Kathy Morgan

New book ‘Field Murder’ story about the time a horse rider found a dead body in a field on the slopes of Shaftesbury, Dorset. Hoping fiction never becomes fact!

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

.... meanwhile life goes on ....

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@judismithJudi 😂😂😂

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@judismithJudi Oooh good one!

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@Longleat My favourites to see when we visit ❤️

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@judismithJudi 😂

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@judismithJudi 😂😂😂

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@judismithJudi 😂

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Woman of the Day senior flight purser Neerja Bhanot born OTD 1963 in India, was murdered by terrorists two days before her 23rd birthday while saving passengers on the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 at Karachi. She died trying to help three children to safety.

On 5 September 1986, four armed Palestinian terrorists forced their way onto a Boeing 747-121 at Karachi Airport just after it had landed from Bombay carrying 360 passengers on board.

Neerja immediately alerted the cockpit crew - pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer - and they escaped through a hatch, but that left her as the most senior crew member on board. The terrorists instructed her and the flight attendants to collect the passports so they could identify Americans.

Instead, Neerja and the other flight attendants hid the passports under a seat and in a garbage chute.

After a very tense 17 hours, the hijackers opened fire and set off explosives. At that point, Neerja opened an exit door and started helping passengers to escape.

A survivor said, "She was guiding passengers to the emergency exit. That is when the terrorists were firing constantly, fearing commando attack. They saw her trying to help three unaccompanied children out. That is when they caught her by her hair and shot her point blank.”

Posthumously, Neerja was the first woman to be awarded India's highest peacetime gallantry award, the Ashoka Chakra, and her family set up the Neerja Bhanot Trust.

It presents two awards each year: one to a flight crew member who acts beyond the call of duty; the other, the Neerja Bhanot Award, to an Indian woman who confronts injustice when faced with it and helps other women in similar distress.

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@newforestranger @NewForestNPA @EngNewForest @HantsIOW_fire Unbelievable!

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@PaulineRowson Ouch! What a huge challenge for everyday living, let alone writing xx

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@judismithJudi 😂😂😂

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Woman of the Day suffragist, nursing sister Lucy Deane Streatfeild, born OTD in 1865 in Madras, one of the first female factory inspectors appointed by the Home Office. In 1898, she warned against the risk asbestos posed to workers, especially women. Her warnings were largely ignored.

Lucy qualified as a nursing sister at Chelsea Infirmary, trained as a health worker and lecturer with the National Health Society, and after a spell inspecting workshops and factories employing women in London, was appointed as one of Britain’s seven female factory inspectors by the Home Office.

The previous Chief Inspector of Factories would have disapproved. In 1879, he said, “I doubt very much whether the office of factory inspector is one suitable for women...The general and multifarious duties of an inspector of factories would really be incompatible with the gentle and home-loving character of women.”

For twelve years, Lucy travelled extensively throughout the UK and Ireland, by train, bus and bicycle, observing and reporting on the working conditions of women in factories, with the objective of alleviating dirty conditions. In those days, men were mainly employed in supervisory and skilled work. Women were allotted poorly-paid piecework and longer hours.

She faced hostility from employers and was not allowed to reveal the nature of her work to workers, mainly to protect them from retaliation or dismissal.

In Ireland, she was exasperated by the “truck system”, an antiquated practice dating from about 1464. Employees would “pay” their women workers with goods or with vouchers that could be exchanged for goods…at the employer’s own shop at inflated prices. It was debt bondage - or as we would describe it, modern slavery. She was especially critical of the priests who failed to stand up for the women and noted there was “utter disregard for law and justice, terrible tales of the corruption of the magistrates”.

In the 1898 Annual Report of the Lady Inspectors of Factories, Lucy and her old friend Rose Squires reported their concerns about the “dusty trades” of asbestos sifting and carding despite it being lauded by manufacturers as “the magic mineral”. Their findings “easily demonstrated danger to the health of workers, and...ascertained injury to bronchial tubes and lungs...medically attributed to the employment of the sufferers".

Lucy wrote, "The evil effects of asbestos dust have also instigated a microscopic examination of the mineral dust by Her Majesty’s Medical Inspector. Clearly revealed was the sharp, glass-like jagged nature of the particles…and where they are allowed to rise and remain suspended in the air of a room, in any quantity, the effects have been found to be injurious.”

Subsequent warnings by other female Inspectors of Factories were published in the annual reports of HM Chief Inspector of Factories, but they were ignored.

Lucy retired from her post in 1906 due to ill health and it was not until 1911 that clinical evidence indicated a connection to asbestos exposure. By 1918, many insurers would not offer life insurance to asbestos workers but it was still manufactured with no plans by employers to reduce asbestos production and insufficient safeguards to prevent or limit the “evil effects” of exposure.

The 1928 and 1933 reports said that asbestos workers were unlikely to survive ten years on the job, and few who had worked there since leaving school would reach 30.

In 1924, 33-year-old Nellie Kershaw of Rochdale died, the first death officially attributed to asbestos. She’d worked in a factory spinning raw asbestos into yarn and was given no support whatsoever by her employers. She died in poverty.

It took 67 years from the date of Lucy’s findings - and two women doctors, one of whom is tomorrow’s WOTD - to establish the risk asbestos posed to women who washed their husbands’ work overalls. She died in 1950, aged 84.

[Brick Cop©️ @Brick_Cop]

Closing Front Counters.

One of the first things I did when I’d finished Street Duties, was cover the Front Counter.

You couldn’t make up how that day went if you tried.

