Police Inspector (John Woodnutt)

The unnamed Police Inspector dealt with Ena Sharples on two occasions when she led a pensioners' protest against the closure of an OAP Clubhouse in April 1969.

The first was when the group of twenty or so suddenly descended with banners on Weatherfield Town Hall just after he had commented to Constable Wilcox that it was "all quiet on the Western Front". He took fright and scarpered, telling a disbelieving Wilcox to get in touch with him should things get out of control. After Ena's presented petition failed, she instructed the protestors to sit down in the middle of the road, halting traffic for the next few hours. The Inspector returned with reinforcements and told Ena that he had half-a-dozen men dealing with the resulting jams and she suggested that he'd better go and give them a hand then! After telling Ena that he wasn't taking the matter lightly, he instructed two officers to bodily carry her out of the road and to the police station where she was cautioned.

She wasn't giving up though and she and her cohorts then occupied the clubhouse itself on the day of its appointed demolition. This time PC Jimmie Conway was on duty and the Inspector told him to avoid all contact with the protestors to avoid unwanted publicity for the police. As the protestors were all old he had every confidence that the sit-in wouldn't last long for several reasons, one of them being that they would soon need toilet facilities and, for that reason, he was willing to allow Emily Nugent to take in bottles of beer supplied by the Rev Reggie James as it would speed matters up.