Blue: A Memoir

Keeping the Peace and Falling to Pieces

By: John Sutherland

Narrated by: Charles Armstrong

John Sutherland joined the Met Police in 1992, having dreamed of being a police officer since his teens. Rising quickly through the ranks, and compelled by the opportunity to make a real difference in London's local neighbourhoods, he worked across the capital, experiencing firsthand the enormous satisfaction as well as the endless trauma that a life in blue can bring. There were remarkable, career-defining moments: reaching out to teenagers travelling along the wrong path, commanding armed sieges, rescuing victims of domestic violence from desperate situations, saving lives, and seeing dangerous people taken off the streets. But for every case that ended well, there were others that ended in desperate sadness, as he bore the responsibility for the safety of hundreds of thousands of Londoners on his shoulders.

In early 2013, whilst working as the Borough Commander for Southwark in South London, John suffered a major breakdown and a consequent battle with crippling depression. After a career spent policing the streets and racing to be first at the scenes of crimes and catastrophes, he found himself in pieces, unable to put one foot in front of the other.

Blue is a memoir of crime and calamity, of adventure and achievement, of friendship and failure, of laughter and loss, of the best and the worst of humanity, of serious illness and slow recovery. It offers an immensely moving and important insight into what it is to be a police officer in 21st-century Britain.

©2017 John Sutherland (P)2017 Orion Publishing Group

Critic reviews

" Blue is a remarkable, revealing and inspiring insight into the worlds of the police and the policed. The stories told are by turns heart-warming and saddening, moving and maddening - it is an account of the very best and the very worst of our society. It is a book which should be required reading for all who aspire to public office, in any sector and at every level." (John Nichol, best-selling author of Tornado Down)
"A superb book by a superb police officer." (Charles Cumming)