Jonathan Thomas (00:21)
I've been nicked! Welcome to the Anglotopia podcast, the podcast where we talk about British travel history and culture. And today I'm speaking with John Donoghue whose career trajectory might be one of the most wonderfully British things I've ever heard. After 40 years serving in the Royal Navy, British army, and the police, John found himself facing retirement boredom. So naturally he decided to try breaking Britain's strangest forgotten laws. Along the way,

He accidentally became a guide at a medieval castle and has now written about the whole adventure in his hilarious new book, Castles, Crime and Cake, a Policeman's Accidental Guide to History. Here it is right here. Link will be in the show notes. John is already the author of five previous books, including his popular police memoir trilogy. Links in the show notes. His new book blends bizarre laws, medieval trivia, personal mishaps, and some surprisingly profound thoughts on finding purpose in later life.

Welcome to the podcast, John.

John Donoghue (01:21)
Very pleased to be here.

Jonathan Thomas (01:23)
Thank you for taking the time to be with us. I've always wanted to grill a copper.

So let's talk about your life of service to the Crown. ⁓ You served in the Royal Navy, the British Army, and then the police. That's quite the trifecta of British public service. Was there something that drove you to keep putting on a uniform, or did you just really like the outfits?

John Donoghue (01:46)
Well, when I left school there was basically two options. could either go to university like my brothers had and like all my peers were doing or I could do something more exciting. And for me it was a choice between ⁓ more schoolwork or a life of adventure. So I chose the latter. I joined the originally, the Royal Navy I joined the Navy, see the world they said. It's 70 % water.

So I felt a little bit conned, but I had a great time there. In fact, the first place that we visited on the warship was New Orleans. We came over for Mardi Gras, which was for an 18 year old boy was quite an eye opener. I was wondering what all the beads were for and then I suddenly discovered. ⁓ certainly, and I went to Pensacola as well after that. And everybody in America was so friendly towards us.

Jonathan Thomas (02:32)
Hahaha

John Donoghue (02:45)
They have something called a grippo. I don't know if you've heard of a grippo. if a foreign ship comes in, certainly when I was in the military you had it, you'd have locals coming up to the gangplank saying, oh, can we have two sailors to take to a party or a group of sailors to take for a picnic or a sailor to come round for Sunday dinner. So everybody was so friendly over there. It was amazing.

Jonathan Thomas (03:07)
I hope we hosted you well in your adventures in America. I'm sure some things you can't even talk about. So your police memoirs are full of incredible stories from arresting a bride at her wedding, chasing a naked lubed up dog thief, or a woman complained that bees were stealing her pollen. Did you know from the start that you had books worth of material or did it creep up on you?

John Donoghue (03:10)
you did indeed.

No, not at all. I I wrote a book after I left the military about the adventures I had there. And when I left the military, I got a dog, a black Labrador, and I had a young daughter. I was a single dad with a young daughter. And we lived the other side of the country from where my family lived. So I thought, well, I've got to do something to try and get them to want to come and visit me. So what we did, we went around the funny named places in the Northeast and made a calendar. You've got places like... ⁓

Wet Wang, No Place, Pity Me, Wire Piddle. And they've all got, all these names have got quite historical backgrounds as to why they're called it. So I made a calendar originally, put the book out, it was quite successful. And for some time I was regarded as a bit of a writing guru. People would come to me, give me their manuscripts and that's what they thought of it. But that all came to an abrupt halt one day when

somebody came along with a manuscript asked me to look through it. I read it and then I I like the story but the main character comes over as a bit of an a-hole and that's when he told me it was his autobiography so I put an end to that. But so when I joined the police I thought all my tales had been told but then one of the first jobs I went to was to take a statement from an elderly lady in her house. So I was sitting there on the settee

with a cup of tea, drinking it away and she was sitting on the other side of the room with her cup of tea and midway through me taking the statement the door nudged open and a German shepherd dog proceeded to potter into the room. He looked around and then proceeded to squat down and lay an enormous turd in the middle of the room. So I looked over at the lady quite surprised but she was just there with a cup of tea and there was nothing that happened.

