Young P.C. Alistair "Bronco" Lane
Alistair “Bronco” Lane - We have just heard from Kirsty (Lane) Jones, the daughter of former P.C. Alistair “Bronco” Lane who served here in the Bermuda Police from September 1963 to May 1965 before returning to the UK where he joined the Royal Military Police.
Whilst serving in the RMP Alistair married and had two children, Kirsty and her brother Callum. Shortly after being deployed to Northern Ireland in 1973, Alistair was tragically killed in a car accident - while Kirsty and Callum were still very young. Kirsty has confirmed that he father died on 30th May 1973.
Kirsty had checked our ExPo website in a search for information about her father. Alistair’s name appears in our 100 year List of Officers who served here between 1879 and 1979, but he was not recorded on our List of Deceased former police officers because we were not aware of his tragic passing.
Kirsty has very little information about her father’s time here in Bermuda and is wondering if there is anyone who served with him who might have any memories of Alistair to pass on to her and her brother.
As you can see from the above photo, we found Alistair’s file, including his old warrant card photo in the police register at Prospect. The file indicated that he was born in Gloucester in 1939, that he had served in the 11th Hussars from 1958 – 1960, and had served in the Gloucester Constabulary from October 1961 – September 1963.
Following his arrival in Bermuda we believe he was initially posted to Western Division, residing in the single men's quarters in Somerset. He also served Central Division – Hamilton Police Station.
We know that Alistair was an active member of the Police Rugby Team and that he travelled to New York with a Renegades Rugby Club team that included guest players from BAA and the Police Rugby team. Other police officers in the team included Dennis Byrne, Alex Forbes, Dave Lunn, John Rawson, Jack Rouse, Frank Sykes, Thomas “Taffy” Thomas, and, of course, Alistair “Bronco” Lane who was clearly quite a character as he is the man in the photo wearing a pithe helmet, carrying the Renegades rugby ball, wearing what appears to be a dressing gown, and waving an umbrella!
Members of Renegades Rugby Football Club (and guests)We published an article about this “Historic Rugby Tour” in our Who, Where and When column. CLICK HERE to view the article,
We are reaching out to those members of our Police Rugby Team from that era to see if anyone has any personal recollections of Alistair, and we would ask anyone who might be able to provide us with any anecdotes of Alistair to please get in touch with either myself or at our website at info@expobermuda.com
EDITOR'S NOTE - In our correspondence with Kirsty she spells her father's first name "Alistair" but in our official records including the Police register his name is spelled "Alastair". Kirsty has checked other documentation about her father and it appears that he normally spelled his name as "Alistair". We have now added Alistair to our "List of Deceased Former Bermuda Police Officers". CLICK HERE to view the list. At this point we have no idea how Alistair became known as "Bronco" whilst here in Bermuda but we have also added his name and nickname to our article "Nicknames - A Bermuda Tradition". CLICK HERE to view the article.