DOING POLICING OFFICER 1 My first station was Ballymena. Ballymena in the 1960s was a thriving town, industrious with a thriving farming community around it. ‘The Troubles’ of the 1950s and early 60s, which was mainly confined to a Border Campaign, had ended. So, it was a very nice time in Ballymena with Showbands and Ballrooms for a young man to enjoy. I really enjoyed that, and I went to do duty in Portrush, for two summer seasons to supplement the local police down there; Portrush in those days was the holiday Mecca of the country. I met William Martin, the Sergeant there, who was the author of the ‘Black Manual’ or ‘Code’ (RUC Code of Conduct) which we had to study. He had lots of legal books around his office, when he found out I had passed the Sergeants Exam he brought me in and treated me as an’ Assistant Sergeant’. He actually allowed me to stand in for him one or two days when he was off, much to the chagrin of the older men who had been there a lifetime. The community got on well with us they wanted to help us and the holiday visitors wanted their photograph taken with us. I remember one occasion I was on mobile patrol in a 2 door Ford Anglia car, to get into the back you had to pull forward the front seat. I got a call to deal with a ‘Simple Drunk’ causing annoyance on the Main Street, I went round, and there he was showing all the signs of a drunk man but doing no real harm. I tried to get him away for a cup of tea but when we got to the car he changed his mind and wouldn’t get in, he locked his arms, one on the roof and the other on the door, so he was going no-where and I was on my own with him and the police car. We weren’t going anywhere until a young man came over and offered to help. I climbed into the back of the car and pulled while my helper pushed until we got the drunk in the back seat with me, but there was no one to drive until the young guy offered to drive the police car to the station I agreed, and, hoped no one would tell the Sergeant otherwise my career was over, thankfully nobody did and after a couple of hours sleep the drunk managed to make his way home. That was the type of thing the community would do for us. The pay was about £30-40 a month in your hand, so you weren’t going to be extravagant spending money at the time on cars or anything like that! The crime rate was low and when the judges came to Fermanagh they were often presented with ‘white gloves’ as most of the time there were no cases to try!(the phrase white gloves is an old saying indicating nothing to do) That was the atmosphere I was brought up in – you trusted your neighbours, you didn’t need to lock doors, you could leave the keys in your car as it wouldn’t be stolen, you didn’t need to do anything (take crime prevention precautions) – it was a different atmosphere to what is happening now unfortunately. I like to keep the peace, it was always my aim in life not to worry too much about regulations if I had to do something to keep the peace, keeping the Peace was my priority throughout my service. When I was a supervisor I always advised my officers before they went out on patrol that one of the aims of that patrol was to make ‘friends’ (establish good relationships with the public). Yes, we stopped cars and later in my service looked for terrorists; we were looking for all sorts of criminals, on Night duty we were looking for burglars. If you stopped ordinary folk on the road and found something wrong with their car and you appreciated from their reaction and their acceptance of the fault that they would get it fixed you took their word that they would get it fixed rather than ‘book’ them for something minor so you could make a ‘friend’. DOING POLICING Page 1 of 109 At my first station we didn’t carry firearms on patrol so personal security wasn’t a major problem. It was later on when the so called ‘Troubles’ started (in 1968) that guns came back to us. We were trained as a paramilitary force, we did our drills in the Depot, we carried rifles, we fixed bayonets and we did a lot of firearms training and went to the range to see that we could use the weapons if necessary. So that was always there, but you still wanted to treat the public as ordinary human beings, if they were a ‘reasonable’ type who saw you were doing a necessary job and didn’t want to attack you, you treated them with respect and gave them their place in society, you didn’t try to undermine them or do something that was going to harm them. I was in Ballymena in the 1960s where I walked the beat or took a cycle patrol out one of the ‘spokes’ of the wheel towards Antrim, Larne, Broughshane, Ballymoney, Ahoghill or out the Galgorm Road. There were all sorts of rules and regulations for the man in the station, the Station Duty Officer or ‘Guard’ as he was called in those days. He kept a book for people coming and going from the station, those on duty, those in for a ‘break’, and when they went out after a ‘break’. One Night duty a colleague who finished duty at midnight came up to me on the Beat and said, ‘there’s nobody at the station if you want to go in for a cup of tea’, I didn’t go immediately but I did go in earlier than scheduled for my break. ‘The Guard’ made an entry in the book recording my arrival; unbeknown to me my ‘off duty’ colleague who approached me broke a shop window and stole a washing machine while I was in for my ‘break’. He was caught fairly quickly and the machine recovered; that event lead to the only disciplinary blemish I had, coming in early for my break. That was the only time I was spoken to by a senior officer for doing wrong. I didn’t heed the advice I was given in ‘The Depot’ just look for your own name on the duty sheet no one else’s and just do what you are supposed to do and do it’; it was good advice for an 18year old. ‘The Guard’ that night, whose father was a District Inspector in Derry, was worried about what might happen to him and he had a word with his dad about what had happened and who the thief was, in turn his father had a word with our County Inspector and that was how the thief was identified. The thief was charged and absconded before his trial. Later when we were out on the streets some of the ‘corner boys’ shouted over at us ‘Where are you breaking in to tonight?’ it took a long time to get over that. You don’t want that behaviour in the police; I always did my best to catch criminals. There were a few female officers in the 60s and we had two in the Ballymena station with 40 male officers. They were in a separate unit the WPU (Woman Police Unit) with their own hierarchy, their Sergeant would call to see them, and ‘Ma’am’ (the Female District Inspector in charge of the WPU) would call as well. I always got on well with them, I knew they were getting less pay than me, which was common in most jobs, it was the way of life at the time that women were paid less than men. Also, there were fewer opportunities for females. Everyone had to pass the promotion exam and then the interview, but the opportunities for females were fewer because they had to wait for vacancies in the WPU. There was no crossover into the regular policing role, so females couldn’t become section (response) supervisors. I never came across any discrimination by male police officers towards female officers. When we came across incidents involving abused women or children we called in the WPU, the thinking at the time was the female is the ‘mother figure’ and better able to deal with these types of incidents. Female officers were really valuable and necessary, I knew several and did some joint patrols with them they were very good. As more females joined I grew to respect them even more, they were very capable and did the roughest of jobs with the men – one a Chief Superintendent now in HQ thinks I am wonderful DOING POLICING Page 2 of 109 because I encouraged her as a young constable. If you see the ability, then you want to see them use it whoever it is. POLICING ‘THE TROUBLES’ The first thing when ‘The Troubles’ started was going to riots .......... I was a Sergeant in 1969 and I was in Rosslea, which was described to me as a place you drive into and reverse out off! I went to Rosslea and I had a really good squad of Constables with me in the station. Because we were well placed and numerically strong several of us were sent down to Londonderry for 2-3 days at a time or even longer to deal with the riots which had by then started up.