I was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and after a secondary modern education, left school to work at Boscombe Down, working on navigation and radio systems in military aircraft. I decided to join the police and, after some deliberation, opted to join the Liverpool & Bootle Constabulary, which was the geographical area most suited to my biggest passions at the time, music and football. So it was that in 1970 I emigrated to Liverpool. I married in 1972 and moved to Wigan in 1973. I have two children and five grandchildren.
My police career began at Eaton Road and Tuebrook and in 1977 was promoted to Sergeant at Newton-Le-Willows. In 1981, after a short stint at St Helens in the custody office, I was promoted back to Tuebrook as an Inspector. During the ’80’s I gained a B.A. degree with the Open University. I transferred to the OSD Support Group in 1985 where I spent the best 5 years of my life. I had young children growing up and loads of overtime, hence more money to enjoy life. In addition, crime patrols, dealing with public disorder and firearms situations in the company of dedicated, eager, professional men and women gave me 100% job satisfaction.
In 1990, I was promoted to Chief Inspector at Copy Lane where I prepared the order for 2 Grand Nationals and then in 1992 was transferred to Admiral St. I was promoted to Area Commander at Kirkby in 1993 when I trained as a football police commander and silver commander for public disorder and firearms operations and in 1995 got the job as head of the Operations Department. Main responsibilities there were operational planning and football matches (which gave me the opportunity to travel extensively throughout Europe).
I retired in 1998. My main interests now are spending a lot of time with grandchildren, gardening, family history research, looking after rental properties, live music, taking G.C.S.E.’s (so far 2 A’s and 2 A*) and driving my cabriolet sports car (on sunny summer days), in the main visiting National Trust sites.
