Ladies in Blue - well done the girls.

Before I start , it was me that was a bit blue this morning - Minus 5.5 C this morning when I went to de ice the car.

Anyway , I have read a couple of interesting items in the papers recently about local Female Police Officers.

Firstly there was my former colleague, Norma Graham, now Chief Constable of Fife Constabulary who featured as she has turned down her "bonus" payment for reaching the Force targets and objectives, well done Norma, it is a pity some of these greedy money grabbing bankers, Council Officials,etc could not take a leaf from her book. Remember that last year we had the boss of the tramworks taking a big bonus despite the fact that the whole project was a shambles.

Last night there was a good feature article in the Edinburgh Evening News about Chief Superintendent Gill Imery the new Commander of Edinburgh's "A" Division, well done. However, reading last nights article reminded me of when I returned to Scotland after three years in Durham County Constabulary and joined the Police and went to Loanhead, "E" Division of what was the then Lothian and Peebles Constabulary.
In those days , WPC's ( Women Police Constables) were few and far between and we had a team based at the old Police Station in Dalkeith (in the hennery ), under the control of the then Sgt Jean Cunningham @ "Big Jean" ( although we would not call her that to her face). She was a powerful character, both physically and mentally, I think also the British police ladies badminton champion. She always called me " that English Bobby", and had to be reminded that I was Scottish and local but that I had not lost my "geordie" accent - (it took a while for that to happen). Her sidekick at that time was Grace Gow, also a badminton player of great standing.
In those days, the late 60's , as I have written previously we had the big dance hall at Bonnyrigg , Edinburgh Rock, which was always very busy on a weekend, and always very well policed. Our WPC's were there to deal with the regular drunken and abusive women who caused trouble each week, but one of my lasting memories was heading up the stairs to deal with a disturbance to be met by "big Jean" heading down the stairs dragging two blokes, their heads locked under each arm , and she said " you are far too late, dealt with" !!! The local neds treated her with extreme respect as she had a fearsome right hook.
Over the following years, and as the forces amalgamated, Jean eventually rose to the rank of Superintendent in Force Headquarters and was, at that time the highest ranking female officer in Scotland. Her "sidekick", Grace Gow, became an Inspector and was for a time my boss - she was extremely active in the Police Federation and fought tooth and nail for "her boys", and was well respected for doing so.
I did see her passing a couple of weeks ago in Penicuik, with her husband Ian, but she now does not keep very well, possibly as a result of smoking an awful lot of cigarettes in her time.