So thought, it's not my house, not my dog, not up to me to tell the beast off. So I didn't say anything. But then about half an hour later when I was due to leave, I thought, I've got to find out what happened there. So as I was leaving, I turned to her and said, look, when I was taking the statement and your dog came in and did a poo in the middle of the room, why didn't you say anything? And she said, my dog? I thought it was your dog.

So that's when I thought what other job would you have where a dog comes into the room and just does a poo and nobody says a word. So I thought that I've got to start writing these stories down. And so that's what I did. know, I always look for the funny side. There's a lot of very gritty, you know, police books out there. But I thought I'd make mine different. I would look at the funny side of things, the interesting and bizarre jobs we go to. So I started writing and

And when I started writing, you know, after I wrote chapter one, I had no idea what was going to be in chapter two until it occurred. And so it just sort of crept up on me and eventually I had enough and put the first book out.

Jonathan Thomas (06:33)
Nice. So you received the chief constable's commendation for bravery without giving too much away. What can you tell us about that?

John Donoghue (06:43)
It was Christmas Eve back in 2012. know, early hours of the morning, we were sitting around just having a cup of tea when a call came in about a domestic on the other side of town. So I jumped in the Panda car, was heading out to it and as I was en route, I just turned the corner and saw a house there on fire. So I called the fire brigade.

Rano, it was going to be too long before they got there. So I just kicked the door in, got the family out, two adults and three children. And then after I got them out, they said, well, our cat and dog are still in there. So I went back in, got the cat and dog out as well and brought them out. And just in the nick of time. you know, I got I know I got a bravery award for it, but I think it's something that anyone would do if they if they were there. You know, you've got to.

Look after, especially the cat dog.

Jonathan Thomas (07:40)
That's just a bonus for the award, right?

John Donoghue (07:43)
So yeah I felt quite proud of that so yeah got that on the the wall there I think if I can see it just up there.

Jonathan Thomas (07:50)
Okay,

if you're watching on YouTube, you can see it on his wall. Very nice. So ⁓ police humor is famously dark. How did you learn to balance that with writing for a general audience who may not quite get the inside jokes, especially audiences like the women's Institute?

John Donoghue (07:53)
Ha

Well, the short answer is that I didn't. I write for myself as opposed to writing for what I think an audience would want. So I write what I think is funny and interesting. And if people think it's funny and interesting as well, great. Sometimes I hit the mark, sometimes I overstep the mark. And yeah, that's the problem really.

I remember when I talked to the Women's Institute, for those of you who don't know what the Women's Institute is, it's a group of sort of women in later life who like to do crafting, make jam, and you know, it's very respectable women in the community. I do a talk for them about the 10 life lessons that I learned from the police. And I was explaining about the station where I used to work up north and I was saying that it was quite rough.

they've got the dubious distinction of having more takeaways per head of population than anywhere else in Britain. And I said it's also twinned with Las Vegas in that as far as I know, Shildon and Las Vegas are the only two places in the world where can pay for sex with chips. some of the audience were laughing like trains and some of them stayed quite stony-faced. So yeah, that's the question. I'm not very good at...

sort of appreciating what my audience should or shouldn't listen to. just do my stuff and if they like it great, if not well so be it.

Jonathan Thomas (09:34)
So we're going to talk about the nitty gritty of how British policing is different from American policing. Cause this fascinates me and British crime dramas are the most popular thing that Anglophile stream on our services. I'm interested to have some myths dispelled. So how is being a police officer in the UK different than a police officer in the US?

John Donoghue (09:58)
I think our core role is the same. We're there to stop that 1 % in society disrupting it for the rest of the 99%. And the only trouble is the better job that we do at looking after that 99%, the less the 99 % think they actually need us. But I think in essence, it's the same core role. There's a lot of difference between what you see on British TV dramas though and actual policing.

From watching the TV dramas and reading crime novels, you'd think that all crime was solved by a chief inspector with his sergeant sidekick and the PCs did nothing. So it's very different from that. I think essentially American policing or policing all over the world has got the same aim. It's just how we go about it sometimes is different.

