Page 11 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

Classic characters such as Beech, Burnside, Tosh Lines, Reg and June
Ackland made the ITV drama one of the most-watched TV shows for 26 years
and it regularly pushed boundaries with its depiction of modern policing.
Albeit corny and lacking he authenticity of real policing, it offered the viewer
a closer depiction that many of its predecessors.

Television producers would like the viewer to believe their glamorous
portrayals of the service are accurate. As the men and women who did ‘the
job would testify, the reality of policing bears little or no resemblance to the
thirty, or sixty-minute TV shows produced with poetic licence for the extra
impact of entertainment and geared towards maximising ratings.

I cannot ignore the possibility that viewing these programs from an early age
etched early desires in my mind to be part of the real-life version, to be a
copper in a real-life police drama.

Subconsciously as we develop in our early years, because of, and sometimes
in spite of, our upbringing and early influences, we make an internal decision
about the moral path we will tread. Personally, that decision was made for
me in my childhood and teenage years.

I felt no empathy or sympathy with the villains of either TV or real-life, feeling
more sympathy for the victims of criminal. I was to realise in later years that
my strong in-built ‘sense of justice’ would steer me in so many ways.

The concept of justice runs deep in most of us. You have only to hear a
child’s cry of ‘It’s not fair!’ to understand that. Justice, quite simply, forms the
foundation of a civilised society.

Societies without just laws and adherence to them, tend to be harsh and
intolerant, often leading to conflict. We hold up the rule of law and the ideal
of justice as being blind to social status, wealth or anything else.

I wasn’t so naïve to believe life was really as it was portrayed on television.
However these early influences, combined with actual crime in the news and
on the streets where I grew up, reinforced my desire to be part of the system
that sought to restore justice, fairness and order.
It took more than a passive interest in TV police and crime dramas to plant
the seed of a police career in my mind.

Like those with a passion for writing, I have always been a voracious reader,
as the hundreds of publications on my bookshelves and on my electronic
devices testify.

Fascinated with human behaviour, relationships and psychology, I have
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never satisfied my appetite for information about these subjects.