Abo – A wee boy’s progress

This is the autobiographical life story of a boy born into a mining and mill background in a small Scottish town just prior to World War 2. It tells of his childhood with its wartime hardships, his life just after the war with a few years living on a farm. He is fortunate to receive a good education, which is cut short before his 15th birthday because of his family situation. He begins work in a paper mill laboratory and is called up to serve his National Service in the Royal Navy, followed by a difficult year in London. After a few years working for the Railway he joins the Police in the South of England. He does time in uniform and CID before working in the 'Vice Squad', seeing some of the seamier side of life in Brighton, the Regional Crime Squad targeting serious criminals before joining a unit specialising in surveillance and 'close protection' duties. Whilst performing the latter he becomes involved from the inside in one of the country's most notorious terrorist attacks. Later he is one of four officers launching one of the country's earliest helicopter policing units. The book highlights some of the author's personal tragedies but on a brighter note follows his successful quest to find two sons lost to him for twenty five years on the other side of the world