Thirty Years
by NigelA · 18 June 2026 · Biography & Memoir
Thirty years in the police: mostly paperwork, fifteen percent incidents he doesn't talk about much. Retired 2018, woke at five-thirty for six months — same problem as Werner Kasparek apparently, only he issued speeding fines in Harrogate. His wife Janet says he's better now. He'll take her word for it.
People ask what it was like, thirty years in the police. They expect something from a crime drama. What I tell them is: mostly it was paperwork. Enormously, crushingly, spiritually depleting paperwork, in triplicate, on forms that were redesigned every three years in a way that made them longer and harder to understand. The actual incidents — the ones people are curious about — were perhaps fifteen percent of the time. The rest was forms.
The fifteen percent I don't talk about much. Not because it was dramatic, though some of it was, but because most of it was people having very bad days and me arriving at the end of them. You see enough of that and it recalibrates something in you. I retired in 2018 and for about six months I woke up at five-thirty every morning because I'd done it for thirty years, which is the same problem Werner Kasparek had, apparently, though he drove trains and I issued speeding fines in Harrogate.
My wife Janet says I'm better now. I'll take her word for it.
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