Jimmy Edwards* was a safe cracker.

This might conjure up images of a nimble-fingered master thief with his ear to the safe door, listening for the tumblers to fall into place as he slowly twists the dial.

Jimmy was not quite that delicate. He would select a target. It could be anything from a doctor's surgery to a brickworks. This was before credit cards. Cash was the currency and security systems were not what they are today. In the middle of the night, he'd back his old station wagon up to the door, break in, drag the safe out on a trolley and load it into the wagon, drive into the bush around Freemans Waterhole, unload the safe and attack the back of it - the vulnerable point - with a sledgehammer and axe.

Some time in the mid-1970s, a dump of safes was found. Jimmy was my obvious suspect, so I called around to his home and spoke to wife Doreen*. No, she hadn't seen Jimmy for days. So I let it be known to the troops that I wanted to speak to him.

Some days later, Doug Eaton (later to be brutally murdered when responding to a burglar alarm at the Kilaben Bay Country Club on April 30, 1977) was working afternoon shift on his own. He received a call from Doreen that Jimmy had returned home drunk and assaulted her. By the time Doug reached their house, Jimmy and Doreen had made up. She told Doug that Jimmy had taken off again. Doug had a quick look around and headed back out to the paddy wagon.

At this point it was too much for Jimmy, who had been hiding in a cupboard. He leaned out of the bedroom window and started abusing Doug, who promptly returned to the house. After a short scuffle, he arrested Jimmy, took him back to the station and put him in a cell to sober up overnight.

I interviewed Jimmy the next day and charged him with breaking, entering and stealing the safes from about a dozen different premises. He went before Newcastle District Court and, in addition to being sentenced for these offences, was given "the key" - declared an "habitual criminal" - and an additional five years.

I was a bit surprised when I heard that Jimmy had resisted arrest - he was certainly not a violent man. I ran into Doreen a couple of weeks later and mentioned the scuffle between Jimmy and Doug. She told me that Jimmy was pretty drunk and didn't want to go back to jail.

"He tried to stop Doug from grabbing him and put up a bit of a fight, but then he just stopped struggling and said: 'I can't fight you Doug. You're too good a bloke'."

I mentioned this to Doug later. He just laughed. In October 1980, prison warders at Maitland Gaol went on strike for a couple of weeks, leaving prison boss Alan Penning and deputy Jack Fuller to run the place. Police moved in to support them. Uniformed police manned the towers and part-time Newcastle SWOS [Special Weapons and Operations Squad] members (me included) looked after the cell wings and the yards. Our main task was to support the Salvation Army volunteers, who came three times a day to feed the prisoners in their cells for the duration. Three of us would support each Salvo. We would scan the steel door to check that the prisoner hadn't used the lead from his reading lamp to electrify the door (not unheard of), open the door flap and instruct the prisoner to stand against the back wall, then open the door and stand by while the Salvo placed the meal tray on the floor inside the cell. This might sound a bit harsh, but we had experienced pannikins of urine - and worse - being thrown at us and the Salvo.

I came across Jimmy in his cell, which was neatly decked out with photos and other homely paraphernalia. I made a point of finding time almost every day, during downtime, to sit in the cell and chat with Jimmy. I mentioned his arrest. Jimmy chuckled. "Look John, I'll be honest. I didn't want to come back in here. But I couldn't fight Doug. He was always fair to me and the boys (his sons). He was a top bloke. I hate having to look at those bastards in here that murdered him."

Jimmy. Alcoholic. Incorrigible thief. But a harmless poor bugger - and he always respected Doug.

*Not their real names

On Friday, May 20, Fred Saunders posted at Waratah Village Shopping Centre a letter to Mayfield East and an express letter to his grandson, his wife and new baby (Fred and Margaret's 34th great grandchild) at Mount Colah.

"Both letters arrived at their destination on Friday, May 27. As far as the one to Mount Colah, I could have used my seniors' Opal card and taken it down and met him at the station and saved $5."

Fred wonders what some of the old posties would think of the service today.

"It doesn't matter how helpful the post office counter staff are, it is out of their hands. They must get as frustrated as the public."

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