Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley.

Dan: And Dan here. We’re doing something special with the launch of Season 17.

Dave: We’re having a sale.

Yeardley: A sale. I love a sale. My friends, we’re kicking off a special Super Fam membership drive with some great perks, but it’s only available through September 12th.

Dan: Right now, annual memberships to the Super Fam are over 25% off. When you join, you’ll lock in a full year of early and ad free episodes, bonus content, and more.

Yeardley: And new annual members will get a free mystery gift pulled straight from the Small Town Dicks Merch Vault. I’m talking mugs, pint glasses, hats, notepads, cool stuff we don’t have on sale anywhere else. But that’s only while supplies last and only if you sign up for or upgrade to annual membership by 11:59 on September 12th.

Dan: Very Cinderella.

Yeardley: It is very Cinderella. [laughs]

Dan: One more thing. If you go with the Super Duper Fam membership, you also get the Season 17 binge drop earlier than everyone else.

Yeardley: That, my friends, is where we make the first four episodes of Season 17 available on Friday, September 5th, which is a whole week before everyone else gets to hear them. Plus, you’ll get my favorite tote bag. I love this tote bag. And you get access to our CrimeCon meetup.

Dan: Go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam. Choose Super Fam or Super Duper Fam, pick the annual plan and get the best deal as well as your mystery merch gift.

Yeardley: Don’t wait. Because Season 17 kicks off right after this offer ends. So, friends, head to smalltowndicks.com/join for all the information. And now let’s get on with the episode, shall we?

[music]

 Hey, Small Town Fam. We have something special for you today. A little Season 17 appetizers ahead of the main feed drop of Season 17, which starts on September 12^th, mark your calendars. So, this episode comes from one of our favorite returning guests, retired Detective Constable Simon, who’s over in Scotland. It’s a great snapshot of policing across the pond in the mid-1980s. I like to think of this one as excellent dinner party conversation. Oh, my friends, you would so want to be at this dinner party. The details are fascinating, there’s a bit of humor, and you won’t lose your appetite while you listen. So, pull up a chair, grab a beverage and settle in for “The Wee Man.”

 Hi there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave:-And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave: –out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]: Thank you.

Yeardley: Today on Small Town Dicks, I am thrilled to announce that we have the usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

Dan: Hello there.

Yeardley: Hello, darling husband. I have Detective Dave.

Dave: I’m here.

Yeardley: Yes, you are here. I have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul: I am present.

Yeardley: Indeed you are present and accounted for P and Small Town Fam, today we are so pleased to welcome back to the podcast retired Detective Constable Simon.

Simon: Hi, Yeardley, how are you?

Yeardley: I’m so great. It’s wonderful to see you, Simon.

Simon: Thanks for having me.

Yeardley: Oh, we’re absolutely thrilled. We love it when you come, Simon. And for our listeners, the new bees, Simon has brought us a couple of cases on this podcast already. They’re always wonderful. So, Simon, you’re an old hand at this. Fire away, my friend.

Simon: In all the stories we’ve done, Yeardley this will be my fourth story that I’ve done with you. It’s always been Rothesay. No, I tell a lie. One was in Glasgow. But I’m back to Rothesay again. That island off the West Coast of Scotland, the Isle of Bute, beautiful part of the world. It’s where we did a story “The Penny Drops” you remember back in Season 14.

Yeardley: Hmm, I love that case.

Simon: I’m a young detective. I’m the only detective on the island. There’s probably a population of about 6,000 back in 1985 when I was there. And I’ve just been made detective. And here I’m put on an island with no supervision. There’s only me. And I report to the chief inspector, really. But it’s a big opportunity for me to make a name for myself as a detective, because at this point, I know that I want to be, I really want to be a murder squad detective. That’s what I want to be.

Yeardley: And, Simon, you’re the only detective on this little island of Rothesay. But you do have about 20 sworn officers in the agency itself who rotate shifts. So, you’re not just one guy reporting to one other guy. There’s a few of you, but not a lot.

Simon: No. When you say CID, the CID in this country would probably be about 10% of the police force.

Yeardley: And what’s that stand for?

Simon: Criminal Investigation Department.

