Remembering the life of legendary Dudley cop Charlie Davenport

Express & Star

Charlie Davenport was a staple figure in Dudley, who served in the Armed Forces on successive international tours and patrolled Dudley in the Police Force for over thirty years.

Transcript

00:00So just a brief timeline with my dad's where he was born and work history.

00:05Sir Charlie Davenport, born 5th of September 1932 in Leek. His father was a Leek policeman

00:15based in the Staffordshire region. So they moved around Staffordshire at various times

00:20in various police houses including Tamworth, Lichfield, Sedgley for a period of time

00:26and also West Bromwich. Obviously, a child during the war he did get into grammar school

00:35past his 11 plus but his father had a growing family having three sisters one brother so there

00:44was five of them and he was forced to leave school at 13. At that stage he took on doing

00:52a bread round I think in the near Tamworth at that point in time and then once he passed his

00:59driving test he then started doing more of a delivery round of groceries again in the Staffordshire

01:07area. In 1951 he joined the army Coldstream Guards based at various places around the world.

01:16Obviously did a lot of his training in Surrey, Pilbright and in Kent around that area and also

01:24Troop in the Colour and Buckingham Palace and then some foreign postings Cyprus, Korea,

01:35Egypt and Germany. He left the army for the first time in 1956, had a couple of jobs in London

01:44where he was a bus driver again doing grocery deliveries and then rejoined the army in 1956

01:52for the Suez crisis obviously being based largely in Cyprus and

02:00Egypt. After the army he lived in London for a short time then came back to the Midlands working

02:08for Prices who I think were grocers doing a combination of delivery work and also being

02:13their on-site mechanic as I think when you're in the army you have to be very resourceful to

02:20do a lot of things and so got very fairly useful at poking around cars.

02:25In 1960 he joined Dudley Borough Police Force, initially a PC and then moved on to being on

02:35traffic duty in the mid-60s. In the early 70s he returned to being a beat policeman

02:41predominantly working around the Russell's Hall estate and that part of Dudley ended up being a

02:47well-respected policeman in the area and got involved in a lot of community work whether

02:54that be choirs, doing stuff with schools. Towards the end of the 70s he then his final role there

03:01was Fines and Warrants which is now a civilian task. He finally retired from the police in 1989

03:10and then took on a role with Dudley Council coordinating crossing staff in the Dudley

03:15Borough. He stayed there for seven years retiring in 1997 and then took on a voluntary role at

03:24Hindley Hall acting as a tour guide until his early 70s when he finally retired. I think just to

03:31summarise my dad's, he's certainly given me the correct and my sister the correct moral compass

03:42to do the right thing. He gave us the ability to have nice careers and nice jobs. He's had

03:52a life well lived and that is probably the best summary from his career in the army, the police

04:00and later years serving the community.

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