Valerie Sturgess, Britain’s first woman commandant in the Specials, is taking charge of an Oxfordshire police station for a day. – Vintage Photograph

Description

Valerie Sturgess, a mother-of-four from Headington, is the country’s first woman commandant in the Specials. She is taking charge of Abingdon Police Station tomorrow, as part of a Thames Valley-wide scheme to get the Specials more involved and to recruit more members. Each Special must give at least 60 hours a year and the work is unpaid apart from a small amount of expenses.Valerie Sturgess, a mother-of-four from Headington, is the country’s first woman commandant in the Specials. She is taking charge of Abingdon Police Station tomorrow, as part of a Thames Valley-wide scheme to get the Specials more involved and to recruit more members. Each Special must give at least 60 hours a year and the work is unpaid apart from a small amount of expenses.

Dimensions: 14.9 x 14.9 cm

IMS SKU: SCAN-NQOX-04697716

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OCR computer generated text:

VALERIE STURGESS VALERIE Sturgess is Britain’s top part-time cop. The mother-of-four from Headington, is the country’s first woman commandant in the Specials and tomorrow she is taking charge of an Oxfordshire police station for a day. With 15 other part-timers, – and help from the regular police-she will be running Abingdon police station as part of a Thames Valley- wide scheme to get the Spe- cials more involved and to recruit more members. Valerie whose rank is equivalent to a police super- intendent said: “There’s no way of knowing what might crop up. You could get quite a major incident. The last time we did it there was a sudden death that took a bit of sorting out. -“Each officer will be paired up with a regular but it is still quite an ex- perience. “We go along to the foot- ball, fetes and big outside events and some work with the regular officers from police stations doing everything from telephone work to going out on the beat with them.” Each Special must give at least 60 hours a year and the work is unpaid apart from a small amount of expenses. “A lot of people are inter- ested until they find out it really is voluntary,” said Valerie, who works for Ox- ford accountants C. Warm- ington and Son. “We can always do with more mem- bers.” 21 AUG 1982 16/1 cop x Scm ene Sturgess