THE arresting story of law and order through the ages in Kendal is about to roll off the printing press.

Retired Kendal police sergeant Phillip Bonney set to work on his book 20 years ago and had consigned his careful research to the understairs cupboard until Kendal Civic Society encouraged him to get it published.

The result - Cells, Clean and Clear - charts the eventful history of Kendal Borough Police Force from 1836 till 1947.

"You realise that in some cases not a lot changes," said father-of-two Phillip, who lives in Natland with wife Anne. "There are the same old problems of dealing with the public."

Kendal was a town of 8,000 people in the early 19th century, its dozens of inns and taverns adding to an air of "general unruliness".

The year 1817 saw a patrol of "150 respectable inhabitants" appointed to guard the town from 11pm until daybreak. These watchmen, known as "Charlies," were often old men carrying lanterns who pounded the beat while proclaiming the time. Youths were said to make mischief by overturning their sentry boxes as they slept.

By 1835 the Westmorland Gazette was describing Kendal as "in a shockingly disgraceful state with drunkenness", and Kendal Borough Police Force came into being the next year.

The first police station with its own cells was built in what is now Old Police Office Yard, off Finkle Street. An inventory included 12 truncheons, six pairs of handcuffs, two pairs of leg irons, three brace of pistols, a coal box, an ink stand and two iron candlesticks.

Perhaps surprisingly the Victorian era saw two police officers killed, including former Selside joiner and father-of-four PC John Groves. Aged 41, he was kicked in the head while trying to arrest a drunkard for disturbing a Salvation Army meeting.

Phillip has also written a final chapter on the Oxenholme railway station shooting of 1965, when gunman John Middleton killed PC George Russell and wounded two officers. "Although it's outside the history of the Kendal borough force, it's too important to leave out," he told the Gazette.

A dramatic manhunt over fields and woodland ended with Middleton's capture by three officers including unarmed off-duty Kendal policeman Geoffrey Harrington His widow, Sheila, supplied a wealth of newspaper cuttings to help Phillip's research.

- Cells, Clean and Clear will be launched at Kendal library on Saturday, November 24, from 10am to noon. It will also be on sale at Fantastic Kendal on Finkle Street, and the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry, and directly from Anne Bonney, tel 015395-61321.