Regular readers of our ExPo website will probably recall that late last year we wrote a couple of articles about retired Inspector Joe Tildesley of the West Midland Police who was visiting the Island with his wife Joan who is also a retired West Midlands officer. Joe is Secretary of the Birmingham Branch of the National Association of Retired Police Officers (NARPO) and he and Joan have been coming to Bermuda to visit their daughter who has been living here for the last 7 years.  We suspect that Joe would also find any excuse to play on Bermuda's golf courses!

On arrival in November, Joe wanted to make contact with someone from our ExPo Committee to learn more about how we operate, and was also keen to meet with our wider membership.   He expressed interest in writing an article about ExPo for his next Birmingham Branch Newsletter, and also said he would be writing a more in-depth article for the National NARPO magazine which is distributed to nearly 100,000 retired UK police officers.

After first meeting with George Rose, John Skinner and Roger Sherratt at Mariners Club (our Police Recreation Club was closed for renovations) he was invited to our annual pre-Christmas lunch at Mad Hatters which was a great success, where he throughly enjoyed chatting to our members as can be seen in the following photos.

CLICK HERE to view the  article on our Ex-Bobbies Christmas Lunch 2024 and more photos.  

Joe was as good as his word, and he wrote the following excellent article which was published in the National NARPO Newsletter in May 2025.

Since 2017 I have been a regular visitor to Bermuda with my wife, as we visit our daughter  who is a lawyer on the island. It remains a British Overseas Territory and its policing model has long been established along the tried and tested UK model, with the fledgling Force established in 1879.

Many of us of a certain age remember those adverts in the much missed ‘Police Review’, inviting serving Police officers to apply for a three-year secondment. At the same time those Officers had to resign from their UK Police Force. Hundreds of colleagues, especially during the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s moved to Bermuda.

How many of us serving at the time did not consider exchanging the cold and drab of many of our inner-city roles, to what appeared to be the idyllic opportunities in Bermuda. I should stress that only male Officers were recruited at this time via the advert. At the same time as this recruitment of serving officers was taking place, Bermuda was also recruiting via a number of national Newspaper adverts, for UK residents with no Policing experience.

In 1962 a Police Training School was established and serving Officers recruited from the UK completed a short localisation course, whilst the new recruits completed a full three months of training, very much based on the old district training centres which many of us will recall. Of these new Officers many returned home at the end of the secondment but a large number remained, not only to complete their policing service, but many to marry, have children and make a lifelong contribution to the island.

During the seven years I have been travelling to Bermuda I met a number of individual serving and retired officers, but it was only during my latest visit between November 2024 and January 2025, that I made the conscious decision to find out more about retired Police Officers on the island. I can tell you that the Ex Police Association is a strong, vibrant association that meets regularly and has some 300 members. I met up with their Committee on the 21 November and the warmth of the welcome simply re-inforced the bonds of Policing friendship. Roger Sherratt their immediate Past President went out of his way to supply me with additional information and a good whistle stop guide to the Association can be found at expobermuda.com

Thursday afternoon Get Together - Mariners Club

In addition Committee member John Skinner has almost completed his book which he hopes will record every Police Officer who has served on the island, including of course all those who came and served from the UK. I was invited to attend their Christmas function at the ‘Mad Hatters’ restaurant and some fifty retired Officers made the event truly memorable. It is not often at the end of a Police function to be serenaded with a rendition of an unofficial singing of the Bermuda national song, ‘Bermuda is another world’!

John serenades Joe Tildesley with

Everyone went out of their way to introduce themselves, still being very proud of the individual Forces they served in prior to moving to Bermuda. The retired Officers are in rude health and rightly proud of what they achieved as Bermudian Police officers and equally importantly their individual role in helping to make Bermuda a truly successful multi-cultural, small island state. 

I had no understanding of just how difficult policing was in the 1970’s and 80’s in Bermuda. In September 1972, the Commissioner of Police, Mr. George Duckett was murdered outside his residence, and in March 1973, the Governor, Sir Richard Sharples and his ADC, Captain Hugh Sayers, were shot and killed outside Government house. Bermuda was thrown into turmoil. Tourism nose-dived and international businesses were hesitant to deal with the island.

Two men were arrested, charged and subsequently convicted of the murders and were sentenced to be hanged. The execution date was set for December 1977 and a period of rioting swept the island. The sentence was carried out on the 2 December 1977 and they were the last people to be hanged not only in Bermuda, but anywhere in the world where British Law was still in effect. Policing on the island at this time was no sinecure! Female Officers only began to join the Bermuda service in 1962 and though the below list of retired officers contains only male names, I do assure you that they are now fully integrated! For any of you reading this article can I recommend ‘One hundred and thirty five years of service’, a brief history of the major milestones of the Bermuda Police Service.

May I finish by mentioning those retired officers on the island and their legacy of service and commitment. I was astonished to learn that since 2012, those retired Officers have not received any indexation whatsoever to their Police pensions. The Bermuda government plead poverty with the island suffering some serious financial pressures and have simply told the pensioners, ‘We cannot afford to give you the indexation’. I can only begin to imagine what would happen in the UK, should the government suddenly announce, we will not honour the annual CPI indexation! At the very least I think we might be marching on parliament! Attached are just a couple of photos of Joe meeting some of the local Committee. This is the list of the retired Officers who attended the Christmas function and where they began their UK service. I hope this short article might rekindle some pleasant memories and very much hope that some friendships might be renewed.

Acknowledgements – One hundred and thirty five years of service. The Bermuda Police Service. Author Christopher Wilcox.  Bermie ExPo