Enfield enforcer questions

[Gil Boyd]

Yes agreed. In those early days of my service, I had a lone GSM when my colleagues were brissling with WW2 rows of medals, however, many had had enough of guns by the time they came into the Police for the next 30 years of their lives after 1945!!

I had predominantly ex military in 74 apply, but as you say the safe with dirty pistols and rifles in there was evident right across the country. In the 60's the Met were looked at as the premier Force, and as such ANY county force who had a murder, the Met sent a senior CID officer to kick off the enquiry.
The County Forces even then were looked at as second class investigators, with the arrogance of "The Police Service started in the MET so we are the best" syndrome.
The wake up call came when the IRA kicked off in earnest and the Met found themselves too busy to carry on with that attitude.
County Forces set themselves up so they were totally independent and self trained, and thats where we were at with the deployment with Enforcers as you have probably gleened.
It was a poor show, and I too had to decide whether it was for me having wielded weapons around for long enough, but I was probably the best qualified.
I knew of one other, a good friend, Mike E****** who was ex 22, he joined Norfolk Police and within a short time was promoted to Inspector and set out to start an accomplished Firearms Team, and a good job he did of it too. So you can see, those early days were an absolute mess, long before any of the well known massacres that occurred at Hungerford/Dunblame etc