Nothing ever happens where I live. Ever.

I know that a passing read of this website would give the casual observer such a magnificent impression of daily excitement and adventure that you and your fellow readers would do well to turn green with envy. But they are just the highlights. Mostly I spend my days looking out of the window waiting for something exciting to happen.

Something exciting like the sound of multiple police vehicles getting closer and closer to my flat.

And then closer still.

Then staying really loud, i.e. not disappearing into the distance like they normally do, but staying REALLY close.

I was starting to wonder what could possibly be happening when a black 4×4, driving way too fast, passed by my kitchen window and into the cul-de-sac court where I live. I wandered through to my living room to see it reappear at the other side of the block, but it did not arrive.

I walked out onto my tiny balcony and looked to the right to see that the 4×4 had mounted the grass and had been abandoned by the driver and passenger after knocking down a fencing post. To my immediate left a police car arrived and skidded to a halt. The policeman looked up at me and spoke to me with both speed and authority.

“Which way did they go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see what they were wearing.”

“No.”

“Can you describe the driver or passenger?”

“They were white, I think.”

Then, without so much as a thank you, or acknowledgement of my help, he went off in pursuit of the fleeing potential criminals.

It is public snubs like this that ensure we civilians feel like we have no rapport with the modern police force. How hard would it have been for him to ask how my day was going? Or whether I was coping all right and dealing with the stress of witnessing a brief moment in a live police chase.  This is how people develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Later I learned that there had been a robbery at a jewellery store in the town, and despite my assistance they have not yet detained the suspects.

Is it any wonder the youth of today do not feel like helping the police?

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