Jonathan Thomas (10:51)
So for our American listeners who grew up watching cop shows, the most obvious difference is that police officers don't routinely carry guns. What is it like to police without firearms and do you ever wish you had one?

John Donoghue (11:05)
Well, yeah, normally our kit consists of a very small tin of ⁓ irritant, I suppose, like a Tia mace maybe, and a small extendable baton that we use. And so a lot of the time we've got to use communication skills to get ourselves through. We've got to use, you know, humor, patience to try and talk people down. It doesn't always work. And sometimes you've got to resort to... ⁓

getting hands on and I must admit I've been assaulted a lot in my time. had, you know, obviously, punched, bat-hat kicked, had broken bones, I've been stabbed in the face, I've been put in hospital. So that's the downside, but we don't carry guns really because our public don't carry guns and so we don't really need to. I got issued a taser in later years.

And that was useful. I've red dotted some people. If your readers know what that means, the taser has got a little laser on the end so the person who's being red dotted can see that the taser is aimed at them. So I've used it as a threat, but I've not actually shot anybody. But really, we don't need to carry guns because of the gun laws in the UK. The majority of our suspects don't carry guns. And I'm in awe of the American police.

because they just don't know when they're going to do a job, is there going to be a gun, is somebody carrying, so it must be a very stressful occupation for them. So hats off to my American colleagues.

Jonathan Thomas (12:45)
So can you explain the rank structure in British policing? You were a PC, a police constable. What's the equivalent in American terms?

John Donoghue (12:54)
I suppose that the response officer, the front line officer, the patrol officer, the state trooper, all rolled into one. We're the ones who respond to the emergency calls, who patrol the streets looking for any trouble. Personally, I think that's where the fun is in the job. I was asked if I wanted to get promotion and all that, but to me, you never know what's going to happen when you go to a job.

It be good, it can be bad, but it's that excitement and that's where I get my stories from as well. So if I was sitting behind a desk, you know, just doing that, you know, nobody's going to be interested in reading about that. yeah, I love doing it. So, yeah, basically a PC is a patrol officer, straight two pair, suppose.

Jonathan Thomas (13:44)
Interesting. So in America we have thousands of different police departments from city, county, state, federal. How does the structure work in the UK? How does it, there's just one police force, right?

John Donoghue (13:57)
Well, there's one police force, we're split into 43 different areas. They might cover a county or a number of counties. And within that police force area, we deal with everything. So there's no difference in the state troopers, jurisdiction versus sheriff jurisdiction versus the city police jurisdiction. Everything in that county is dealt by that one force. So I was in Durham-Constabulary.

many years that covered the County Durham. ⁓ Lastly I was in Dufford Powys Police in Wales which covered a number of different counties. It's a massive area. But yeah that's the main difference is just for a geographical area we do everything in that area.

Jonathan Thomas (14:44)
Interesting. ⁓ forgive me, this wasn't on the list of questions, but like, what's there between the police in the rural area versus the police, the metropolitan police in London? Are they different forces or are they?

John Donoghue (15:00)
Yeah, the Metropolitan Police is a different force from Dufford Powers, for example, which is a rural force, but the police officers have exactly the same responsibilities, exactly the same things that they can do, exactly the same equipment. And so, for example, I'm in a rural area, but I could be sort of posted to a town, you know, and I'd have the same responsibilities then.

Basically he's just a bit more built up in London, a bit less built up where I am, but we're all the same officers and it's got the same rank structure throughout.

Jonathan Thomas (15:39)
So the 999 call system is the British equivalent to America's 911 system. From your books, it sounds like you got some absolutely bonkers call. What's the most absurd thing someone rang 999 about?

John Donoghue (15:53)
We had one call, not long after Christmas, a woman reporting that somebody has stolen a snowman. She said it's very strange because there's no footprints around. I think that's a nice day that day. So I think that we could quite easily solve that one. Somebody rang up saying they were being followed by a cat. Another person rang up complaining, McDonald's breakfast.

ends at 11 o'clock. I mean I grant you very disappointing but little we can do about that. Somebody rung up saying an eight-year-old won't get in the bath. I'm not sure what they expected the police to do. We had once had a call about somebody ringing up saying their baby wouldn't go to sleep. So I don't know what they wanted us to do there. Resist the baby, arrest the baby for resisting arrest. don't know. Somebody rang up for a bad haircut.

