Sir.-Reading Robert Brown's recent article - well-informed as usual - about Basingstoke's breweries has prompted me to refer to my very first patrol as a Basingstoke policeman in June 1936.

Arriving from training at Winchester at 4.30pm, I was on patrol at 6.30pm, clad in my formerly "untried" uniform, and under the watchful eye of a more senior constable.

We went to May's brewery, at the bottom of the then Chapel Street, roughly on the site of The Anvil.

In the vehicle yard, my "tutor" went into a little wooden cupboard in the wall to reveal two quart bottles, apparently containing beer.

He withdrew one and took an almighty drink from it and offered it to me, standing there gobsmacked.

I declined, amazed by this action, while my mentor - having topped it up from the nearby tap - replaced the bottle, and we continued our patrol.

He was a first-class copper, and man enough to confess to me some weeks later that, intending to repeat his crafty "swig" of the draymen's beer, he eventually discovered that they, equally craftily, had doctored it somewhat - but not before he had swallowed a sizeable mouthful!

-Denis Padwick, Westdeane Court, Worting Road, Basingstoke.