Planning help needed

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

I'm currently in planning for my big bang story and I have a couple of questions I need answers to, but don't know how to find these answers. I'm hoping the wonderful people here can help me. Even just a place to start looking would be appreciated. My google-fu is not so fabulous.

1. If Doyle's family background was on the 'shady' side (no one's ever been arrested, but a lot of their business has been somewhat questionable - just petty stuff, though) would he have been allowed to join the police? Doyle himself was never involved in any quasi-wrongdoing.

2. Does anyone know where the wealthy area of Liverpool is? I've been trying to find information on Liverpool but it's mostly just general stuff.

Comments

[spaghettitoes.livejournal.com]

Hi

Sorry I don't know about Liverpool but I had to comment on Doyle.

In 'Mixed Doubles' Doyle tells Bodie that he was a trouble-maker as a kid and got into bother himself. But that he joined the police force to get discipline. It's not an uncommon story in the UK police/fiction history but as long as he himself didn't have a criminal record and wasn't known by the local police intelligence branch for having criminal associations there wouldn't be anything stopping him, straightening up trouble-makers is what the Police do (especially back then).
This seems to have a good collection of old police adverts that might give you an idea of what they asked for in recruits.
http://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/en/pages/image_map.html?selectedLevels%5B1%5D=Magazine%20Advert&selectedLevels%5B0%5D=Recruitment&level=3&search=Police+Recruitment&page=1

My only concern is that Doyle has never spoken about his family being particularly troublesome as far as I can recall. He had to sneak into things like dirty movies (the ep where they stake out a city under too-tight police control) and skip school which poor parents might not have cared about. He's also educated in art and politics (not encouraged or required in the police force and something which would have socially isolated him from his school peers)which implies a certain level of encouragement or respect for those things from his family. The same goes for his decision to seek out the police force as a way of managing his aggressive tendencies. I believe his implied background is a working class one, where he was encouraged into troublesome behaviour by friends/the culture at the time but overall had moral parents who tried to guide him without too strict a hand.

But that last one is just conjecture from years of viewing. Good luck with your fic!

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link and your input. As far as Doyle's family, he's never really mentioned them at all. Aside from mentioning he was a bit of a tearaway as a lad, and the story about using his dad's coat to sneak into the movies, he's really never said very much about his family at all.

So I'm using 'artistic license' to give him the sort of family I need him to have - I just needed to make sure it wouldn't prevent him from joining the police when he did. :D

[inlovewithboth.livejournal.com]

My Dad's an ex Met Copper (served from 1966 to 1990) and I've just asked him question one. He says each force would have their own guidelines they would follow on recruitment. Back in Pros days he says if you yourself had a conviction, it would indeed go against you quite strongly. But if your family were dodgy while you were clean, then although it would be a point againt you they would take you on your own merits. Although if they did take you on, they would post you away from your family so you weren't ever put in the position of arresting your own kin. He did say, however, that if the Kray twins had a brother who had never done a thing wrong in his life and desperately wanted to be a police officer - he wouldn't get the job! I hope this helps?

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that helps brilliantly! Tell your dad thanks from me!

I'm afraid I don't know who the Kray twins are, but I'm assuming they're very VERY bad boys. *g*

[inlovewithboth.livejournal.com]

Google them babe, you'd be stunned! They virtually ran the East End of London during the 60s and 70s.

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

Good lord! I can totally see why no police organization would allow anyone with the last name of Kray to join them! Bad to the bone the whole lot of them, from the sounds of it.

[saintvic.livejournal.com]

Well this is going to be a bit vague so I hope someone who knows more will be able to help.

But for question 1 I am pretty sure the answer is yes he would have been able to join. These days I think you have to have been convicted of a crime yourself to be denied (http://policerecruitment.homeoffice.gov.uk/police-officer/am-i-eligible/index.html) but I am sure there is more detailed info out there.

However I do not know what it would have been like in the seventies or other time periods.

So as I said not much help, sorry.

