The Missing Challenges

Making the list of 20 goals was the hardest part of the exercise. They had to be things that I had not done before, that offered some challenge in order to achieve and which supported my mission statement.

Many challenges on my list would be on most people’s list of things to do before they die, or reach a certain age. A couple of the more common ones are missing, however. The first of these is ‘Make a parachute jump’. This is not on my list because I have already done it. Twice in fact.

If parachute jumping is on your list then may I give you a tip? Opt for a tandem jump. In this way you can both scare yourself shitless and yet relax at the same time as someone else has the difficult task of ensuring that you find the drop zone and land safely. Jumping from a static line as I did means you have all of those problems. Think about it this way – when you first learned to drive a car how much sightseeing did you do? Did you ever have time to admire the world around you? No, you didn’t. You were too busy trying to focus on three things at once, wipe the cold sweat of fear out of your eyes and avoid a nasty accident. And it’s exactly the same with parachuting, except it’s in three dimensions and the brakes are a bit dodgy.

For my first parachute jump I got out of the plane at 2,000 feet, my canopy opened and I didn’t have a sodding clue where I was. Nothing on the ground matched the map I had in my head. Fortunately there was a one way radio strapped to my chest that allowed an instructor on the ground to relay messages to me, such as ‘pull your left toggle’. It was a nerve-wracking few minutes where I was just a puppet with my life in somebody else’s hands. But in a strange way I enjoyed it and actually thought that it could be the hobby for me.

Back I went to the airfield a few weeks later to clock up jump number two. This didn’t go quite so well.

When I did my first jump it was after a day’s training and all the instructions were fresh in my mind. Several sleeps later I had forgotten nearly everything. Still, not to worry, all I had to do was listen to the voice coming out of my chest. All went well until I was about 100 feet off the ground and ready to land. I misunderstood the instruction given to me, put myself into a spin, lost control and collided with a tree. I was very lucky to escape with just a badly sprained ankle.

I never returned to the airfield. Apart from my dented confidence I had wrecked a thousand pounds’ worth of parachute and I didn’t fancy the bill if I showed my face again.

The other challenge you might expect to see on the list is bungee jumping and my reason for not including it is linked to my parachute experience.

The hardest part of a solo parachute jump is leaving the aircraft. It’s just not natural. There you are enjoying the scenery and next minute you’re being told to leave the aircraft. Sitting in the doorway, legs dangling outside the plane, with the slip stream sucking at you; it takes an awful lot of courage to hurl yourself out into the void. I had that courage twice, but no longer.

The idea of a bungee jump brings on that same fear. I imagine myself inching out onto the jump platform with everybody watching. As the seconds tick away and the time comes to jump I know I will be frozen with fear and have to be helped back to safety and ritual humiliation.

I will do most things, but I have always said that I will never do a bungee jump.

Next time - The last day approaches

20 Challenges

My mind made up, I ‘put my ticket in’, which is police slang for submitting my resignation notice. Actually, resigning is only part of the process. I was required to submit no fewer than five different forms to ensure that my retirement goes smoothly and the well earned lump sum appeared in my bank account on the appointed day. The last form contained the chilling phrase:

‘Are you really sure you want to do this? By signing this you are invoking your karma and effectively setting the date of your death.’

Pushing aside all thoughts of my early demise, I signed it anyway and began to plan my future.

My last day as a police officer would be Wednesday 29th July, 2010. Thirty years to the day since I proudly put on my uniform for the first time as a fresh faced 21 year old sporting a very nice moustache. With the days of annual leave I have left and so called ‘Reward Leave’ (extra days leave given each year as a reward for not going off sick) I was able to bring my last day in that same uniform forward to Friday 3rd of July. The die was cast.

By this time I had a pretty good idea of what I want to do with my gap year and I gave my credit card a good bashing on the internet travel and airline sites.