I don't know exactly how bad your haircut's gotta be to warrant a 999 call. Somebody else rung up to say that a dog was looking at them funny. it's just bizarre. mean, obviously you've got your serious calls, but you've got your some bizarre calls as well. yeah, hopefully that's one that lends itself to some of the humor in the books as well.

Jonathan Thomas (17:09)
Well, it's nice to know that ⁓ one thing that can that has traveled across the pond is the mutual dissatisfaction that McDonald's breakfast ends too early.

John Donoghue (17:19)
That's right, yes.

Jonathan Thomas (17:22)
What do you mean, at 11? Should this be released noon?

John Donoghue (17:26)
Well, we had one person

ringing up about, they had a lack of hundreds and thousands, I think you call them sprinkles, don't you? A lack of hundreds and thousands on their ice cream. And again, it just makes you wonder what goes through people's heads, know, to think that they should ring the police about it.

Jonathan Thomas (17:33)
Yeah.

So British police are famous for policing by consent rather than force. Can you explain what that means in practice?

John Donoghue (17:52)
I suppose it means that we're part of the community. don't police because the government says do this. We police because the community wants itself to be kept safe and kept lawful. And so we don't do it with a heavy hand. We tend to police with more patience and humour. ⁓

try and solve issues that way as opposed to coming down with force first. Talk first and then force if needs be, not the other way around.

Jonathan Thomas (18:30)
What's the British public's general attitude towards the police? Is there the same kind of tension that exists in parts of America where it feels like the police are the opposition?

John Donoghue (18:39)
think generally people are very supportive of the police. Obviously you've got some factors, know, the people you arrest are not your biggest fans. But generally people see the police as trustworthy. You know, we want them to respect us, but to do that we've got to earn their respect as well. And we find that, you know, generally people think the police are good. They like to grumble about us. ⁓

They set us high standards and if we don't match those standards they're quite willing to complain. But generally people look at us as the people that they turn to if they've got an issue, the people who sort out the idiots where they don't want to do it, or the people they come to if their dog gets lost. People are quite trusting of the police over here.

Jonathan Thomas (19:31)
So your books mention things like response officers and the custody suite. Can you translate some of these British police jargon terms for our American listeners? Cause they love British terms in their.

John Donoghue (19:45)
Yeah, basically a response officer is the officer who responds to the emergency calls, the one who's out patrolling. So that's a response officer. And then the custody suite, you'd probably call it the holding cells, where people get taken initially before they go on to see the court or the magistrates. yeah, they're the main things there.

Jonathan Thomas (20:11)
So the subtitle of your book is a policeman's accidental guide to history. How does somebody accidentally become a castle guide?

John Donoghue (20:19)
Well, quite easily in my position. When I left the police and retired, I started feeling I needed to find a purpose in life. And I tried one thing that I think we'll come on to later. But when that failed dramatically, I was at a bit of a loss. And I thought, I enjoyed it when I went to visit a castle before. So I'll go back to the castle.

see if I can get a job maybe in the pencil and rubber shop, the gift shop as you might call it, or the cafe. I it'd just be quite nice chatting to people there. So I sent my CV in, I didn't have high hopes. My CV basically consisted of, I can navigate a warship, I can shoot the enemy and I can arrest baddies. So I thought it's not a great CV and it didn't help when I sent it off to the manager.

I accidentally attached, instead of the CV, I attached a copy of a photograph of my dog eating his birthday cake. So I was quite surprised when I did get invited in for a chat. Came in and managed to took me down to the cafe, little chat, a little preamble. And then suddenly out of the blue, he said, ⁓ would you like to be a castle guide? Now, I thought we hadn't even reached the interview stage yet. I thought it was just a bit of, you know, warm up talk.

