Fair Cop: A Century of British Policewomen

I made a forcible entry at 49 Hendon Street,

where I found children in need of care and protection.

Could you send a policewoman down, please?

It's been 100 years since the first British policewoman

to be given real power of arrest stepped onto the beat.

This is the story of the generations of female officers who,

through their bravery and guile,

were determined to succeed in a profession that never wanted them.

A superintendent colleague of mine said to me on one occasion

that it was better value to employ a police dog than a policewoman

because the dog stayed for longer

and, also, they didn't answer back.

I had a male DI who, every morning, my first job was to take him

a cup of tea, put it on his desk and curtsy before I left his office.

'Minimum height for women is 160cm -

'that's 5'4".'

MAN SHOUTS

It's a tale of class, ambition and sheer guts.

I've had crutches thrown at me, I've had cars driven at me.

All I could do was swing my handbag and clout them hard with it.

A bitter struggle against sexism, intimidation and betrayal.

I realised that I was being duped.

I had no option but to go for equality.

With their powers and their uniforms,

there has never been a more potent symbol of a woman

in authority than the policewoman.

When I put that uniform on, I'm ready to go to battle.

From the WPCs who pounded the beat on the streets of war-torn London

to the first black female officer in the Metropolitan Police

and the women smashing their way through the glass ceiling

to take the top jobs, these pioneers

carved out a career in a man's world.

You do feel that you have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously

and that your mistakes will be amplified.

In all the time of my service in the police,

I had one foot in and one foot out.

There was parts of me

that was not comfortable being in a male institution.

This is the hidden history of a battle of the sexes

that masked a battle for power.

Don't ever call me boss again. Call me ma'am.

Don't ever open a car door for me, or an office door.

I can do that for myself. I'm here to stay, Joseph.

MARCHING MUSIC

It's hard to imagine a police force without women.

These days, they make up almost 28%

of police officer strength in Britain.

I'm excited. A bit anxious, as well.

Now the training's over, I can't wait to get out there and see how it goes.

I love the uniform. A lot of successful women have worn it

and I feel really proud to wear it.

I always wanted to be a police officer ever since I was a kid,

so this is my dream job. I couldn't have asked for anything more.

..change direction.

When Sir Robert Peel sent his bobbies onto the beat in 1829,

it was a strictly male affair.

It took nine decades for women to join them, and now female officers

occupy some of the most important roles in the service,

from armed response personnel to assistant commissioner.

With women now thriving in every specialism,

they are a force to be reckoned with.

The first women in uniform

stepped onto the streets of London 100 years ago.

They were a small group of former suffragettes fuelled by ambition

and the fight for the vote.

Nina Boyle, a militant activist,

Margaret Damer Dawson, a philanthropist,

and an ex-hunger striker, Mary Allen,

formed the group that became known

as the Women's Police Service in 1914.

With thousands off fighting at the front,

the police force in the capital was short of recruits

so, reluctantly, they allowed the WPS

to do their bit for the war effort.

These women had once battled police on the protest line.

Now they saw themselves as law enforcers.

I think we can say that they were feminist women.

They wouldn't necessarily have used those terms.

They had this commitment and I think the sense of self-righteousness

that society as a whole would benefit as a result of what women were doing.

These unofficial policewomen designed themselves a uniform

and were armed with nothing more

than an upper-class voice and an umbrella.

They didn't have a power of arrest or carry a truncheon

or anything like that.

They got themselves up in this uniform

but they were very much unofficial, really.

And they were being tolerated partly, I think,

because the suffragettes had agreed to behave themselves during the war.

These volunteers helped with children being taken into care,

prostitutes taken off the streets

and supervised women in the munitions factories.

When they got this job of policing the munitions factories,

they got themselves up in these motorcycles and sidecars

so they could go visiting their policewomen.

At that time, senior male officers were in ponies and traps.

You can imagine how that irritated them.

Grantham's police force in Lincolnshire was the first one

to directly contact the WPS,

asking them to supply policewomen to patrol women's morals.

With 14,000 soldiers billeted to the area, the town

had become like the Wild West, overrun with drunks and prostitutes.

So, in December 1915, Edith Smith,

from the WPS, became the country's first female officer to be sworn in

as a police constable, with official power of arrest.

Unlike other women,

she was fully independent to charge criminals when needed.

Deputy Chief Constable Heather Roach has served her whole 28 years

in Grantham, walking the same streets that Edith did

100 years ago.

I've got one of Edith's report cards here, which is really interesting.

She talks about

20 dirty houses reported,

three local girls returned to parents,

a prostitute charged and convicted

and ultimately deported by London.

What I like about her is

although she had the power of arrest,

she didn't use it all the time and, when you look at her reports,

you can see people are cautioned as opposed to being taken to the cells.

So, she uses that power sparingly, which is exactly what we do today.

Unlike Smith, the majority of female police officers wouldn't get

the power of arrest until 1923.

Whilst the militant Women's Police Service was making headway

in towns and cities across the country,

a competing organisation was making its mark in the capital.

The more moderate Voluntary Women Patrols

were a band of middle-class churchgoers

concerned about the moral welfare of working-class women and children.

These do-gooders only patrolled for a couple of hours a week

and saw themselves as aides to the Metropolitan Police Force.

The two organisations continued to police the capital

until the end of the war.

By 1919, women over 30 had the vote and Sir Nevil Macready,

the Metropolitan commissioner,

decided it was time for women police to become not just

an emergency measure, but also part of British life.

Only one organisation would win the battle for a place

in the Metropolitan Police.

The softly-softly Voluntary Women Patrols were victorious,

becoming the capital's first official policewomen.

The motorbike-riding WPS, headed by Margaret Damer Dawson

and Mary Allen, didn't get a look-in.

The commissioner was very much against the Women's Police Service.

He thought they were a lot of vinegary spinsters

and hermaphrodites and that sort of thing.

The police generally found them pretty irritating

because they were so upfront and they felt they were aggressive.

The organisation died out as the top brass turned their back on them.

The Met felt it was better to back a force that could be controlled.

The leader of the Voluntary Women Patrols, the attractive

and more compliant Sofia Stanley, got the top job as superintendent

in charge of the Metropolitan Women Police Patrols.

I think it's fair to say that she was more feminine

in terms of her style and approach.

She was more diplomatic.

The key thing, of course, is that she wasn't associated

with the suffragette campaigns of the Edwardian period.

In 1919, the first official 112 policewomen

took to the streets of London

wearing their first uniform designed by Sofia Stanley.

