Into the Valley

Overview

Encouraged by the sizeable pay increase and high divorce rate, Chris Clement-Green decided that answering a recruitment ad for the Thames Valley Police was just the thing for a much-needed overhaul of her life. It was 1984, a time before political correctness, at the height of the miner's strike and in the middle of five years of race riots. Perfect timing. Expanding her police knowledge, her love life, and undeterred by sexist remarks and chauvinists, she decided to make her mark, while kissing goodbye to her previous dull and conventional existence. Chris captures the colorful characters and humor in many of the situations she found herself in, but the job had it's serious side, too. She was at the center of a riot in Oxford, during which her life was saved by a young black man she had previously stopped and questioned, and was attacked by a man with mental-health problems who was a consequence of the decision to move "care" into "the community." Consistently coming up against the effects of Margaret Thatcher's politics, from miner's picket-lines, covering (badly) for striking paramedics during the ambulance dispute, to everyday drunken disturbances caused by the haves (Yuppies and Oxford students) and the have-nots (alcoholic homeless and unemployed youth), Chris also tackled sex crimes and abuse. An often humorous, always candid, and no-holds-barred reflection of the life of a policewoman in the 1980s, this book offers a personal account of a life in uniform, while touching on the Newbury Bypass demos, the effects of Scarman, the Hungerford Massacre, the bombing of Libya, the AIDS epidemic, and working under the notorious Ali Dizaei.

Author Biography

Chris Clement-Green recently retired from Thames Valley Police after 16 years as a uniform sergeant followed by five as a civilian investigator on serious and organized crime teams—which included working on several murder incident rooms. Her last job involved the management of 60 registered sex-offenders. She has now moved to rural Wales and set up The Welsh Writing Shed. Her serious writing started in 2007 when she was encouraged to enter the National Association of Writer's Groups annual short story competition. It was Chris' first ever competition so she was astonished to win with Pebbles. She undertook the Open University Creative Writing course in 2010 and Advanced Creative Writing in 2011, and she completed both courses with distinction. In 2013 she was accepted onto the prestigious Bath Spa University Creative Writing MA, where she completed a life-writing manuscript Into The Valley: Policing Thatcher's Britain. Chris has had several articles and letters published in national UK magazines, most notably Writing Magazine,and in September 2016 she was published in The New Guard Volume V. Chris has also been shortlisted in the Literature Works First Page Writing Prize and Writing Magazine's Jane Eyre competition; she was also Highly Commended in the Penro Literary Festival's memoir competition and most recently her fantasy short story, Layla, was published in Divinity Fantasia Magazine. Chris won the Oriel Davis Prose Competition in 2016 and she was also a finalist in the Women in Comedy Festival 2016 writing competition with her monologue Queenie.