KEITH FLEMING

As a child of the Second World War, I grew up on the Isle of Wight, when times were hard and housing was at a premium. My father who was a Chief Yeoman of Signals in the Royal Navy during the war, decided not to pursue this career when the war ended and took employment as a carpenter working at a boatyard on the Island. Eventually we moved into a council house and that is where my happy childhood was spent.

Academically, I was not the brightest, but eventually I found my way to Carisbrooke Grammar School, where I attained four GCE 'O' levels. During the last three years of schooling, I helped out on a milk round at weekends and on holidays, earning the princely sum of ten bob a day (fifty pence in today's money). It was hard work, with fringe benefits, such as seeing the ladies of the house in their nightwear, when they came to pay their bills.

At 17 years of age I joined the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary as a Police Cadet and worked in Winchester, which is where I met and courted June. Unfortunately when I graduated to becoming a Police Officer, my posting was to the east of the County and at the same time her family moved west, to the wilds of Salisbury Plain. It took half a day to see her, travelling by public transport and gradually we drifted apart and married other people.

All my Police Service was spent in uniform in towns and cities, as well as smaller Police Sections. I became an Area Car driver which was an Emergency Response car dealing with anything and everything. I attained my Grade 1 Police Driving Certificate and also passed my exams up to Inspector level.

After fourteen years service, I was promoted to the rank of Sergeant and posted to a City Police Station in Portsmouth. A year later, I became a Training and Recruiting Sergeant, which meant I had to learn the skills of teaching. The two month training course was the hardest I have ever experienced and if you think teaching is easy, think again.

Teaching the law made me an expert on certain subjects and spurred me on to get a degree in Laws. First, I needed a GCE 'A' level and by cramming a correspondence course, I attained one in the space of eight months. Then I studied as an external student with the University of London and after five years of study and working full time as well, I gained my coveted degree, at the age of forty nine.

After thirty one years service, I retired as a Police Officer and started a new role working for the Police in a Civilian capacity. This involved court work and preparation of files ready for court and in the fullness of time I became a Criminal Justice Case File Manager, working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service.

Having reached the State retirement age, I decided it was time to fully retire and devote more time to my passion for bowls, that is the flat green type of bowls, not the crown green bowling carried on in the northern extremes of the country. However, it was not all sweetness and light, as I was now on my own with two failed marriages behind me.

Then one day, out of the blue, June tracked me down and we met up again. She was also on her own, having survived two failed marriages and we hit it off immediately. We married in 2016 and have been happy ever since, bucking the trend by up sizing our property, when people our age and down sizing and taking on new careers/hobbies in our seventies. There's still life in the old dog and more to come, god willing.