Part 1:
Having enjoyed BOAZ_Davids Journey I thought I would like to write my story.
Its a sad story but it might just be of benefit to those who aspire to be policemen and women.
Im not into "police persons".
It all started off one day back in 1973 in a quiet suburban firestation in Sydney, NSW.
Id been a fireman for some 4 years and was sitting around in the usual station boredom when I happened to pick up a book called "The New Centurions" by Joseph Wambaugh...a book about cops and robbers in suburban L.A.
What a vision that one book birthed.
By the time I got halfway through I knew I had to become a policeman. I couldnt get it out of my heart. You know what a vision is like?
Well...some 6 months or so later, with a bit of help from a pile of references and a successful application, I managed to walk into the NSW Police Acadamy in Redfern NSW.
What a show it was.
A police radio section and classes on the left, a stable for police horses at the far end, a gym along the right hand side and back around the open courtyard in the centre to administration offices at the front.
It was a hectic 12 months of law, police powers and proceedures, firearms training etc but I did well at the acadamy because my heart was on fire for God, Queen and country (well...the State of NSW at least).
At the end of my 12 months training I came somewhere around about 10th in the overall intake of about 126. I guess the fire brigade training had helped...all of that "study practice" made it easy when I had switched over jobs.
I was absolutely thrilled on the day of our Passing Out Parade...though maybe I wouldnt have smiled so much if I had known then what a troubled time I was going to go through.
It took me years get over...and I really wished things had been different.
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Part 2:
How different the two worlds were...the one of the Acadamy and the one of the streets.
Police station life was to put it lightly, a frenzy.
The difference between the two worlds was as far apart as one could imagine.
You hit the floor at the police stations running...and running fast.
Stress blew out to huge levels.
My first police station was in an old historic building down near Circular Quay, Sydney...and I wasnt impressed.
I had wanted a suburban police station close to home that I could easily get to. I was living in the southern suburbs of Sydney and working in the city meant train trips or difficulty parking.
It was later on that I found out that the inner city police stations in Sydney were actually penalty police stations. Guys in the force who had hit hurdles, even country cops, could expect inner city Sydney transfers if they got a bad judgement on their careless behaviour. When you think about it its not a bad system. It took $40,000 to train a constable in those days. The force didnt want to lose the few who hit hurdles and the guys always wanted another chance. The original vision to be a cop is strong one and the guys and gals (only three gals I think in my Acadamy group of 126) usually behaved themselves in a proper manner.
Mostly so, gooses didnt join the job much, though I did come across the odd one who joined just to carry a gun. They were the cowboys and the system usually got rid of them as they progressed. Or they went to Highway Patrol:).
There was no real "buddy" system in those days and you got a "companion cop" for beat and traffic work... with who you did. It could as easily be a sergeant or another probationer. Probationers were needed in the inner city to do "beats" and to deal with the absolute madness of the traffic at certain intersections.
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Please stop.

Part 3:
Though we had been most sternly warned at the Police Acadamy that any form of drinking on duty would cost us our jobs; and we really lived in great fear of such a situation and never thought in the remotest parts of our minds that there would ever be trouble in that area, it was a bit different in real life.
Part of getting to "know the ropes" as they were and indoctrinated into "the system that really was" was to be taken to a pub up in the Rocks part of Circular Quay and shown the way "we were" when no superior officers were around.
The Senior Constable in charge of the beat I was assigned to had decided he would like to stop for a while and enjoy what turned out to be a regular part of "constable police life" in that part of the city.
I couldnt believe it, but here he was taking me in the back door of this old pub and out into a back "police room" for a beer.
I didnt know what to do.
Immediately my most precious of personal visions was under grave threat. What if an officer walked in? I would be dead meat. My career lost forever.
How horrible could things get?
I sweated for weeks each time I got taken there...until I too, slowly, became a part of "the system". There was no way under the sun that I could have said anything.
It simply wasnt the police way.
We were taught vigorously at the Acadamy that "police are for police" and nothing could be said about police business. A secret world required tight lips...all of the time.
It was a fantasy world, that back police room.
Turn around when you enter the room and look up; and there on a small shelf was a London bobbys police helmet... sitting where it had sat for decades.
Cops had been coming here forever.
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Cheer up Bugsy...it gets better later on.
Part 4:
Now "the system" had me hooked I was indeed hooked.
Predisposed to booze as I later found out I was (AA shows a great, truly insightful understanding of the spiritual problem that alcoholism is; and I recommend them most highly for anyone trapped with alcohol. The people are lovely and from all walks of life and the stories of survival are amazing. Dig this!...their programme works).
For the next two years...between arresting just about everyone for most offences in the book...I was still keen... I drank all over our police patch.
In wine bars, in restaurants, in pubs, at city clubs when there for inquires, with Sergeants and Senior Constables and Constables, out of police lockers after midnight when on night shift we would light up the bar-b-que and cook a snapper...playing football at 4am at Lady MacQuaries Chair when we should have been on patrols. I drove paddy wagons and arrested drunken drivers drunker than they were. Drove home after work and couldnt remember the drive home when I woke up.
I couldnt have gone to anyone about my addiction.
We were men and it was a manly job, who would we have gone to anyway? A police GP who would have said lay off the alcohol? Great solution to life-threatening addictions.
Yet...I dont blame anyone. Not any more.
Its the way it was in those days.
Alcohol swamps many levels of society especially where there is high stress.
We only get rid of it if we want too or get forced too.
Praise The Lord they have random breath and drug tests today in the police force. Its such a help in keeping the guys on a narrow path.
I truly, truly wish someone had thought of random breath tests in my day.
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"continued..."
Posted by Gibo, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 8:45:51 PM

WHAT!!

What is happening here? This is a blog.

Is a trend now starting?