Retired policeman Bob Peace has much to be thankful for in his 71st year.
Good health, trips abroad with wife Kathryn and a pair of granddaughters and grandsons to enjoy into the bargain.
Sitting in his little summerhouse in a beautiful garden of his own making, he reflects on being fortunate enough to quit the force at 50.
His 30 year career, he tells me, began half a century ago, in the mill and mining town of Barnsley in northern England.
It’s a far cry from the rural tranquillity of the Glenkens, where he was the local bobby in Dalry for five years.
Born in Kirkburton in West Yorkshire, Bob recalls how he joined the force on September 7, 1970 – but was soon on the high road to Scotland.
“In my three years at Barnsley I was paid to be at the football at Oakwell Park,” Bob says with a smile.
“But I would come away from the game without even knowing the score – my job was to police the crowd. Barnsley people were hard workers and they played hard too.
“It was not an environment where I felt I wanted to bring up a family.
“My wife and I had holidays in Dumfries and Galloway so I applied for a transfer here – and it happened.”
PC Peace began work in the south-west in 1973 in Upper Nithsdale, first at Kirkconnel then at Sanquhar.
At that time coal mining was in decline but the pits still provided work for many men.
“The Roger, a drift mine with shafts driven sideways into the hill, was still working then,” he recalls.
“Most of the miners though were bussed out to work at the Knockshinnoch mine at New Cumnock. Although they weren’t supposed to, some of the older guys would come out of the mine to have their piece [sandwiches] then go back in.
“I have happy memories of policing in Upper Nithsdale.
“The police station house at Sanquhar was our daughter Sarah’s first home.”
From Sanquhar, Bob and the family moved to Dumfries where he spent ten years as a traffic cop “from Newton Stewart to Gretna and anywhere in between”.
Incidents were mostly humdrum, peppered with occasional tragedies and miraculous escapes.
“On one occasion there was this guy towing a two-axle trailer with three cows in it south-bound on the A74,” Bob recalls.
“It was a case of the tail wagging the dog and the trailer ended up cowping on the road.
“One cow was still inside but the other two escaped and wandered onto the railway line then back to the road.
“The farmer was paying more attention to the cattle than what was going on round about him and suddenly this van followed by a coach came down the road.
“The van managed to stop but the coach ran into the back of it and shunted it forward.
“The van clipped the farmer and knocked him over the crash barrier and the cow followed him. Fortunately, we had a happy ending that day.
“No-one suffered any injuries – and the cows were not injured either.”
Sometimes, Bob had to steel himself to do the job required of him.
“When you go to an accident and find a crash helmet with a head in it you just wonder where the rest is,” he says.
“It’s easier if you don’t know the people involved because if you have no connection with them you can just walk away from it. It’s when you go to somewhere and you’re driving up to carnage and you think ‘that’s Jimmy’s motor!’.
“Then there is a point when you think ‘I don’t want to deal with this’.”
Bob admits that proper support for police officers dealing with traumatic incidents was slow in coming.
“Towards the end of my time it was beginning to be recognised that there was a welfare issue,” he says.
“Lockerbie affected a lot of people emotionally and in the aftermath there was more recognition given to the need for counselling.
“That was not generally the case for police officers working in the 1970s.
“Their therapy was getting round a table and taking the cork out of a bottle of whisky.
“Nowadays it’s accepted that you can talk about things and express your feelings. Back then you had to get on with it.”
Bob was one of hundreds of officers detailed to attend the scene after Pan Am flight 103 was blown up above Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.
“We were picking up Christmas presents that had dropped out of the sky,” he recalls.
“I went out to a field and there were 12 bodies in there.
“There was a female dog handler with SARDA in that field too.
“After we had satisfied ourselves what was in there this lassie just sat on the dyke.
“She told me she had never seen any dead bodies until that day.
“No-one had asked any of us if we had seen a dead body before.
“It was not like being with a departed elderly relative – these poor people were mutilated.”
Bob went back and forth to Camp Zeist in the Netherlands where the former US Cold War base was being converted into a temporary court for the trial of Abdelbaset Mohmed al-Megrahi.
In 2001, three Scottish judges found the Libyan guilty on 270 counts of murder.
The Scottish Government released terminally-ill Al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds in 2009, and he died from prostate cancer 33 months later.
“I have no idea whether they got the right man,” says Bob. “That’s not for me to say.”
Bob was the local cop in Dalry for five years up to 1992 – and reckons a firm but fair policy paid dividends.
“Maybe they still have an effigy of me at the bottom of the bed and stick pins in it!” he laughs.
“Although people knew they could end up the wrong side of a fine they still spoke to you.