The experienced Station Officer (now Public Access Officers) was a wonderfully helpful and knowledgable veteran of the Metropolis. She knew *everything* and I’m pleased to say we hit it off straight away. After that shift she always had time to answer a question or give me a hand, something many of you know money can’t buy.

When I walked in I had no idea what I was meant to do. “Well Brick, first things first, we open all of the letters addressed to the Police Station…” Now in my mind that didn’t sound to griefy. (Adjective - Griefy - Police speak for absolute carnage.) The first letter I picked up read; “To whom it may concern, I have killed myself.”

They don’t train you for that at Hendon.

I looked up and stared worriedly at the Station Officer and she asked what was wrong. I passed her the letter and she read it to the end, then ran out of the office to the Skippers’ (Skipper - Police speak for Sergeant - we keep the ship heading in the right direction some of the time) Office. A few minutes later I heard sirens racing out of the backyard and felt worse than I did already. The Station Officer came back and asked what was wrong? I told her I didn’t know how to feel and she said that that was perfectly normal. Nothing filled the silence that followed. About a quarter of an hour later a Skipper walked in and confirmed someone had taken their life at the address given on the letter and asked if I was ok? I didn’t know what to say, so I said yes. The Skipper walked out and the Station Officer told me in all her years that had truly never happened before. We both laughed. Dark humour has a time and a place. It breaks tension and helps you cope with the incomprehensible.

The Station Officer asked if I needed a break and I said “No, what’s next?”

As I did, the doors to the Front Counter opened and in walked a dishevelled and tired looking young man. Before I could ask how I could help, he said “I think I’ve been reported missing.”

Remember at this stage I was as fresh as they come and had no idea what to do with that information, so I took his details and walked to the Skippers Office. I’d been assigned to Neighbourhoods off of Street Duties so had had minimal interactions with Response Sergeants but knew enough that sounding like an idiot wouldn’t go down well. The Skipper couldn’t have been more helpful, gave me the missing persons unit phone number and told me to ring them. I thanked him and they asked me to do a missing persons debrief - again not something taught at Hendon.

When I walked back in to the Front Counter the young man had fallen asleep on a very uncomfortable metal chair - he must have been shattered. I walked out, woke him gently and for a second I could see he had forgotten where he was. I asked him to come into a side room and he talked me through what had happened. The more he told me, it sounded like a horrid kidnapping and probable sexual assault as well. I did what I could to comfort him and went back to the Response Skipper. I had gotten the address of where this had happened and for a second time that day heard sirens racing out of the backyard. I was asked to call CID (who told me off for calling them and not calling the Sexual Offences command - remits) but did all they asked to report the offences and support the victim.

I did my best, got him a hot drink and breakfast roll from the canteen (you read that right, we had a canteen) and stayed with him.

When the Detectives arrived he thanked me and said he probably wouldn’t have reported it if he hadn’t see the blue lamp lit up and the light from the Front Counter showing the Police Station was open.

That ‘Nick’ got sold and demolished in the last round of cuts.

Losing buildings might be a sensible financial option, but we’re also losing places of safety…

#ThinBlueLine 🚨

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

❤️

[Ann Cleeves @AnnCleeves]

Twenty years ago I submitted a novel set in Shetland to @panmacmillan . No advance so no guarantee of publication. The book - Raven Black - changed my career. Today a lovely new edition of the novel is published. Still one of my favourites.

[Alan Wright 🦫 @Alanw47]

A Thread.

Nicked from elsewhere, but the source is NOT anonymous and adds, in my opinion, some important context

1/6

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

😁😉

[Sandford Police Commentary @Sandford_Police]

We have had to issue Gross Misconduct proceedings against three (3) officers for not dealing with a detainee with sufficient courtesy and respect

All failed to say “please stop resisting” when restraining the violent individual on the ground following their arrest for a knife point robbery

One officer was heard to remark “oh for fucks sake” when they were punched to the face

All officers were assaulted and sustained injuries, but we know the community will be understandably concerned about the officers actions and behaviour

All have now been suspended from active duty pending their hearing

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

40 years ago a horrific fire at Bradford City's Valley Parade ground claimed the lives of 56 people. It took less than four minutes for a small fire to become a raging inferno. Warnings had been ignored. When people complain about red tape and health and safety gone mad, remember it's tragedies like this that we have learned from.

[James May @MrJamesMay]

The Hawker Hurricane is woefully absent from VE Day imagery. Remember that, without it, Britain would have fallen and not been available as a launch-pad for the invasion.

It’s that simple. Suck it up, Spitfire fanbois. And gals.

Repeat please.

[jenny seagrove 🍃💚🍃 @springmeister]

80 years ago the war in Europe stopped. I stand here in gratitude that I can walk in peace and enjoy the beauty of this land because of what millions of others did. Thank you to all those who fought and to those who lost their lives. Animals and birds too. #VEday #grateful

[Countess Bathurst @CotswoldLadyB]

A thread:

I hesitate before I post this, but I was sent a media piece yesterday by numerous people, regarding the tragic loss of PD Zara from @PSOSDogs and I have been moved to say something, because no one else has had the courage to do so.

I think we need to look beyond the comments made in the press, and online, and realise things are never that clear cut, & I would suggest only the bits, conveniently, that were bound to cause the most outrage, were made public.

Let’s put aside the emotion for a moment, which I know is very hard to do as we’re talking about an animal, but it’s clear Zara’s injuries were far more complex than originally reported.

In fact, scratch that, I KNOW they were more serious than has been publicised. It is not my story, or my place to give fuller details, but I can tell you this. (Cont).

[Kathy Morgan @KathyM2016]

@judismithJudi 😂😂😂