This is a personal view of a time and a place. The author was for eighteen years (1979 — 1997) in the South African Reserve Police Force in Durban — an interesting time but now decidedly part of history. He had an unusually wide experience, starting as a raw constable, but later heading the Reserve unit in Durban’s red light district as well as running the training for the District. He has tried to place the actual police work in the context of the times, its people, their attitudes and language, as he experienced them. These tales can also serve, in a small way, as a record of, and tribute to the many members of the Reserve whose work has long vanished into dusty dockets. The results will, undoubtedly, not fit with popular preconceptions of policing, especially in South Africa, and may seem at times somewhat surreal. But this is what happened.
