This entailed us being armed for which we went through a rigorous training course (NOT), this was taken by a policeman with no more qualifications than me who insisted we call him PC MacDonald, once I recall on the firing range a young policewoman who was hardly bigger than the gun, her name escapes me but she was waving this revolver around and the safest place was definately in front of her. Patrolling the Governor's grounds at regular intervals.Once in the office, which incidently was covered with bullet holes, a policeman emptied his revolver by opening the barrel raising his gun towards the roof and droppind all the rounds out, onto the floor, he the clicked the barrel back up, with no idea if any rounds were still in and proceded to fire at me.I would have been perfectly justified in shooting him dead, on reflection I wish I had. Both myself and Mick were on different shifts and I soon made friends on my own shift one of them 'Thumper' was a good mate and we regulary went running and drinking 'Thumper' hated the Island and couldn't wait until he'd saved enough money to go back to his beloved Yorkshire. The PRC (Police Recreation Club)we called it was another story completely, it was like the aparthied bar, one side was all the black guys, like West Indians and the other side was all us white boys, with the Bermudians somewhere in the middle. Happy hours on a Thursday at 5pm were always good with drink flowing quite freely there was usually food provided by Wendell pronounced with a V. Cutting a long story, 'Thumper' done 2 years and left and I was transferred to Western Division, or if I'm honest Somerset village, which apart from the odd bit of weed was as quiet as a church again on different shifts again on opposite shifts to Mick.

I was stationed on 'B' watch where I made friends with my mate Kev Fisher from Wiltshire Constabulary, he had been there slighty longer than me, he is now in the Royal Hong Kong Police as a Chief Inspector . It was about this time that I started to develop my headaches, it started off as earache following a party at Cambridge Beaches I of course went to our Doctor at the Government clinic, she told me there was nothing wrong and to go away I knew there was something wrong but not what it was. This went on for nearly three years and I could find no-one to beleive me, during this time my friends visited from the U K and they were the only ones that would beleive me. During this time I had aquired a speed boat in partnership with John 'cloggy' Clayton who was also a great mate. I remember going to a cranial specialist, who turned out to be a dentist and he whipped out one of my teeth my friends from England were waiting for me on the boat outside the surgery and by the time we got back to the apartment I was in as much agony as before. I struggled to go to work but as you can imagine some days being better than others, I had a lot of time off. During this time I was also training hard too, for triathlons, I would start to fall asleep in the houses of people who had invited me for dinner etc. I was given this West Indian Sergeant, and he was an ex school teacher from a small island off St.Vincent. In the meantime I had met a guy on the watch called Kev Fisher and we became best mates, staying late at the police club etc. Kev and I were on 'B' watch together for the best part of 3 years and for the whole of that time the Sergeant never knew our names calling us 'officer' or 'mate'. His face was jet black and after every sentence he would grin and stick out his big pink tongue. He was married to a Bermudian. God! his pupils, I despair for them, they couldn't have been that bright. Anyway three years and much running on the south shore sand dunes, my headaches were in full swing by this time and Kev had gone to Hong Kong following a very controversial court case in Hamilton Magistrates Court, he had allegedly assaulted a person (a black Bermudian of course) with his pick axe handle, which every Police car was equipped with, and meant for the protection of policemen. And just because someone had got wind of him leaving for the Royal Hong Kong Police. An unprecedented thing happened, his court case was brought forward to that following morning.

It was about this time that John'Cloggy' Clayton, Cloggy and me were also great friends, we had a share in a speedboat which we used for skiing he was on CID, but he sadly did not like the island and left for New York to join the school of acting.I had found new friends by this time in John and Diana Plested who lived in a gorgeous house on the hillside in Devonshire, it had been razed to the ground a few years before with John and Diana's daughter Andrea and her friend upstairs. They had climbed onto an upstairs balcony and shouted for help, a quick thinking neighbour had rescued them using a ladder.

The case was scheduled for 10am and it was a West Indian Magistrate Ephraim Georges,we honestly thought that that was it, curtains for Kev. Kev sat in court white faced with all us guys sitting in the back row. We had arranged for one of the islands best Lawyers , who turned out to be fantastic. For Kev was only bringing one witness and that was the Constable and there were three against him including two Police Officers, as well as the plaintiff who was defending himself. He started accusing Kev, his lawyer soon put a stop to that, making a motion that this case should be dismissed. Well the tension could have been cut with a knife while Mr Georges went to his rooms to deliberate all he'd heard, we sat there and Kev was shaking visibly. I think by the time Mr Georges came out we were all shaking, anyway he dismissed the case and we all took off for Casey's bar running like schoolboys from the Court and down the street to where it was. I think Kev left the next day, or was it that night, back then the planes only left at midnight.It was great back then thinking back, I could just about cope with my headaches. We would take off to the States at every available opportunity.

