Inchcock’s Security Career Woes

A dark, dank, overcast night… out in the wilds!

It was a dark, dank, overcast night, with a roving light mist coming and going, interspersed with a get-you-soaking-wet light drizzling rain.

I was assigned to a site that was about 14 miles out of Nottingham, in the unforgiving countryside, with nothing but the bats, fox’s and the occasional escaped pig from the nearby farms to talk to.

A large site, a factory, storage sheds, garage, an annexe, offices, farm vehicle storage field, HGV parking lot, and a lot of unsecured fencing.

I was achieving my usual full job satisfaction, as I patrolled the main building, the annexe, the 43 parked up lorries, the millions of pounds worth of new farm machinery, the main annexe ¼ of a mile down the country lane, completed my 18 swipe points, as I then tripped over the crumbling pathway that was immersed in rainwater, then nearly slipped over on the muddy course grass rain-filled ditch, the wild grass was so long it hid the craters and holes scattered all over the site.

I checked the vehicle wash, and then the fuel station, (swiping my last point) and turned to start my return marathon to the main building and my dust covered, waterless, windowless, holes in the floor-board ridden guard base.

About half way back up the hill, ducking to avoid an owl or a bat or whatever it was that dived bombed at me, I noticed a torch light coming from the middle of the sewerage field at the back of the transport offices – now, I had a quandary!

Although already in a state, should I actually go over the ditch and into the field to find out what was going on?

I decided I could not dismiss this possible sign of attempted intrusion, being the professional I am. (Ahem)

I positioned myself behind the porta-cabins, and decided the ditch was easy enough to jump over into the field, and it was too – the only problem was I had not seen the barbed wire on the other side – until I landed in it!

After extricating myself and most of my trousers from the barbed wire, I jumped back over the ditch – and to this day – the memory of that shoe dropping into the sewerage ditch as I leapt, then sinking out of sight, never to be seen again, made me glad it was only the shoe and not me!

I hobbled back to the guard base, cleaned up the wounds with the last of my bottled water, and used up the last few plasters from my cars first aid kit – as the fire alarm activated!

So, one shoe on and one shoe off, I investigated, only to find the ‘Bale area’ sprinklers had activated, and found myself paddling through about 8 inches of very cold water, but no fire was found.

The alarm panel reset OK, and I unblocked the drains to allow the water to slowly draw away, taking my last few plasters that had been soaked off of my bleeding legs along with it!

So back to depressing guard base to complete the by now, several incidents reports that needed doing.

While doing this, I put my bleeding feet and legs up on a tatty broken chair, in an effort to slow down the bleeding, when I heard the sound of the horn sounding from an approaching vehicle at the main gate.

I hobbled out through the factory, into the yard, limping down to the gate to give admission to the Night Manager, Mr Collins, who was very annoyed to find out I had no water to make him a cup of coffee!

But this didn’t prevent him from carrying out his duty of care obligations in question to my injuries, as soon as he’d stopped laughing he passed wind, then he offered his worldly advice as such: “‘Ave that looked at leg when yer gerra day off, un don’t forget to do an incident report (I’d just handed him all three, 5 minutes earlier).

Concerned for how I would drive home safely with no right boot on, we searched around and found one old right footed, rock hard, smelly old trainer shoe in the rubbish bin in the showers, and I drove home with a wet muddy left hand boot on, and a rock hard right footed trainer.

The lost boot was never seen again!

Just another normal day for Security Guard Inchcock really!