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This year will be one of the first years that I will not be working over Christmas.
My father died this year and my wife lost her nan and both are sadly missed. Losing people so close to us has made us re-evaluate things and we decided that we wanted to be together this Christmas. It will be a quiet one, we will remember our loved ones and will be spending time with people who mean the world to us.
I have been a police officer for 15 years and I am a sergeant on Force Response, based at Newtown police station in Birmingham. Response officers are people who respond to emergency 999 calls and urgent incidents. I was one of the supervisors who attended the crash that killed six people in Birmingham last year. It happened just days before Christmas and I helped to manage the scene.
As a response officer we deal with some really harrowing incidents, but you just have to get on with the job at hand and do the best you can for the victims and their families.
Working Christmas day can be really busy but there’s a real team spirit. We all bring in food and in our refreshment break we have a team buffet.
My family have always been extremely supportive and they have had to get used to me working over Christmas. They tell me they watch lots of Christmas TV and eat large amounts of chocolate while I am at work.
I’m not saying that I do not enjoy working Christmas; however I always try to make it up to my family by spending quality time with them and doing something special the following month.