America was so close it was a sin not to go. Florida was a favourite with us but you can only do so much and you soon tire of Disneyworld and the other leisure parks. So then it was further afield Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, Canada was another Destination that was quite popular,the CN tower and the Malls would keep us all occupied, in fact the Malls at every destination would keep us occupied for hours and hours, stuff was so cheap compared with Bermuda and you needed mucho Yankee dollar, Bermuda has it's own currency based on the American Dollar, so what you did was change your Bermuda currency in shops and the like in change because the banks charged you and you were only allowed to take so much.

He told me to go lie down in a police car, but I was much too sick for that so I went home to bed where I stayed in total darkness for maybe two weeks. My head was so bad that I had to keep gettingthe Doctor to come out and give me an injection in my leg to knock me out and kill the pain. After some days I felt myself going blind and started to panic, the doctor was again called and came after some time with another injection.I was thinking tht if I died now I was quite lucky I'd been all over the world I was 28 and done more than most people do in a lifetime.

At that time I was knocking about with a nurse called Sue who came to the house took one look at me and called an ambulance, apparently some Dutch shipping magnate who lived on the Island contributed to the cost of a CAT Scanner and I think that I was the first one on it, well they found a tumour in there that was so big they could not operate in Bermuda and had to fly me home to a London Hospital.

As it turned out I was to meet my lifelong partner who was a sister on the ward, a New Zealand girl called Mala. The Hospital was called The London Independent Hospital, in Stepney Green on the Mile End Road Close to all the Indian Restaurants, I was in culinary heaven as I love a good Indian Curry.The hospital was obviously private because it was like an hotel with all the plush fittings and carpets throughout I also met a nurse called Fiona who has become a friend for life also the Senior sister called Cathy who is now a friend for life, Cathy would come into my room and catch me with my legs crossed, I would swear blind that I had just that second crossed them but she was having none of it and I was a little bit terrified of Cathy, the other two would sit on my bed and watch Top of the Pops whilst I was in the bath.

Before I left Bermuda Cloggy came to see me in the hospital and said "if you die can I have your bike" or something similar. My bike was my pride and joy as I would race it in Triathlons, you know a 1 mile swim then 25 mile bike ride followed by a 6 mile run. I always enjoyed the training but never the race itself. Over the course of an average day I would probably do a triathlon in training. my mates thought that I was doing too much training and that was making me tired. Of course my body told me otherwise and I knew that I was very poorly but no-one would believe me.

During my boxing training I was put forward for a match, the annual 'smoker' in the Southampton Princess. It's by invitation only and strictly black tie, the only way to avoid renting a monkey suit is to fight so that's what I did bloody foolish as it turned out, I was knocked around like a rag doll by an ex para John Jones, to my credit I never went down onto the canvass. By round three he was knackered and I thought that I had him but the bloody bell went! when he was knocking lumps off me the round seemed to last for hours, come my turn the round lasted for mili-seconds. Needless to say , I came second out of two.

I was taken to Walthamstow dog racing track by the radio-ologists and cannot remember getting back to the hospital but I can remember my hangover in the morning and my bollocking from Cathy, being so drunk and hungover I missed the party for Mala and Suzanne's doo in Senrab Street for their going away party. They promised to send me a postcard from every stop as they were going overland back to New Zealand, I received the one from Moscow with promises to write from every port of call.

Anyway back to Bermuda and by this time Chief Inspector who was the officer in charge of Western Division at that time and he was a tyrant and mildly despotic he instigated an inquiry into my Health and at the same time I was diagnosed as having my tumour so that was him officially out of it, there was also a West Indian Detective sergeant whose name escapes me at this time but he was a horror and was in cahoots with the boss, my information came from John ' Cloggy' Clayton who was a detective constable in the division, he was a great friend and still is. He was such a witty person always cracking jokes, he used to call me 'grumpy' because I would never smile or join in his wit.

That was all before the operation but following it I received tons of sympathy from all quarters some totally unexpected like the Officer in Charge of Western Division actually had the audacity to invite me for lunch one day, also that horrible West Indian Sergeant started being nice to me. I didn't want any sympathy at this time, or at any time in the future.