Just another night duty. I and my partner are posted foot patrol around “D” sector not looking forward to it as it is a cold and windy night but hey you never know what is going to happen, we deal with the calls near to us a mixture of domestics and criminal damage incidents …

we then walk up the road behind the Brixton academy and my partner checks on the side door…its open …well its 2,o,clock in the morning and it should be shut up for the night ..we look at each other and we tell the control room that we are going to check it out. the adrenalin is starting to run through my blood …is it burglars or just kids mucking around…

We go in and work our way into the auditorium…and I can see some figures on the stage…I breath a sigh of relief and go in the group see us and stop ..” hello” says one of them…we explain why we are there and in turn they tell us that they are rehearsing for a gig that they are doing the next night…the lead singer asks us if we would listen to one of the songs and give them our opinion of how it sounds in the auditorium…I recognised it, a song they had a hit with in 1984 ..

So we stand there and they set themselves up …it sounds good and half way through they stop and ask us what we think… Great I say….” Could do with some backing says my partner…I look at her and think to myself since when have you been and expert…she goes on to say that they should have more backing on the chorus!!...they have a discussion and invite us to join in…I am just about to decline when she is up onto the stage..as for me well I follow, don’t ask me why!!...they start again and there we are amongst the group and as the chorus starts there is two uniform coppers singing away into a microphone “Take on me” ..La la la la “.take on me” la la la …I am quite enjoying myself when I look down and at the door I see my section sergeant staring at us mouth wide open…the song finishes and I nudge my partner and she sees him…the group is laughing and patting us on the back…the lead singer tells us what a good job we did would we be able to sing at the gig in uniform, as it would be a giggle, we hastily decline as I don’t think the commissioner would be well pleased... We shake hands and they slip us a couple of tickets to the gig..

We join the sergeant and go outside..He looks at us and his mouth opens and closes but nothing comes out…. He turns and walks off… I swear I heard him chuckling!!!...the rest of the night is quite routine and we are humming the song between us all night …I gave her the ticket so that she could take her fella to the gig…still it was fun ..For some days after the others on the team would see us and hum A ha tracks !!...wore thin after awhile but it was fun..

Remind me to tell you about "Take that" asking me if they could join our Christmas party!!