30 years ago tomorrow

The first and possibly the worst masacre ever to occur in this country took place in Hungerford.

19th of August 1987 and Michael Ryan went on the rampage shooting anyoneand everyone at random, including my colleague and friend Roger Brereton, a fellow traffic cop working out of the Newbury office of Southern Traffic Area (STA) of Thames Vally, and responded to the orignal call because having served at Hungerford, he knew the area and had the equipment to get him there quickly to support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre

I along with my fellow traffic cop colleagues were called down from both Readng and Taplow (the other 2 STA bases) and what we saw I can still remember vividly as if it was yesterday.

In all my years in the service and all the fatal crashes and dead bodies I dealt with, Hungerford was the only incident that had what I would describe as a profound affect on me.

Anyway, I raise my glass to Roger and everyone else that lost their life that day.

I remember it, but not in the way you do TC. Tragic & horrendous. Just over a year later a colleague Gavin Cartlon was murdered, I handed him the Zulu keys for his final shift.

I remember it, but not in the way you do TC. Tragic & horrendous. Just over a year later a colleague Gavin Cartlon was murdered, I handed him the Zulu keys for his final shift.

This was Rogers car. (we had personal issue back in those days) There were something like 40 points of entry and 20 points of exit.

It wasn't just all the bullet holes, but you can imagine the mess inside as well.

Anyway, the insurance company wanted to put it back into service.

Newbury refused to have it back, so the insurers said it could go to Reading. We said No way, so then Taplow were told they could have it.

Anyway, they tried every base in Thames Valley (bear in mind we all knoew each other across the 3 counties so word soon spread) and eventually it got to Newport Pagnell.

One of the crews said, "No problem, bring it here and we will use it, and the first time it goes out on the road, it will be put straight into a bridge on the Motorway!"

Surprisingly, we never saw that car again

Surprisingly, we never saw that car again

WMP tried to put Gavins car back on the road too. It still had Gavins unfinished entry in the log book ! There was uproar & it was never seen again

I remember this well!

was on a course in Bordon at the time

we got put on high alert then had to

drive past Hungerford to get home at the weekend.

I can remember being truly shocked at what had happened!

Wow.

This happened a couple of months before I was born so I certainly don't remember it. I can't even comprehend it.

Cheers to Roger, and all you guys that do that job. I've nothing but respect for it.

A bit before my time but it's one of many moments that regular people put on a uniform and do something that places them in direct danger on a daily basis for a job and not enough thanks (in my humble opinion).

Although I never was a 'proper' copper, I've been a special constable, within a response team and previous to my current role I was handling investigations to a specific type of nasty offending and over my years I have worked within the prison system and courts system.

I take my hat off to those who put themselves in direct danger as a job, day in day out. There are some nasty people out there.

Not all heroes wear capes, so thank you.

I joined in 1989 and remember all the work that was going on as the firearms law changed, so the maximum any weapon could have was one bullet loaded and two in the magazine. Then, after Dunblane, I remember all the work to seize and destroy most handguns. Not that, that stopped Cumbria. Shotguns have remained untouched, despite being used in the mass shooting few have heard of at Monkseaton in 1989 where 15 were shot in 30 minutes, but only one person died.