It is to be assumed that someone in a position of authority was taking a great interest in the substance of these reports which ranged, in Uncle John’s words, “from the bloody whacky to the downright strange”.

A friend of mine, who was once in the TA, told me that something similar goes on in the armed forces. And that when you join up and sign the Official Secrets Act you also have to sign a document swearing that should you witness any unexplained phenomena (he presumed this to mean UFOs), you must report these immediately to your commanding officer and say nothing of it to other ranks unless you are authorized to do so. The words IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST apparently feature prominently throughout this document.

So, what’s it all about then, eh?

Good question.

There is a school of thought that the governments of the world have known all about so-called UFOs for years. That President Truman was taken to a secret American airbase in the late Nineteen Forties to be introduced to alien entities. That the aliens have struck a deal with those who rule our lives and are allowed to abduct a limited number of humans each year for study and experimentation in exchange for advanced technology. It is suggested that microchip technology would never have reached its present state without “outside help” and that the Roswell alien autopsy footage is, in fact, genuine and part of a concerted effort on the part of world governments to prepare us for some rather high-profile alien involvement due to come our way in the very near future.

It’s pretty unsettling stuff and made all the more unsettling by the fact that it does seem to have the ring of truth to it. But, as those in authority will reliably tell you, belief is not proof. And until something huge happens and the mothership drops down onto the White House lawn, those who suspect what governments know to be the truth, and broadcast these suspicions to the public at large, will continue to be labelled paranoid conspiracy theorists.

My Uncle John did, however, tell me one tale about the contents of box 23. It is a story so fantastic that its telling might well cast doubt on Uncle John’s sanity and therefore question his reliability concerning all the foregoing. But it is a great story, so I have no hesitation in telling it here.

The temptation to embellish the tale is a difficult one to resist, but I have done so, adding only an ending of my own, clearly labelled to avoid confusion. Those of a nervous disposition or prone to night terrors are advised to skip over this ending and go straight on to the next chapter which is all about Russell and so pretty safe.

To set the scene, the year was nineteen sixty and Uncle John had recently moved to Brentford to serve as a constable with the force, based then in the old police station, now demolished, on the Kew Road near to the Red Lion. Uncle John came from Shropshire and the year before he had married Aunt Mary, my father’s sister.

They moved into one of the new police flats just off Northfields Avenue. These were fully furnished and we used to go up for Sunday lunch and a walk in Lammas Park with Uncle John’s dog Frankie.[9]

The story begins in the summer of that year, when the normally law-abiding borough of Brentford had unaccountably been struck by a mini crime wave. The crimes started in a petty fashion but grew and grew. Seemingly unrelated, they spanned a vast spectrum and were so audacious that they soon had the Brentford bobbies in something of a lather.

First reports involved doorstep milk bottle theft, these went on for weeks. The culprit was sighted on several occasions and described as a stubby ginger-haired youth in grey school uniform. A simple enough matter on the face of it. Uncle John was dispatched to the local primary school to give the pupils a looking over. No stubby ginger-haired youth was to be found. A truant perhaps? No truant fitted that description and in a small town like Brentford where everyone knew pretty much everyone, heads were scratched and gypsies blamed.

The next crimes involved shop-lifting. A young blond woman in a “modern” pink coat walked into the ladies-wear shop in the high street, snatched up an armful of summer frocks and took to her heels. Later in the day she repeated the performance, swiping a pop-up toaster from Kays Electrical, a number of chocolate bars from the tobacconists and a hock of ham from Barlett’s butcher’s shop.

More was to follow.

A tall gaunt man, with black sideburns and a centre parting, helped himself to the contents of the cash register at The Red Lion when the landlord wasn’t looking. And The Red Lion was almost next door to the police station.

The Brentford bobbies were not best pleased.

The crimes continued and they followed a pattern. A stranger of distinctive appearance would arrive from nowhere, carry out a series of crimes all in a single day, then vanish away never to be seen again.

The eyes of the Brentford constabulary turned towards Ealing. Obviously these criminals were “out-borough” denizens of the new council estate a mile up the road. Day trippers of evil intent. Uncle John was sent up the road to talk to the boys at the South Ealing nick.

No joy. The descriptions did not match those of any known offenders. And Ealing was a small town and everyone knew everyone there. And the folk talked to the policemen and nobody knew anything about anything.

Odd.

And the crimes continued.

A fellow resembling Father Christmas, with a big broad belly and a long white beard, held up the Brentford post office with a gun. A gun! This was nineteen sixty! Now the Brentford boys in blue were very upset.

And now a certain individual appeared on the scene. He had been sent by Scotland Yard.

Nothing surprising there. A gun crime. A post office hold up. In situations such as this you called The Yard.

The chap from The Yard was known only as The Captain, although as far as Uncle John knew, and as far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no such rank as captain in the police force. Odder still, the chap from The Yard, although listening to all the reported crimes, appeared to be more interested in the contents of box 23 than anything else. He took the box into his own custody, commandeered the chief constable’s office for an hour or two and then returned to the front desk. Uncle John recalls to this day his words. They were: “You have one of those at large in the borough. This must be handled discreetly.” Back then “one of those” generally meant a homosexual.

It was Uncle John’s time to clock off then, so he clocked off. When he clocked on again the next morning a number of rather strange things were going on at the police station. Some chaps in tweed suits were milling about at the front desk along with several squaddies. The squaddies were armed with Remington rifles. Uncle John had served in the war and he said that he did not recognize the insignias worn by the squaddies. In fact, he even took the trouble to visit Walpole library and look them up. The insignias were of no listed regiment.

Also there were several official-looking cars parked outside the police station and Uncle John swears that a cabinet minister, well known at the time, sat in one of them.

Uncle John had just cause to wonder exactly what was going on. And so he asked and was told in no uncertain tones to mind his own business and do exactly what he was told. And then he was issued with a pistol.

There is a degree of vagueness concerning exactly what happened next. There was a lot of driving about in police cars and he was stationed at the end of an alleyway and told to shoot anyone who was not a policeman who came running down it. Uncle John was somewhat alarmed by this and, although he had shot a German officer in a tool shed somewhere on the Rhine in 1944, he was not at all keen to let fly at what might well prove to be an innocent bystander. Even if the bystander was, in fact, running at the time.