Conference Security Guards
When you consider my lifestyle in front of a screen for most of the day, it is hard to believe that i was once a professional security guard. I have to stress that the job was temporary whilst I was studying, but none-the-less it was a real job, in many real situations.
Possibly my main claim to fame is being on duty at the Labour Conference during a vociferous demonstration on animal rights in 2006. It wasn’t enough for the party to rely solely upon the police as their only source of security, they also needed to hire a specialist service provider to bring in extra support. Much of this thinking was in place as a result of the IRA attack on the Grand Hotel in 1984. Obviously this caused massive damage inside the hotel, and almost wiped out the prime minister and most of her cabinet colleagues. Political landscapes change, terrorist organisations come and go, but once a policy is in place, it often takes a further catastrophe to change it again.
Security guards work alongside the police force, who find it hard not to look down upon their ‘inferiors’ from the private sector. It is ironic that many of the private security specialist were themselves once on the police force.
As a security guard at the Party Conference, I have memories that will stay with me for many years to come. For some reason I thought that my duties would involve asking people not to drop litter, or moving on people who were not allowed to leave their cars nearby. Often you will see some people try to drive up to the conference entrance just so they can ask for the whereabouts of the car park! It takes quite a bit of driving to successfully negotiate the concrete barriers specially erected for the conference, but there are the few that succeed.
Within an hour of the beginning of the conference, a boisterous crowd was beginning to arrive and they didn’t seem like friendly protesters. I was informed that they were a professional bunch, determined to make their feeling known about the debate on foxhunting that was soon to begin. The thoughts that were going through my mind as I was being sworn at and spat upon, was all the site clearance work that would be needed after they had all gone home!
