Edinburgh's first-ever female police driver and a trailblazer for gender equality in policing revisited her old beat, 70 years after first donning the uniform.
Mary d'Arcy Kincaid, 91, began her career as a PC with Edinburgh City Police in 1953 and worked in the city's Southside.
In 1956, she broke down gender barriers by applying to be trained as a police driver and was accepted onto the course.
Mary d'Arcy Kincaid, 91, began her career as a PC with Edinburgh City Police in 1953 and worked in the city's Southside.
In 1956, she broke down gender barriers by applying to be trained as a police driver and was accepted onto the course.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 I knew a chief superintendent and his family in Berwickshire. He always said, "Join the
00:09 police, join the police." He wanted me to join. I was qualified as a secretary and I
00:15 thought, "I wonder what they do, policewomen?" I found out soon enough, secretarial, when
00:22 I did join. The reason I applied, the chief superintendent of the traffic department obviously
00:31 didn't want women drivers. We got circular memos every time there were vacancies for
00:40 various departments. It came out one day and it said, "Vacancies for the traffic department."
00:49 The constable should submit their name. Now it didn't say he, it didn't say she, but
01:00 it said constable. So I thought, "Oh, apply." I had a bit of mischief in me as well. I applied
01:12 the next day. Within 24 hours I was pulled up in front of our chief inspector. "What's
01:21 this Mary?" Put it on the table. "You've applied for the traffic department. You know
01:29 they don't take women in the traffic department." I said, "Well it didn't say that on the memo
01:34 that came out. Applicants, constables." I said, "So I applied, it didn't say he. You
01:44 can't see he on there." I said, "I could chat with him because I'd done quite a lot
01:48 of work for him, clerical work." He said, "Oh well, I'll put it through." Two weeks
01:56 later I celebrated because I was invited down for anything from two days to two weeks driving
02:06 tuition. I went down with four men. One guy had two weeks tuition. He only gave me two
02:14 days and I was broken hearted. I couldn't even get one more day and he said, "No, no,
02:21 it would go against you." It's an absolute pleasure to be able to come to recognise the
02:26 contribution that Mary has made to policing without a shadow of a doubt. She's absolutely
02:31 been a trailblazer in terms of being able to show that actually women are as capable
02:37 as their male colleagues and that actually there shouldn't be anything that actually
02:41 without due regard that we can't achieve whenever we put our minds to it. I think there's been
02:46 really significant changes across society and particularly within Police Scotland. We
02:51 are far more representative in terms of the numbers of females that we have across all
02:55 ranks and grades within the organisation and a whole lot of specialisms and a wide variety
03:01 of roles. I think from our perspective it absolutely has been such progress made. Still
03:07 work to be done but absolutely 100% committed to continuing to ensure that we have an equal
03:12 and inclusive policing culture and wider society as a whole.
03:17 [End of Audio]
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