With his greeting of 'Evenin' all', Dixon of Dock Green embodied the values of the solid, commonsense copper.
But his reassuring salutation, which began each episode of the classic police TV drama from 1955 to 1976, is one which today's real-life officers should be wary of using.
According to one force's official guidelines, it could confuse people from different cultural backgrounds.
Warwickshire Police's handbook Policing Our Communities, issued to every member of its staff, gives advice on communicating with people from different ethnic groups in a section entitled Communication, Some Dos & Don’ts.
It states: 'Don't assume those words for the time of day, such as afternoon or evening, have the same meaning.'
A force spokesman explained: 'Terms such as afternoon and evening are somewhat subjective in meaning and can vary according to a person's culture or nationality. In many cultures the term evening is linked to time of day when people have their main meal of the day.
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“I placed a goat's horn into the stomach of my elder sister to prevent her from having children," Olivia, 19, and a self-proclaimed witch, now exorcised, told a large congregation at the Ebenezer Healing Church at Kasoa, in the Central Region last week.
She had been sent to the church by her relatives after they heard about Prophet Michael Osei, founder and leader of the church and his miraculous encounters with witches and wizards.
They had the conviction that the man of God could help their child to get rid of her witchcraft.
Olivia had told her parents (the father and a step-mother) that she was forced to send her mother (now deceased) to a witches camp where she was slaughtered for a feast.
"They gave my mother's heart to me to eat and our queen witch feasted on my mother's head as our culture demands,"...
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One might be disposed to asking where Britain will draw the line in its ill fated appeasement of savages, but then the phrase "drawing the line" might be confusing to people of different cultures so we can avoid the question all together!
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