Barbara Wilding, former officer in the Met,

and her daughter Detective Constable Arabella Rees,

from South Wales Police, have come to the Metropolitan Heritage Centre.

"The Stanley uniform was the first uniform

"worn by the women of the Metropolitan Police.

"The famous London shop Harrods was chosen to fit

"and make the uniform." That's very posh!

"Underneath the skirts, the women wore tough serge breeches

"and on their feet, knee-length boots of solid unpolished leather."

I suspect these are handmade, actually.

Look at the condition they're in now, so they've survived very well.

And it does show early elements of trying to be...

awareness of wearing protective clothing -

making sure that they came up the leg.

-But not very practical.

-No.

I'm quite glad we've moved on since that time.

"The outfit was topped with a heavy but shallow helmet.

"It was made of cork and hard felt." Let's try it on.

Actually, it suits you. SHE LAUGHS

It feels a bit like a beach hat, as if I'm on holiday.

I don't know how you'd keep it on if you were running after somebody.

I don't suppose they did run very much, really,

in those days, actually.

By the beginning of the 1920s,

other forces around the country

had also started to employ more policewomen.

Many finally got the all-important power of arrest in 1923,

which meant that they could now work independently of the men.

Separate policewomen's departments

headed by female officers were set up.

But policewomen were still only dealing

with the policing and protection of women and children.

Chasing the criminals was left to the men.

Throughout the 1930s, women continued to face many restrictions.

They had to be at least 5'4"

and were also required to leave the police force

if they married or had children.

The marriage bar itself continued until after the Second World War.

In England and Wales, it was lifted in 1946.

However, it continued in Scotland and Northern Ireland until 1968,

which I think seems incredibly late.

Many policewomen in Scotland wanted to hold on to it.

They argued that if a woman married,

her first duty had to be to her husband

and that if you were a police officer,

your first duty had to be to policing,

and thus the two roles were incompatible.

By 1939, still only 246 policewomen existed nationally

in England and Wales.

The turning point was to come with the outbreak of World War II,

when opportunities to join the force opened up for policewomen once more.

Comfortable?

Just breathe in, please. Breathe in as hard as you can. Out again.

To assist the regular female officers on the home front,

the government created the Women's Auxiliary Police Corps.

They were able to wear a uniform, but didn't have power of arrest.

At first, these women were employed in supporting roles,

such as clerical duties - typing and canteen work.

'What would some of our north country bobbies give

'for a nice, hot cup of coffee?

'And with a charming lady cop to bring it along in that beautiful urn

'that keeps the beautiful coffee so beautifully hot...'

MAN INHALES SHARPLY 'Oh...

'So, the charming lady cops depart on their mission

'to make cold gentlemen cops warm.

'And look at the result!'

Gradually, as more policemen were conscripted,

the Women's Auxiliary Police Corps began to cover

a wider range of duties.

In 1940, 19-year-old Irene Ball

was one of five women stationed on the Isle of Wight

and working at Hillside Police Station in Newport.

The men that was on the station had to be called up,

so they put us in their place.

So, we were called WAPC-ies. W-A-P-C, WAPC-ies.

With German bombers targeting the island,

Irene was in charge of alerting its residents of an imminent attack.

AIR-RAID SIREN BLARES

I used to have to press the button and the sirens went off.

That was when everybody ducked.

Everybody went down in the cellars.

As the island was a restricted area,

everyone entering it or leaving for the mainland needed a travel permit.

There was only me doing that job.

If I said no, they couldn't come. That was it.

I was quite bucked to think that I could stop

the undesirables coming in to the island.

'The streets are deserted, save for the vigilant policeman on his beat.

'These are modern days

'and now the policewoman helps the man in blue

'to preserve law and order in a restless world

'where criminals work under the cover of night.'

The war had been an agent of dramatic social change,

and in the post-war period, female police units continued to grow.

Recruitment was greatly helped by the fact that in 1946

the marriage bar was removed in England and Wales,

allowing married women to join and serving policewomen to get married.

'The policeman's helmet has almost become his badge of office,

'but the women wear a smart cap, and very nice, too.'

Elizabeth Bather, the post-war head of the Metropolitan's women police

redesigned the uniform in 1946,

even allowing policewomen to wear make-up on duty.

"Bather attempted to feminise the force with her new uniform.

"She modelled the uniform on that of the Women's Auxiliary Air Corps,

"in which she had served during the war.

"The shirts had detachable collars held in place with collar studs..."

I remember those. Horrible collar studs.

"A cap based on that worn

"in the Canadian Women's Air Force was chosen."

Look, it's soft. Let's see.

I'm glad to see that we still put numbers inside your hat, even then.

-Yes.

-In case anyone else tried to take it.

Someone had a very small head, whoever was wearing this.

You changed your face. It's changed completely wearing that.

This, I'd suggest, is more masculine than the first one.

I think so, I think so.

Especially with the addition of a tie.

And, of course, it's still got the whistle.

On the end of your whistle chain,

you would always have the key to the nearest police box,

so that you were able to go in and phone up for the van to come.

Now, do you have a whistle issued to you today?

No. We have a radio with a nice red, shiny button on the top

that makes assistance come very quickly.

Policewomen joining the force in the late 1940s and '50s

were still restricted to the women's department.

Even so, this was an exciting time.

Young women grabbed the opportunity to capitalise on the equality

that the war had given them.

Eveline Underwood was 20 years old

when she joined Hampshire Police in 1955.

I had to go down to the magistrates' courts and was sworn in.

Then I think I was fitted with a uniform that very day.

They fitted me with a greatcoat and some leather gloves,

but they were too large.

I think they only had men's sizes, but I made do.

SHE CHUCKLES

As a WPC, she was then sent off to Staffordshire

for three months' training.

At the weekend,

I used to spend my time learning all the law off by heart

so that you could easily identify a crime when you came across one.

Joan Lock joined the Met's women's department in 1950

and was posted to West End Central Station.

This was taken at the police box at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road.

Our uniforms were tailor-made,

so we used to go and get measured up

and one of the senior women would come along

to make sure our skirts weren't too short.

Women officers were still largely confined

to dealing with female prisoners and children.

As the only WPC at a rural station,

Eveline found herself having to deal with a whole range of issues.

There were cases where children had died of cot death,

so we had to investigate to make sure that it wasn't a crime there.

There were also cases of child cruelty.

I've seen children tied to bedposts, which is quite upsetting.

Working in the capital, Joan's duties were more specialised,

as her beat covered the vice-ridden West End and Soho.

