The last interview

I've a hole in my sock. I can feel my toe poking through it as I shift about nervously. I've sat in a witness box, in court, under oath, and answered some pretty tough questions. But my mouth was never as dry as it is now, my hands never as sweaty. Maybe it's beacause these questions are about me.

It was only a matter of time you realise. Nothing, as they say, lasts forever. And really, who among you reading this can say you're the least bit surprised.

So let me say a few things while the people on the other side of the desk look back over their paperwork and decide what to do.

I don't know what you think about the police. What it is, what it was in the past. I can tell you this. I've never met anyone in this job who doesn't want to help people and do it as best they can. It has been my priviledge and honour to serve with people of the highest quality and skill. The job we expect response police to do, dealing with eveything from lost children to murder, is so challenging it beggars belief. Yes, they're trained to do it. The milestones along the way seek to make sure they're fit to do it, and keep doing it. But all of that investment is as nothing without the single most important resource without which it wouldn't be possible to get the job done.

Each other.

I don't know how I would have coped with things had it not been the cool and confidence of the man or woman next to me. Because be in no doubt, we face real risk and fear. No ammount of preparation removes your gut reaction to glimpsing an unmoving shape at the foot of the stairs or the realisation that you really are about to get physically hurt. In that moment of doubt, when you've come upon something you never expected the only support you have is your partner. And no matter what we face we always find a way to sort it out. And if we sometimes make mistakes or everything isn't done as perfectly as we'd like we're sorry. We take the repercussions, deal with the consequences and keep pushing forward, better prepared for future. Some of these lessons are bitter ones, they mean real people with real problems aren't served as well as they should be. And that too is something you have to find a way to live with. Yet without pause, without exception, without doubt these men and women turn out to do what needs done again and again and again.

There's many things I don't love. Forgive me if I consider the necessary evils of life in a computerised world a hinderance. Is the way we record things the best possible way of doing it? I don't honestly know, that's not the view from the front. All I see is having to duplicate work. Typing information into one system, printing it out to scan it and attach to another? There are so many “why don't” and “what if” questions I doubt would ever be answered, if you could find anyone to ask.

The head of the panel has just sighed and put down their pen. I guess this is it then, the end of the last interview. Wish me luck.