Vehicles of the 'Police Mobile Column'.
We still know very little about the vehicles shown
above but we've recently received this from Richard Whittle:
In 1964 I was a policeman in Bristol and went on a 2-week Mobile Column exercise. The vehicles
were a lot newer than those you have shown. I think they were Thames Traders. The vehicles
were owned by the Home Office and toured the 7 UK police districts. All the forces in each district
provided men (no women) for two weeks, to man them. The idea was to test the logistics of
moving police around the country in the even of a nuclear attack, to prevent looting and to
maintain order. (ie, take us right into the most dangerous zone!).
There were no radio trucks, as by the 1960's we were using vehicle mounted radios with miniature
valves. There were no hand-held radios back then. Each truck had a radio and there were two
Austin Gypsies with field telephone equipment. They based the column at various RAF stations in
the UK. Ours was at Wootton Bassett (Wiltshire?).
I remember some of my older colleagues saying that there had been an earlier version of the
column that used khaki-painted Civil Defence vehicles and that the early 1960's one was the first
purpose-made unit. I can't remember much except that there were about eight personnel trucks,
one mobile motorcycle workshop, six Triumph bikes and the two Gypsies. Once they got going
they never stopped, except to give the drivers a break. The bikes went ahead stopping traffic and
clearing roads.
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