The Guv'nors: Ten of Scotland Yard's Greatest Detectives

The ten Scotland Yard detectives, featured in The Guv’nors, are unique. Such a group of intrepid crime-busters will never exist again. They possessed only the most rudimentary education; none had a degree. Intuition and knowledge of their ‘manor’ counted for more than DNA and databases. They worked tirelessly in the pursuit of criminals, used informants, worked on hunches and grabbed hold of investigations and shook them until every piece of evidence was unearthed. Criminals trembled when these detectives were after them because, once they were nicked, they stayed nicked.

The Guv’nors covers legends such as Fred Wensley, who nailed strips of bicycle tyres to the soles of his boots when on the look-out for Jack the Ripper. He later formed the Flying Squad and became chief constable of the CID. Fred Sharpe would single-handedly confront forty of the worst racetrack gangsters and tell them to ‘clear off’, anyone who refused would collect a punch on the jaw. Sharpe later became head of the Flying Squad, as did Bob Fabian, who was awarded the King’s Police Medal for dismantling an IRA bomb.

Bert Wickstead, known as ‘The Gangbuster’, literally terrorised the gangs who attempted to fill the void in London’s East End, after the demise of the Kray bothers.

This is a book which will delight those who want to know what life was like when The Guv’nors and others like them were in charge of law and order and the streets were far safer than they are today.