Mizen's inquest statement reconstructed

[Simon Wood]

Hi Bridwell,

I find it hard to imagine all these people walking around silently muttering 'One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi . . . ' etc, and staying in perfect synchronisation with one another to the extent that they're all able to declare that a certain event took place at 3.45 am.

You can't get a Rizla paper between their testimonies.

I would suggest that 3.45 am was agreed upon after the fact.

Regards,

Simon

[Wickerman]

Given the number of churches & businesses that had pendulum clocks which chimed, it shouldn't be difficult to be anywhere in the city and have a reasonable idea what the time was at any hour of the day, to within 15 minutes at least.
Plus, a beat constable will know what the time is at every location on his beat. They were expected to be at given points at certain times, and the inspector was often on his rounds to check on them.

There might be an issue whether an incident occurred at 3:35 or 3:40, but there should be no issue between 3:30 and 3:45. It's the 15 minutes between that we can debate. And that is the same concern for every hour of the day, unless someone has a watch.

[GUT]

My dad, never wore a watch, he was a truck driver, but knew what time it was within the 1/4 hour range, how well he knew he left home at 5:00 it took an hour to drive to the brewery, knew how long it took to load various combinations, took 15 minutes to drive to the flour mill, how long it took to load each 10 bags of flour, an hour back to home town how long to unload at each location, so no watch, no radio in the truck, no clock in the truck, but if he said it was 4:15 itd be darn close.

Grandad was a coal miner, no watch underground back then, no sun to go by, think he didn’t know when it was smoko, or lunch, or knock off time?

[Bridewell]

Hi Bridwell,

I find it hard to imagine all these people walking around silently muttering 'One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi . . . ' etc, and staying in perfect synchronisation with one another to the extent that they're all able to declare that a certain event took place at 3.45 am.

You can't get a Rizla paper between their testimonies.

I would suggest that 3.45 am was agreed upon after the fact.

Regards,

Simon

I would agree that those who were in a position to confer did exactly that. For the rest who were out and about in the middle of the night, I think that each, even without a watch, would have known approximately what time it was at any given moment. So 3.45am probably encompasses the sequence of events between 3.40-ish and 3.50-ish. Most witnesses in court refer to times as being 'about'. I've no doubt it was much the same in the LVP.

[Bridewell]

My dad, never wore a watch, he was a truck driver, but knew what time it was within the 1/4 hour range, how well he knew he left home at 5:00 it took an hour to drive to the brewery, knew how long it took to load various combinations, took 15 minutes to drive to the flour mill, how long it took to load each 10 bags of flour, an hour back to home town how long to unload at each location, so no watch, no radio in the truck, no clock in the truck, but if he said it was 4:15 itd be darn close.

Grandad was a coal miner, no watch underground back then, no sun to go by, think he didn’t know when it was smoko, or lunch, or knock off time?

Great analogy. My own practise, when it was really busy - rushing from job to job - was to note time and place in the back of my pocket book and work from that when completing a fuller entry later in the night.