So I thought, have they got me mixed up with somebody? Tomorrow is some learned professor going to be coming along and then be taught how to use the milk frother or something. So I thought they got me totally mixed up. I thought, well, you know, I didn't go to university. I didn't study history, but I thought, well, I'll have a go. I think it was Richard Branson who said, if a really good opportunity comes up and you haven't got the skills for it, just say yes and then learn the skills later.

So I said, well, yeah, I'll have a go. And he told me that basically the job of a guide was ⁓ you had to write your own tour. It was to last 60 minutes and it was to cover the full thousand year history of the castle. I had to appeal to everyone from age eight to 80 and I had to be interesting and entertaining. So I thought that was seems like a straightforward enough brief. So he looked at...

looked at his watch and then said, well, I'll see you back here then in four months. And so basically I went away and I spent the next four months of my own time just buying books, researching on the internet, trying to weave this talk together. ⁓ I did so much research. I had so much sort of things that were fantastic, but ended up on the cutting room floor because you had to have a talk that sort of that flowed properly. And I don't rely on dates.

the castle I rely very much on telling stories. yeah that's how I went in for a job for the gift shop and ended up accidentally ended up as a castle guide.

Jonathan Thomas (23:27)
Oil that never hurts to have an ex copper around,

John Donoghue (23:30)
Hahaha!

Jonathan Thomas (23:31)
So you mentioned founding the Obscure Crime Prevention Society with the membership of one, which apparently I'm not also the second. Oh, right. The Crime Preservation Society, which I'm also now the second member because you sent me my membership card with the book. I also got my get out of the dungeon free card. So what inspired you to start trying to break Britain's strangest laws and forgotten laws?

John Donoghue (23:37)
No, the... sorry, it's the Crime Preservation Society.

Yeah.

When I left the police I moved to a small village in Wales and it's tiny, there's not many houses here at all. And I soon found out that they do a lot of things differently here. When the post lady used to come she used to spend about five minutes each time playing with my dog, my Labrador, before she gave me the mail. And even when there was no mail she'd come along and play with my dog for a while. And I'd chat away to her and she'd spend ages there.

And eventually one of my friends said to me, when I was telling them about this, they said, you know that it's against the law to chat to the post lady for too long. And I looked it up and it's quite correct, delay in the mail is an offence. And so I thought, well, if I'm committing that offence, maybe I should commit some more. I mean, no serious offences, just the bizarre forgotten laws that were still resting on the

on the law books. And so that's what got me into it. I set up the Crime Preservation, the Obscure Crime Preservation Society with the intention of breaking these laws to highlight them, to preserve them. And I mean, nothing serious. wasn't going to, I'm sure all your readers know that it's illegal in Britain to watch the television without a license. I wasn't going to break that law. But yeah, so that's what got me into it.

Jonathan Thomas (25:25)
So tell us about the salmon called Steve. I understand you tried to get arrested under the Salmon Act of 1986 for handling salmon in suspicious circumstances. How does one handle a salmon suspiciously exactly?

John Donoghue (25:41)
Well, indeed it is a bizarre law. The first ⁓ hurdle was getting hold of Steve. I don't know if you ever tried to get hold of a ⁓ full salmon anywhere. it's no cakewalk. So I went round to various fishmongers and eventually found whole salmon there. And he was just lying there dead on the marble. ⁓

late and the fishmonger asked me if I wanted him gutted but to be honest he looked gutted enough already so I said no I'll take him as he is so I got him named him Steve took him away and then yeah my next battle was how do I handle it suspicious circumstances because the legislation doesn't specify what suspicious circumstances is it's very much left to your own imagination so

I had a couple of ideas, I thought of what I'll do, I'll dress up like a World War II Spiv and with a little Trilby hat on and ⁓ I'll have Steve under my arm but I thought I'll probably just look more like a Nazi war criminal on the run doing that so I thought what I'll do is maybe when somebody's using the cash point or the ATM as you call it I might sort of pop his head round the corner to

it looks as if he's looking at what numbers they're putting in. And so I had various ideas of how I could handle a salmon, Steve in particular, suspiciously. yeah, that was my plan. But again, as all the best laid plans go, it went disastrously wrong as well.

