Question

[m31andy]

Research question - can anyone help?

It's London, 1982, and you want to leave, say, a small amount of cash, an A4 envelope/file full of 'state secrets' and a passport in a location which is accessable at all times, is not too difficult to get into, but is safe enough. Ideally security would be of the "if you have the key you can open it" as I require a third party to be able to access it (with the key, of course) It also needs to be fairly long term.

What would you use?

I suspect lockers at stations (esp. Waterloo and Victoria) would've been in the process of being removed at this time, and even if they were still available, you couldn't get away with having a key to one for three years, could you? They were strictly short term only.

PO Boxes aren't, apparently, actual boxes, unlike in the States and elsewhere. (Which is annoying because they are rather cool, actually!) Has that always been the case?

Bank safety deposit boxes, at least now, are too difficult to get into, require too much ID.

Gym/swimming lockers, I suppose aren't accessable 24 hours? Tempted to use a bathhouse (*g*) but also suspect that you'd definitely not get away with long-term use of the locker and/or the proprietor turning a blind eye to you using it, wouldn't be so impressed when other 'gents' start using it as well.

Thoughts?

Oh, and ta muchly!

Oh, oh - and if you can't guess what this is for, I'd be very, very surprised!

Comments

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

I would suggest looking at the "left luggage" counter at somewhere like Paddington. I believe it's still in operation. All of that would fit nicely in to a small bag .

Victoria coach station too.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Not for three years or so though??? Would they?

Hmm.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

Bribe in the right hands? *g*

Really, for three years it's hard to beat the old lock-up option. Just because you don't have much stuff to hide, doesn't mean you can't hide it in a nice (relatively cheap) anonymous lock-up with a padlock and key.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

I know, but it does seem a little... bizarre. Big garage and an itty-bitty envelope. I suppose I could do it. Anything else in the lock-up has to be misdirection.

Of course, nowadays we've got lovely storage places. But they didn't really start coming in until the early 80's. And our intrepid duo would've needed it for three years *by* the early eighties!

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

Some lock-ups were pretty small and if, for instance, it was Doyle's space then the rest of the lock-up might have motorcycle parts, if it's Bodie, fishing gear and the like.

It would also give them a "legitimate" reason to have the space that no one would question.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

For plot purposes, it has to be specific. (Bodie has to empty it of his stuff, but leave Doyle's, in order for the bad guys to believe it's only Doyle's.

I could probably stretch it to a small bag of essentials, but anything else is going to get too complicated to move.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

Then your mate's suggestion of a railway locker sounds like your best bet... How about Brighton?

Although you can get on to a lot of the smaller station platforms at night, they just assume your ticket will be checked/issued on the train.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

... And there's still nothing to say that you couldn't have a small holdall sit in a lock-up all by itself.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Lockers in large railway stations were still very common in 1982, and in many instances would have been accessible 24 hours, bearing in mind there were some places outside London that did actually have train services in the middle of the night - and in theory you could hold a key for as long as you like providing you kept paying after every time you opened it.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Now I do know they ripped out the Victoria lockers in the early eighties (Blame the IRA). But the locker doesn't, I suppose, have to be in London. And, thinking about it, I do remember the old lockers at Hull station. So, outside London, a station locker is much more likely. Hmm. What's close enough to the Smoke, but still would have 24 hour access?

*ponders*

[uitlander]

University library lockers. In 1987 the faculty library still had lockers operated by 10p pieces, over half of these were 'permanently owned' by certain students. I gave the faculty librarian back the key I had had secreted for 20 years last year. He perked up immediately and matched it to its old lock, which he said he could now recommission.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, now that's also a possibility. Except, of course, for 24 hour access. Damn. Otherwise, that would've been perfect.

[anne-l-davies.livejournal.com]

I'll wager there's bugger all security measures in place on a University Library in the early 80's - a conveniently "open" window affords 24 hour access!

