So many people asked the author: 'But what does a policewoman do?'

Six years policing London's West End in the 1950s provided plenty of answers. In this book, Joan Lock gives them with honesty and humour. She takes us behind the scenes, into the life of an ordinary police officer - not the familiar CID crime buster. We accompany her 'on the beat' for early, late and night shifts, and experience the public's friendly, curious or downright rude reactions to a woman in authority.

The lady policeman makes mistakes, is less than efficient at times, and even breaks some of the sacred disciplinary rules. Her work included dealing with runaway juveniles, attempted suicides, abandoned babies and the mental disturbed.

She sees an astonishingly varied cross-section of London life: Piccadilly Circus at dawn, devoid of traffic and still wet from the attention's of the council's cleaning department; the Mall at the Trooping of the Colour ceremony; the foyer of a cinema on a royalty-studded premiere; hostels and hospitals, prisons and courtrooms. There are visits to nightclubs for observations or raids, and glimpses into training school and 'The Yard'. Her 'patch' took in cosmopolitan Soho and wealthy Mayfair where prostitutes lined many of the streets. In the line of duty Joan even posed as one of them.

'On the whole, ' she says, 'it was quite an experience.'