My mother, Olive Pollard, who has died aged 94, was the first woman to be appointed a police constable in Nottinghamshire. She was also a sensitive, kind and wise mother.
Olive was one of six children of Clara and Edward Howard. They had a rather special childhood as their father was the butler to the Duke of Newcastle on the Clumber estate in Nottinghamshire. Olive remembered it as idyllic; they lived in a separate community in beautiful Clumber Park. Olive’s love of the English countryside, flowers, birds and nature perhaps had its seeds in this childhood environment.
When Olive was 14 she was sent to live in Cambridge to work as a maid for a family friend. She stayed in the city to become a nanny. Olive had a special magic with the children: she made bath time and bedtime happy and peaceful, telling them wonderful stories – as she later did with her own girls, Dilys and me.
The second world war was on the horizon and Olive moved to London to take on war work in a munitions factory. She was joined by her sisters Vi and Dot. The girls had their own flat in Brentford and had a busy social life. Olive was always the sensible one, making sure Vi did not get up to too much mischief. She enjoyed the wartime spirit, and would reminisce about singing in the air raid shelters to keep cheerful.
Then came an important change in Olive’s life, when she saw an advert calling for women to join the police force. She was appointed in Nottinghamshire, her badge number: WPC1. She proved to be a talented constable and was promoted to sergeant.
In the police she met Joseph William (Bill) Pollard. When he went to serve in Palestine during the war, they wrote many long and loving letters to each other. Olive and Bill married in 1947. They found a common ground in their love of literature and poetry, which stayed with Olive all her life. She was perceptive and intelligent in her understanding of literature and was also open minded and tolerant of the views of others.
When she returned to work after raising my sister and me she joined the civil service, first in the motor tax department then in the Countryside Commission.
Bill died in 1999. She is survived by Dilys and me, and by her brothers, Albert and George, as well as grandchildren Tom and Amy.
