The city was divided into 3 divisions – one snow hill in the west, wood street in the middle and Bishopsgate in the east. Each area that the station covered was divided up into beats, and essentially you were expected to deal with anything that happened in that beat, and to walk around it,……. - You didn’t get a set route then, I understand you used to have to walk a set beat, but when I joined, you didn’t have to walk a set route,……You did get to know these areas very well… …looking at people you familiarise yourself with people, with things that were there so that if anything was out of place you could recognise it. Every day you would get moved around. …. if you were at bishopsgate and you upset the sergeant he’d post you somewhere like Tower Bridge, was as far away as you could get from the station. It was horrible in winter you’d be walking up and down tower bridge trying to find somewhere sheltered. The idea was that there had to be a police officer on duty when the bridge closed to let the shipping through.