Our main duties were being on the lookout for runaway children

and absconders from approved schools and borstals.

They'd always make straight for the West End of London.

The bright lights, as they thought they were.

'There's no doubt at all that some girls who come to London

'just for a good time end up by earning their living on the streets.'

We're at West End Central, which was my first police station.

There was 20 women here, 10 to a shift,

and about 600 men.

We had an office on the first floor -

in a separate room, we had a big room of our own -

and operated fairly separately from the men.

This was often the sort of place that you'd find prostitutes.

The clubs that we visited were the ones

where we could look for runaway girls.

They were sort of up some dark stairs,

very sleazy and sweaty and a lot of pounding jukebox music.

These were our little... hunting grounds.

And it wasn't just female prostitutes

that Joan ended up searching after the brothel raids.

I was with this rather giggly matron,

who was very avidly watching me.

But all I could see was this flat front,

so eventually I thought, "There's nothing for it."

So I put my hand behind and just felt. There it was, all tucked back.

Of course, she was in peals of laughter and went out

and told all the coppers.

Of course, it went all round the nick

about me touching this fella up.

Despite female officers being deployed

in increasingly dangerous situations,

they still didn't have the same equipment as the men.

Even when carrying out hazardous undercover work,

WPCs were expected to patrol alone

without a truncheon, handcuffs or protective headgear.

In my skirt pocket, I had my notebook,

I had some smelling salts, which we were advised to buy,

but I don't think I've ever used them.

We didn't have a radio.

The only thing we had was a whistle, which would summon help.

SHRILL WHISTLE

'A long, low whistle...

'and the boys come a-running.'

Any more for any more?

The marriage bar may have gone,

but with opportunities still few and far between,

female officers still tended to quit the force after a few years.

I decided to leave when I got married.

I don't think my husband was too keen

on me doing the operations in plain clothes.

Quite honestly, I enjoyed what I did,

but I was really glad to leave, I think, in the end.

After six years in the Met, Joan also decided to move on.

Because we couldn't get in to a specialist branch

and it was limited in promotion ways and so forth,

it became fairly boring, really.

I think I would have liked a bit more variety.

Today, of course, they do have more variety.

But that was just how it was in the '50s.

'Women have only one special course of their own - self-defence.

'They're seldom attacked, but prepared when they are.'

As the '60s began,

female officers found themselves rising to new challenges,

and even thrilling the British nation with their heroics.

'Often, a woman can succeed where a man can't.

'For an hour and a quarter, policewoman Margaret Cleland

'stood perilously on a London rooftop,

'edging towards a would-be suicide

'with an 18-month-old baby in his arms.'

Now, I never met Margaret Cleland,

but I remember very vividly seeing this picture,

of her on a rooftop.

There he was, holding his baby, and Margaret Cleland,

showing great coolness and courage

whilst the crowd below increased in numbers.

'At last, on pretext of wrapping the baby in a warm coat,

'she jumped forward, snatched the child

'and pulled the man from the parapet.'

Did you work out this plan of action by yourself

or did you discuss it with the others?

No, when the duty officer and I got to the scene

and I saw the baby, he was going up and I said, could I go with him?

When I heard the accent of the man being Scottish,

I just walked forward and started talking to him.

And you edged forwards so that you were, in the end,

-able to grab the baby?

-Yes.

The next day, WPC Cleland found herself on television

and saw her pictures in the morning papers,

showing the dramatic moment of her rescue.

Hundreds of people wrote to her,

and she became only the third policewoman in the country

to be awarded the prestigious George Medal for bravery.

I understand you've got a lot of people asking you to marry you.

Yes, well, I don't like to talk about that.

Such was the amount of publicity she got

that there was a lot of resentment among the men

who were perhaps doing the same things.

And, in fact, this happened with almost anything high-profile

that women got involved with.

And in this particular case,

Margaret Cleland said that she almost wished

she'd never won the George Medal

because of the amount of aggravation she got over it.

Even if there was in-house jealousy, policewomen were in the public eye

and their achievements were being celebrated.

And the younger women joining the force in the 1960s and early 1970s

were becoming more ambitious

and seizing new opportunities to rise up the ranks.

If you think about the type of woman who was joining the police

in my day, they were intelligent young women, usually very efficient.

I suspect that their quality was above that of the average male

because there weren't so many vacancies for women

in the police as there were for men.

All over the country,

young women were eager to make their mark in the force.

Barbara Wilding was a 21-year-old WPC working on the island of Jersey.

Jersey policing in the late '60s, early '70s,

was very much really the same as the rest of the country,

insomuch as we were concentrating on children, young people and women.

It was very quiet in the winter.

Obviously busy in the summer with the tourists.

It was a very law-abiding place, actually.

In 1971, she decided to leave Jersey

and headed to the capital to join the Met.

When I went to the Home Office training school

and I met all these other people from other forces,

I did realise that, actually, the world was a bigger place

and policing was different elsewhere.

Another young recruit and one of the Met's rising stars, Alison Halford,

had also started her career working in the women's department in 1962.

We do tend to specialise when it comes to dealing with women

and young persons, juveniles or minors, as you like to call them.

Sometimes, we have to make a very quick decision

and the whole welfare of a child can depend upon this decision.

But by the mid-'60s, women were finally being given the opportunity

to do some real sleuthing.

And Halford managed to get herself an attachment to CID

doing undercover work for the vice squad.

Everybody wanted to be in the CID.

It was the magic of wearing plain clothes,

plus the fact it was obviously very interesting cases.

And, of course, you had to go through the rites of passage, didn't you?

Like going across to the pub and having a glass of Watney's Ale

and sinister, sinful things like that.

Policewomen were finally breaking out of their stereotypical roles,

but they had to do it on the men's terms.

Over and over again,

I realised that I was the only officer aide on duty,

cos the blokes had buzzed off somewhere in a back room

as some more blue films had been brought in,

so they had to inspect that, so I was doing the work.

Barbara Wilding was also making strides in the Met.

I thought I'd really like to join Special Branch,

so I started to brush up on my German

because you had to speak a language.

You also had to do shorthand - that was a bit critical for me

cos I'd avoided anything like typing, shorthand,

cos my mother said, "The moment you do that,

"they'll always think you're the secretary."

But in the middle of all this,

I was then approached about joining the CID.

I hummed and haa-ed a bit,

but then I realised I could do even more things like the men.

Undercover CID work wasn't for everyone, as Sally Hubbard,

who was a WPC stationed at Brixton in the 1960s, found out.

Being 5'9", undercover work is a little bit difficult.

