Introduction

Perhaps it will be helpful if I briefly explain who I am and why I am writing this blog.

I am a retired police officer from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in London having done my 30 years. I joined on 20th November 1978, my mother's birthday and retired on 5th December 2008, father's birthday. So as of today I have been retired exactly a year. I was fortunate enough to successfully apply for a MPhil/PhD 3 year research project at the Department of Geography at University College London (UCL) funded by the Economic Social Research Council (ESRC) and my former employee, the MPS as part of a CASE award ( I have yet to discover what CASE stands for). The title of the award is "Real time geodemographics for reassurance policing and crime prevention."

I have spent my first year trying to work out what the title means and to reduce it down to a PhD thesis. Now that I have done alot of reading and learnt a few new skills, I have enough confidence to presume to think I have something different and hopefully original to write. I will obviously be also relying heavily on my police knowledge and experience.