'I KNEW HIM BEFORE HE WAS CHIEF CONSTABLE' (APRIL 1986)

When I owned the bar, a district inspector new to the area was fanatical about enforcing the licensing hours. ‘You are a disgrace,’ he told me once, ‘not fit to run a bar.’ My crime? Customers had taken twenty minutes to drink up. The officer was none other than future RUC Chief Constable Sir John Hermon. At one of his first news conferences, a reporter told him: ‘Small potatoes now compared to when you were tormenting Falls Road publicans.’ Here he is diplaying weapons found in loyalist and republican areas.