Drunk and Disorderly at Toddington

High Street, Toddington c.1900 [Z1130/126/47b]

Monday 16th August 1915: Harry Brown, a dealer from Toddington, and his wife Mary have have been fined £1 each for being drunk and disorderly at Toddington. Police Sergeant Dennis gave evidence that he was called to Gas Street in Toddington where the Browns were both drunk and using disgusting language. Harry Brown was naked apart from his trousers and boots. He got them indoors, but they then appeared at a bedroom window from where they were swearing for about twenty minutes. P.S. Dennis was called back to the street and found Brown and his wife fighting, with a large crowd around them. They refused to go away so he had taken them to Woburn Police Station with the help of Special Constable Joseph Neal, a butcher of Toddington. Neal told the court that the couple continued to use filthy language all the way to  Woburn.

Inspector Vincent said that while at the Police Station they denied they were drunk and asked to see a doctor; the doctor certified that they were indeed drunk. Mr. Brown said he was upset because he had been called a German and he was as British as any of the magistrates. He was a traveller and had never been in trouble before. He had lived in Toddington for 12 months, had always paid his way, and tried to live respectably. He asked the magistrates how they would like to be called Germans if they weren’t, and dirty Germans at that. The couple’s fines were taken from £3 which had been deposited as bail. Mr. Brown said he did not want the balance and the police could put it in the Poor Box; Mrs. Brown, however, withdrew the balance.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 17th August 1915; Bedfordshire Standard, 20th August 1915