I've heard Peter Grant use the word 'refs' and I assumed it was a London term, but it's used by Dominic in Foxglove Summer who's from Hereford.
I'm from that vague area of the country and I've never heard it.
Which region is it from, or is it a term just from the books?
This is a real-world term used by the police in the UK. Refs = Refreshments.
At midday we stopped off for refs at Dominic’s mum’s bungalow. She was out serving refreshments of her own to the search teams, so we raided her stupendously large American fridge, which was the size of a cryogenic pod and had an ice maker and everything. It was also ridiculously full for one old lady overseeing a totally theoretical B&B business.
Foxglove Summer
You can see it being used in current UK policing documents and handbooks.
In work rest breaks (refs)
Whilst the 20 minutes rest break is based on the working time regulations provision, the Kent Police position is that staff should take an unpaid rest break of not less than 30 minutes after working continuously for 6 hours
The earliest reference I've found is from The Force: Inside the Police (1989). The book provides us with a wealth of police slang used across a range of different police forces.
At Streatham, officers sat, notebooks on knees, while a sergeant read out the day’s duties, calling each officer by his number rather than name. He also designated each officer’s time for refs (refreshments) - police officers measure out their lives with tea and chips. One December night, ‘A’ relief, with six PCs and one WPC on parade, was coming on duty. A PC assigned to walk the High Road rolled his eyes and moaned; the inspector said with a smile: ‘The fresh air will do you good. I thought you’d enjoy a walk after being tied up in the “comms” [the communications room] all week.
