| Description | An interview with Policewoman, a single woman with no children, who is a Police sergeant, born in Birmingham and now living in Birmingham. Policewoman’s father was a Machine operator, born in England and her mother a Cashier born in England. In the interview, she talks about …
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POLICE WOMAN. Logged by Louise Harvey
01
“I was born in Birmingham in 1968 and I’ve lived in Birmingham all my life”. Lived in an inner city area (Handsworth, Handsworth Wood)
16” Describes earliest childhood memories. “I suppose my earliest childhood memories would be sitting on the back of the vacuum cleaner…”
57” Remembers first day at school.
1.08” Describes memories of going to Infant/Junior School.
02
Continues with memories of being bullied at school. Comments on how prejudice can start at an early age.
2.06” Going to mother’s work place. Talks about family. Being domesticated.
3.47” “My brother wasn’t as domesticated as I was…in fact he was a bit of a rogue really…”
4.24” Talks about childhood, domestic violence, linked to job as a policewoman. “Although we had a happy childhood…we didn’t have a lot of money…the actual home life at times was quite stressful in so much as there was domestic violence…between my mum and dad…”
03
Continues
2.40” Education at senior school. Parents would give her grief for doing her homework – they were not academically minded.
3.50” Friendships at school.
4.02” “During the latter part of my schooling…14 onwards, there were a lot of issues going on…in terms of my sexuality and how I felt and fighting against that and trying to fit in with society’s considered norms, the media stereotypes, the stereotypes you’d grown up with through schooling…your family even were that stereotype…”
04
15” Talks about coming out of school and going on to Sutton College. “That was in 1985”. She did a Business Studies course.
58” First real friend she had and difficulties with sexuality she had in adolescence. “…made a really good friend then, probably the first…girlfriend I ever had…the sexuality thing was always there…”
2.21” Completed Business Studies course and gained A Levels. In 1987, got first job.
2.49” Main role model was Granddad – describes stories he used to tell.
4.03” Describes getting first job working at an administrative firm.
05
Continues
20” Got engaged. Describes cutting people off from her life and talks about fiancé and his family. Describes relationship with fiancé and issues surrounding her sexuality. Relationship finished.
3.15” Went through depressed period “from 89-91”.
3.58” Met second best friend. Describes the friendship.
06
Describes friendship ending.
1.02” Describes wanting to join the police force. “I decided to embark on what I thought now was the next stage of my career path…and that was joining the police…and I ended up joining the police…”
1.21” Talks about how best friend couldn’t cope with the fact that she was going to join the police.
3.56” Making new friends.
4.15” “it was very much a soul-searching time…I think the public may underestimate the amount of soul-searching that goes on in the early stages of training because the police is not about having a number of clones…”
4.50” “…and I found myself doing something that I really really enjoyed…”
07
27” Training and disastrous passing-out parade. “The training was started in 1990 and the big end for any training is your passing-out parade and that would have been January 1991…to me this was really important…”
08
3” Stereotypical images of gay people and how she coped herself. “I think…the police was a real eye-opener…and…all through this time again was this constant thing about sexuality…and my stereotype of a gay woman was this shaven-headed dyke with Doctor Martin boots and dungarees on…a lot of it is down to ignorance and the lack of media coverage…things are a lot better now but back in 1986-87, even earlier than that…the further you go back the worse it gets…there was no positive gay role models, nowadays there are loads…”
1.56” “I was 21 when I joined the police”
2.05” “The significant emotional event for me was actually identifying my sexuality and coming out, and that was a significant emotional event and that changed my life completely…”
2.40” Describes the event, which made her ‘come out’ “I remember being shown around a station…”
3.57” Talking to a gay friend about her feelings.
09
Talks about other gay women in the force, socialising with them.
52” Talks about being discreet with sexuality.
1.11” “The force itself has changed and its become more adaptable, more acceptable, more accepting of difference…there are more women now, there are more…people from visibly ethnic minorities, there are openly gay people, and we are now becoming more representative of the community that we serve…”
2.20” Talks about family accepting her being gay.
4.10” “I don’t think it was easy for my parents…”
4.23” “I’ve been with my current partner for eight years…”
4.52” Describes friend Pam, being upset about the fact she did not tell her for so long that she was gay.
10
Continues
2.40” Talks about religion in relation to the fact that she was gay. Says it did not play any part, as she did not really grow up with religion.
3.03” Talks about experience she had with Born Again Christians “in 1998”.
11
Continues and describes how they were told that they could not join the church unless they split up.
12
Continues
13
Comments on “Community” and different “Communities”. “I suppose as a gay person you have your own community…”
1.59” Talking about policing in relation to Community.
3.48” Talks about appearance, going to pubs, people’s comments etc.
14
Airs views on homophobia. “There’s been so much publicity about racism that people won’t make racist comments now when there are black or Asian people present…but the emphasis has shifted now to it being more acceptable to make homophobic comments because gay people are an invisible minority in a lot of cases…”
1.17” Describes Section 28. “Section 28 is the government bill which prevents the promotion of homosexuality in schools…”
2.32” Says she has had no experiences of racism towards her because she is white in her civilian clothes, but does get abused when wearing her uniform-she knows this is abuse towards the uniform and not to her as a white person.
3.10” Views on racism.
4.25” Views on politics.
15
Continues
16
4” Future aspirations.
52” Interest in deaf people.
1.20” Enrolled on university course. “I will get that cap and gown and I will have an opportunity to let my family come and see me and be proud of me because they never had that chance before”.
ENDS |