VOICES FROM THE BLUE: The Real Lives of Policewomen

Libby Purves in the TLS said, 'God, I love these women! Their breeziness, compassion, humour and resilience are a tonic.' In February 1919, London's first women police officers took to the streets of the city. They battled entrenched gender stereotypes, institutional inequality, sexual harassment and assaults disturbingly familiar to today's generation of modern women. Female officers facing resentment from male colleagues and were expected to do little more than 'make the tea, luv' and were charged with the sole task of looking after women and children who fell into police hands. Yet in the course of a century police women have won the equality they demanded, overcome sexism and prejudice, rejected harassment and smashed through the glass ceiling to lead rather than follow their male colleagues. A woman, Cressida Dick, until recently held the most powerful position in British policing, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. The book tells the story of a hundred years of service of female police officers within the Met as a consequence of interviews with hundreds of former and serving police women and the files and stories of thousands more held by the National Archives and private libraries to provide a detailed and fascinating oral history of the challenges they have faced. There are tales of heroism, humour, crime-busting and tragedy, their first-hand experiences in chapters including 'Are You A Bike... or a Dyke?'. 310pp, paperback.