Yeardley: Got it. Okay.

Simon: So for every detective, you’ve got maybe nine uniform officers. So, I’m the only detective, there’s about 16 other cops, constables who are in uniform, four sergeants, a chief inspector and support staff that goes round about that. And at any one time, I would also have an aide to the CID, we called it. What it did was give one of the uniforms an incentive to see if they would like to be a detective and give us a chance, the CID, to see if they were made out. Because not everybody would want to be a detective, that’s for sure. A lot of people want to work in uniform. They want to work with the horses, with the dogs. Beat men were a big thing in those days. Lots of cops wouldn’t aspire to be a detective. But I sure did. [laughs]

Yeardley: I love it. I love it.

Simon: I just watch too much tele. Everybody must have a favorite fictional detective as well. Do you know who, mine’s? Do you know who, mine’s?

Yeardley: Sure. Who’s yours?

Simon: Columbo.

Yeardley: Oh, that’s old school, my friend.

Simon: Not for me, it’s not. I created myself mirrored on Columbo. That’s Tom Wood. I’ll tell you I still dress like him.

Yeardley: [laughs] I love Columbo. My father loved Columbo.

Simon: So, who is your favorite fictional?

Dan: Frank Drebin.

Simon: Oh, yeah.

Dan: The naked guy.

Yeardley: Oh, the naked.

[laughter]

Dave: Leslie Nielsen cracked hundreds of cases.

Yeardley: Yes, yes, he did. Good old Leslie Nielsen.

[laughter]

But we digress. So, you’re a detective on this tiny island?

Simon: Yep. I got a phone call from a detective chief inspector at our headquarters in Glasgow, and he’d asked for CID and he got me. There was no one else to get. And he said, “I need you to do me a favor, son. I need you to go and check this address.” And he gave me an address. It’s a flat. Get the flat position for me and see if there’s any activity, if there’s anyone about the place, if there’s any signs of life, and at the same time, see if you can see if there’s a vehicle on the island that’s a sovereign, a Jaguar sovereign, registration number, blah, blah, blah. So, I said, “Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”

 And off I went, bemused at why a Chief Superintendent from Pitt Street or headquarters was calling, but I told my boss that I’d got this call and that’s what I was doing. So, I had to wait till dark to establish if there was anyone in this flat. It was a top level flat, so if I can describe this, it’s called a tenement in Scotland, but it’s basically a building with a common entrance, one entrance at the bottom and its flights of stairs and this one had four flights of stairs with two doors, two houses on each landing. The house he had asked me to look for was top right, so I had to get these details for him.

 And I waited till dark and saw that there was lights on and the curtains were closed over so I knew that there was someone in the house and by that time I had found the vehicle– or we had found a vehicle. I had a lad working with me having a try at CID work and him and I found a vehicle parked not so close to the property as I would have imagined, but it was within a five-minute walk I would say. So, I reported that back to the boss, the Chief Super and he phoned me back 20 minutes later and he said there are four men coming over tonight, they’re going to be armed. I need you to get your Chief Inspector to let him know what’s happening and I’ll send them- It’s probably a fax in those days now that I think about it.

Yeardley: [laughs] sure.

Simon: There’s four men coming over, they’re going to be armed and they’re going to be executing a warrant at that house that you’ve just recede for us and told us that there’s someone there and the person that we’re looking for, his name is Paul Ferris. Now that name won’t mean anything to any of you, probably to most of your listeners and to you guys, but over here in the UK it’s a very renowned name. There was a film made about him called “The Wee Man.” It was gangland, Glasgow, west of Scotland back in the 80s and Paul Ferris and his cohost were probably the start of modern organized crime back then, they’re basically gangsters, that was Mr. Ferris.

 So, immediately, I heard that, the alarm bell started ringing because he was a very, very violent man back at that time.

Yeardley: And Simon, what was Ferris’ main business in organized crime? Was it drugs, prostitution, guns, all of it?

Simon: All of the above, yeah. But I often try to convey to people, and I’ll try to convey it to your audience as well Yeardley, that drugs underpin just about every other nefarious activity, because it’s so cash rich.

Yeardley: Right.