Not wishing to waste time I decided to embark on my first trip the day after leaving work. I had never been to Italy so I booked flights to Pisa with a view to seeing Tuscany. As an added twist I arranged to stay in a hotel run by Buddhists in a small town called Montecatini. I reckoned on 9 days being enough for me to chill out and acclimatise to life beyond work.

Allowing for a few days at home I followed this trip by renting a cottage on the edge of the English Lake District village of Grasmere, in the hope that I could entice all three of my children to join me at some point during the week.

Allowing for another couple of weeks at home, I then booked a much more challenging break by arranging for my youngest son and me to travel to Turkey for a week’s activity holiday.

I was on a roll and decided to go for the big one. I booked myself onto a guided two week tour through East Africa in mid September, beginning in Kenya, travelling north to Uganda and ending in Rwanda. Had it not been for the kind people of the Police Federation who negotiated on my behalf for an increased lump sum when I retired, my plans would end there.

As it was I had enough time and resources to go for one more epic trip before the year was out. I booked flights to Hong Kong in November and arranged to stay there for a couple of days before heading south to Vietnam where I would join another guided tour in Hanoi and journey south to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it is still commonly known.

I had a tentative plan to visit Australia and New Zealand in the New Year, but I decided that I have done enough credit card bashing for the time being.

My choices of destinations were not random. Each trip represented something special to me, from time with my children to seeking out the Big 5 on the Maasai Mara. My gap year wasn’t going to be about visiting places across the planet and looking at them. It was about experiencing all those places have to offer.

One thing I learned from all those tedious meetings I attended as a Chief Inspector was the importance of strategic and tactical planning. Most large organisations these days set themselves aspirational goals or create mission statements. Every police force has its own set of goals, usually four or five of them. If you were to compare the goals of each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales you would see that they are amazingly similar. There is a good reason for this. Although the Police Service is apolitical it is ruled by the government of the day who set the agenda for all police forces and measure success or failure by means of performance targets. This is a great way to waste taxpayers money on endless meetings and inspections. And all so the ruling party can tell you come election time that under their tenure they have cut reported crime by X%, or put Y number of police officers back on the streets. And when you read those statements don’t forget that they are based on data supplied by people like me. Yes, me! You can’t have read this far without realising that I can be prone to embroider the truth now and again. I never went to a meeting with Home Office officials without first visiting the stores for a large supply of smoke and several mirrors.

Casting cynicism aside for a minute, the process is not all bad. Having been set their targets and defined their goals, chief police officers then create a strategy in order to achieve them. Typically, this will require allocating resources to the so called ‘Three Pillars of Policing’ – incident response, crime investigation and neighbourhood policing. What underpins the strategy are the tactics used to carry it out. This is the work done by the police staff at the sharp end to ensure that you and I can live our lives in safety and receive a good service (or not).

The hours I have spent locked in mind numbing meetings had not been a total waste of time as I realised that I could apply the principles I had learned to help me gain the most from my gap year experience. I even decided to hold monthly staff appraisal meetings with myself to check on my progress.

After one or two coats of thinking about it I came up with my Middle Aged Gapper Mission Statement, my strategy and a list of 20 tactical goals to be achieved during my year. Here they are:

Mission Statement

To travel extensively, taking on challenges and meeting people that stimulate my mental, physical, emotional and spiritual growth.

Strategy

To visit at least 10 countries that I have not visited previously.

Tactical Goals

1. See the Big 7 safari animals in the wild
2. Appear on TV
3. Take an epic train journey
4. Go white water rafting
5. Catch a big fish
6. Watch the sun rise at Uluru
7. Take a dip in a hot spring
8. Climb a glacier
9. Swim with dolphins
10. Get a Maori tattoo
11. Go paragliding
12. Photograph a whale
13. Climb Sydney Harbour Bridge
14. Fly in a hot air balloon over the Maasai Mara
15. Photograph Wainwright with a celebrity
16. Take a Turkish bath
17. See the Northern Lights
18. Come face to face with mountain gorillas
19. Visit a Buddhist temple
20. Run a half marathon in under 2 hours

Next time - advice on parachuting.