I remember walking down Walworth Road.

We were looking for a particular young individual.

My colleague and I thought we'd really dressed up

as per what we thought people would be wearing in Walworth Road,

and we had curlers in our hair and really scruffy gear on.

As we walked down the road,

a young three-year-old came out of a house and said, "Copper, copper!"

So we knew that our cover was blown.

I wasn't terribly good at undercover work.

Policewomen's role in the force was to change for ever

with the arrival of Shirley Becke,

who became the first woman commander of the Met in 1969.

Women police are involved in every type of police duty.

In fact, there's only one thing they cannot do.

They can't opt out.

They can't say, "Not me. Go and find a policeman."

Becke was to win her own place in the history of female officers

in the bitter battle for equality.

Her first move was to recruit more policewomen.

And what better way to entice them into the force than to commission

the designer of the day, Norman Hartnell, to create a new uniform.

'The Queen's dressmaker, Norman Hartnell, designed the uniform.

'And the Queen's milliner, Simone Mirman, designed the cap.

'The whole idea is to express the new "with it" image

'of Scotland Yard and encourage recruiting.'

Let's go over to look at what I wore

when I first came to the Metropolitan Police in 1971.

-Oh, I love your hat!

-Isn't this brilliant? Look.

-A little bowtie.

-Bowtie.

-It's terribly smart.

Yeah, it's stuck on with Velcro either side, and notice,

no studs on the blouse.

-More comfortable.

-Much more comfortable.

Take the handbag off.

I'm trying to see how this will look with current uniform.

I think I'd look quite marvellous going out with a handbag.

A little truncheon!

Imagine how close you'd need to get to someone

-to be able to strike them with this.

-I know. We did. Absolutely.

-I mean...

-Like that, you see. You had it like that.

So, if somebody pulled it, you couldn't lose it.

What do you think? Do I look like a younger version of you?

SHE LAUGHS

I think it suits you. Do you want to try the cape on as well?

-I do want to try the cape on.

-Let's try my cape on.

It's absolutely wonderful.

That's it. And it goes over the top of your bag. That's it. Wow.

I definitely feel like a superhero now I have this on.

-And then you have your handbag underneath.

-Oh, gosh.

That's it, underneath there.

Then put the cape round there, like that. That's it.

And then it did up there.

I just love that cape.

So, when did you used to wear it?

Well, mainly at night, of course, and in the cold weather.

But how would anybody see you

if you're wearing such a dark item at night?

Well, that's the whole idea. You don't want to be seen.

You could watch people doing things and they couldn't see you.

So, it's in direct comparison to what I'd wear now,

because my tactical vest is bright yellow.

We want people to see us

and we want people to be able to identify us as police officers.

To Becke's great satisfaction,

the Hartnell boosted considerably the recruitment of women.

Her next step was to create a promotion scheme

that allowed women, including Alison Halford,

to have a fast-track route to the top.

In those days, there were 648 women officers and she headed them up.

And, in fairness, she was my sponsor.

She was the one who had faith in me

and made sure that my career went in the right, upwards direction.

Barbara Wilding was also frustrated with the lack of opportunities

open to her at the Met and went to see the commander.

She asked me where I wanted to be posted and I said,

"Somewhere where I can actually go out and arrest people,

"and I can do things very much like the men."

So, she sent me to the West End.

And then we did work very much the same sort of duties as the men.

She obviously worked very, very hard and probably fought many battles

with the male officers to ensure that doors did open for women officers.

'Now for a different sort of copper.

'Completing her training in the Metropolitan Police,

'Britain's first coloured policewoman,

'Mrs Sislin Fay Allen from Jamaica.'

30-year-old Fay Allen made history

when she applied for a job at the Met in 1968.

I just wanted a change of direction.

I was a nurse at the time and I always wanted to join

the police force.

Tempted by the Met's recruitment drive, she went for an interview.

There weren't a lot of women there.

I think there were five women.

As such, it was rather euphoric for me

knowing that I was the only black person standing there.

Fay Allen found herself face-to-face with Shirley Becke.

She said, "Mrs Allen...

"Where did you learn to write such perfect English?"

Yes.

Oh, I couldn't think what to say, so I said, "Well...

"I am a Jamaican.

"And the only language I know, as such, is English."

They were all amazed.

As the first black policewoman, Fay Allen made headlines nationwide.

'One of nearly 4,000 policewomen in the country,

'their first coloured recruit will be posted to a London division.'

To have the press attention was a bit scary,

yeah, because of the pressure that surrounded all the situation,

you know.

Not everyone in Britain was ready for a black female police officer.

There were people that wrote nasty letters.

You know, "You're black, go back where you come from,"

and things like that, you know.

Most of those letters, the nasty ones, they didn't give them to me.

I think if they had given them to me then I wouldn't...

be prepared to stay.

Although Fay Allen left after only four years,

her appointment was a milestone.

After a while, I started noticing that more black women,

people, you know, were joining the force.

You know, it's like footprints.

You leave something, you know, people follow after you.

Shirley Becke was also determined to cement her legacy.

She wanted to see her force of 600 infiltrate the specialist units

of dog handling, traffic and special patrol groups,

which, up to now, had been entirely male domains.

One of her biggest achievements

was to see the first female mounted police

introduced into the Met in 1970.

'Ann McPherson and a third recruit, Isabel Mooney,

'escort guards at Buckingham Palace and Whitehall,

'control crowds at football matches and patrol commons and open spaces.

'Kerbside Romeos sometimes try to chat them up,

'but if they get too cheeky, they're told to get their hair cut.'

Women were finally marching one step closer to equality.

'The weaker sex took a firmer line in the cause of sex equality

'under the banner of women's lib.

'What will they think of next?'

Come and join us! Come and join us!

As the 1970s progressed, it looked like policewomen's long-fought

and sometimes bitter battle for parity was finally over.

'The pride of Britain's women police stripped for action.

'Teams of lady coppers trained

'and prepared to tackle anything a man can do.'

It was sink or swim.

With the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, women suddenly became

a serious threat to male domination of the forces.

All aspects of police work were now open to women

and they were finally put on the same salary scales as the men.

The women's department ceased to exist as a separate branch

and was folded into the men's force.

The process known as integration had begun.

It was to be the best

and some felt the worst thing that could happen to women's police.

Integration I saw as a challenge and the opening up of opportunities

because up until that date, at the time, you were really

waiting for dead men's shoes or dead women's shoes, really.