Jonathan Thomas (27:28)
To get the end of the story, have to read the book. What other bizarre British laws did you discover and which was your favorite to try and break?

John Donoghue (27:31)
Hahaha

There's a few. I needed help for the next one. Women can't eat chocolate on a bus. That's still a law that's on the statute books. You can't wear armour in the House of Commons. It's also rumoured that you're not allowed to die in the House of Commons. But I, because apparently if you die in the House of Commons, you could be eligible for a state funeral. But people said, no, that's, you know,

accrued it with the House of Commons. They said, no, no, it's not true. But again, that's what they would say, isn't it? But you're not allowed to be drunk in a pub. So they can try and get you, they can try and get you as drunk as they can. But when you hit that tipping point, that's illegal. You're not allowed to shake your rug before eight o'clock in the morning, shake your rug in the street. No wearing a top hat in the city of London after eight o'clock at night.

And in fact, the first person who ever did wear a top hat caused a riot in London. was women fainting, women running away, dogs barking, and he got arrested for causing a general nuisance. You're not allowed to feed the penguins, feed the penguins, feed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. You're not allowed to fly a kite. And that's technically against the law. And dating back some of the even older crimes are more bizarre.

In the old days you could get sent as a convict to Australia for impersonating an Egyptian, which seems a very bizarre one. And also if you cracked an egg at the sharp end, you could be eligible for spending 24 hours in the stocks. So, yeah, there's a whole range of laws. And it's very hard to find out which ones are still going, which ones have been repealed, which ones have just been generally forgotten about.

But yeah, there's a whole host of things for me to get involved with there.

Jonathan Thomas (29:38)
Well, I'm imagining like when you're in police school learning like criminal code, like, does it need this ever come up? Or is it just, it's been forgotten.

John Donoghue (29:48)
Well,

no, exactly. It never comes up. And every now and again, though, you wish that these things had been mentioned. arrested somebody once for riding a horse while intoxicated. it's, you know, and it's one of these laws when you think, you know, what can I arrest this guy for? need to arrest him. He needs to be taken off the streets. But what law is eligible for it? So, yeah.

I wish they did a few more lessons on the more obscure laws. Maybe this should get me back in the training school and to teach them.

Jonathan Thomas (30:22)
So, ⁓ forgive me for not mentioning this sooner, you work at Pembroke Castle in Wales, which is the birthplace of Henry VII. What's it like working at such a historically significant site?

John Donoghue (30:35)
It's fantastic. It's an amazing place. It's got over a thousand years of history. It's the greatest knight who ever lived there. As you say, birthplace to a future King of England. The castle has never been taken by force. The first invasion of Ireland was planned there. And it's lovely. People who come to a castle as well are nice people. You don't get...

nasty people or people who are down coming to a castle. It's like you never write a postcard if you're down. The same way you never come to a castle if you're feeling down. People want to be there. And so the difference in my role in the old days, if I was talking to a group of people in the police, they don't want to fight me and swear at me. But since being at the castle, that's never happened yet.

I put a lot of effort into the tour. I want it to be like the best tour since Willy Wonka's tour of his factory, but with maybe less deaths. It's a lovely place to work.

Jonathan Thomas (31:45)
So there's also a monkey ghost with a dark past mentioned in your book. What's the story there?

John Donoghue (31:52)
There's a nearby castle called Kairou Castle and they've got the dubious distinction of being haunted by a monkey. And the story goes is back in the 16th century the lord of the manor there had, or 17th century, had a pet monkey, a Barbary ape or a macaque monkey and he used to use it to terrorize his local tenants. so when the tenant farmers came in, know, the monkey wind the monkey up and

and having to go with the tenants. Anyway, one day a local merchant came along. Now the merchant, his daughter had run off with the son of the Lord of the Manor. So there's a bit of bad blood between them. And as these stories occurred, it was a dark and stormy night, the wind was listening around the castle, and an argument developed between the Lord of the Manor and the merchant. And the monkey was getting more more round up.

just was going on. And eventually, you know, you could sense the evil mood between the two of them. And eventually the Lord of the Manor let the monkey off his leash and he attacked the merchant and mauled him. But the merchant managed to just get out of the room, slam the door, cursing the Lord of the Manor. Next day, the staff come in, open up the door. Lord of the Manor dead in a pool of blood. Monkey gone.

