Having qualified for promotion for Constable to Sergeant and Sergeant to Inspector as a member of the the D&C Police Underwater Search Unit I was advised to return to Patrol Duties by the Ch Insp Operations. I was posted to Plympton Police Station, my first and as it turned out my only foray into what was the old Devon Constabulary. I had only been there a short while when I received a summons to the Superintendents Office. As I entered his Office I was greeted with a question, “Have you seen the latest Police Review?” “No Sir, not yet received my copy yet” I replied. He pushed his copy towards me, opened on an advertisement for a Sergeant, in charge of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police, Underwater Search Unit, based in Leeds. To be honest, I couldn’t recall exactly where Leeds was, other than I had a one inch scar on my head apparently caused in a Road Traffic Accident while my father was attempting to take my mother to a hospital appointment in Leeds. He was posted to Catterick at the time, and my mother never did make that appointment.
“You need to make an application, doesn’t matter if you get it, but if the Chief Constable recommends you, he will have to promote you at the next Board. Yes Sir, I replied and backed out of his office. Fortunately my wife came, as I did, from an Army background and was a not stranger to the idea of moving around the Country.
I applied and was given an interview, which was as I recall conducted by ACC Alan Oliver Smith and Ch Insp Trevor Jones. The interview concluded, I was called back into the Office to be told that I had been successful but that I had better now ring my wife to see if I could accept to position? What a perceptive ACC he was, he obviously understood the system. I rang my wife and she just said “lets give it a go”. Trevor Jones then drove me back to Millgarth to meet the team and on the way told me that Mr Smith had wanted to delay the decision, but Trevor, being the PUSU Expert had insisted I was the obvious choice. So thank you Trevor for my first promotion.
Dave Carnell, the Sergeant that I replaced, stayed on for a few weeks but I soon realised that there were two main senior figures in the Unit. Alan Bird, had been a member of the Bradford City PUSU, while Roger Auty was the senior remaining member from Leeds City PUSU. The old grey cells are not what they were but I recall overhearing someone asking hows the new Sergeant settling in? Now they say that you shouldn’t listen into other peoples conversations, and I couldn’t say if it was Roger or Alan but the reply was “Eel do”, which those of you who know Roger and Alan must agree it sound more like Roger? It is not easy, that first jump from Constable to Sergeant, on a shift you have the support of other Sergeants, but on a small Unit your on your own. I will always be grateful to both Alan and Roger for their support during this difficult time.
A small specialist unit such as the PUSU is an enigma, I recall a dive at Boothwood Reservoir where I managed to burst my eardrum. Roger gave me a right dressing down, ten minutes later I was back in charge as Sergeant, a great lesson in man management.