For Jackie Malton, who had started her career as a cadet

straight from school in Leicester in 1970, integration also opened up

many career opportunities she'd been yearning for.

I moved to London because I was told

by a senior officer that they didn't know what to do with me.

By then I'd passed the inspector's exam

and I said I'd met some policewomen

from the Metropolitan Police,

because we'd played hockey, and he said, "If I were you, I'd go."

I did and it was probably, without a doubt, the best thing I ever did.

But it soon became clear that integrating all female officers

into the main force wouldn't be plain sailing

with many women feeling

they were deliberately being thrown into the deep end.

Quite a number of women didn't like integration

and they were very often perhaps the longer-serving women

who liked their specialist role

and didn't feel, perhaps, that they were suited to the general role

or didn't want to do it, really.

There were some very, very unhappy women, who were very worried.

They had never done shift work.

Although we did patrol and all the rest of it,

it wasn't quite as difficult as the men.

Mary Routledge was a 22-year-old WPC who had mixed feelings

when the women's department in the Met was disbanded.

We were taken a little bit by surprise with integration

as far as I can remember.

I was given one day's warning.

I had to change stations within the division to go to a relief

that I didn't know anyone on.

I was pretty upset that something as major as that

wasn't really discussed.

Now, for the first time,

male officers would have to take orders from women.

Barbara Wilding was working as a sergeant at Harrow Road Station.

She immediately took charge of a relief of over 30 men.

We were given no training.

So, I'm suddenly there giving the parade,

assigning people to their beats,

checking their appointments.

It was all only done by what I'd heard, "This is what you do."

Nobody had said, "You're going to be a sergeant on a relief."

There was no transferring

that suddenly the women were disbanded

and you were expected to do the same as the men.

That was the whole approach to integration.

Men did all they could to test their new female bosses

as Sally Hubbard soon found out

when she took over the night shift at Gerald Road in London.

The first time I was station officer

I think was my second night of being integrated.

Normally, it was a fairly quiet area

and they brought in drunks, a mental patient.

Anything they could think of to bring in, they brought in.

In those days, there was lots of writing.

I think I got off duty at something like two o'clock

in the afternoon because I had all this to do,

but determined that I wasn't going to show that I was upset at all.

Women were regularly expected to put their lives on the line,

but without the protection that their male colleagues had.

Mary Routledge was posted outside 10 Downing Street

one morning at short notice.

The male officer at the time said, "If it's not a rude question,

"where do you keep your gun?" I said, "What gun?

I haven't got a gun."

He said, "It's an armed post.

"What are you guarding the Prime Minister with?"

I said, "My handbag."

Even though women weren't as well equipped as the men,

they still snatched all the opportunities on offer.

Female officers started to take their place in the specialist units

of dog handling, traffic and mounted branch.

-Is it the riding that you enjoy most about the job?

-All of it, really.

I get on with the horses very well and I like them

and, luckily, they seem to like me a lot of the time.

I phoned up the Met

and I spoke to the chief inspector of mounted branch and I said,

"I really am desperate to get on the mounted branch."

In 1977, I started my course.

You're the only woman on your training course -

does that give you any problems?

Well, being the only woman, I get a lot of teasing,

but I don't worry about that.

The first six months of my probation I spent in the West End.

After I'd been there for six months, they thought they'd put me

out on division. I was posted out to West Hendon.

The first ever female to be moved out of the West End.

I absolutely loved animals

and as soon as I had the opportunity to apply for the dog section, I did.

And then on 13th September 1980,

I hit the streets of London with a German Shepherd dog

and that's how I became the first woman

to work a dog on the streets of London.

I was the first WPC in Thames Valley on traffic.

I kept asking the chief superintendant

whether he would permit women to go on traffic.

To be honest, I think, in the end, he got so fed up with me,

there was a big meeting at headquarters

and there was another WPC also interested

and they decided they would give it a try.

When women joined the specialist branches,

they found out there wasn't the tactical clothing to fit them.

At the moment, trousers will only be worn by officers

performing specialist duties.

On joining the dog section,

they waited until I had completed my course

to make sure I qualified,

and then I had to go out on the streets

initially for two weeks wearing a skirt.

You had to climb over fences, you had to run with your dog

and the skirts were very tight in those days.

-They were. They were very tight.

-There were no kick pleats.

A - it looked very funny.

B - I did get caught up on a fence one night

and my partner laughed so much, he couldn't get me off.

I think something that pre-empted the trousers in Thames Valley

was the fact that I was on duty one evening

and one of my colleagues stopped a motorcycle

for drinking and driving, and there was nobody on relief apart from me

that held a motorbike licence.

So, I ended up with my skirt round my thighs, bringing this Yamaha in,

to the delight of the complete CID department and the shift that was on

all looking out of the windows of the police station going, "Wa-hey!"

In the mounted branch, the only option was to wear

the men's jodhpurs with the horrible material

and they would have looked enormous on us.

So, they bought in from a store in London somewhere

just ordinary black jodhpurs.

Equipment-wise, we had our handbag.

-Oh, the handbag.

-And that is all we had.

-We had no handcuffs, we had no truncheons.

-Ooh, we had a little one.

-We had a small truncheon.

-No, we had nothing.

I've had crutches thrown at me, cars driven at me,

chairs thrown at me, people coming towards me in an aggressive manner

and all I could do was swing my handbag and clout them hard with it.

Many of the male officers were sceptical

as to whether the women were up to the job.

One of the questions at my interview was,

"Right, Wendy, now...

"how would you feel about putting your hand down a sewage drain?"

And I said, "Well, no problem for me,

"I worked on a farm for years, so go on, lead me to it!"

So all those things I was able to do without any bother.

I was very fit and I was pretty strong.

I remember when the M40 opened

and we had to carry cones along the motorway

and put them out in so many seconds.

And they said, "Well, she won't be able to do it,"

-and I said, "Try me."

-I think...

And I carried the same number of traffic cones as the men

and I put them out in the same time as the men, and they were amazed,

and from that day forth I didn't get any problems at all.

Once the men realised that your fitness

and your ability to handle the dog -

cos it's not just one or the other, it's the teamwork of the two -

they were more willing to accept it.

I think also it's a case of finding a way round.

-A man might do something in one fashion...

-Yes.

..but as a female you do it in another.

It's like how I lifted the dog over the fence, how I carried the dog

and ran with the dog - I just did it a different way.

-Yes.

-I think the main things that have changed in the mounted branch,

for certain, are the amount of women.

Whereas I was a real novelty, now it's just the normality,

it's just the normality of it

and women go into every role, which is brilliant.