And now, even to this day they say, on a dark night you can sometimes hear the monkey howling and screeching in the background. However, saying that, the car park opposite the castle is unofficially used as a dogging site of a night time. So maybe that explains the noise. And for you American readers who don't know what a dogging site is, it's where people, adult people meet up sometimes for ⁓

adult activities.

Jonathan Thomas (33:48)
Yes, do not Google that Anglotopia listeners. You will regret Googling that and you will trigger all kinds of warnings and filters on your network. So don't Google that. For more information on doggie and watch Clarkson's farm series four, where he tries to open a pub. We'll leave it there.

So how does your police training help with giving castle tours? Are the skills more transferable than you expected?

John Donoghue (34:20)
The police gave me zero knowledge of medieval history, so I had to learn that myself. But what it did give me is the ability to help control an audience. I would say, given a tour, is 75 % knowledge and being able to sort talk fluently about your subject. But the other 25 % is how to control your audience, because not everyone is going there.

and can be hanging on my every word. You've got bored teenagers who have been dragged along by the parents. You've got kids who want to tell you everything that Miss Jones told them at school about castles. You've got other kids who want to ask why, why, why at every question. And these might be cute initially, oh, a little child's asking a question, but the adults in the audience soon get hacked off if all I'm doing is

is answering these little children. So the skill is sort of managing your audience. And you've also got people who have gone away and they've watched some documentary or their mate has told them something down the pub and they regard it as fact then and they'll come along and they'll challenge your talk. They won't just think, well, I'll maybe question that fact later. They'll challenge you in the middle of the talk and so...

It's the ability to keep everybody on side with humour and patience. So the police has been quite good for that. I've not had to resort to any unarmed combat techniques yet, but I keep that up my sleeve.

Jonathan Thomas (36:01)
So what's the most unexpected question that a Taurus has asked you during a tour?

John Donoghue (36:07)
We had one tourist who had been to a castle up in North Wales and they said Why did they build the castle so close to the railway line? So I don't explain a bit about time scales to them and there was another ⁓ Visitor when it was raining said is there like a roof that comes over to protect us from the rain and I tried to explain to them this was you know a 12th century castle as opposed to

Super Bowl Stadium. So yeah, we've got some odd questions coming up like that. Somebody was asking if a night nurse carried a sword and that explained it's a bit of a different spelling for that.

Jonathan Thomas (36:50)
So the end of the book has a bonus section ⁓ of the 10 life lessons you learned from the police, which you were mentioning earlier, which apparently got you banned from the second best police force in the UK. Can you tell us that story?

John Donoghue (37:03)
I used to work for the best police force in the UK, is Durham Constabulary. But ⁓ when you're writing books, obviously some people like it, some people don't. My colleagues and the rank and file loved it. They loved the stories being told and so people could realise what really happens in the police. But some of the bosses don't share that enthusiasm. They don't always want people to know what actually does occur behind the scenes. They don't want that sort of exposure.

And so several times in my career people have tried to stop the books altogether and tried to ban them. I've managed to get around that. But the talk that I was doing used to go down well, the 10 life lessons in the police, but eventually an inspector came and banned that. So I thought, well, what I'll do then, I'll change forces. And I applied to another force down south and passed the interview.

got my, passed my medical, had my uniform issued. I was just about to start when I had a letter from them saying, are you the John Donoghue who's written those books? I said, I am. And they said, in that case then the offer has been rescinded. And with no more explanation. So yeah, so just as the books have opened up a lot of doors for me, they've also closed a number of doors as well. But I'm still glad I've done them.

Jonathan Thomas (38:28)
So I don't want to get into spoilers. People need to buy the book. But what's the biggest lesson you've learned from policing? That's ⁓ the biggest life lesson.

