The above photo was taken at the Police Academy in Mather Avenue when I finished training at Bruche, near Warrington, in 1962.
  I joined the (then) Liverpool City Police at 4.00pm on Friday, 13th October, 1961. 
Never forgot that date!

After a two year probationary period in "A" Division, where I walked the beat, did point duty  in one of those tall traffic bins at various intersections in the City Centre such as Lime Street and London Road, and sat in police huts down on the Docks for eight hours at a time.

I can still remember being on duty down at the Pier Head hoping that no idiot would decide to end it all by jumping into the river.  It happened quite a lot, and our blokes always went in after them!  

Then in 1964 I joined traffic, which was the reason I applied for the police in the first instance, and soon found myself roaring around Liverpool on my beloved Triumph 5T Police motorcycle. 

It was only a 500cc machine, a lovely cherry coloured bike that polished up beautifully.  We were always "bulling" our bikes - you could see your reflection in the crankcases of most of them!  

Later on, we progressed to 750cc Triumph "saints" which were a single carbie "Bonneville - good for a ton in third gear, in ANY weather!" 

Every year for about eight years, a group of us would climb on the midnight Isle of Man Ferry and spend a wonderful time watching the TT Races.  I can still hear Agostini coming down the "mountain" on his MV Augusta, and the sight of Mike Hailwood literally hurling his Honda through the bends - especially Hillberry Corner!! 

At night, we would go into the Dogs Home pub in Douglas and try to drink our way through all the different beers in the bar.  We usually ended up falling on to one of the horsedrawn trams on the front, and fall into our digs!!  

While in traffic, I did so many escorts it was not funny.  Royal Escorts were common as muck, but I always remember the day the Beatles received the freedom of the City. I was on the bikes then, and the crowds were enormous. 

As a younger man, I used to dance to the Beatles at the Litherland Town Hall each Saturday night.  This was before they became famous, of course.  

However, in 1971, I ended it all by emigrating to Western Australia.  I did not intend to join the police here because I found I would have start all over again as a junior constable, (I had been promoted to sergeant in Liverpool.)  Needless to say, two police motorcyclists went roaring past one day in Perth, and I joined.

I spent the next 27 years travelling all over the State, from Derby in the north to Esperance in the south. 

It was a far cry from walking the beat in Lime Street! 

Compared to Liverpool, Perth was a village!  Still is, in many respects, but the world is catching us up!!   I am retired now - my back finally caved in after all the bike riding - and was medically discharged from the Service in September 1997. 

I now enjoy life as a "juvenile dynasaur" as I like to call myself.

  It would be nice to know how the lads in the photograph went.  I kept in touch with some of them after graduation, in fact, some of them were in traffic with me. I recall that some of them gave me a police escort to Liverpool Aitrport when I left in 1972. 
Maybe they wanted to make sure I went!!  

Contact can be made via jaysee26@hotmail.com and that includes any scouser, not just my copper mates!  Once a scouser, always a scouser, and there are quite a few of us down here in Australia. 
We might take over one day!!