Put this on, come on.

Nowadays, almost 60% of mounted police are women.

PC Liz Palmer is currently serving

in the City of London's Mounted Branch.

I wanted to join the police because I wanted a career that would

challenge me and that would be something different every day.

We could be anywhere in the city.

We'll do anti-terrorism patrols around the transport hubs,

high-visibility patrols in the evenings,

and just being a general, visible presence in the city.

Keen to climb up the ranks, Liz is training to be a sergeant,

and so she has to undertake regular public order training

at the Met Police training centre in Gravesend.

-And halt! ALL:

-Halt!

-Go! ALL:

-Go!

Police, get back!

Police, get back!

Police, get back...

It was a bit of a shock when I first picked up a shield

and realised how heavy it was because they weigh 17 lbs

and they're 5'6" in height, which is me - I'm 5'6" -

so carrying that around the site is quite a feat.

-Go!

-Police, move back!

-Police, get back!

'It was really alien to me to wear that to begin with, but actually,

'now I'm used to wearing it, it feels almost like a second skin.'

-Get back!

-Police, get back!

Part of the public order training teaches officers how to react

when petrol bombs and other missiles

are thrown at them by a hostile crowd.

GLASS SMASHES

'I feel very lucky and fortunate to be doing this job.'

'You do realise that you make a difference

'to members of the public, keeping them safe.

'It's not for everybody and it is a challenge,

'but I think it's a challenge worth doing.'

GLASS SMASHES

Back in the 1970s, despite integration,

having women on the front line was still unthinkable.

They were still shaking off the shackles of an earlier era.

Being allowed to progress beyond policing women and children

was a positive move.

But the specialist roles that female officers

had previously taken on were now being neglected.

These changes would have catastrophic consequences.

I'm sure it had a tremendous impact...

because under the women police system,

every time we went to a family, or we had a missing person,

it was stored on record.

So all of that was actually lost, vital information was lost.

Previously, female officers had been specifically trained

in how to deal with victims of sexual crime.

We used to do special courses.

They were run by women, for women,

to deal with victims of sexual assault,

and so we were really well skilled, not just in the law,

but also about how to interview people

and how to get out of them some of the most horrendous things

that have happened to them and almost make them relive the crime.

So you really learnt how to do that very well, and...

of course, when we were integrated, I'm afraid that was never replaced.

We had lost all the specialist training in sexual issues,

rape statements, these sort of things, and...

I found myself as an inspector at West End Central,

being the duty officer,

suddenly having to leave what I was doing

and going over to Bow Street to interview

and take a rape statement from somebody who had been badly raped,

so it... Because there was nobody else.

It would take many years to get these specialist skills back,

and the overwhelming impact of this loss was revealed

when the subject of rape exploded onto the television screens

in January 1982.

What you're telling us, is it the truth?

Of course it is, I wouldn't be here now, would I?

Well, I don't know, there might be an ulterior motive for it,

there might be a reason for it.

A ground-breaking BBC documentary showed Thames Valley Police officers

interviewing an alleged rape victim.

This highlighted just how ill-prepared some men were

for this area of police work.

Listen to me. I've been sitting here 20 minutes, half an hour,

listening to you.

Some of it's the biggest lot of bollocks I've ever heard.

You're not upset by it,

you haven't taken a blind bit of notice of anything that's gone on.

The story you've told us is a fairy tale.

Are you willing to make a statement and attend court and give evidence?

-I don't want to go to court.

-Are you sure?

Yeah.

Then that is your decision.

"I want no further police action regarding this incident

"and I do not wish to attend court."

-Is that all right with you?

-Yeah.

We'll get you to sign this then, all right?

I was ashamed, so ashamed and horrified

that we as a service had let somebody down like that, so very badly.

And, of course, I think what really hurt was the fact

I suspected that was typical, really.

If I was honest I could probably say that

I have seen, to some extent, that sort of situation in the Met.

The men were impatient, they didn't believe you, they were very,

very challenging that this had happened and that had happened.

The trouble is we didn't have the proper training.

I was absolutely ashamed and disgusted by it.

I also thought that it was very brave of Thames Valley,

because that was the reality, that's...we could all see it,

and that film was part of the changing process of how...

we would deal with, you know, rape victims.

There was a public outcry.

The detectives involved were vilified

and the Home Office issued new guidelines

on the handling of rape victims by police.

The police immediately changed the way that rape was investigated.

At the Met, Barbara Wilding was asked to join a unit

teaching the younger generations of policewomen

how to work with victims of rape.

I was taken on to the project team, to put together...

certainly the Metropolitan Police's response to rape.

So then we had rape suites, we had, you know, nice smellies

and baths in the rape suites that people could put...

and different clothing they could put on.

People were trained how to interview,

we had the whole chaperone selection and training process.

That came out of that programme.

At the same time,

a backlash against women's equality had begun in the police force.

Many men were voicing their concerns that the service

was now being flooded with women

who had not got the physical strength to do the job.

They've been doing this particular select work up till now

and to a certain extent they're not capable of doing

the other duties that the men, you know, at the moment perform.

And I don't really think that they OR the men

want them to do their duty.

I think that physically and mentally women are not quite up to the job

that police officers have to do.

Nevertheless, some women remained undeterred.

In 1981, Jackie Malton joined the Flying Squad,

the elite anti-crime unit made famous in The Sweeney

and regarded as the Met's most macho enclave.

I was one of 40 men,

and at that time they didn't want to have a woman on the squad.

They said, and I can understand where they're coming from on this,

that they all felt more protective towards me

and would have one eye out for Jackie,

and that was kind of gentlemanly of them as well,

but I used to say to them, "Don't worry about me,

"you just get on with your bit, I'll get on with my bits."

Della Cannings, who had joined the Devon and Cornwall Police

under the graduate scheme, also relished a challenge.

I can remember wanting to get involved

in public order, or public disorder, rather,

but they were all-male units at that time.

I remember raising that with the then chief constable and saying,

"Well, you know, many of us are fitter and more able

"than some of our male colleagues."

Danny Ewington was a sergeant in the Greater Manchester Police

who suddenly found himself in charge of several WPCs.

As a man of a certain generation, I suppose,

one likes to think one is gallant towards

the members of the opposite sex.

But in the main, all the women were really, really good.

One occasion, one young woman... I was walking with -

she was only 19, I was...15 years older -

answered a call to a policeman requiring assistance,

which means he's in trouble, who was on Oxford Street,

which is a good half mile away.

She lifted up her skirts and she's off like a rat, straight up, gone.