John Donoghue (38:40)
The life lesson that I've learnt is just to approach everything with a sense of humour. Having a sense of humour has got me out of a lot of problems. you don't... policing can be quite a stressful activity. Police are five times more likely to suffer from PTSD than the rest of the community. PTSD levels in the police are five times higher than... ⁓

than anywhere else. And officers sadly take their own lives because of all the stress. And so if you take the job too seriously, you can go home and you need to lie down and listen to whale music to try and calm down. And there's some horrendous things that we see. And I hope I haven't looked like I've taken things too flippantly in the police. But the other side is that dark side. And we're not built to be exposed to the dark side of human nature so much.

In forensics they have a saying that every contact leaves a trace. So like fingerprints, footprints, DNA. And just the same, every contact in your life leaves a trace on your soul or your psyche. And all that negativeness can have an effect on you. So we find the best way then, I find the best way is to just deal with with humour. It doesn't always work, but...

Generally, if you can deal with things with humour, that's the best way forward. I remember one job I went to, and I don't know if you know the story of Pandora's Box. Well, of course you do. Where Pandora opens up the box and all the ills of the world fly out. And the only thing left in the bottom is hope. And whenever I'm feeling as if my sense of humour won't carry me through, I remember that story. And I remember going to a job in a small village that I used to police up north.

and the postmistress had come in of the morning, opened up the post office and suddenly three masked men barged past her, shot a shotgun into the air and demanded all the money from the safe. And it was all over, within a couple of minutes they were gone. The police from all over the county were looking for the getaway vehicle and I turned up at the post office first and the poor postmistress was distraught. She'd never seen anything like this in her life before.

She was shaking away and the smell of cordite hung in the air. Broken glass everywhere, damp everywhere where the sprinklers were sprinkling away. So I made her a cup of tea and started to chat to her. And that's when I could see that even though something horrendous had happened, she hadn't quite lost her faith in human nature. She still thought there was hope. When she said to me, I don't know where they could have parked though, because it's double the lines outside.

And for the benefit of American viewers, doubling the lines means that you're not allowed to park on a road.

Jonathan Thomas (41:41)
So one wonders if they consider rather to park legally or illegally. I love that. So what are you working on next?

John Donoghue (41:45)
Ha ha ha.

Well, nothing at the moment. I've done my writing. I've done all my research on the jesters as well. Maybe I could become a professional jester. That seems like a good job in medieval times. They had sort of diplomatic immunity. They could do what they wanted and get away with it. Sometimes they went too far. There was one jester, ⁓ Triboulette.

the 16th century in France. He went too far when he slapped the king on the bum and the king was very annoyed, allowed the jester an opportunity to apologize and the jester said, sorry I thought it was the queen which got him into even more trouble and he was condemned to death. But because of his previous good service the king said, however because of your previous good service I will allow you to choose the

method of your death. And the jester said, oh I would like to die of old age. So I thought that was quite a good thing. yeah, so I don't know if I've told you about the other jester. King Henry II had a jester called Roland the Farter. And his job was every Christmas was to do a jump, a fart and a whistle every Christmas. And he got rewarded for this with 30 acres of land and a good pension.

I I could probably do that. I could do the jump at least. The whistle and the fart might come up their own accord. ⁓ So maybe I should re-qualify as a jester. at the moment, no other writing projects at the moment. I'm just seeing what next happens to me and I'll take it from there.

Jonathan Thomas (43:37)
Well, hopefully, Prince Charles has excellent security around his bum. So, well, thank you, John. The book is Castle's Crime and Cake, a Policeman's Act and No Guided History. It's available from bookshops everywhere. I will put a link to that in the show notes. And if you enjoy listening to the Anglotopia podcast, please consider liking and subscribing or leaving a comment.

John Donoghue (43:41)
Hahaha!

Jonathan Thomas (44:03)
or joining the Friends of Angle-Topia Club so that you can listen to this podcast two days early before everybody else. Thank you for listening and thank you so much, John, for being on the podcast. This was a fascinating discussion.

John Donoghue (44:15)
thanks very much for having me. I've enjoyed it.

Jonathan Thomas (44:17)
Pure joy. All right.