WELL-KNOWN in the district as an active community worker, Roger Hurst has now revealed a distinguished career as a crime-fighter, in a just-published and highly-entertaining biography intriguingly titled ‘Rogues and Royals’.
This fascinating and unputdownable story reveals how a young man born into a troubled background turns his life around for the better and becomes a highly successful police detective.
Inspired by the then-popular Dixon of Dock Green television series, featuring Jack Warner, Roger remembers how he walked into his nearest police station and was accepted as a new recruit.
Though his story begins as an ordinary copper on the beat, the action quickly moves up several exciting notches.
Rather than TV’s Heartbeat, Roger’s tale is more like ‘The Sweeney’, with a good measure of ‘The Professionals’ thrown in, with encounters with some of Britain’s most vicious criminals such as the notorious Kray Twins.
In his 30-year career he deals with murders, getting swept offshore in huge seas while attempting to save a huge hovercraft broken free from its moorings, and working undercover posing as a long-haired pot-smoking hippy watching Bob Dylan at Britain’s first major pop festival.
He also mixes with the Royal Family, prime ministers, wayward politicians and befriends a world famous opera singer.
“It was a wonderfully challenging but fantastic career,” Roger remembers.
The book is dedicated to whom he describes as “my friends the many brave men and women in the British police service who died or were seriously injured, and did not have the opportunity to complete their remarkable journeys.”
Now in his 80s, Roger still actively supports the community including the RNLI, Talking Newspapers for the Blind and the Active Living Group.
Roger talks on a variety of subjects to local groups and in 2015 received the Somerset County Council chairman’s award. He retired to West Somerset some years ago.
ν ‘Rogues and Royals’ is published by Vanguard Press (Pegasus) priced £6.99 and is available from numerous outlets.