FOR as long as I can remember I have been interested in the science of detection.

I don’t suppose that is much of a surprise really – after all, both historical research and archaeological investigation require an enquiring approach to reveal a hitherto concealed past.

To paraphrase Essex-born historian/archaeologist Warwick Rodwell: “If Sherlock Holmes were ever to be canonized, he should be adopted as the patron saint of archaeology.”

In Professor Rodwell’s words it is all about having “an enquiring mind, a capability for clear and logical thought, a cautiously sceptical approach to the obvious, a meticulous interest in seemingly trivial detail and a determination to solve problems”.

I am not the first (and will certainly not be the last) local person to find that discipline absolutely fascinating. When I was a child my doctor, the late David Cargill (1912-1995) as well as being an excellent GP (and one-time mayor) was also a student of crime.

He even wrote books on the subject, including Great Moments in Detection (Phoenix 1959) and Scenes of Murder (Heinemann 1964).

And talking of writing, who can mention detectives and the Maldon district without referring to that novelist from the golden age of detective fiction, Margery Allingham (1904-1966)?

As the Blue Plaque on the wall of D’Arcy House, at Tolleshunt D’Arcy, tells us, she lived and wrote from there from 1935 until her death.

She is, of course, best remembered for 26 books featuring her invented sleuth, Albert Campion (played by Peter Davison in the BBC TV adaptation, which was partly filmed on Osea Island).

Her approach to structure was four-fold – a killing, a mystery, an inquiry and a conclusion (usually with an element of satisfaction in it).

Alas, real-life detection is not always like that, but in the annals of Essex policing one name in particular is mentioned as the father of investigation – Supt George Henry Rookwood Totterdell, CID.

Tot, as he was affectionately known to his friends, was born in 1892 at Eastwood (Southend), where his father was the village bobby.

He was brought up on stories of detection that included the shocking murder (in April 1893) of Purleigh policeman Acting Sgt Adam Eves.

It was only natural that Tot would himself one day join the force.

He eventually did so on November 13, 1913, and, while his first posting was to Southend, on April 1, 1914, he transferred to Maldon, which he described as an “historic and beautiful town”.

Working out of the then “new” (purpose-built in 1912) police station in West Square, he remained here until December 1915.

During that time he experienced, among other things, the Zeppelin raid of April 15/16, 1915, when bombs were dropped in Spital Road and across town, and there is a lovely picture of him in his PC’s uniform, standing alongside his colleagues and with his inspector sitting in front of some of the primitive incendiary devices.

After serving in the Royal Naval Air Service, Tot returned to Maldon in March 1919.

Following the cut and thrust of the Great War, life was relatively quiet in town – apart, that is, from occasional drunken fights in our pubs involving visiting “pea-pickers”.

There was also the strange incident of a reported ghost in Wantz Road which actually turned out to be a sleep-walker!

173 Totterdell left Maldon for Rayleigh in June 1919, but never forgot his time here – after all they were the formative years of what would be his long and successful police career.

Appointed to CID in 1921, he gradually climbed the ranks – acting sergeant and then full sergeant in 1926, inspector in 1929 and superintendent in 1932.

He was involved in all the high-profile Essex cases of the time – some of them featuring the Maldon area.

He was, for example, called out to the murder of “a tramp” (another “pea-picker”) in Margery Allingham’s Tolleshunt D’Arcy in 1939.

He investigated a spate of arson attacks across the River Crouch from Burnham on Wallasea Island in 1943 and the murder of a taxi driver at Birch aerodrome in the same year. (That latter case involved an attempted escape by two American airmen via Maldon’s East Station and I, for one, am far from convinced by the eventual outcome).

In 1952, two years before he retired, he investigated the so-called ‘Setty case’ – an East-End gangland motor-trader who was killed, dismembered and disposed of from an aircraft flying over the Dengie coast.

Old Tiffin, the Tillingham wildfowler, found some of the gruesome remains and, true to form, Tot eventually brought the culprit to justice.

He published his autobiography, Country Copper (Harrap), in 1956.

In it he concludes by saying that he was “born to be a copper” and, while the work had at times been “hard and arduous”, he had “never regretted” his choice of career.

And it was, as we know, an amazing career that had both its roots and some of his most famous investigations centred here in Maldon.