There are stories of bombs being left on the window-sills of hospital wards containing wounded officers, of paraplegics being forced to move home up to three times. "I think in a way, we're like the soldiers coming back from Vietnam. We got little sympathy. Here once you put on a uniform, to a certain extent, you distanced yourself from all communities."
Like many past and present RUC officers, Sam Malcolmson firmly believes that it was not RUC ethos but IRA policy that "bullied" Catholics out of joining the force. "I know two Catholics who joined and they could never go back home. It was like saying goodbye to their own community." Some Catholic officers who did risk a visit to the family home, like Det Constable John Doherty from Lifford, Co Donegal, were murdered on the doorstep.
"There was a young fellow shot outside Millfield Tech in Belfast and all he had said was that he was think- ing of joining the RUC," says Les Rodgers. One Catholic officer recalls American relatives declaring angrily that he was "a legitimate target". Supt Brian McCargo, another Catholic from the Ardoyne, and a county-level GAA player before joining the force, says that for him, the difficulties came not from the RUC but from his own community. "I turned up for a game the Sunday after I joined and found my club was split down the middle about it. I was told by the chairman that I was aware of the rule; I couldn't play Gaelic football any more. Next to my mother dying, that was the saddest day of my life."
The IRA is also blamed for its role in the RUC's loss of contact with the community. Forced to work from armoured vehicles, fortified police stations and to patrol with military escorts, the force became what Chris Ryder describes as "almost a third community in divided Northern Ireland".
But this division was further exacerbated by their earnings and lifestyle. By any Irish or UK standard, the RUC has done well materially out of the conflict. According to the Police Federation, the average constable earns around £40,000 a year, including overtime and the current Northern Ireland allowance of £2,400. Although it has diminished a little in recent years, at one point, the amount of overtime being worked was equivalent to an extra 3,000 full-time officers. Even now, cars such as new BMWs and flashy convertibles are not an unfamiliar sight in police stations around the North. The combination of high earnings, good rent allowances and personal security requirements saw many ordinary officers detaching themselves further from their communities by buying into lavishly equipped, exclusive properties and living in secure clusters in middle-class areas in suburban Belfast. Supt Brian McCargo admits that circumstances meant that the "RUC did become a bit of a club".
The downside of all this overtime - usually imposed rather than voluntary and often entailing dangerous and traumatic 12-hour shifts - was reflected, however, in widespread stress-related problems such as alcoholism and marital conflict, extreme anxiety and ulcers. Many remember the tense October to Christmas period of 1992 when 12-hour shifts were common and rest days were cancelled at a time when morale was so low that it became a source of serious concern to RUC authorities.
As peace beckons, all of these issues are up for discussion. Overtime is already diminishing and will eventually disappear, leaving some living above their means with houses and cars they cannot afford. The thorny issue of reducing overall officer numbers to peacetime levels (a reduction that could be as high as 7,000) must be squared somehow with the requirement to draft in several thousand Catholics, not to mention women whose representation at around 10 per cent is acknowledged as pitiful. Self interest aside, many officers genuinely fear any precipitous cuts, given that "around 3,000 ex-terrorists will be roaming the streets in search of diversion" as one of them put it, plus the delicate matter of some 1,600 unsolved murders which no-one wants to talk about. But somewhere in the equation, everyone concedes that jobs will go.
It is true, as one source pointed out, that peace will also affect the employment of, say, glaziers and undertakers. But for the security forces, there can be little comfort in a recent survey of Northern business people, 94 per cent of whom said they could see no advantage to recruiting ex-police or prison officers.
From their demeanour and statements, it is evident that RUC officers are very proud of their force. Its own Occupational Health Unit - initially set up to tackle the problem of heavy drinking - has done much to remove the machismo from the force and introduce more sympathetic, enlightened thinking to job-related problems, including some surprising ones such as how to cope with more time at home with wives and families. Several officers point to the RUC'S strategy for dealing with domestic violence - one of the North's biggest problems - as one of the most enlightened in Europe. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is one of the best-educated forces in the world.
No officer will deny that change is needed as peace takes hold. It's how that change is handled that is the key, they say. For example, although they make absolutist noises about such matters as continuing to fly the Union Jack above stations on high days and keeping the "royal" in the RUC, observers believe that ultimately they will recognise these for the peripheral issues that they are. Meanwhile, efforts are being made from within to "move the ethos by bringing in Catholic priests, rabbis and lesbians to talk to officers and try to change attitudes. Young people are getting better training in relation to the diversity out there," says Les Rodgers.
One young Catholic officer looks genuinely surprised when asked if his religion is an issue: "Maybe that's the way it used to be. . .I've seen nothing like that. But any job is what you make of it. I just look forward to the day when I can patrol the area I come from without a rifle or a flak jacket or an armoured car."
He's not alone. Before the 1994 ceasefire, Catholic applications were around 12 per cent. After it, they nearly doubled.