In the early 1980 Barry was your ordinary chap going to work and just being living normally, the same as everyone else. True he had had a few jobs, and they had been in different fields of endeavour, but that just meant he had a low boredom threshold, didn’t it?
Apparently not. As something to do he became a Special Constable in the United Kingdom, a ‘hobby bobby’, someone who volunteered to be an unpaid Police Officer. But one of those that the Regular Police used to look after fetes and carnivals, and that sort of thing. Not really a Police Officer, more of a uniformed pair of hands. Hardly trained at all in the normal sense they were ‘useful’, but not universally liked.
But Barry got the taste for Policing in the proper sense. He liked the camaraderie and fitted the uniform, so when he was being considered for redundancy of his day job, he turned to the Regular Police as an alternative. Despite being rather old at 33 to join the Police, he succeeded in impressing his Senior Officers and was accepted by Essex Police into their Force, and started a career that was to stretch unbroken over more than 20 years.
It seemed that Barry had found his niche in life, one that would enable him to keep changing what he was doing, whilst remaining in the same job. Throughout his career he kept finding new areas of Policing in which to become involved, developing new skills, finding new avenues to explore. Boredom ceased to be a problem, because apart from the fact that you never knew what each day would bring when you went on duty, if you lost the drive in your present niche you could always find another one.
But everything has to start somewhere, and this book charts the beginning of Barry’s start in the Policing life. It looks at his first steps into becoming a Special Constable, what they did and how they did it; before moving on to his progression into a Regular Police Officer with Essex Police. Where he gets sent to the area Training Camp to learn the craft of being a Police Officer.
Sometimes the life of a Police Officer is happy, sometimes it is sad, but it is hardly ever boring. Follow Barry as he progresses from Special Constable to Regular Constable, through his highs and lows, fun and problems!
Apparently not. As something to do he became a Special Constable in the United Kingdom, a ‘hobby bobby’, someone who volunteered to be an unpaid Police Officer. But one of those that the Regular Police used to look after fetes and carnivals, and that sort of thing. Not really a Police Officer, more of a uniformed pair of hands. Hardly trained at all in the normal sense they were ‘useful’, but not universally liked.
But Barry got the taste for Policing in the proper sense. He liked the camaraderie and fitted the uniform, so when he was being considered for redundancy of his day job, he turned to the Regular Police as an alternative. Despite being rather old at 33 to join the Police, he succeeded in impressing his Senior Officers and was accepted by Essex Police into their Force, and started a career that was to stretch unbroken over more than 20 years.
It seemed that Barry had found his niche in life, one that would enable him to keep changing what he was doing, whilst remaining in the same job. Throughout his career he kept finding new areas of Policing in which to become involved, developing new skills, finding new avenues to explore. Boredom ceased to be a problem, because apart from the fact that you never knew what each day would bring when you went on duty, if you lost the drive in your present niche you could always find another one.
But everything has to start somewhere, and this book charts the beginning of Barry’s start in the Policing life. It looks at his first steps into becoming a Special Constable, what they did and how they did it; before moving on to his progression into a Regular Police Officer with Essex Police. Where he gets sent to the area Training Camp to learn the craft of being a Police Officer.
Sometimes the life of a Police Officer is happy, sometimes it is sad, but it is hardly ever boring. Follow Barry as he progresses from Special Constable to Regular Constable, through his highs and lows, fun and problems!
