He Shoved the Crossing Lady Off Her Own Kerb — Then She Unfolded the Rota He Was Never On
Roy's shoulder went into Dot's back and the lollipop sign spun across the zebra stripes as a car braked hard.
Dot Fenwick is 68 and has held the campus crossing in this Midlands town for nine years. If the gate believes Roy Treddle's version of this wet Monday, she loses the only post she has, and four hundred students cross two lanes of traffic with nobody in charge of the kerb.
At 8.40 a.m. she is on the kerb by the stripes in her yellow hi-vis tabard, the lollipop sign in her right hand, a clear plastic wallet zipped in her tabard pocket. Roy walks up in his green quilted gilet, brass long-service watch on his left wrist and a visitor lanyard round his neck, and tells the waiting students she is only filling in. Three student helpers look at their shoes. Keeley Wray, campus admin, navy fleece, hi-vis waistcoat half-unzipped, says nothing at all — she has been warned three times not to contradict Mr Treddle.
Then Roy's right shoulder drives into Dot's back. She stumbles off her own kerb into the road. Her right hand lets the sign go and it clatters and spins across the wet stripes as a car brakes with a long wet screech. A thin red graze opens across the back of her left hand where the pole scraped it. Roy tells the students she is cover, and then, needling, that he still runs this gate.
Dot does not shout. She asks Keeley for the sign, stands it upright on its base, and lets the silence do the work. Roy pushes harder — he offers to sort the rota himself, personally, this week.
That is when her hand closes on the zipped tabard pocket, and the plastic wallet inside crackles.
Here is what nobody at that gate knows. Nine years of standing on this kerb, and Dot has never once been the casual cover Roy decided she was. She is the crossing supervisor of record. She signed the campus crossing rota that very morning. And eight months ago she also signed the paperwork that took Roy's own supervisor number off that same sheet — after he waved students across without checking the second lane.
The registrar asked her to keep it off the staff noticeboard. Roy, meanwhile, has spent eight months believing the gate still answers to him.
Roy turns away and starts talking to the students again, not looking at her. Keeley stares at the pocket. The wallet is still zipped.
Who authorised the permanent crossing contract at that gate that morning — and why was nobody on the rota told?
The full story is in the link below: the registrar's decision, the paperwork behind the permanent contract, and the moment Roy finds out what happened to his lanyard. Read it before you decide whose gate it is.
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