I couldn't keep up with her.

She embarrassed me, to be honest.

But not all women felt physically able to handle their new role.

WPC Mary Routledge decided to resign from the Met in 1974,

just one year after integration.

A lot of women suddenly were leaving.

You just couldn't put your papers in and just disappear -

we were called up to Scotland Yard

and we had to explain to them directly

why we were wanting to leave, cos there was so many,

and I explained to them

that we were being put in positions where a man would have been,

but we weren't given the equipment in order to deal with the job

that we were now doing.

And I also was so embarrassed at the thought of any male officer

being injured as a result of looking after me...

I couldn't have that on my conscience.

Sexism under the new system was rife.

In the television drama Life On Mars,

a modern-day policeman

transported back to the 1970s

can't believe the Stone-Age attitude of his colleagues.

Annie, what's happened?

We were arresting the suspect, he were only a little lad,

but he were too strong for Cartwright.

Felt her tits and legged it off down the street!

MEN LAUGH

How women progressed depended much on the force in which they served

and the attitudes of its senior male officers.

There was lots of examples

where us women saw the opportunities opening up for things to do,

but the organisation seemed to sort of mitigate against that.

One colleague wanted to go and work on a rural police station,

but she was actually advised that she couldn't work there

cos there was only one toilet, and so, therefore, you know, it wasn't

appropriate for a woman to share a toilet with a man,

which was ludicrous.

When Barbara Franklin joined Northumbria Police

as a new recruit in 1982,

she was forced to take part in a humiliating

age-old initiation ritual known as "station stamping".

My first day at Newburn I was bent over

and had the police station stamp stamped onto my backside,

and I remember, "April 13, 1982, Newburn Police Station"

stamped on my bum by the shift.

There was a lot of sexism, and Ashes To Ashes is quite true

in the way it reflected on life in the police as was in those days.

I promise you, it doesn't hurt - over the desk, skirt up, bosh! -

"property of the Metropolitan Police."

You show us yours, we show you ours.

I had a male DI, who every morning my first job was to take him

a cup of tea, put it on his desk

and curtsy before I left his office,

and, you know, it was just... I just got on with it.

In the macho police world, being openly gay in the force

was unusual, and Jackie Malton had to develop a thick skin.

I'm not too sure that they'd worked with any female gay officers

that were out, because very few were openly out gay.

And so at Christmas time, their present to me

was always kind of some sexual toy...

I had probably more sexual toys that I could have opened my own sex shop.

The thing about working with a team of men like that -

as individuals, on a one to one, they're absolutely fine.

When they're together collectively - this is a generalisation, please -

but it was almost tribal.

HE PLAYS "THE ENTERTAINER"

In order to be accepted,

Jackie Malton had to play by the rules of a force

where hard drinking and hard living

appeared to be a requirement of the job.

As one detective sergeant said to me,

"You wouldn't have lasted five minutes, Jackie,

"on the Flying Squad, if you'd chosen to go home,

"you know, at five o'clock."

If you didn't become part of that team, you would not have lasted.

The Police Service was definitely sexist, but it also, you know,

reflects society,

and I never think that you can put the Police Service up in isolation

and say it was just the Police Service -

it was right across... right across the board.

This chauvinistic attitude was even reflected

in television documentaries of the day.

'Lynne Hilton shatters most illusions about policewomen.

'She has sex appeal, independence,

'and is entirely unpretentious about her job.'

Do you think you can handle most situations like punch-ups

and fights in bars and things?

Yes, I think so. Not physically.

I think you can usually get away with it with a sweet smile

and a flash of your eyelashes.

The public actually have a perception of the male

and female role as well.

And of course, that took a while, to understand that we were doing

the same job and we should have the same respect, same powers,

all those sorts of things.

I remember a woman, who was a victim,

saying that she didn't want me to deal with her violence

because her husband wouldn't do anything I said.

I'm another woman, and he didn't respect women.

I remember a period in Devon and Cornwall where actually the wives

of police officers raised a lot of concerns about their husbands

working out at night with female officers.

And obviously didn't trust their husbands.

As women moved into the specialist areas,

the force began to reap the benefits of a feminine approach.

We're still in that era that men wouldn't want to slap a woman.

And that era seems to have disappeared now.

They just get smacked as much as the men do.

But at that time they were treated with respect,

and they could calm a situation quite easily,

much so than a 6'3" policeman going in

trying to defend everybody.

The women were a very good calming influence.

Chief Inspector Sally Hubbard found that she needed all her

negotiating skills when Wimbledon Football Club was relegated

and hundreds of young fans decided to stage a sit-in.

The special patrol group she was with

wanted to move the fans along with force,

but Sally asked them to leave, and wait for her outside the grounds.

I just went up to this crowd,

had a bullhorn, I think, and I said,

"Well, I don't know about you, I'm very sad that they've been relegated,

"but I don't know about you but I'm going home."

And at that point they switched the lights off,

and they all followed me out, like Pied Piper.

But there is just a different way of dealing with things.

Whether that would happen today, I doubt, but then I got away with it.

In 1985, Barbara Franklin joined Wycombe CID, just outside Newcastle,

and was teamed up with detective Steve Mackle.

It was unusual to be partnered up with a woman in those days

because there weren't very many women detectives,

but I think we sort of gelled pretty quickly, didn't we?

And you would go and do the paperwork

-and I would go and have a pint.

-That's right.

-It's probably why we got on so well.

-A really good arrangement.

Yeah, I mean, the culture at the time

was work hard and play hard.

We always got the job done,

but there was a lot of drinking.

Detectives were very suspicious of the fact that

maybe women weren't up to the job.

-Can you remember my nickname?

-Norma.

Cos somebody said you had 'normous tits.

If the phone went, "Norma, it's for you."

Sexism was...

-..commonplace.

-That was just the culture at the time.

It was. Everybody accepted that that was the way that things were.

A detective in those days dealt with everything, didn't they?

-Yeah, they did.

-Could be anything from child abuse to burglary to...

Cashpoint machines and post office robberies, wasn't it?

That was the crime of the time.

And we dealt with loads of armed robberies, didn't we...

-Yeah.

-..over the years?

-That's proper police work, isn't it?

-Proper.

Proper police work.

I think that very often we would go into situations

that were defused by you... because it was a woman's touch.

You know, there was a saying in the CID, wasn't there?

"That person is a very capable detective."

Nobody went overboard and said they were a fantastic detective.

They were capable.

If you were capable, you were very good, and you were capable.

