I joined the Unit in April 2007, before that I had worked at Brighton all of my service (I joined Sussex Police in August 1998) - mostly in uniform as a patrol officer, a neighbourhood officer, a local support team officer and some work on the intelligence unit before taking my promotion exams in 2004 and getting promoted to Sergeant in 2005. 

I hadn’t ever thought that a sergeant’s job on the SSU would ever come up but my predecessor immigrated to Australia leaving the post to be advertised on our intranet website and I remember reading the advert thinking that it was my dream job.

At the time that the advert had come out I had waited eight years for my initial search course (they are hard to come by!) so I had no search training, I had snorkelled but never dived and hadn’t had any other specialist training.  On a plus note I rock climbed in my spare time, windsurfed so was used to being out on the water and liked a challenge!

For some reason I have always had the capacity to think that nothing is beyond me so armed with zero qualifications I somewhat brazenly applied for the job!  To say that the learning curve was steep is an understatement, I experienced a bit of teeth grinding and a few sleepless nights as I prepared for the challenges ahead - not just to learn the practical skills (starting with a two month residential police diving course in Newcastle in the scrap metal berth at Tyne Docks) but also to manage the day to day running of the Unit and supervise the PC’s on it, some of whom had been on the Unit for over 20 years.

Obviously I needed to learn about life on the Unit from the PC’s who had been there for such a long time and I value their experience and knowledge.  It could have been made really difficult for me but they were supportive and gradually I have built up my skills and knowledge so I feel I know a little of what I’m doing although the cliché that ‘we still learn every day and will never know it all’ still stands! 

In a way it’s been an extraordinary show of team work of the support that is given to new arrivals on the Unit, it is as if we are united by the fact that we work in a difficult and challenging environment and other people outside of our job will never fully understand what it means to do our role day in and day out, we rely on each other for our safety at hazardous jobs and are bonded by this responsibility and trust for one another.