Simon: Another famous criminal, probably more famous in Glasgow, who was the Godfather, he was known as and originally Paul had been his enforcer when he was younger, but he had split away from him at this point there was lots. They always followed this case, you know. [laughs] The only consistency you have is that they’re all going to fall out at some point. And that’s what was going on at this stage. It turned out this was the Serious Crime Squad that were coming over. And it turned out they were coming over because they had information that Mr. Ferris had firearms and I think it was cocaine, but certainly drugs in this place in Rothesay.

Yeardley: And Simon, you said that basically the cavalry is about to show up and they’re armed. And you, though, as a detective, you don’t carry a firearm.

Simon: No Scottish police officer carries a firearm as a matter of routine. We then invented vehicles that had firearms in them so that they could be accessible at shorter notice. But that’s more modern to do with terrorism and other things. At that time, the Scottish police were totally unarmed, although I was what we call an AFO. I was an Authorized Firearms Officer, so I was trained to use firearms. But my boss, my chief inspector, said to me, “I’m not going to issue you with a gun. I don’t want you getting involved in this. Let them do their job, help them all you can. Show them the place, show them the geography and do what you’re told. Because it was their operation. We knew nothing about it, nothing at all.”

[Break 1]

 So, they appeared. Remember Rothesay, the only way to get there is by boat, by ferry. So, they appeared off the ferry and by that time I had them booked into a hostelry where they stayed that night. And we then went about the process of executing the warrant that they had, which is a matter of reconnaissance, of intelligence, of uniform backup as well. All these officers from the Serious Crime Squad would be plain clothes, suited, probably from memory, maybe a bit more casual than your traditional detective image. I think one of them had combats on, but the purpose was to arrest Paul Ferris. Now, remember, I would guess, and I doubt that many people would contradict me if I said that Paul Ferris was among the most dangerous half dozen criminals in Scotland at the time. I’d be struggling to think of another half dozen.

 Some of that’s by reputation, obviously, because you don’t catch these guys for everything that they do. But certainly, what we knew of him and knew of his associates and knew of the things that he was involved in, without saying too much more, he was capable of just about anything. So, we went to the location from memory about half past 11 o’clock– half past 11 at night, and executed the warrant. The four detectives, my colleagues, went to his door with firearms drawn. And I was behind the corner looking round the corner because I had no firearm.

[laughter]

 So, I wasn’t at the door and Paul Ferris answered the door and was arrested immediately. He wasn’t given any time for explanations or anything. It transpired that he had a housecoat on Yeardley. I’m not sure if he had anything else on, but he had a housecoat. It was late at night and he was probably going to his bed, but he was pounced on and put on the ground and put in handcuffs. And he was facing up the way I always remember that he was facing up and he had guns pointing at him. Paul’s nickname in those days in police circles was Baby Face because he looked like a wee boy. He still does to a great degree, but he looked much, much younger than he was and certainly a lot more innocent than he was. But he’s on his bike. You imagined the scene. You’re forced to the ground in handcuffs with two or three or four weapons pointed in your face, firearms, late at night in your housecoat. What I really remember about it was that he hardly blinked, he hardly batted an eyelid.

 He looked up at the firearm and he said, “Is that a Smith & Wesson snub nose, big man.”

Yeardley: Oh, wow. [chuckles]

Simon: He was interested in what the weapons were that were pointed at him. He wasn’t in the slightest bit disconcerted.

Yeardley: Yes. And also wanted everybody to know that.

Simon: Oh, yeah.

Yeardley: That this was old hat for him.

Simon: Yeah, totally. So, I took him away with one of those detectives in a couple of uniforms that were with me and we took him up to the police station and the house was searched. Some uniforms and those detectives and drugs were found, cocaine was found allegedly. And Paul was booked and I was told to search the car. We took the car back to the police station and I was issued instructions to search this car. And I’m laughing because I searched it along with my aide to the CID. And I’ve never searched anything like I searched that car. I can assure you I took it to pieces. [Yeardley laughs] I could have been a mechanic, a Jaguar mechanic after that because I knew every part of that sovereign, because I was sure that there must be something there that I was to find. But there wasn’t. And, well, we didn’t find anything.