First Class Dining (Part 2)

We switched south to York and then west through the Aire valley as we ventured towards the highlight of our journey.

Construction of the Settle to Carlisle railway line began in 1869 and took 7 gruelling years to complete. This was the age of the Navvies, the hardy labourers, mainly Irish, who carved out Britain’s railway and canal networks by brute force. Entire families lived in camps and small townships on the bleak Yorkshire moorside. Not only was the work dangerous but the conditions meant that the threat of diseases like smallpox was never far away. 6,000 navvies were used to build the 72 mile long route with its 14 tunnels and 20 viaducts. A total of 201 people died during construction and of these 110 were children.

The railway came under the threat of closure by Maggie Thatcher in the 1980’s. Fortunately the Minister for Transport of the day, Michael Portillo managed to persuade her not to axe the line. Mr Portillo, one of the few politicians that I actually admire, showed a great deal of foresight and since he saw off the threat in 1989 the line has gone from strength to strength. 750,000 now use the line annually, and not just day trippers like me, but a growing number of commuters too.

Our diesel locomotive made light work of the journey, keeping up a steady but sedate speed that enabled me to marvel at the verdant landscape outside my window as the rugged Yorkshire Dales gave way to the alluring fells of the Lake District. Had I travelled by steam train then the enginemen would have had their work cut out to keep up the same pace. The 16 mile climb from Settle to Blea Moor was known as ‘the long drag’ by train drivers, requiring them to shovel a constant supply of coal into the firebox for the steam locomotive to maintain speed up the near constant 1 in 100 incline.

No such effort for me, thankfully. Instead I got to graze on Elevenses as a world of poetic beauty slid by the window.

We arrived in Carlisle for a three hour stop-over in the early afternoon. I headed for the Tourist Information office full of intention to visit whatever tourist hotspots were on offer. It was a bright, sunny day so I decided to picnic in the park at the northern end of the city. After a filling tuna-mayo sandwich and lashings of ginger beer, the soporific effects of the train journey began to take effect and was not long before one man and his Hull City gnome were snoozing on the grass. So much for seeing the sights.

There was just enough time for Wainwright to pose for pictures in front of Carlisle Castle before we made our way back to the railway station. It was here that I made my first discovery of the Wainwright Effect.

I helped Wainwright to arrange himself into various positions around the waiting train whilst I snapped away with my camera. As I did so I noticed people stopping to stare at my small friend. Everyone smiled and was somehow gladdened by the sight of the Black and Amber diminutive footballer. Strangely though, no one paid me much attention.

Wainwright and I had never worked out the terms of our relationship, but this trip made it very clear. Wainwright is the star and I am merely his minder and personal assistant. It is a role that I am very comfortable with.

I decided to test Wainwright’s winning ways and took him to the diesel locomotive. I had to wait while a genuine enthusiast quizzed the drivers on something technical or maybe he just asked: ‘Can I have a go?’ When he sloped away, shoulders slumped, I took my chance and poked my head into the oily cabin.

The two drivers eyed me with all the enthusiasm of jaded rock stars, tired of constant attention. Jaded or not, my question was one which I am sure they had never been asked before:

‘Excuse me. Can my gnome have his picture taken in your cab?’

A moment of puzzlement gave way to broad smiles as Wainwright was enthusiastically lifted aboard. He even got to pose looking out of the window whilst ‘driving’ the train. I sensed a certain amount of reluctance as the wee feller was returned to me. I had the decency to wait until I was out of sight of the cab before I wiped the grubby fingerprints off the hitherto pristine gnome.

We returned via the Tyne valley, the Tees valley and back along the Esk valley. That's a lot of valleys and some stunning scenery. We even caught sight of The Angel of the North, which was a first for me.

I’d booked myself into a Bed and Breakfast in Whitby for the night, so as the sun set and the superb four course dinner was served, I washed it all down with a decent bottle of red wine.

