This is a follow up to David’s first book, ‘Gravel For Dinner’, which is an account of Marika Segesdy’s life in a Hungarian travelling circus during the nineteen forties, where she performed as a tightrope walker and acrobat. Later, she lived on the streets of Budapest as a street kid and took part in the ‘Uprising’ against the Russians in 1956. Marika is a successful local artist living in Whitstable, Kent.
This is the story of two people from different worlds making a new life together in twentieth century London - with a little help from one of London's most excitable police dogs. Marika, a former wire walker and acrobat in her family’s travelling circus in Hungary, was alone and lost in London when she met David, a policeman, near Buckingham Palace. He escorted her to the correct bus stop and claimed a date as his reward. Six months later David and Marika married.
Life as a Metropolitan police officer in the 1960s was never dull, and David found himself posted outside 10 Downing Street, and patrolling the garden wall where he witnessed at least one political indiscretion!
Marika's skills training her German Shepherd dog, Kiray, to respond to Hungarian circus commands helped convince his bosses to select him as a dog handler, and police dog Elmer burst into their lives.
Even after tangling the instructor and examiner together with the tracking line and other disasters, they are passed out and posted to Lewisham. Ladies became aware of Elmer’s presence early on, usually via his cold wet nose and love of sausages. Shopping in Lewisham took on a new meaning when Elmer was on patrol.
But together the pair brought a host of London criminals to justice, via car chases, tracking and a good deal of barking.until the day that David began to wonder if life as a police officer was still right for him, and had to make a heart-breaking decision...
‘The book charts David and Marika’s lives together in England and how Marika adjusted to a normal life, and David’s profession as a police officer and later a dog handler in London.
Arrest in the Mall