Police Retirement Party

Went to a police officer's retirement party the other day. I hadn't seen most of the people at the 'do' for a number of years, the strange thing about this is that nowadays it's more common to go to a 'leaving do' as opposed to a retirement do.

People leaving to join other forces, emigrating or getting nice cushy civvy street jobs and utilising their 'investigation' skills in a less paper work orientated environment.

My ex-colleague had 30 years policing experience, most of it on the same 'ground'. One shudders to think of the tremendous loss of local knowledge caused by the retirement of an officer with that kind of police long service.

I asked him why he was having the do on a midweek day. He told me that he had no intention of ever coming back to the particular 'diverse' area of our beloved capital city that he had spent the majority of his police time serving. If he would have had his do on the friday, it would have meant him staying on and doing 30 years and 2 days... It wasn't an option as far as he was concerned!

So we all milled around talking and catching up. Finding out who'd got promotion, who was now in a nice safe desk job and who'd been arrested / disciplined over the last few years since we'd all met up.

I caught up with a guy that I'd tutored on a 'street duties' course about seven years ago. I asked what he and the five others on the course are now up to.

It turned out that of the five, including the guy I was talking to, only three are still serving in the UK - one has transferred to a county force and one is currently suspended for some minor misconduct offence, one went to Oz a couple of years ago and is working for NSW police, and the other one packed it in because the job wasn't for him.

At that kind of attrition rate, in a few years time I think retirement do's will become something of a novelty.