What sort of personality - and what sort of shape - do we want our policemen ideally to have? Historian David Cannadine looks at the popular perception of the British bobby over the years.
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music hall song called The Laughing Policeman, written by Mabel Penrose and first recorded by her husband Charles in 1922.
It opens with these lines:
I know a fat old policeman
He's always on our street.
A fat and jolly red-faced man
He really is a treat.
