Page 32 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

Back to my story . .

Brought up on rough council estates through my teenage years, my brothers
all passed their 11 plus and my dad expected the same of me. He told me in
no uncertain terms that I’d need a good job to pay rent until I was eighteen,
then he expected me to leave home and find a place of my own. Dad
having been a P.O.W. in WW2, returned and started a family almost straight
away. Having spent their adult years living through the war and rearing kids, I
can only now understand why they wanted their lives back.

My pride at passing my eleven plus in 1971 was, in later years swapped for
regret for wasting my Grammar School education, preferring the role as class
joker to that of an academic. “He has such a good brain if only he’d put it to
good use” was the common theme of my school reports. Not surprising then,
that at 16, I had no real sense of career direction.

The years of my senior school life (1971-76) were among the height of the
troubles in Northern Ireland. British Troops went into Ireland in 1969 but their
initial peace keeping mission soon set them up as targets for many attacks by
the Irish Republican Army, and by the middle of 1972 several British soldiers
had been killed.

The IRA conducted a campaign against mainland Britain, exploding devices
in retail premises and leisure establishments creating terror and fear.

On 21st November 1974 the worst IRA main land attack took place, when two
Birmingham Public Houses, The Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town in the
heart of the City were bombed. The atrocity left 21 dead and over 170
people injured.

There was at the time, a large Irish community living in Birmingham. The
horrific actions of a minority of extremists had unfortunate consequences for
the innocent community, with unfounded and misguided distrust of anyone
with an Irish accent. I recall Irish friends at school at the time being subject of
hateful taunting and bullying and even in my tender years feeling how unfair
it all was.
Unknown to me, the dreadful events of that night were to play their part in
my police career.

A RETAIL CAREER

Leaving school in the summer of 1976 I started the search for a job. I applied
to become a trainee manager at Lewis’s Birmingham, which was one of a
chain of stores around the country, owned by the Jewish firm, Sears Holdings,
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perhaps better known for owning the business started by Harry Selfridge.