A good friend to me stood in the nick and rocked on his heels as he gave me some of the best advice I have ever received. He was wearing a Santa hat at the time but this did not detract from the serious point at the heart of his mini speech.

“Dibble, I was just as cynical as you once”

“I find that hard to believe mate, you’re irritatingly happy”

“When my daughter came along, I looked at her and nothing else in the world mattered. I decided not grow old and bitter”

He is just as angry about government reform as I am. I recently spent a week ranting and raving at colleagues in an effort to get them to vote for industrial rights because of compulsory severance, Winsor ect but none of them cared. ‘I’ll worry about it when I’m older’ or ‘my dad deals with my finances’ 

Mrs Dibble shook my arm “calm down darling, they don’t care” and I felt guilty for being so angry. I don’t want to be a bitter old walt and continues say ‘I told you so’. So I decided to take my friend’s advice. I will no longer comment on policing matters or politics, I will...

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The undertaker turned the light on, it revealed a corpse on the floor with black fingers and pale skin. I stood still a little while longer, the husband gingerly hovered his hand over his deceased wife’s, then he struggled to his feet. It was a pathetic sight, he tried in vain to get her wrist to sit on her chest, but it just would not stay and instead would fall back to the carpet defiantly. I clutched at my own fingers, which were dry and pasty. 6 Days of earlys have taken their toll.

I’ve resigned myself, there isn’t apathy in the job, just voluntary ignorance that acts as a shield against the constant stream of anti police shit slinging. Whatever, I left that house safe in the knowledge that the deceased’s family were thoroughly taken care of, their impression of me will last beyond the negative headlines that plague my profession. They will remember the compassion my crewmate and I displayed when attending in their hour of need, 

Sudden deaths are part of my job, a lot of people meet me through death, and each death stays with me as I...

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DO NOT VOTE IN THE COMING ELECTION

I can remember my parents wearing worn out clothes when I was a kid, they spent all their cash on making sure my siblings and I were always properly dressed. They rarely spent money on themselves, in fact I can’t ever remember them treating themselves, they just treat us instead. The mortgage was killing them and they shopped at Lidl because it was the cheapest. We lived in a nice rural part of the world, but before we lived in a horrible suburb of London. My folks would have to sell the car to pay the bill some months and my dad had two jobs for a while. It was about pride and providing for the family they chose to create, no one forced them but they did not complain.

While policing the local council estate, I find I have nothing in common with my fellow ‘working class’ citizens. I cannot profess to being working class now, though my parents were blue collar workers which thankfully gave me the springboard I needed. During my childhood they did nothing but work, my dad would leave before I woke in the morning then return when it was dark daily...

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I can remember my parents wearing worn out clothes when I was a kid, they spent all their cash on making sure my siblings and I were always properly dressed. They rarely spent money on themselves, in fact I can’t ever remember them treating themselves, they just treat us instead. The mortgage was killing them and they shopped at Lidl because it was the cheapest. We lived in a nice rural part of the world, but before we lived in a horrible suburb of London. My folks would have to sell the car to pay the bill some months and my dad had two jobs for a while. It was about pride and providing for the family they chose to create, no one forced them but they did not complain.

While policing the local council estate, I find I have nothing in common with my fellow ‘working class’ citizens. I cannot profess to being working class now, though my parents were blue collar workers which thankfully gave me the springboard I needed. During my childhood they did nothing but work, my dad would leave before I woke in the morning then return when it was dark daily...

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I kept the letter that he sent me, it was a ‘fuck you Guardian-we’re the best at what we do’. It was a thank you letter from a victim of an ABH, to my embarrassment it went all the way to the Superintendent. He even remembered my name a few times I bumped into him around the nick which is unusual-If you don’t produce detections, he doesn’t know you.

Micky had been beaten to a pulp during an unprovoked attacked. A Good Samaritan had offered to film it rather than stop the assault and this was subsequently seized and used as evidence. It should a savage animal windmilling with arms, the boy on the ground curled up in the foetal position and his sobs of pain could be heard over the cheering.

He is a little ginger kid, kooky, gawky and geeky and is the kindest fool you’d ever hope to meet. KH and I spent a long time taking a statement from him. He had been hurt, in the notes of the file, another PC had evidence the fact that he had been stamped on and a prominent Nike tick was imprinted on his chest. I’m not easily shocked, but the attack was...

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I’ve never fitted in, there was never a social group I could happily exist in so I floated around on the edge, looking in as if on safari. To avoid the bullies at school I would have to don the clown’s garments to deflect the endless accusations of homosexuality and fragility. Dramatization would come naturally, making light of one’s own faults kept the more prehistoric members of my school at bay and this brought me more time to survive till coming of age. School was not a pleasant time and I still come across these people who use my mannerisms against me. How do you tell a colleague and friend to ease off the Homophobic comments? I do not wish to be a killjoy, but homophobia is rife everywhere. Gay footballers are hunted, homosexual storylines in soaps are controversial and ‘homos’ are always treated differently. A large section of society still believes it to be shameful and unnatural which leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.

In defiance I held a gay rights presentation in my final year of the sixth form of my Catholic school. I had no...

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Shit is always messed up during the snow. In the heat of summer I walked into the nick for last time for a long while. As I chatted on the phone, I felt pain in my ear, then my longish hair being ruffled in a rough manner. As I tried to concentrate on the call the tomfoolery increased to point where I had to finish the call prematurely. Pete was standing behind me winding me up, he also had a moan as I failed to wave at him earlier in the day when he passed me in the transit. I was absent minded as usual.

I couldn’t help but remember a job we when to together, it was in January and it had faded into my distant memory. Seeing him suddenly reminded me.

Pete is old school, he’s ex-army and has stories that could bore your arse off. Upon meeting him you feel as though he is one of the lads and you are not. Being of a dandy disposition I doubt he would ever warm to me though he did. He’s a family man and decent copper, if not somewhat lazy (not that I’d ever tell him!). The first time we were crewed together I was a young Special and I thought of him...

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A quick conversation with my brother was very revealing today. He is in the middle of training for his second tour of duty in Afghan. The training is invaluable, all the latest techniques and tricks from the conflict are taught prior their deploymenb.

So he wasn’t impressed when he heard members of his brigade have been seconded to patrol the Olympic sites. He has only trained for ten years on specialist, multi-million pound weapon systems so I’m sure he can handle a scanner-but is that what he is for? While the soldiers are patrolling, they will not be completing the latest combat training-yet will still go to Afghan without that training and experience. Also the very troops being axed are suddenly needed? Interesting… It reminds me of the 16,000 police officers who quelled the riots-and we’re losing 16,000 at the same time?

Do you really trust G4S will public money? They have failed to staff the Olympic holy grail, do you trust them with law and order? Do you trust them with your liberty?

A quick conversation with my brother was very revealing today. He is in the middle of training for his second tour of duty in Afghan. The training is invaluable, all the latest techniques and tricks from the conflict are taught prior their deployment.

So he wasn’t impressed when he heard members of his brigade have been seconded to patrol the Olympic sites. He has only trained for ten years on specialist, multi-million pound weapon systems so I’m sure he can handle a scanner-but is that what he is for? While the soldiers are patrolling, they will not be completing the latest combat training-yet will still go to Afghan without that training and experience. Also the very troops being axed are suddenly needed? Interesting… It reminds me of the 16,000 police officers who quelled the riots-and we’re losing 16,000 at the same time?

Do you really trust G4S will public money? They have failed to staff the Olympic holy grail, do you trust them with law and order? Do you trust them with your liberty?