-It was as good as it got, wasn't it?

-Yeah.

-You were capable, Barbara, yeah.

-I'd got the proper grounding,

I knew how to deal with anything that came across the doors.

Whether, you know, any crime at all,

and it was working with you that gave me that.

Which ultimately gave me the confidence to

go on in my career knowing I was as good as the other people out there.

-As good as the blokes.

-Yeah.

Both male and female officers

were finally finding their feet under integration

and reaping the benefits of working together.

But when it came to juggling work and family commitments,

women found many of their male colleagues more hostile.

Superintendant colleague of mine said to me on one occasion that

it was better value to employ a police dog than it was a policewoman

cos the dog stayed for longer in the organisation than women did.

And also, they didn't answer back.

When Cannings wanted to get married in 1977,

women still had to ask their senior officer's permission.

We had to put reports in asking to get married

and pointing out the details of the proposed spouse,

so they could be checked to make sure

they were suitable people to marry.

I mean, the wedding went ahead, and absolutely super,

but the superintendant on my personal file afterwards

made a note that now she was married

that it would be the end of her career.

Often female officers kept their pregnancy a secret

from the parole board.

I was called up to see the head of CID, who asked me

if I would like to go on a regional crime squad, and I would have been

the first female detective sergeant to go on a regional crime squad.

But what I didn't dare tell him

was that I had just found out I was pregnant.

And when I eventually plucked up courage to tell him I was pregnant,

about a fortnight later, he went through me a like dose of salts.

He ranted and raved and told me it was a waste of taxpayers' money,

and how dare I waste his money and all the training I'd had.

And so I interrupted and said to him,

"But actually, I'm coming back after the baby's born."

And that was when he went really off it.

"Over my dead body will I ever have a mother who is a detective.

"And you'll have to go back into uniform."

Luckily for Barbara Franklin,

others in her department were more sympathetic.

One of my bosses at the time, a chief inspector, said he would have me back

as a detective sergeant, even when I was a mother.

But in those days there was no part-time, there was no job share,

so you had to take your 13 weeks off and come back to work,

so that's what I did.

By the mid-'80s,

blatant discrimination had mutated into a subtler institutional form.

There was still resistance to change.

Women were not getting promoted,

and they continued to be blocked entry into specialist branches.

1983 was the year that Cressida Dick started her career as a beat bobby

in the West End of London.

If you think it is the thing for you,

then really go for it for all you're worth

because if it suits you, it's a job that people really do love,

and find very, very satisfying.

She would go on to become not only the most senior

counterterrorism officer in the country,

but also Britain's highest-ranking policewoman.

1983 seems a very long time ago.

I mean, I loved it, but it was incredibly different.

There were, I think, no women involved in public order policing.

It simply wasn't possible.

There were some women detectives, and some notable women detectives,

but they tended to be just one in an office

or one on a crime squad, and that was very obvious.

Cressida Dick was doing her training at Hendon

when Princess Diana came to visit

as they were in the middle of a role-play

involving a motorcycle collision.

There's a number of things that strike me about the photograph.

It's me and my mates and we were all in training together

and we stayed in touch, on and off, most of us.

I remember the Princess of Wales quite well from that.

I remember as the role-player colleague was on the ground

screaming his head off with his motorcycle injury,

she turned to me and said, "Oh, men.

"They make such a fuss, don't they?"

And then finally I can see me

looking slightly sort of trussed up in my uniform,

not probably all that comfortable, in a way,

and just a little bit uncertain as to whether

this was all going to work out and whether I'd be any good at it.

Meanwhile, that very same year,

history was made in Merseyside, where Alison Halford became

the force's first female assistant chief constable,

making her the highest-ranking woman in the country.

When Alison Halford

and subsequent colleagues were made assistant chiefs, you know,

that was such a watershed for us -

it gave us those role models of people who meant that we could

aspire to something that had been impossible prior to that.

For the first few weeks I was master of all I surveyed.

A completely new job.

Ma'am here, ma'am there.

"Your parking space there, ma'am.

"If you want to be driven, ma'am, that's it."

Just amazing. Something like that I'd never experienced before.

This is a photograph of myself in very early days in Merseyside.

And I'm holding a hat that I was privileged to design

with the help of a hat expert.

Because when I went to Merseyside,

I could actually invent my own uniform,

being the first unique individual.

And I felt very proud to wear that as part of my uniform.

At the same time,

the uniform was also being updated for lower ranks

across the country in line with modern policing.

Policewomen were finally given a reinforced hat,

which men had been wearing from the very start.

I certainly wore something very similar to this

when I was an inspector.

-In fact, the hat.

-Hard hat.

-Hard hat, look at that.

This is very similar to your hat, isn't it?

-It's the same, but just different crest.

-Yes.

In the 1980s, female officers were given the option

to wear trousers on duty.

I never wore trousers. I always wore a skirt.

As you notice, no whistle chain.

-No.

-The whistle's gone,

because they've got these radios. Feel it, the weight of it.

-It's like a brick.

-My radio, it's slightly larger than this.

But it's much lighter and it's got a battery pack on the back

and that's all that's required. It just sits there.

But what about all the other appointments you've got?

This is a modern day ASP.

You can extend it in a single strike.

So by the time you connect with somebody

it'll be a extended version.

And these? Did you ever have any of these?

Well, I did have handcuffs, but I never used them.

And they weren't rigid like those.

They folded over together in a little pouch

and you could carry them on your belt.

So all this stuff is starting to mount up.

And the weight of that, the weight of this all on your vest?

I weigh two stone more when I'm wearing... Two stone?

Two stone more when I'm wearing full kit with my stab vest

and all my appointments, everything.

I didn't spend a lot of time in uniform, cos I was in CID,

but it was really noticeable the way people treated you differently

when you had the uniform on to when you're in plain clothes.

So how does it feel for you when you put your uniform on?

I think when I put my uniform on now at the beginning of a shift,

I almost feel, cos there's so much of it,

I feel like I'm ready to go to battle now.

It's almost like a blanket and a protection.

When I put that uniform on, I'm ready to go and I'm ready to help.

Updating policewomen's uniform and equipment was one way in which

the police force was prepared to modernise in the mid-'80s.

But a far more important milestone came in 1985.

The last bastion of male exclusivity was breached

when all armed positions finally became open to women in the UK.

Except in Northern Ireland,

where women in the Royal Ulster Constabulary

were expected to work in incredibly dangerous conditions -

but unlike their male colleagues,

all they had was a woman's secret weapon.

When we were being issued with our uniform and equipment,