Viv Head

2011 Update Stuff

The 2011 AGM is almost upon us – Tuesday 29th March at 1130 at Eddy’s Club, Birmingham. Sadly though, (or gleefully?) the Chairman is stuck in the shaky city of Christchurch, New Zealand. Membership Secretary, Glyn Thomas will be taking the chair. The first edition of the BTPHG Year Book will be distributed at the AGM with the remainder being posted out soon afterwards.
Other progress includes work being done on identifying railway and dock police officers from census records and the almost complete Police Service Record forms. Life-saving and other meritorious awards have now been added to the Honours, Decorations & Medals page on the web site.
Several people have volunteered to do some transcribing following my plea in the Retired Lines newsletter- good news all round.

This logo appears on the front cover of the Year Book and is based on a wall sculpture in the tiny town of Hokitika on the west coast of the South Island New Zealand. I’m sure the artist would be pleased to see it put to such good use. VH

Photo Project

I am pleased to report that the first meeting of the Digital Archive Photo Project (DAPP) took place in October. We have the use of an office in London to work from and the Group has funded the purchase of a computer and scanner. Having made a brief assessment of the volume and different formats of the potential library of photos it is a bit of a daunting task – it’s not a short-term project that’s for sure. But the hardest part of a long journey is the first step and we have taken that. We are a team of six at the moment but there is room for more and if any member would like to think about joining us, please Contact us.

Policing the Docks

In the last blog, about the Maritime Blue photo exhibition in June 2010, I referred to the fact that BTP were policing 24 ports nationwide at the time of withdrawal in 1985. Someone asked – where were they? A very good question, to which we have not yet properly got the complete answer. But it started a chain of thought about how many docks or ports had previously been policed by BTP or constituent forces? Well that has been doing the rounds and so far we are up to fifty-six different ports and docks!!! Surprising isn’t it?

The list appears in the history pages on this site and if you can add any further information, we would be pleased to hear from you.

Maritime Blue Photo Exhibition

2010 marks the 25th anniversary of the withdrawal of the BTP policing service from 24 ports nationwide which the force previously policed for anything up to 130 years. (A dedicated police service was in place at Cardiff Docks between 1858 and 1985.) To celebrate this event, a fascinating exhibition was held at the Norwegian Church Arts Centre in Cardiff throughout June, with more than fifty black and white photographs displayed.
There were very many visitors from all over the world and the photographs certainly created a great deal of interest. Many thanks to the organisations, including the British Transport Police Force, and individuals who supported this project.