NOW that the local nick has been reduced to rubble in favour of an age-sensitive development for the baby boomer generation, Abergavenny is officially without a Police Headquarters to call its own.

Although we do have something called a shared community hub at the Town Hall for those wishing to speak to a local bobby.

You can blame the slow erasing out of our thin blue line on the gods of austerity or you can blame Theresa May, but one thing’s for sure, the demolition of the town’s cop shop has led to a lot of bad feeling in the vicinity.

Since Abergavenny Police Station went the way of the Dodo many have noticed what they feel is an upsurge of crime in the area. Some have even compared the Gateway to Wales as “like Dodge City when the Marshall left.”

Local semi-professional endurance runner Johnny Turnip felt the closure a lot more deeply than most. As a young man prone to getting outrageously drunk in public Turnip claims he was a frequent visitor to the Tudor Street cells, and he believes without them there’s nothing to keep future Turnips on the straight and narrow.

Turnip told the Chronicle, “Not a lot of people know that before I was a trailblazer I was something of a hell-raiser.

“I don’t mind admitting in my younger days before I found the discipline of endurance sports, I was something of a rotter. I’d spend my time disco dancing up the Chev, playing pool in the Wine Bar in my top of the range Puffa jacket, and hanging outside the back of The George and bringing the ruckus Wu-Tang style.

“I often look back on those long, lazy, and distant summers of amphetamine abuse and petty crime with a wistful eye, but a man’s gotta grow up sometime and that’s when I found running or should I say running found me. You see when you’re always running away from trouble you get pretty good at it.

“Needless to say, I was incarcerated in the Abergavenny cells on more than one occasion for some misdemeanor or other.

“The point is, the boys in blue treated me fair and square and helped iron me out when I needed it most. They’d chuck me in the cells when I was drunk and let me go in the morning after I’d slept it off with a stern reprimand that if it happened again I wouldn’t be so lucky.

“Turns out one time I wasn’t. One night the cells were full to capacity and I was shipped to Newport nick. Let me tell you that den of cut-throats is no place for a Monmouthshire man. Even now I still shudder at the memory. It was something of a wake-up call I can tell you.”

Turnip added, “I remember an old PC friend of one kindly gave me a lift back the next day and I remember his words to this day. ‘Turnip’ he said. ‘Don’t be a prize pumpkin all your life. You can’t keep living in the fast lane forever. You can either spend your life on the run or you can just run and maybe make a career out of being an impressive athletic specimen.’

“OK! Maybe I made that last bit up but that old PC saw something amazingly special in the Turnipmeister and he opened my eyes to it as well.

“The very next day I purchased my first pair of box-fresh whiter than white Nike Airs and the rest is history. I found the buzz I had formerly found in drink and debauchery in the discipline of running.

“And that wouldn’t be possible without the boys in blue who were working out of the Aber cop shop at the time. Those guys showed Turnip a lot of patience and a lot of love. They helped make me the man I am.

“They put me up when I needed a bed and straightened me out when I was in danger of throwing away my natural-born athletic talent.

“I was talking to my fellow former reprobate Jon Bon Jones the other day and he agreed with me. Abergavenny Police Station acted like a safety-net to prevent petty chancers like us turning into real villains. Jon Bon is now a trout famed in Aberdare and I’m an internationally recognized athlete. Would that have been possible without our stints in the local nick? I very much doubt it.

“Jesus! I guess what I’m saying is I miss the old place and this town just ain’t the same without it!”