A RELUCTANT POLICEMAN

LOOKING back over a 40 year career in the RUC which included progressing from constable up to head of the force, the former chief…

LOOKING back over a 40 year career in the RUC which included progressing from constable up to head of the force, the former chief constable Sir John Hermon still maintains, "I never wanted to be a policeman." The most important thing for him was being employed. "I have never been out of work. My father wanted me to be an accountant, I tried that, but didn't much like it." His tenure coincided with the hunger strikes, the Newry bombing in 1985, the 1987 Enniskillen Remembrance Day explosion, the "shoot to kill" allegations and John Stalker's investigations of them. There was also the Kincora boys home scandal and the Dowra episode which seriously jeopardised RUC/Garda Siochana relations - all traumatic, highly emotive episodes in the tragedy strewn history of Northern Ireland.

In addition there Was his experience of sueing and being sued, as well as a running conflict with Ian Paisley and Hermon's ongoing struggle against various governments determined to politicise the RUC. "If Dowra teaches us anything, it is that the expediences of politics and politicians must he kept out of policing in order that the police service retains its integrity." Hermon's years in charge coincided with some of the worst faced by the RUC. There are those who will neither forgive nor forget Hermon's role. Almost eight years have passed since he retired, yet he and his family continue to live under 24 hour security.

The house overlooks the dramatic Co Down coast, just beyond the tidy village of Donaghadee. Every set of directions offered includes "keep your eyes open for the fortress." According to the man in the petrol station, "you can't miss the security cameras. You can. Driving up and down the road it is humiliating to seek yet another set of directions, only to discover that the house is exactly across the road. As if by magic, the cameras are suddenly visible. Even on a dark, windy evening, the wall is not quite as menacing as one would imagine from the descriptions. Less a fortress and more a puzzle. It is impossible to find the entrance.

No one hears the shouts directed at the windows. The house seems empty. Running back to the wrong side of the house where I had parked my car, it is disturbing to notice the upset caused to a woman standing beside it. "I thought it had been abandoned," she said. A new tension is apparent, or perhaps it is merely a return to the tension we thought had finally died?

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At the security hut, two policemen approaching the end of another long shift, come out to ask the required questions. Hermon appears from behind the big gate, referring to the Bessbrook murder which had just occurred, he says "I knew there'd be traffic delays."

It is like entering a compound. But the domestic atmosphere prevailing inside very different. The house has a nautical feel even the pictures tend to have seascape themes. Two Airedale puppies competing for the visitor's attention, wrestle in the kitchen while the children upstairs are heard but not seen. Sir John Hermon is a large, blustering, genial man, a natural host, opinionated, friendly and happy with his new life which includes two small boys by his second wife. Even in the contentment of his retirement and his interests "messing about in boats and beach gardening", he is chuffed at retaining VIP status and being ferried about by drivers, but is more preoccupied by the political situation than he might want to admit, or even think.

STILL so interested that he has written an autobiography which in fact offers a detailed record of the North's recent history interspersed with the story of his own life. "I see writing the book as an act of release, things like Stalker, I felt I had to put that right - have you read Stalker? Read it and then compare his version with what I have written. I have always, always dealt with facts. Nothing else matters. You have to be accurate. That's the policeman in me." He adds: "I wanted to get it all out." He appears to have done exactly that.

There is a forensic quality to the detail in which he tells his story. This is not an impressionistic account. It is a report. So what of the alleged shoot to kill policy? "It means nothing. It is an invention, a myth. It makes people think of murder. I want facts, I want the truth. No fact can be distorted if it is true. It is as simple as that," he concludes with the air of a mathematician proving a theorem. Asked for his opinion of the current Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan, Hermon could not be more pleased if it were his son we were discussing. "He's a good man, he learnt the business of policing in the most difficult of conditions - during the hunger strikes and the protests following the Anglo Irish Agreement."

Praising Flanagan's calmness, Hermon is emphatic: "the present generation of RUC men are better trained, make no mistake about that, it's been put up to the RUC for a long time. Governments had made it very difficult to police. A chief constable has to be politically aware, but you must also be apolitical, that's the only way you can hope to be effective." Hermon ensures there can be no doubt as to his attitude towards the AngloIrish Agreement, having spent so much time policing the protests it caused. "It is an impediment to real progress. Deals were made which shouldn't have been made and we - the RUC - were not consulted." The one topic continuing to possess the power to excite him is John Stalker. If there is one reason for writing a book, this appears to be it. Interestingly he partly blames himself over the episode.

As he writes: "I deeply regretted my naivety in accepting John Stalker's nomination without first asking questions about his qualifications. My tendency to trust the judgment of more senior police officers was a personal failing during my years in the RUC. Had I been more cautious, I would have checked John Stalker's police career and would never have accepted him as suitable for the inquiry, because of his lack of experience at both operational and senior command level.

Hermon's gestures are expansive and his slight stoop creates the impression of a man taller than he in fact stands. Yet here runs a policeman, a good cop. His arguments are supported by historical references, often pedantically presented his responses are conversational, at times colourful and each anecdote invariably ends the same way: "but you better not print that."

For all his canour, the only subject he runs wild on is Stailier. His memory of reading Stalker is vividly recalled: "I flung it across the room with disgust and outrage. It was deeply offensive to me. It's full of innuendo." (Hermon won his action against Yorkshire television's dramatised Shoot To Kill programme. John Stalker retired from the Greater Manchester Police in March 1987. The inquiry into the RUC was later completed by Colin Sampson.)

Outspoken on this topic, in general he is, however, extremely cautious and invariably says: "that's off the record." Although a fluent, tireless talker, he proves a lively, if frustrating, interviewee, answering most questions quickly and helpfully with "it's in the book." Partial deafness has made him develop the habit of smiling to cover the gaps. Yet he is not evasive, approaching interviews with the air of a witness eager to co operate in an investigation of which he just happens to be at the centre.