Could life be any better than this? Fine food, fine wine, the sun setting over an ever changing vista of fields and rivers, the amiable chatter of Anne, Mark and Clive and the companionship of a resin gnome. If that is what retirement is about then I certainly wanted more of it.

Next time - The 20 Challenges

First Class Dining (Part 1)

Moving from being a Chief Inspector to a civilian in the same post within the space of 24 hours was a one-off opportunity. Once I left the organisation I would be on my own with no easy way back to the life of meetings about meetings and deceiving the Home Office. Despite the presence of Wainwright I still felt unnerved at the thought of walking away from a secure future into one that could lead to me having to stack supermarket shelves in order to support my youngest son at college, my daughter at university, my ageing father, my ageing dog and a garden gnome. I settled upon a plan of testing the water. I would undertake a small adventure to test both my and Wainwright’s mettle for around the world voyaging.

Whilst I am not an ‘enthusiast’ I do love to travel by train. It encourages a special level of laziness that is normally reserved for Christmas and bank holidays. I often buy a cheap ticket to London for a day out visiting the art galleries, walking by the river or mooching around Greenwich. On a good day the journey takes less than 3 hours and by the time I’ve switched between trips to the buffet bar, reading and gazing out of the window whilst plugged into my iPod the journey seems to be over much too soon.

The world has some truly lengthy train journeys to offer – the Indian Pacific across Australia, the Re-Unification Express up and down Vietnam and the Rocky Mountaineer through Canada, to name but a few. All of these interested me as potential gap year journeys. There is nothing to match these trips for distance in Great Britain, but there are plenty of iconic rail journeys to be found.

A bit of web surfing put me in touch with West Coast Railways and I booked Wainwright and me onto a full day trip that would take us on the most scenic railway line in England.

Our journey began at Whitby railway station, one cold Saturday morning in early June. Sadly, the locomotive that pulled us along was an old diesel and not the steam train I would have preferred for complete perfection. Once on board Wainwright posed for pictures in the deep seated luxury of the Pullman carriage. I had opted to treat myself to the First Class Dining Experience to ease myself gently into the world of long distance rail travel.

As the train left the station at 7.14 am prompt there were just two other people sharing our carriage. I soon learned that they are a married couple celebrating a 60th birthday by treating themselves to this special day out.

Slowly the train eased its way out of Whitby and along the track of the North York Moors Railway, a stretch of railway that is operated by a bunch of enthusiasts who lovingly maintain the track between Whitby and Pickering and the ancient and noble locomotives and carriages that glide along it. More passengers joined us at every stop until the whole train was alive with excited and animated people.

Wainwright and I were joined at our table by Anne, Mark and Clive, who were also celebrating a birthday. Sitting in close proximity to someone for the length of rail journey is a hit and miss affair with the potential to make or mar the pleasure. My companions definitely added to the whole experience with their good humour and extensive knowledge of trains, the route, history and just about everything else of interest. Clive, the nephew of Anne and Mark was the real railway buff of the trio.

Apart from Wainwright, my other companion on this journey was the excellent and apposite Eleven Minutes Late, by Matthew Engel. It is a book that describes the author’s journey along the length of the British railway system from Penzance to Thurso and at the same time delves into the deep, and sometimes confusing, history of our national rail network.

‘That cover is wrong,’ said Clive with authority.

I stared at the book cover in question. It is a pleasing watercolour that depicts the idyllic scene of a well dressed couple and a young child waiting on a railway platform circa 1950. A blue suited guard has his red flag aloft and his whistle to his mouth as a steam train makes its way majestically into the station.

‘Is it?’ I said, unable to spot anything wrong with the scene before me.

‘The train is on the wrong track,’ continued Clive. ‘A passenger train always approaches a station so that its left hand side is presented to the platform.’

For the remainder of the day I seek verification of Clive’s statement and he proves to be spot on. I discover later that Matthew Engel himself acknowledges the point in the book, pleading for the reader’s indulgence in a little artistic licence in an effort to avoid a deluge of hate mail from vengeful railway enthusiasts.

