Death of a retired Police Officer - Supt.Derek Harrison L.L.B, M.B.E.

It is with regret that we announce the death of ex- Superintendent Derek Harrison, MBE, who died on 22^nd December 2011 aged 84 years in Melbury Care Home, Durham City. 

Mr Harrison joined Durham Constabulary in 1948 and during his career served in various postings including Birtley, Jarrow, Darlington, Washington, Houghton, Whitburn, Bishop Auckland, Barnard Castle and Sedgefield from where he retired as Sub-Divisional Commander in 1980.

After his retirement from Durham Constabulary Derek was an active member of NARPO at local, regional and national level. Locally he served on the Committee, as Secretary and Chair, he co-founded the Peeler magazine.  He represented NARPO at regional level and was a member of the National Executive Committee, holding the post of National president for 3 years.  In addition Derek undertook a good deal of work “behind the scenes” to assist former colleagues and their families in times of difficulty. His efforts earned him the honour of receiving an MBE before ill health forced Derek into relinquishing much of this work.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR READERS

Yes it is that time of year already and our second Christmas providing you with update information, topics and photographs.

We are delighted to let you know that our fame is certainly spreading, both on the web and in the Durham Peeler Magazine. We are now reaching Afghanistan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, U.S.A., Chile, Israel and even British West Hartlepool! You will be delighted to know that we have now had more than 55,000 ‘hits’ on the web page’s and over 180 regular recipients of death notifications of serving and retired officers. These recipients also receive advanced notice of up to the minute events. If you’d like to join the list, let us have your e mail details and specific points of interest. It always pays to be informed. (send email to Bob Brown at durhamnarpo@gmail.com)

If you have recently retired on pension, why not take up membership of N.A.R.P.O. and receive the Durham Peeler Magazine (Twice/year), the National NARPO News magazine  (4 times/ year) Social Events, really competitive Insurance rates  and opportunity to attend the 6 bi-monthly meeting where you enjoy a great atmosphere, meet old friends and colleagues and keep up to date with things that affect your pension. Enough?  Well when the meeting ends, have a drink and light refreshments. Not only all this but you also get the Annual NARPO Diary All for £18.48/ year

HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone may it be a prosperous, healthy and successful New Year. And above all…..Keep smiling

Alan S. Watson

Chairman, Durham Branch N.A.R.P.O.

(To download a NARPO application form please CLICK HERE)

New Membership Cards

NARPO will be issuing a new style membership card to all existing and future members in early January 2012.

The National Executive Committee has given some considerable thought to how we might improve and modernise the image of our organisation. Most recently the Executive Committee has considered the membership card itself and we felt that a more durable card with a modern design could help in improving that image for new and existing members alike.

We hope that members will find this card more convenient than the card it replaces. As you may know many of the advice lines and service providers, which we provide for members, require a membership number before they will complete any transaction. In the past this has led to many members calling us for that number. We hope that a more durable card, which is similar to a credit card in size, will be more convenient for them to retain in a handy place. The front of the card contains the member name and number. We believe this new card will help to reduce those calls and speed up access to advice and other services.

Most, if not all, of the services we offer are outlined on our website, which also contains significant advice on pensions and contact details for local branches amongst other things. The reverse of the card has all the National Office contact details and our website address, which we hope will make contacting us quicker and easier.

The production and circulation of cards for existing members is being handled for us by the company which has supplied the new card system. Their clients include many well known British institutions including the B.B.C, HMRC, DVLA and Greater Manchester Police.

We are hoping for a smooth transition to this new card system but recognise that in circulating cards to 82,000 existing members there may be the occasional problem but we are confident with your help we will be able to resolve these in relatively short time.

New members are being issued with the new cards as from 30 November 2011.

RPI/CPI Appeal decision

Many Thanks to Ray Dinning for forwarding us information in relation to the Federation JBB Appeal against the adoption of CPI instead of the RPI

In short, the Appeal has been ‘kicked out’ and the reasons given by the Judges are shown in the document – albeit one judge did actually support the motion, but this was a minority view.

If you want to read the JBB Circular 031/2011 then click on the image and then either view or download the document.

On Tuesday, 7^th December 2011, Steve Webb MP, the Minister of State for Work and Pensions, made a statement in Parliament confirming that it was the Government’s intention to increase the second state pension and thus as a consequence public sector pensions including police pensions, where appropriate, by the September 2011 Consumer Price Index figure of 5.2%, which will be applied to our pensions in April 2012.

Home Office Livery–1967 ??

Any body help out with this one ??

We received a query from a Uri Smus from Israel, who has been reviewing articles from a collection of magazines called Classic 999.

This picture appeared in issue 3 (June 2004)

Uri is wanting to know if anybody can shed some light about our vehicles at this particular time and the livery (which apparently was part of a Home Office initiative to make police vehicles more visible) and also asks if anybody has any other photo’s of Austin Westminster's or Jaguar Mk2s in this particular livery.

Was the photo taken at Newton Aycliffe and who is the cadet ??

If anybody has any relevant info then either leave a comment on this article or send an email to durhamnarpo@gmail.com so that we can reply to Uri.