“I would tend to say ‘see that bald tyre – get that changed!’.
“It’s a delicate balance but you do rely on the public.
“I found that people seemed to think it’s only the police who solved a crime.
“They don’t – the police collect information that solves a crime and that information comes from the public.”
After serving eight years as Dumfries and Galloway secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, Bob retired in 2000.
As a member of Galloway Mountain Rescue Team – he only stepped down this year – Bob was also in a local walking club which went by the tongue-in-cheek title Dumfries and Galloway Mountains and Rain, or DAGMAR.
The club’s origins go back to 1983 when a police search and rescue operation in the moors between Balmaclellan and Corsock didn’t quite go to plan.
“There was a helicopter crash at Blackcraig where the windfarm is now,” Bob explains.
“During the search we temporarily lost a policeman, which was a bit embarrassing to say the least. We decided then that it would be beneficial if the police had an inkling of what the terrain was actually like.
“So we formed a walking club with the aim of familiarising staff with the local Galloway and Moffat hills.
“Eventually we exhausted where we could go and began outings to the Lake District and southern Highlands.
“From there we started going a bit further, climbing Munros and staying in hostels and bunkhouses.
“Then we got a bit more adventurous and in 2018 we went out to Nepal for a trek to Everest base camp.”
After flying to Kathmandu, Bob’s party of 12 got another plane to the mountain town of Lukla which reputedly has the most dangerous airport in the world.
“One end of the runway is at the top of a massive cliff and the other is at the foot of another cliff,” Bob recounts.
“There’s very little margin for pilot error. From Lukla there are no roads – you don’t even see a wheelbarrow.
“Everything is carried on either two legs or four – on the back of a man, on a yak or by mule.
“The further you want stuff carried from Lukla, the more expensive it becomes.”
About 10 miles up the path to base camp is Namche Bazaar, a trading centre for the Khumbu region.
It’s a popular meeting place for Everest adventurers – and unknown to Bob another Kirkcudbrightshire resident was passing through in the opposite direction.
“Later that year I was at the Gatehouse Gala when the Kirkcudbright Pipe Band was playing and one of the members was a serving police officer,” he says.
“At the end of the performance she came across and said ‘hello Bob, I have a huge apology to make to you. You were in Namche Bazaar when I was there!’ It turned out she was in a party of serving cops on the return journey from base camp.
“Imagine, you go all the way to Asia and an officer from Kirkcudbright is in the same place as you – and you don’t even meet up!
“We are now planning going back out in 2022, fingers crossed.”
Bob and Kathryn’s main destination abroad in recent years has been Spain – but trips there are on hold too.
“In 2007 We found a place to rent near Malaga that ticks all the boxes,” he says.
“We usually stay in Torrox, east of the city. On our last trip we got out of the country at 8am on March 13, 2020 – the day Spain went into lockdown.
“We have not been able to get back since.
“Both Kathryn and I have picked up a bit of Spanish.
“It really annoys me when I hear folk who have not taken the trouble to learn the basics, not even hello and thank you.”
Voluntary work with young people has also played a big part in Bob and Kathryn’s lives.
Following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, children from Belarus and Ukraine – many suffering from radiation sickness – were later brought to Galloway for extended holidays through the local Chernobyl Childline group.
“It was something that was happening in the locality at the time and we decided to be part of it,” explains Bob.
“We had been here a year then and we wanted to do our wee bit for these kids.
“Both of us had a long association with the guiding and scouting movement, so helping out was no problem.
“Oksana from Belarus came to us in 1988 and had her 13th birthday party when she was here. She’s now an adult – obviously – and we have kept in touch ever since.
“She’s a very determined young lady who learned to speak English and is now an interpreter.
“When the Chernobyl kids were here the Co-op provided them with food so they got a good balanced diet which was very beneficial for them.
“Unfortunately some of them did not survive because of the radioactivity they had been subjected to.”
Now 70, Bob spends most of his time in his garden, which includes mature trees, four greenhouses, flower borders and vegetable plots.
Time is also taken up with four grandchildren, volunteering with the Glenkens Red Squirrel Group and observing wildlife among the fruit bushes.
“There’s a gourd I hung up for coal tits to nest in,” says Bob, gesturing outside.
“To my surprise a colony of tree bumblebees nested in it.
“Then one day I heard this hammering and here’s a woodpecker drilling a hole to get at the larvae.
“That’s nature – just as a sparrowhawk coming to take a tit off the feeders is nature.
“But when a cat comes down to grab a bird that’s not part of the natural balance.
“It’s a bit like the grey squirrels– they should not be here either.
“I have been self-isolating in the garden quite nicely.
“In fact I normally isolate in the garden anyway.”