Piping hot coffee and buttered Arbroath kippers made for a leisurely start to the morning as our outward route took us through the Esk valley to Middlesbrough. A few weeks earlier both Middlesbrough FC and Newcastle United had been relegated from the Premiership after tense battles for survival. The Riverside Stadium was wearing a black arm-band. I didn't approve of Wainwright singing: 'Down with the Geordies, you've gone down with the Geordies’, as we passed it.

Next time - the journey to Carlisle

Faster, fitter, further.

Also around this time I decide to get fitter. The 30 yard walk from my desk the coffee machine is the most exercise I got each day. I had become so fat that one day a young uniformed officer approached me in the obvious belief that I had the physique of a Police Federation Representative, or Fed Rep as they are known. Before I could stop him the constable reeled off a long list of wrongdoings on his shift. It was a fascinating tale involving a tangled web of love triangles, sexual deviancy, bullying, sexism, homophobia and abuse of a police dog.

I listened intently whilst making copious notes. This stuff would be dynamite when I got round to writing my novel. Satisfied that I had drained every salacious detail out of the whistle-blower I shook his hand and left him with the standard Fed Rep’s promise:

‘Leave it with me. I’ll look into it and get back to you.’

Naturally, I was tempted to maintain the pretence of being a Fed Rep. In just half an hour I had been privy to some really juicy gossip. There must be dozens more officers with tales to tell. Enough for several novels and maybe even a screenplay.

Inviting as this thought was, the meeting had also served to tell me it was time to do something about my lack of fitness and weight problem. I was already formulating a mental list of challenges for my gap year and some of them would require me to be fit and agile. And then there was the question of my karma.

I had never in my life been in possession of a large pot of money. Life had somehow conspired to ensure that whenever I reached a situation where I might begin to acquire wealth some unforeseen circumstance would come along and deprive me of it. Happily, it worked the other way too. At times when I was faced with huge financial pressures such as when I got divorced or when my children were young and I had large bills for childcare, the money just seemed to be there and I never got into debt. The laws of the cosmos seemed to be somehow in control of my bank balance.

When I retired I would receive a very nice lump sum. More money than I had possessed in my entire life. How would the cosmos react? To me the answer was obvious. I would die.

Not only was the clock ticking down to retirement, it was ticking down to death too. I would receive the cheque for my lump sum, cheer loudly and promptly drop dead. How annoying was that?

Something had to be done. The cosmos must be cheated. I had to reduce the chances of imminent death.

I’d successfully lost weight before but the cycle was always the same. I’d join a local slimming club; realise I was the only man there; decide which woman I’d most like to have sex with (if she reached her target weight, obviously); try hard for 3 months; get bored of hearing how Tracey had managed to lose another pound this week; go to the class just to get to get weighed; decide that four quid week just to get weighed is a bit steep; weigh myself and save four quid a week; gradually put back all the weight I’d lost plus a bit more for luck.

To break the cycle I opted to go for an online slimming club. One that allowed me to type away ad infinitum to my personal diet guru about how I’d managed to lose a pound this week, or how it’s been an emotional time and I’ve been comforting eating and expect advice and counselling in return. One that not only provides me with a menu every week but even converts it into a shopping list.

The downside is you receive messages from fellow fatties with names like ‘Can’tstopeatingchips’ or ‘BurgersRme54’. But if you ignore them or lie about how easily the pounds are falling off they soon go away and leave you alone.

In my experience dieting, or healthy eating, will only take you so far. The pounds drop off steadily and then an impasse is reached. There’s only one way past it. Exercise.

I have never liked gyms. According to a well known medical magazine, 80 percent of people with gym memberships don’t use them. There must be a universal law that says the desire to stay in and watch TV is inversely proportional to the frequency with which the gym is visited, until staying in reaches 100% and visits equal zero. And yet whenever I have gone to the gym there’s always someone on the machine I want to be on.