Yeardley: So, what ended up happening to Paul?

Simon: He went to court ultimately for that. He stayed in custody thereafter. He was in custody until the trial and he got not proven at the trial. And again, this is something that I’ve alluded to in other chats with you guys. When you’re paying top dollar, you get top defense. They managed to cast enough doubt on the procedures and on the find of the drugs and the credibility of the police officers involved that the jury saw fit to give him a ‘no proof’.

Yeardley: Wow. And what was he actually charged with?

Simon: Possession. Well, it would be possession with intent to supply because of the quantity. I can’t remember the exact quantity, but it was substantial amount. It wasn’t personal use, that’s for sure. And that was always a distinction in our law. Section 5(1) was possession with intent to supply, which carries a much more hefty sentence than simple possession. And that’s usually down to quantity and to some degree the circumstances.

Yeardley: Right.

Simon: If you’re caught selling it or there’s evidence that you have been selling it, or it’s prepared for sale, because you don’t sell it as a quantity like that. It has to be wrapped and cut and made into packages for 20 pound, 40 pound whatever the sale might be. So, if it’s prepared for sale, then that would negate the personal possession and show that you were preparing to sell it into the market.

Yeardley: Simon, do you remember if it was prepared for sale?

Simon: No, it wasn’t. It was one big package, Yeardley.

Yeardley: It was one big package.

Simon: Yeah.

Yeardley: So, that would be where the defense was able to gain some ground and say it’s not for sale, he just has it because he loves cocaine.

[laughter]

Simon: I mean, come on.

Dave: I’m curious. You’re the island detective and you find out that this renowned badass is staying in a flat on an island that you are policing. So, I’m curious about how long Paul Ferris had been there and what’s your reaction to all that once you realize, “Hey, I got a badass on my island.”

Yeardley: Yeah.

Simon: Well, what we discovered was that it was a safe house. It comes out in the film as well that this house was actually owned by another Glasgow gangster who rented it out. It was a holiday home, but it was also used as a safe house. It’s an island, remember, about an hour and a half from Glasgow. So, it was a holiday resort in those days. And it’s an interesting question because in those days the IRA, the Irish Republican Army were very active in the mainland UK, but only in England to our knowledge they never targeted a Scottish venue or target, but they used Scotland as a safe haven because they’re just people renting houses and could be vacation, it could be anything. And that’s what the criminal world do. They own properties and Ferris had maybe never been there before. I don’t think he had.

 But he was over there for a specific purpose, maybe to meet someone from England or from wherever who was coming to pick up that package. He may have been lying low after doing some kind of job, some kind of hit or whatever terminology you want to use here for these guys, but he was there. He couldn’t have been living on Rothesay. He couldn’t have been living there for any length of time without it becoming very apparent to us, because the locals would have noticed straight away, he wasn’t a notorious gangster and still is to this day.

Yeardley: Is he in prison?

Simon: No, he’s a businessman now.

Yeardley: Seriously.

Simon: He had a security company for a long time and he’s now a podcaster.

Yeardley: Stop it.

Simon: All these criminals turn to podcasting seeing Yeardley.

Yeardley: Oh my God.

Dan: He’s written a few books, too, correct?

Simon: Yes, yes. He’s big on Twitter. He’s got a huge social media following.

Dan: I’m just doing some quick reading on him. And Ferris owned a security company that actually protected the Dumbarton Sheriff Court.

Yeardley: Wow. Wow, that’s a 180.

Dave: Yeah.

Simon: Yeah.

Dave: I think he was rehabilitated.

[laughter]

Dan: I mean, it’s a fascinating guy. I’m just reading his Wikipedia page and there’s like, dude, this guy, he’s like the most interesting man in the world.

Simon: To me as well. I tell this story in my book Yeardley and Paul contacted me via Twitter and said that he quite liked my story because it had a semblance of truth to it and that he would send me the court papers if I wanted to expand on it.

Yeardley: Wow.

