A NEW memoir of the first female police constable in Berkshire Constabulary has been released. Written by Ruth D’Alessandro, Calling WPC Crockford tells the story of the author’s mother as she navigates life as a WPC in Berkshire in the early 1950s.
The book is Ms D’Alessandro first narrative non-fiction work, and she says that her mother loved to tell stories.
“I’d wanted to sit her down and really go through things with her.”But after her mother’s brief and surprising passing, this wasn’t possible.
“Women have been very much airbrushed out of history, and her story is so much bigger.”
Ms D’Alessandro was born in Shinfield, and remembers the house she was brought up in, saying “it was this funny little hut by the police station.”
“I went to St Mary’s primary, and then the Abbey school, so Wokingham is of course very close to my heart.”
“In fact, her story is kind of a love letter to Wokingham, and I wanted to put it into the wider context of the social history.”
She says that it is clear that issues of gender still matter today.
“When you look at how Cressida Dick was treated recently, you wonder whether a man might have been treated similarly.”
But Ms D’Alessandro says that those who are marginalised can be helped.
“When people are recognised, and their stories are being told, it contributes to their normalisation.”
She says that the early 1950s was something of a golden era for women in policing, as women were more respected in the post-war period.
“Women were making their own way, and it was quite an enabling time for a while.”
Though it is only her first memoir, two further books of memoirs have been commissioned.
These will focus on WPC Crockford’s continued career, during which she became one of the first female police detectives.
Ms D’Alessandro says that though the book follows her struggles as a WPC, it’s not about policewomen being down-trodden.
“The horror of, say, finding a body is similar whether you’re a police officer or a dog walker.
“Human emotions, in essence, don’t really change.”