But what if you can have both? Stay in by the TV and go to the gym? Say hello to the Wii Fit. What better way to gain the physique of an Olympic athlete than by pretending to hula-hoop or by ski-jumping in your own front room? Except of course it doesn’t quite work that way and breaking out the balance board for a yoga session soon becomes as difficult and repetitive as going to the gym.

Fortunately, I had an epiphany. I was jogging around my front room whilst my on screen avatar made his way through a nice park, waving at other joggers and friendly little dogs, when I had a thought. ‘What if I opened my front door and took this out on the street?’ So I did. And it was fun. And pretty soon I was doing it four times a week and beginning to feel like the younger me.
I even set myself a challenge. To run my first 10k race. And I did and the emotion of that achievement brought tears to my eyes as I crossed the finishing line in 56 minutes. So I entered another race and another. Until I was crossing the line in 52 minutes, the theme tune to Rocky playing in my head as I sprinted home.

I lost so much weight in the process that when my young whistle-blowing friend called by my office to see how his Fed Rep was getting on he didn’t recognise me. I told him the person he was looking for had been suspended from duty after being caught giving out confidential information from the Police National Computer in return for pies.

Next time - First Class Dining on the Settle to Carlisle line.

Wainwright

It was around this time that I was joined on my quest by my faithful companion, Wainwright.

I can’t claim to be a life-long fan of Hull City, or the Tigers as they are known locally. In fact I can’t even claim to be a life-long fan of football. As a young Bobby I would be sent to control the crowds at the Tiger’s ancient ground, Boothferry Park. As far as I could see, and I made numerous studies of this, there was not one single person in that stadium who was enjoying themselves. Certainly not me, and I was being paid to be there. Maybe that’s just a reflection of the northern way of life. We’re only happy when we’re miserable.

My attitude towards the Tigers changed once they acquired the KC Stadium. My children were teenagers and as a treat we went to see City versus Mansfield at a time when the team were doing well in what was then Division 3. City lost, 1 – 0, but from the time I walked into that splendid ground, dazzled by the green of the pitch, I was hooked and so were my children. The brilliant stadium, the jewel in the crown of a city in need of hope and dreams, changed everything, even the gloomy atmosphere I remembered so well. I’ve been going back ever since.

At the time of writing, Hull City are about to be relegated from the Premier League. By the time you read this they could be facing the challenge of the Champions League, or, more likely, cold, wet Tuesday evenings playing the likes of Macclesfield in the Johnstone’s - I’d sooner watch paint dry - trophy.

One sunny February afternoon in 2009 I made a trip that neither I nor any other Tigers’ fan ever expected to make. I went to Stamford Bridge to see City play Chelsea in the Premier League. It was a surprisingly close game that City could have won if they only had a striker on the pitch. It ended 0 – 0 and Phil Scolari paid the price the next day when he was sacked as Chelsea Coach.

But the real revelation that day lurked in the Chelsea merchandise shop. Among all the mugs, scarves and foam pointy fingers was a gnome, dressed in the Chelsea strip with his booted foot resting on a football. ‘We want one!’ cried the Hull City fans and three months later the enterprising manufacturer duly obliged with a limited edition of 500.

As soon as I read about the gnomes in the local press I knew I had to have one. It was perfect. If Tony Hawks could tour Ireland with a fridge then I could tour the world with a Hull City Garden Gnome. Images of the two us being feted on our travels and being forced to politely accept free drinks and accommodation filled my head. With a gaily coloured gnome in tow I might even get laid.

Not everyone shared my enthusiasm when I nipped out one lunch time to the Hull City shop and came back with my new best friend.

‘You paid fifteen quid for that?’ said the scoffer number one.

‘Yes.’

‘What you gonna call it?’ said scoffer number two.

‘Wainwright,’ I replied. ‘He’s called Wainwright.’

‘Why?’

‘That would be telling,’ I said, walking off clutching the little chap protectively to my chest, whilst eyeing a sneering sergeant who was making a move to free his extendable baton. And to this day only I know why Wainwright is Wainwright. And it’s got nothing at all to do with walks in the Lake District.

