susan and Shane and myself. I was just thirteen at the time. Outside in the yard, and only a matter of yards away from the house, was the Bedford three and a half ton lorry loaded with lead, copper, braziery copper (copper pipe with brass fittings on it), brass and gunmetal. The lorry was scheduled to leave the yard in the morning at 7.30 am with Raymond Halls, the driver, taking it up to the London dealer to whom my dad sold much of his metal and who had bought Theo's yard (my grandfather's) in Willesden back in the early 60s.

The thieves turned out to be old customers of my dad - Bernie Hackling and the two Green brothers: Alfie and Ron. After doping the dog, they cut the chain to the gate and somehow pushed the lorry silently out of the yard into the area my dad called the 'pull-in' - which is a car parking area - where they started it and drove off. No one heard anything. I don't know if the keys were in the lorry - probably not as my dad was careful about such things. I suppose they hot wired it or used another key. I remember vans and lorries then that you could turn on with a screwdriver or nail file or similar. It wasn't hard then like now. I lost the keys to my Mercedes van including the spare ones not long ago and besides being expensive to replace the whole vehicle had to be towed to the Mercedes garage and re-programmed to accept the new key.

The following morning the burglary was discovered and my dad got straight on to the police and told them what had happened. Digger looked a bit hang-dog but was otherwise all right. Within three hours Bernie, Ron and Alfie were arrested at what was then Clement Bros Scrap Metal Merchants in Portsmouth trying to sell the metal from the same lorry they had nicked the night before and which was sign-written Yapton Metal Company! They received eighteen months apiece for that little caper but remained customers of my dad and on reasonable terms with him until they became too old to muck about with scrap anymore.

When Ronald Stortt sold us twenty-two hundredweight of lead, which turned out to be stolen and which was impounded by the police before my dad had a chance to sell it, he did not, as my mother suggested, ban Ronald. On the contrary his philosophy was to keep dealing with him and by doing so earn back the money he lost, through the loss, of the lead. The lead had been booked in and was therefore legitimately bought. Had it not been recorded as a purchase then - as my dad said - we could be 'done for receiving'

My father throughout cautioned me on the dangers of buying stolen metal and insisted all his employees including myself and later my sister Susan comply with the law and the Scrap Metal Dealers Act (1964). This required us to list the metals bought in and the price we paid for it. In addition we had to write down the name and address of the person selling the metal to us, the time they came in and their vehicle registration number. My father was a realist and wished to work within the law, not for moral reasons, but for the fact that he did not want to 'go to Clink' or jeopardise his business or reputation which he prided. If it did transpire that we bought some 'hot' metal then the thing to do was to sell it on as quickly as possible mainly to avoid a financial loss, as in the Ronald Stortt case, not for any idea to outwit or hoodwink the law.

I have the dubious distinction of buying - in my youth - twelve hundredweight of lead that was stolen off Horsham Police station. I cannot remember how we found out that it was the same lead but we did. Roofing lead, like plumbing copper is not easy to identify. Anyway, this lead was sold on by my dad before any enquiries were made. When the police eventually arrived at our yard asking if we had bought a large quantity of lead recently we invited them as always to look through the purchase book. As is the case they took the name of the man who had brought the lead in to us and went off to talk to him. We never heard any more about it. The lead was sold and moved on before we even knew it was 'hot'.

Another time I bought some lead which turned out to have been stolen which again was moved on before any investigation took place. The man who had brought the lead in to us was not a thief as such but was prosecuted for 'theft by finding'. He claimed truthfully that he had found the lead dumped with other debris in a side road near his house and, recognising that the metal had some value, brought it into us to sell it. Apparently this was against the law, though I'm not entirely sure what law it contravened and as such he was 'done'. He felt aggrieved about this conviction and I remember feeling sympathy for him.

I had a very bizarre case of theft a few years ago which even now several burglaries later stands apart as an exceptional and extraordinary event. It involved the theft of my Alsatian guard dog, Rufus. (I grew up, by the way, with the post-World War I name 'alsatian' for the breed that persisted for over 50 years until 1977 when British enthusiasts campaigned to have the literal translation of the German name Deutscher Schaferhund restored as German Shepherd. I still tend to think of the breed as 'alsatian'.)

Rufus the alsatian was named - inexplicably even for me - after Rufus T Firefly the memorable character played by Groucho Marx in the 1933 film 'Duck Soup' and who, as the irrepressible Firefly and under the insistence of the wealthy Mrs Teasdale (played by the majestic and masterly Margeret Dumont), becomes the leader of the small, bankrupt nation of Freedonia. At one stage, early on in my ownership of the pup, who incidentally possessed a fine pedigree, I thought I had acquired a miniature alsatian as Rufus never visibly grew despite being well fed and conscientiously looked after. He remained minute for months! I used to carry him about in the pocket of my Barbour jacket that I loved at the time but loathe now.

Rufus, from the beginning, had eyes for no-one except me. I chose him on the day by taking out the entire litter of seven pups and placing them on the breeder's lawn, attracting their attention and then seeing which one came to me first. The breeder was a tolerant lady called Sue and indulged me in this matter. Rufus accomplished this three times thus choosing me and was chosen accordingly by myself in turn. I had read somewhere that the best choice of puppy was achieved by setting fire to the kennel and seeing which one the bitch saved first. I felt this might be excessive and however tolerant Sue was she wouldn't possibly put up with such an extreme method of puppy choice!

The new pup's whole existence revolved around being with me, loving me and accompanying me regardless of the inherent dangers or discomforts he may have to sustain in so doing. This is a trait of the breed being well known as 'one man dogs'. When loading the van for a delivery, for example, Rufus would make it quite clear that he was not going to be left at the yard without me. He jumped into the back of the van irrespective of what was in there and faced me with an anxious devotional look on his face that clearly indicated he was accompanying me no matter what. I have pictures of Rufus in the back of the van so wedged in by furniture and salvaged oddments that he has had to all but fold himself into the tiniest of spaces to be in the van at all, peering out from amongst the load with an expression of anguished anxiety that he might be removed. As the load invariably settled as we moved the space might well diminish further. The sound of a slight whine or two and the pawing of feet were all I would hear. Rufus was prepared to suffer for his love and devotion. He would not be removed unless great insistence was used. In the mornings when greeting me he would twirl like a dervish on his back legs vacuously panting and looking at me with adoration and idiocy in his eyes. He would frequently bang his silly head against something in this dervish-like enthusiasm such was his ecstasy!

My dogs, I stress here, are kindly but firmly trained to be utterly obedient. If I go out and they are not invited to join me then they stay put in the yard. That's the way it is and it's written in stone. They have two long walks daily and come out with me on extensive walks every weekend when I go botanising. I claim that my dogs know West Sussex more intimately than the bulk of the county's residents! Rufus knew this rule as did Lucy the chocolate Labrador I had at the time and Rex the border terrier who I still have today.

End of part one

The tale of the theft of Rufus will be the subject of my next article.

Yapton Metal Co

Story Type:  Columnist

ID: 64232

Date Modified: January 27, 2012, 08:40 PM