Conference Security Guards
it is hard to believe that I was once a security guard, when you consider that I spend 8 hours a day in front a computer screen. Although the job was only temporary whilst I tried to obtain more qualifications, it was meant for real situations and was a real job.
My main claim to fame was being an official security guard during the Party Political conference of the Labour Party in 2006. It was not enough for the Labour lot to need the police force to protect them, they also needed private force of security guard specialists to give extra help. Much of this thinking was in place as a result of the IRA bomb 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. The political scene may change, terrorists networks rise up and then dissolve, but some policies are set in stone until the next major event.
Security guards work together with the police force, who find it hard not to look down upon their ‘inferiors’ from the private sector. The irony is that many of the private security guards were once employed by the police force and know the structure well.
The day I had at the Party conference was one that will take some beating, and stay in my mind for ever. For some unknown reason I thought my duties would not be any more stressful than stopping people from dropping litter, or moving on motorists. Sometimes a small number of people try to drive up to the entrance of the conference, just to ask directions to the clearly signposted carparks! 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. The security company told us that they were a committed group hell bent on disruption in advance of the parliamentary debate on foxhunting. 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!
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