Simon: And he mentioned other cops and said, “At least you didn’t do this and do that like other.” And he used some bad language and whatnot. The point I was going to make was, I don’t know about you guys. It’s very, very seldom that criminals like that can rehabilitate, and I’m using that word lightly, but they can reinvent themselves and become part of mainstream society, like he has done to all purposes. Now he’s on the straight and narrow, and he’s a businessman in his own right. He writes books. They want to make movies about him, he’s got a notoriety about him, and it’s not many can do that, he’s clever.

Dave: Living that lifestyle. I imagine that gets tiring. You’re always looking over your shoulder. You’re always worried about the folks that work under you blabbing and giving you away. The stress level in that lifestyle, always being on the run or worrying about getting caught.

Simon: Yeah. And the opposition as well, your rivals in those marketplaces, because they’re always fighting with each other. There’s always competition for drug markets. We had ice cream wars here where a family of five were burnt to death in their house arson. There is always problems between the criminal fraternities. Luckily, they don’t really occupy us to that great a degree, because it’s only themselves that they’re fighting with and killing.

Yeardley: I’m surprised Ferris was allowed to leave his former lifestyle. Isn’t that sort of a thing like, once you’re in, you are in, there’s no getting out?

Simon: Well, a lot of his contemporaries are no longer with us, of course. I’m reluctant to give him any credence, but there was a cleverness about Paul and there was certainly an unpredictability about him that he was capable of anything. So, before you would cross Paul Ferris, you would have to think very, very carefully about the consequences of that.

[Break 2]

Dan: Simon, was your community at all shocked when they found out who was hanging out on the island?

Simon: Yeah, to some degree. But then you find out things like rock stars live there anonymously. And I met Paul McCartney when I lived away down in Campbelltown, 150 miles from Glasgow. So, sometimes these people want some respite and I suppose criminals exactly the same. And it’s called a safe house for a reason.

Yeardley: Simon, do you think Paul was hiding out?

Simon: Yeah, probably. Most of Paul’s associates knew where he was staying and certainly the opposition, his competition in these marketplaces, wouldn’t know where he was. You find that in small towns? No, this is Small Town Dicks. I would say that small towns do attract these people and it’s the ideal environment for them to blend into the background.

Dave: Yeah. Having to go find an island to do a little bit of a heat check and let the coast clear for a little while. And then all of a sudden, you’ve got four armed guys at your front door at 11 o’clock at night and you’re in a robe or a jacket and you’re like “ah.” And it begs the question, “How did the folks in Glasgow find out where Paul Ferris is?” I’m guessing one of his boys sold him out.

Simon: Well, no, that’s what I would have guessed as well, and that’s what I assumed at the time, that somebody somewhere. But it wasn’t that. It was actually a surveillance job. Within 10 months of that job, I was in the Serious Crime Squad because I got on well with them. Although, I called them the Serious Drinking Squad.

[laughter]

 And I knew the story from the other side then. And it had actually been part of a surveillance operation. We called them main index criminals. And these were the guys who were the leaders, who were the main men in Scotland at the time. Whether it be drugs or firearms or people trafficking, whatever it might be, it overlapped into terror as well. But it had been part of a surveillance. And the guy that they had been surveilling, had been watching, had met Ferris at a train station for two minutes. And they immediately gave up the job they were on and took on Paul Ferris.

Dave: Bigger fish.

Simon: Yeah, they got him as far as The Wemyss Bay Ferry and saw him going on it, but they didn’t go on it with him because it could only go one place. It could only go to the Isle of Bute and he was in this car. They had him captured at that point. Where he was, where the flat came from. I never did find out. But once you’ve got that knowledge, you’ve got some leverage. And they maybe went and pulled someone else in and got that intelligence. It was just chance. It usually is. The early, best surveillance is that chance plays a big part. It was the biggest part of my career was working surveillance. And it’s great when you stumble across something like that, because there’s no chance of being compromised whatsoever when you didn’t even know you were going to do it.

Yeardley: Right.

[laughter]

Dave: I’m recalling one of our drug detectives undercover are working a case in our neighboring city. It’s broad daylight, and they’re in a big parking lot, but they’re watching like seven rows away. And our drug detective is parked in his unmarked vehicle. He’s just sitting in the driver’s seat. And a vehicle pulls in nose to nose with him in this parking lot. And it’s somebody who’s not even related to the case that he’s working. But this guy puts out some cocaine and just starts snorting bumps.

