Truncheon is TV hit

A tipstaff from the reign of William the fourth and a decorative Victorian truncheon were just two of the items Gwent Police submitted for valuation at the BBC Antiques Roadshow at Tredegar Park, Newport.

CSO Caroline Doidge, and colleagues from the Pill neighbourhood policing team, were at the roadshow with a special “vintage” police tent.

Caroline said: “The antique truncheons have been on display for some time at police headquarters in Cwmbran, but we’d like to know a bit more about their history. We know the tipstaff was used to knock on people’s doors to demand taxes, which was part of the job years ago.”

PC Mark Jones, who was also on the stand said: “We’re also taking an old police lamp from the Rhymney valley, and a century old leather and cork truncheon, which has just been donated to the force by the descendants of PC Walter Cornelius Flory, who was born in 1885 and died in 1959. We believe Walter served in Risca but we’d like to know more about him, as we would other officers who died during the first world war, because it is the centenary of the start of the Great War in August.”