Ready to Retire From Cambridge Police Chief Post

Forty-one years is a long time to stay with a single organization, and when the organization in question is the Cambridge Police Department, or any police department, for that matter, it is an especially long time.

When Chief Patrick F. Ready reaches his 65th birthday on Nov. 29, he will be turning his back on 41 years of police work which began back on New Year's Day in 1916 when Ready assumed the position of patrolman on an East Cambridge beat.

From this rank he rose steadily, becoming chief of the force in 1951. In his years in the department, Ready has had numerous experiences both interesting and exciting, but after 41 years he can't single out any one particular incident that sticks in his mind. "All those years just seem to run together," he explains, "and it's pretty hard to remember one thing from the other."

Good Relations With Harvard

It is likely, however, that the Harvard man with his quest for revelry and his taste for the perverse has probably caused Chief Ready as many headaches as anyone else. But he kindly skips over the numerous riots, the thousands of parking tickets and the occasional frays between extra-curricular groups to say that he has enjoyed "real good relations with the University and its students."

Indeed, the University holds an equally high opinion of Ready. As Matthew J. Toohy, chief of the University police, says, "Anytime I've ever called on Chief Ready for anything he was always ready to cooperate and cooperate 100 per cent. He's done an outstanding job."