[laughter]

 I mean, we’re talking facing each other. And so, our detective just lifted up his camera over the steering wheel and was like [onomatopoeia]. And they run his plate, they find out this is a somebody. And same thing. “Hey, we got a new project.” Everybody ditch that one, now we got one here. You know, sometimes you get really lucky.

Yeardley: Sure. That’s incredible.

Simon: Yeardley, what I used to love was that these main index criminals, as I talk about, would stumble across them sometimes, these guys go out shopping, they go to the shops with their wives, they go to the cinema. They go down and buy the newspaper and stuff like that. And you would stumble across them sometime, which was great. We would stumble across somebody who walked backwards up the street and then he’d turn around and run for 100 yards and then stop and stand still. He didn’t know we were there. There was no way he could know we were there. There was maybe only one car nearby, but they lived a life like that. They assumed they’re being followed all the time, 24/7. I love that.

Yeardley: That’s exhausting.

Paul: Constantly paranoid.

Simon: Yeah.

Yeardley: Yeah.

[laughter]

Yeardley: Simon, you mentioned that the IRA mostly focused their deeds in Ireland and then in England as well, but they left Scotland alone. Except they would occasionally have these safe houses.

Simon: Oh, yeah.

Yeardley: Was Paul Ferris associated with the IRA or this house had nothing to do with the IRA?

Simon: I would guess the latter, but I don’t know. Hand on heart, I couldn’t say that Paul Ferris ever had anything to do with the IRA.

Yeardley: Right.

Simon: But certainly he would know about their world of crime as it affected him and his crew. What I do know is that in the course of our inquiries sometimes we would come across some very dangerous men who were known terrorists across the water, because that’s our intelligence system. This was recently named for me as silo thinking. And I think all the lads on the team will understand this. The police are very guilty of it sometimes as well. But, certainly, governments are where everybody’s got their own silo. So, let’s take terrorism. There’s a silo. And if you look at the world through that prism from your silo, then everything is seen as that, that’s all you’re looking for.

 And you might be a detective on the robbery squad and you’re in the robbery silo with all your comrades, and all you see is the world through the prism of robbery. Unfortunately, the criminals don’t have that handicap because that affects intelligence and all sorts of communication problems that we have, because we’re all in our own silos looking after our own problems, if you like, our interests. But the criminals don’t have that. So, terrorism mixes with drugs world, mixes with firearms, mixes with social life. Families can become involved, relationships between wives, between siblings. It goes on and on that it’s the real world. And what we try to do is docket them so that we can look at the drugs world or the robbery world or the sexual crimes or whatever it might be. Does that make sense, guys?

Yeardley: Yeah, yeah, it makes complete sense.

[Break 3]

Yeardley: I was talking to Dave and Dan about this the other day, actually. Like, once you learn to see the world through a certain lens, not unlike silo thinking, but because of the things that you had to adopt, the strategies, the points of view in order to survive and to do your job well in law enforcement. now you can’t ever not have that filter. You can’t unsee those things, and you can’t look at the world the same way you did before you became a cop. Can you speak to any of those?

Simon: How long have you got? Yeardley. [Yeardley laughs] I had an experience recently. I’m going to plug our own podcast here. Tom Wood and I have our own podcast, Crime Time Inc. And Tom coaxed me into speaking about undercover work because I was heavily involved in undercover work for many years. And Tom has absolutely, well, not no knowledge, but he was a senior officer who used undercover abilities, but he doesn’t know anything about it, really. And I thought, yeah, we’ll do an episode about undercover work. But the first one didn’t work because I realized I was opening up doors that I had closed, locked, bolted, and didn’t really want to admit to myself, never mind anyone else, because that world is full of lies, deceit, mistrust, and ultimately betrayal.

 And you have to be willing to do those things, A, to survive and B, to get the job done. But I got it in some context. I had a few sleepless nights after just chatting with Tom about it, but then I got it into some perspective, and now I think I’ve got it handled better through talking about. That’s what you were alluding to there. You can’t unlearn those things, but you can put them aside and realize that you were doing a job.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Simon: What you were doing was a job that needed to be done at the time. And it’s a different job now, I would suggest. And the things that we did and the things they were all needing to be done, it was the greater good we used to think of it as. And we did those things in order to save lives, in order to keep drugs off the streets, which has failed miserably.

