He’d done a few afternoon shifts in a row, and I felt like we hadn’t really seen each other all week. I had all this information that I needed to tell him; I was in organisation mode and had to check

My partner’s shifts are all over the place, and it’s very difficult to manage from a social perspective. 

It can feel quite isolating. You find that the close network that you had before the police force and the shift work,

I’m a retired police officer, and I run art classes for first responders and military personnel. The story of how I came to do this probably isn’t what you think.

I joined the police force in 1997, and I absolutely

I’m the partner of a first responder, and I talk openly about the fact that it can be hard. I like to share the good bits too, but it’s the difficult parts that we tend to keep to ourselves –

We have two family members in the police force. One is a detective, who’s often on call over Christmas, and getting him to relax is hard. We don’t know what’s he’s seen the night before or whether his phone ringing