EDIT: and I see that others have helpd out now, so just going to add that this sounds very intriguing and can't wait to see where this is going for your BB story.

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for your input!

I've had this idea in my head for about two years now and I'm so pleased that the information I've received here today will work well with what I need to have happen. :D

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Sorry - the wealthy area of Liverpool now, or in Pros era?

(Dunno how you were looking, but a common way to define wealthy areas in Britain now is to look at house prices, btw. Although back then, I think looking for areas where owner-occupancy was high was probably nearer the mark - getting a mortgage wasn't easy, so having a mortgage at all put you a cut above!)

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

Stoopid LJ just ate my comment. :(

Sorry, I should have been a bit clearer with my request. I need Liverpool in Pros era (which I suppose really doesn't help with trying to find the information I need since most of what I've found has been for current times and that wouldn't necessarily be the same as for Pros era).

Thanks for your suggestions on ways to get info!

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, but I have been thinking about this, and I think that house prices is not the thing to search for. (It apparently matters enough in Britain that there are tons of highly-optimised sites just waiting to snatch you from Google.)

Better words to search on are things like - and I tried these and they looked handy - "nice parts of Liverpool", "posh parts of Liverpool", "posh areas of Liverpool". There's a bunch of people looking to move back and saying "it's all changed", and some of them mention what it used to be like.

Also bear in mind that in 1981 there were riots in Liverpool! ( - along with other bits of the UK) Don't put the boys in the middle of Toxteth if you are doing 1981 or later :) When a friend went to university a few years later, she found that Endsleigh, the student insurers, didn't even include the L8 postcode on their list of "this postcode area is this band of insurance" - you had to write to them with the exact street to find out what you'd be paying.

More seriously, poking around for retrospectives on the riots will get you lots about the more deprived areas. If you're lucky, they'll contrast them with the posh bits and give a bit of context.

Or just wait for a Liverpudlian to show up, obviously :)

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the additional information and search terms.

Eep! Definitely can't have them being caught up in riots. That wouldn't help Doyle's state at all. ;)

I think I've settled on Cressington Park for my Liverpool location.

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Central Liverpool doesn't really do wealthy - it's mostly shops and offices, docks, university, poorish areas, etc. The city isn't that big. The wealthier people would live outside the city in e.g. Huyton,maybe Sefton,(which has nice houses round Sefton Park but is now a bit run-down, towards Bootle, and across the river in 'The Wirral' areas such as Birkenhead and Hoylake. There's a toll tunnel under the Mersey to the Wirral and it has a lot of traffic problems from all the big cars coming to and from the city at rush hour.I don't think this has changed much from when Bodie would have been young though I only got to know Liverpool at all in the late sixties/early seventies and then only through friends who live there. Hope this helps but maybe a Liverpudlian will see your post!

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. So, if I need a quite large home for a very wealthy family my best bet would be to have it out of the city.

Thanks for the names of areas to check out and see if one of them will suit.

[judesmk.livejournal.com]

Liverpool districts - mmmm. I was brought up in a village about 15 miles outside Liverpool but though it was a favourite place to go shopping, I never had friends in the city so my knowledge of its layout is sketchy. As a port city, the docks area was definitely the poor end of town. The areas around the football clubs would also be areas to avoid. However, the area of Grassendale has some lovely 19th century villas. Most of the wealthier merchant class would have eventually moved out of Liverpool itself, moving north to Southport and across the Mersey onto the Wirral.

Try googling Liverpool districts. It may bring up the current city but there should be some clues.

Hope this helps.

[liriel1810.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the info! I'll check out Grassendale, and Southport.

It's a bit of a tricky one (at least for me) because what was a well-to-do area back in the 70's isn't necessarily going to be that today... and I need the areas back in the 70's. *g*

Your suggestions, and the suggestions of everyone else who has responded have most definitely given me some place to start with my search rather than just simply typing 'Liverpool' into the Google search bar and hoping Google can read my mind and give me what I want. *g*