My first night walking around the back streets made me feel as if someone had lifted Glasgow up like a giant rock to show me the unmentionables underneath
I was fiddling with the buttons on my too-big raincoat. It was 1987, and before the uniforms cops wear now – I may even have been wearing a serge skirt and thick tights underneath. Shirt, woolly jumper, tunic straining on top. So it was just as well the raincoat flapped miserably wide around my bulked-up form. Strathclyde’s finest, let loose on an unsuspecting Glasgow.
It was 3am, straight after break, and my sergeant had decided I’d work the second half on foot. For the first half of my first nightshift as a uniformed cop, I’d been ensconced in a patrol car. The driver who was to be my neighbour for the duration (none of this hand-picked “tutor” nonsense then) was clearly delighted. “Sit there, keep them open (pointing to my eyes) and that” – drawing a zip along his own mouth – “shut.” We had spent the time from 11pm till 2am cruising the perimeters of the division, with my neighbour pointing out landmarks and quizzing me about my background. “You got a gimmick or a wire?”