It is hard to balance his descriptions of himself as a shy boy and young man with this confident character who has become so accustomed to holding court. "I found it very difficult to make friends. I found it hard to like myself. You could say I was uncertain." His boyhood seems grim, he recalls being troubled by a sense of "separateness" and Hermon leaves one with the impression he only realised how unhappy it really was when he sat down to write the book.

There appears to have been little love in the family home in Castletown, in Islandmagee on the Co Antrim coast. On a shelf behind him stands a large statue of an Edwardian looking boy, hands in pockets, apparently whistling. "I bought that, it reminded me of my youth. When I was young I was known as the `Whistling Boy'." There are various models of sailing ships in bottles. Hermon points to the view from his living room, "You can see five lighthouses from here." On cue, Blackhead and Copeland lighthouses light up the night sky.

Born in 1928, he was the youngest of four, although one of his brothers had died when Hermon was an infant. It is disconcerting the way Hermon smiles as he describes his father's despotic, domineering personality. Hermon senior was a heavy drinker who tended to blame his unhappiness on his experiences in the first World War. Inheriting the family building contractor business from Hermon's grandfather, he nevertheless handled it poorly. Hermon recalls growing up in a house minus electricity, water or mains sewerage until the mid 1940s. "Nothing was ever finished in our house, despite my father being in the business."

His mother was dependent on her only daughter, Hermon's sister Belle, for support. By 1947, his parents had separated. With his mother and sister, he went to live at his uncle's house. About that time the local RUC sergeant suggested he consider becoming a policeman. The idea did not appeal to him. But a series of dull jobs eventually led to him answering a recruitment advertisement promoting the RUC as a career. "It wasn't a career I was looking for, I just wanted a job and by then I had met Jean." Joining the force was also inspired by his need to impress her, he wanted to marry her. And he did.

It is interesting to discover that even for a Northerner, the complexities of the political and religious divisions in Northern Ireland could come as a surprise. The nuances which baffle the outsider are equally confusing for a native. Stationed in Derry in 1952, he witnessed two practical examples of the "dichotomy of views" inspired by the British monarchy. While on beat duty, standing on the walls of Derry, overlooking a Catholic housing estate, he noticed a woman's head emerging from a window. She was crying and anxious to voice her grief, called to Hermon, "Constable, the King is dead." The sudden death of King George VI had just been announced on the radio and according to Hermon, "I found her emotion as moving as the content of the message."

Later the same year while again on duty, he was standing in a local newsagents, chatting with the owner. A young woman came in and asked for a bar of chocolate. No sooner was it handed to her than she threw it back in the shopkeeper's face, shouting "I asked for chocolate, not for the Union Jack," and left the shop. Hermon was as shocked as the shopkeeper, "But as my gaze fell on the rejected chocolate bar, I saw that the paper wrapping bore the red, white and blue of the Union flag in celebration of Queen Elizabeth's coronation."

During an IRA campaign in the 1950s he found himself put in charge of the Coalisland station, taking over from the sergeant who had died in a bomb blast. That first big posting was the beginning of his rise. Hermon, for all his insistence on facts, enjoys introducing abstract asides and even now when asked had he ever expenenced fear, replies by reconstructing a vivid memory. "I remember going out on patrol. There was a riot and in the distance I saw a milk bottle being thrown. I knew it was heading for us. But, you know, it was as if it was moving in slow motion. It seemed to take forever. I sat and watched it and realised: `If I stay as I am that thing's going to hit me in the face'." He moved but a glass splinter cut his eye. "I went off to the hospital and had it removed and within a half hour I was back on the street."

His knighthood was conferred in 1982, but he seems an unlikely man to use a title. My friends call me Jack, I don't use it well, I do. It's an honour and I'd be wrong and rude not to use it." As for nationality, he is clear about it. "I'm an Ulsterman, an Irish Ulsterman and all that means." As far as he is concerned that title means his service, "my efforts at policing Ulster, not an easy task" were recognised. He is proud of his career, and enjoys pointing out he is one of the three chief constables, of nine to date, who have risen through the ranks. Yet he says his small sons don't know anything about it. "They don't know Daddy was a policeman. The older boy was with me just recently and I met someone I'd dealt with in the past. There was no hard feelings, and the little lad loved being out and about with his daddy."

Jean died in 1986. Their son and daughter were well grown by then and she had played a vital part in sustaining Hermon through each crisis he encountered. "We were together for 41 years, I was shattered by her death." Ironically for a man who has had his share of being at the wrong end of interviews, a chance interview with a law lecturer from Queen's University resulted in his second marriage. Sylvia Paisley is 41, only marginally older than Hermon's daughter. Despite Sylvia's girlish demeanour she is a shrewd, perceptive character, quick to remind her husband that he is an impossible interviewee. They married in 1988. Having children who could as easily be his grandchildren appears to have reinvigorated him and he has the swagger of a younger man. Is it strange having two sets of children divided by such as yawning age gap? "No. This time I have more time, I'm more involved." The reluctant career policeman can sit back and say of the career he never really wanted, "I feel I only came alive when I joined the RUC. I didn't want to be the top man, I just wanted to be a member. I now know it made me a person, it gave me freedom, it was my life." Even at a distance, it still is.

Hermon believes there will be place in the North. "History tells us. Peace is not so much possible as inevitable. All the reasons are there. The Empire has broken up there are so many reasons, trade, religion, that loss of power ... people will think I'm mad, but I know I'm right."

Eileen Battersby

Eileen Battersby

The late Eileen Battersby was the former literary correspondent of The Irish Times