30 Years Ago Tomorrow

The first and possibly the worst masacre ever to occur in this country took place in Hungerford.

19th of August 1987 and Michael Ryan went on the rampage shooting anyoneand everyone at random, including my colleague and friend Roger Brereton, a fellow traffic cop working out of the Newbury office of Southern Traffic Area (STA) of Thames Vally, and responded to the orignal call because having served at Hungerford, he knew the area and had the equipment to get him there quickly to support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre

I along with my fellow traffic cop colleagues were called down from both Readng and Taplow (the other 2 STA bases) and what we saw I can still remember vividly as if it was yesterday.

In all my years in the service and all the fatal crashes and dead bodies I dealt with, Hungerford was the only incident that had what I would describe as a profound affect on me.

Anyway, I raise my glass to Roger and everyone else that lost their life that day.

 

I remember hearing about it at the time. I think the whole country was really shocked and horrified. Although we all like to have a moan about the Police now and again it's always them we turn to for help when something like this happens and, without fail, they are there for us.
So sorry you lost your friend. I'm not surprised you've never forgotten and have had to live with the memories ever since. I don't know what else to say really.