 Of course. It’s another mission of mine to change those laws. But that’s the truth of the matter. And, yeah, it changes you. And I still find myself sitting with my back to the wall when I go out in public and things like that. It’s mostly subconscious now. And I drive 30 miles an hour now all the time. My kids say I drive like an old man, [Yeardley laughs] and that’s because I am.

[laughter]

 So, you gradually adapt, and it now seems like a different world. You’ve maybe heard me saying, a lifetime ago. And that’s what it feels like. It feels like a different person that was doing these back then. But you learn the street craft from it. I can still walk into a place and think, “How do I do this?” There’s something not right and I’ll leave. Because you trust your instincts more because you’ve been living on them back in the day. And what I’ve discovered is that you can slip into that mode if something happens. If there’s an accident or, God forbid, somebody pulled a firearm or something, I don’t think I’d run away. I think a bit of you slips back into training and habit and routine and you deal with the thing.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Simon: I remember a senior officer saying to me, police officers have to learn to run towards things that most other people in their right mind would run away from. And I think that always stays with you.

Yeardley: That’s exactly right. I often describe your job that way. If I do a podcast interview or something, I would say, “These are the people who, if they’re doing the job the right way, first of all, they consider it a calling, and second of all, they run toward the things the rest of us run from.” And it’s just not normal to encounter people on their worst day. That is your 9 to 5, so to speak. It’s just not normal. It’s not normal.

Simon: No. And it has consequences, which I think you were alluding to. It takes its toll. There’s a price to pay.

Yeardley: Yes. A big price. Some detectives who’ve come on the podcast have told us, I tried to deal with it more or less as it was happening more oftentimes, they say, “No, I decided I would just bury it and deal with it later.” And then later comes, they’re like, “You know what? I actually don’t want to deal with that at all.” But you’re not ever let off the hook.

Simon: No.

Yeardley: You will be forced to deal with it at some point.

Simon: And I can remember incidents where, when they were over, the inspector or whoever would say, “Right, lads, that was horrific.” Maybe a death or whatever sometimes a policeman, and he’d say, “Right, away you go home. Away you go home.” Just take the rest of the night off. Entirely, the wrong thing to do, because that’s the last thing you needed was to get split up and sent home. Very often to go home and your partner or your mum or whoever it might be, say, “How was things tonight, son? Why are you home early?” And you don’t want to talk about it to your mum? [laughs]

Yeardley: Right, right.

Simon: So, we deal with things differently now, hopefully. But we certainly didn’t know much about how to deal with them back in these days that I’m talking about.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Simon: We did an episode about PTSD, and I’ve got a friend who’s in the forces and whatnot. He’s got strong opinions about it and a good background in dealing with it with clients of his. But he said to me that he thinks I escaped the worst of that. Because I had a daughter who died in 2011, Yeardley, my wee girl, died in 2011 of cystic fibrosis. Her name was Louise. And Bobby reckons that once something like that’s happened to you, everything else falls into perspective.

Yeardley: Right.

Simon: And that’s really what you have to do, is get perspective on things. The time is the most important thing in the whole world. Catching this guy with some drugs. You know, in the big picture of life, it doesn’t matter, jot.

[laughter]

 You know what I mean? Or me getting a hard time in court or whatever it might be. When you put things in real perspective, then that helps you deal with these traumas, because that’s what they are.

Yeardley: Yes, absolutely. I just really appreciate, and I’m humbled by your candor and your enormous heart, Simon. Thank you.

Simon: I think it’s useful to talk, isn’t it?

Yeardley: It is. Isn’t it?

Simon: Yeah. For us all.

Dan: Thank you Simon. Great to see you.

Dave: Thank you, sir.

Simon: You too, guys. Thank you.

Dave: Thanks.

Simon: Great questions, great fun. It’s good talking to old cops, isn’t it?

Yeardley: Yeah, it is good.

Simon: They get it. They get it.

[music]

Yeardley: Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

 Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

 The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]