An Inspector Recalls : Memoirs of a Railway Detective

Born in inner-city Birmingham, from an 'impeccable working class pedigree', Graham Satchwell was diagnosed with a serious illness at age 7 – a condition which should have barred his entry to the police force. Forty-two years later, he was Britain's senior-most railway detective. In a career that encompassed every CID rank and involved some of the country's toughest gangsters, petty thieves, bomb threats, terrorism, the odd politician and even the Queen, Graham Satchwell has seen it all. Infused with humour and genuine down-to-earth wisdom, An Inspector Recalls is a frank and intimate account of a life spent on the frontier between crime and punishment that recalls the gangsters, politics and often-questionable police culture of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. GRAHAM SATCHWELL is a former detective superintendent, British Transport Police (1968–99). He received official commendations for detective work from HM judges, chief constables, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Lord Lieutenant of London. Now in his 60s, a former international executive with Microsoft Corporation and GlaxoSmithKline, Graham Satchwell, looks back on his time as a Transport Policeman across an impressive career. The book follows his progress from the time, in 1968, when, aged 18, as an unqualified laborer, he cheated to pass the police entrance exam. With extensive use of anecdotes his promotions to every rank within the CID are described with wit and brutal honesty. He became a sergeant at 21, an instructor at 24, and detective sergeant at 27. The account ends, after 31 years, at the end of the last century, when as a lawyer and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, he was actually refused permission to retire from the Force. This is full of dollops of humor, painful truth, and a vivid description of the macho policing culture of the time