Our police officers are traditionally known as “the boys in blue”, but this month, crime-busting Auckland mother-daughter duo Robyn and Alison Brand are celebrating 75 years since women were able to join the New Zealand Police.
Now retired, mum-of-three Robyn is delighted that her daughter is carrying on her legacy and proud of how far the force has come in just two generations. She says, “It was a little different back when I started in 1967 because they hadn’t worked out what to do with women. Not in a nasty way, but men took on a more paternalistic role. They were protective and unsure about what we could do.”
Robyn gives a girl a piggy-back ride at an event in London.
Dunedin-born, Wellington-raised Robyn, 69, started her career in the UK, where she spent a year on the beat in London and going undercover in its clubs. By the time she returned to New Zealand, attitudes towards the roles of women were finally shifting.
Women were allowed to join NZ Police in 1941, but they originally had to be single or widowed and weren’t allowed to drive its vehicles. While female officers wear trousers nowadays, when Robyn started out in the ’60s, she was given a knee-length pencil skirt, stockings and suspenders, and a handbag to carry her notebook and handcuffs. She’s grateful she left the force before the miniskirt was introduced in the ’70s.
Laughs Robyn, “The uniform was completely impractical, but back then, they didn’t expect us to be running down streets and jumping fences!” Instead, her duties consisted of walking the beat, answering the phones and driving the sergeant around.
While Robyn beams as she recounts bonding with her colleagues and the amazing assignments she was sent on, there is one case that still haunts her – the Wellington maritime tragedy, the Wahine disaster.
The grandmother-of-seven is silent for a moment before talking about working in the morgue on April 10, 1968. She was tasked with cleaning over 50 half-clothed bodies and sorting the victims into age and sex, ready for the grieving families to arrive to identify their loved ones.
“You put the shield down and you deal with it, but of course there weren’t the systems they have on the force now,” tells Robyn. “We tried to do our very best to treat the bodies with respect and make it as easy as possible for those poor families.”
In her “completely impractical” ’60s uniform.
It wasn’t long after that Robyn’s policing career was cut short, when she fell pregnant with her first child Greg. “Once you start showing, you’re gone,” she tells. “I was only three months along when I left.”
It’s another stark difference between the experiences of mother and daughter – today, the uniform includes maternity wear! A mum of three girls, Alison, 43, worked right up until all her due dates and took nine months of maternity leave for each daughter, before returning to work flexible hours – something that wasn’t available in the ’60s.
For Alison, it was a natural fit to follow in her parents’ footsteps – her father Geoff was also a cop, for 38 years. Too young to apply straight out of high school, she spent the next three years completing a degree, before enrolling at Police College. Her brother Greg, 47, also joined the force that year and is now a detective sergeant in the Criminal Investigation Branch.
That was 22 years ago and now, as an inspector with Police in Counties Manukau, Alison manages 90 staff and oversees the area-based policing teams that include the Serious Crash Unit, Highway Patrol and Road Crime Unit.
It’s a senior position that was incomprehensible for a woman to hold in Robyn’s time. “I am so impressed with the calibre of the policewomen I’ve met,” smiles Robyn. “They are intelligent, capable, confident, physically strong – and wearing pants. You wouldn’t want to scrap with them!”
Alison, who is also the chairperson of the police’s Women’s Advisory Network, is equally full of praise for Robyn’s generation. “Mum was a ground-breaker, coming through in the ‘60s. For me, my job is to continue that and be a role model to my girls.”
And what a role model they have! Proud mum Robyn is confident Alison’s three daughters will carry on in the family business. “We should get a least one of the girls,” she laughs. “My eye is on the youngest one!”
