Zoë Bowyer

My beloved and I hit the bottle on Saturday night - sometimes you’ve got to let go a lot. We remenisced and talked general crap that seemed SO important at the time. D did his usual of chastising me because I will not sell my creative soul.

One of the things I chatted about was my brushes with The Law, and how I am deeply scarred by events in my youth. I have a deep fear of people in uniforms, such as the police. Both of the following happened when I was very young.

My first memory of the police was of the plain-clothed variety. They came to search my parents’ house for drugs. They had a dog. The whole experience was very frightening for me. In the end they took one of my Mum’s houseplants away for testing. How idiotic is that? A houseplant! My mother later contacted the police station to ask if she could have her houseplant back. It was returned.

My next memory is deeply traumatic. Me and a few of my chums were playing on an old mattress that someone had thrown out (not a bit concerned about why the mattress may have been thrown out). We were minding our own business until a certain bully-boy arrived and started teasing us, and throwing things at us. I retaliated and chucked a stone back at him. It wouldn’t have hit him if he hadn’t moved and run into it. So, it hit him on the knee and off he goes crying to his mammy, threatening to tell on me. The next thing I can remember is bully-boy’s ma banging on the door of our house and threatening to get the wee shite to throw a brick through our window. My mother was not one bit pleased by all this and said that she would call the police. So, that is what she did. And I got sent to bed. This was all highly embarassing for me - all this fuss and bother, and my mum pissed off with me for throwing stones, and neighbours calling around! As if all this wasn’t punishment enough, my mum thought it would be a good idea, while the police were there, to get them to give me a telling off for throwing stones - THE EVIL BITCH! (Sorry, mum). I can’t recall much more of the dispute between my mother and bully-boy’s mum, but I recall vividly the telling off from the police. It was horrible. I sat curled up in a chair in our living room, in my nightdress, with a cushion over my face (so the policeman couldn’t see my shameface), while he told me off. I peeked out of the corner of the cushion briefly, just to check that it really was a policeman. Then I ran to bed and cried myself to sleep.

This is why I’m scared of the police.