Next Time - As fat as a Fed Rep

As the Yiddish proverb says: Men make plans and God laughs.

By law police officers cannot join a union and have no right to strike. Most cops do belong to a body that will represent them at a national and local level. For those up to the rank of Chief Inspector this is the Police Federation. I have never been a great fan of the Federation, mainly because I have always seen it as being ineffective and its elected representatives always appear to be keener on pies, pints and petty politics than they are on supporting their members. But a year before I was due to retire the Federation announced an agreement with the government that would have a huge effect upon my pension package.

When they retire most cops take a pension that allows them an annual income that is half of their final salary and a lump sum of money. What the Federation did was to agree a new formula for the lump sum. When information about this new formula appeared casually in my email inbox I had to read it several times to grasp what it was telling me. Then I grabbed my calculator and worked out how the changes would affect me. My lump sum would be increased by over £35,000! God bless the Federation. The pies are on me.

Naturally, I went over my sums numerous times to find the catch but there wasn’t one. I was to be given the equivalent of a small lottery win without even asking for it. Sod taking a three month break when I left work, I now had the finances to take a whole year off and travel more extensively than I had hoped. More than that, my unearned windfall put off the day of reckoning. The day when I would find out just how difficult it is to earn money outside of the police.

For those outside the police service wanting to get in the system is hugely unfair. For those inside and wanting to stay inside it is very rewarding. ‘Civilianisation’ is an ugly word for senior police officers and their political masters. It smacks of policing on the cheap and ‘jobs for the boys (and girls)’. Nonetheless all police forces face strong financial constraints that require them to find ways to save money and be more efficient. As I neared the end of my service the new answer to every chief constable’s prayer was ‘Business and Workforce Modernisation’. This is a process of examining police functions to determine which of them actually require the use of police powers and which can be done by people who do not carry a warrant card.

For example, only police officers have the power to arrest a person but no such powers are required to investigate crimes, interview suspects or take witness statements. Good news for Dennis Waterman and James Bolam as it provided the perfect vehicle to revive their careers by playing parts as ex-cops coming out of retirement in New Tricks.

It was also good news for me. I had never been much of a cop and by the end of my service I was no kind of cop at all. My job title was ‘Business Change Manager’, which meant a lot of those tedious meetings I mentioned earlier but also allowed me to get home in time for The Weakest Link and to see Hull City play on a Saturday afternoon. My stab vest was in pristine condition and my canister of CS, well past its Spray by date, was untouched.

Requiring not even the merest hint of a police power, my job was ripe for ‘modernisation’. I could leave as a police officer one day and come back to the same job as a civilian the next. Not only would I still get my pension but I would receive a decent salary as well. By my calculations I reckoned I would be earning about £12,000 a year more than I already was, with no mortgage to pay. That’s quite an incentive.

There was just one problem. I didn’t have the slightest desire to be the Business Change Manager for a day longer than I had to.

A good many of my friends and colleagues had left the police by the revolving door and were now very comfortable financially having swapped their uniform for a suit and tie. Whilst that was their choice and I could see the logic, to me they were avoiding the test of finding out who they really were. Choosing financial security over a chance to take on a new challenge. Other colleagues simply refused to leave and clung on to their police posts and often the status it afforded them.

As my career dwindled like sand in an hour glass I was very vociferous about my ability to leave behind the job security comfort blanket and step out into the brave new world beyond policing. But as I reached my last six months before becoming eligible to retire I began to regret the boldness and bravado of my words. People would slap me on the back and say:

‘Can’t be long until you retire, Bry? Gosh, you’re a brave man to take off into the wild blue yonder like that. Good luck to you.’

I just smiled and thought: ‘Oh shit.’

Maybe there was a lot to be said for a nice income and a comfortable life. It certainly beats taking photos from a very long ladder. Sorry, Keith from Scunthorpe.

Next time - Joined by Wainwright