[uitlander]

Ah, now 24x7 access is really a pretty recent thing. It was just one of those things that seemed impossible, like pizza delivery or Sunday opening, back in the 70s & 80s. But most Uni Libraries would be open to somewhere between 10-midnight in term, and maybe 6pm outside of it. The whole point of Sundays was to be bored out of your skull with nothing to do on you day 'off'.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Reading certainly would have had them, along with through the night services.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Hmm... and thinking of Reading kind of brings me in a commodius vicus of recirculation to Caversham; and while I cannot speak for the BBC's monitoring station there, I *can* honestly state that it was possible to enter Bush House via the staff entrance at pretty ungodly hours at the time (there used to be bunks down in the building that were designed for foreign-language BBC staff, and at the time they did double duty as a very handy place to doss down). Can't remember if there were lockers but I'll wager there were.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

*grin*

Probably a little too high profile - but a surprising anecdote!

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

gym locker in a boxing club - paid for in advance to the manager?

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Which, while very likely, doesn't suit as both the baddie and a newspaper journalist needs to be able to access the locker without word of it getting back to the actual owner (after they get hold of a key, of course!)

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Possibly depending on the contents:

a) With a lawyer
b) If it's CI5, then what about tucked into the evidence room?
c) With a croney
d) Wasn't there an episode of the Professionals with a defector/spy returning to London to pick up some items he'd stashed away in the (now derelict) docklands?

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

While these are all sensible options (although a solicitor would probably raise an eyebrow at keeping hold of a fake passport!), I really need the baddie and a newspaper journalist be able to plant/take something in the recepticle without it getting back to the actual owner.

Yes, he did, and apparently it turns out it's easier to hide an arms cache safely than a bit of money and some paperwork! But I also need the stashplace to be instantly recognisable when the owner does find out it's been used - and also access to be highly restricted (but not necessarily need to know)

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, right - so it's for a fit-up...
Hmmmm.

A lawyer needn't be too honest, but still, that would make access hard.
Another option is to have a small safe in whoever's pad - one burglar would solve the job. Depends on how dodgy the journo is though.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Journo isn't dodgy at all - well as undodgy as a Sun reporter can be. Someone is getting set-up big time, and it's all the baddie's fault.

I think, on points, with the requirement for 24-hour access, multiple keys, ease of matching key to lock, I'm going to plump for Drayce's lock-up. I just can't see how you can go from locker key to, say, Reading Station, even with all the security access the organisation can wield.

Pad is organisation-owned. The original intent for the cache was for when the organisation finally went a step too far in throwing them to the wolves!

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

That's touching on an episode of The Sweeney (itself influenced by a Times/World in Action investigation into dodgy CID in the Met (1970s).


A lock up is the best option - constant access, low-key, reduced surveillance.


Surely if the pad is organisation owned, then it wouldn't be suitable for using it if the organisation went too far? Unless it's a bolthole if the organisation is going to be thrown to the wolves iteself.


On a related(ish) note - the latest Smiley is on R4 at the mo

[not-here.livejournal.com]

No help at all but really, in the UK PO Boxes aren't actual boxes? How can I not have known this, or at least not been surprised at the entire room full of them you get in US post offices - and UPS stores?

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Nope. I'm most disappointed - it would've been really easy to use them, if they had been.

Now there are such things - MailBox Etc. does a 24-7 access service throughout the country (and indeed the world), but they only started in the US in 1980 and I need this to have been going at least since late 1978.

I do vaguely, vaguely remember something about little boxes with keys. But all I can think is some local shops had some kind of service which was similar.

[hambelandjemima.livejournal.com]

You're correct in thinking that PO Boxes are not actually boxes, merely a way of having mail sent to you without divulging your address. Mail could be held at the PO or delivered to an address in the same delivery area. And it wouldn't be 24-hour access either. I started work with the PO at the end of 82, and it was the case then, too.

Sounds intriguing *g*

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Pity, I'd love it to have been true. It's the ideal situation - instantly recognisable when at the denouement, easily accessable and almost anonymously as well.

[pixylatedpyxie.livejournal.com]

You can get boxes that look like they have gas and electric meters in, only they don't, on the outside of houses. When I was a kid we had one that locked with a key. The meters had been moved inside the house, but the box was still there, high up next to the front door, and no-one noticed it.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Hmm, intriguing.

Especially now as they're putting the boxes outside again!