Young P.C. (Robert) Malcolm "Malcy" Tarte
We recently received the following e-mail message from Tom Tarte, the son of former P.C. (Robert) Malcolm “Malky Tarte, who served here in the Bermuda Police from May 1969 – January 1972.
Good evening,
My name is Tom Tarte and I am the son of the late Malcolm ‘Malky’ Tarte. My father passed nearly 20 years ago now in 2003 and despite only being a young boy at that time, I still remember the stories he shared about his time in Bermuda. Most of what I know about him is from other people and I would very much appreciate it if you could ask around and see if anyone has any stories to tell,or maybe pictures to share? Is there any chance I could get a larger size of the photograph you have of him and his boxing buddies on your website?
He served between May 1969 and January 1972 as a police constable, service no.198.
Kind Regards,
Tom Tarte
Normally, this is not a great problem because the Police Register at Police HQ has an almost, but not quite complete list of most of the men and women who have served in the Bermuda Police from the 1950’s to the 1990’s. There is one double-sided page for each officer, providing details such as date of birth, previous employment, date of joining, transfers, promotions, commendations, details of marriages and children, courses attended, sick leave, etc.
Prior to 1950 all police officers were listed in the Blue Books now stored in the Government Archives. From approximately 1990 the system changed to storing a file folder at Police HQ for each individual officer and these folders were stored at Police HQ separately from the old police registers. Most unfortunately, the room where they were stored was neither air conditioned nor de-humidified for several years resulting in them being badly attacked by mould causing them to deteriorate. The mould is so bad that no-one is allowed to enter this storage room without protective gear, and no-one from Expo is allowed into the room.
From around 2000, records started to be stored in another area and these are now held at Hamilton Police Station where they are kept in good conditions.
Sadly, at this point we cannot find the police register file for Malcom Tarte, and therefore we can find no official record of where he served during his 2 ½ years in Bermuda.
However, on checking out “Coop’s List” compiled by D.C. Dave Cooper while he was serving in the BPS, we see that Malky Tarte joined on 14th May 1969 along with Stephen Bond, Wilson “Bill” Buchanan, Kevin Brennan, Rex Osborne, Brian Morgan, Peter Counsell, John Wilkins, Clive Crossman, Mervyn “Merv” Willey, John Copas, and Peter Moore. Malky is also listed on John Skinner’s List of Police Officers 1879-1979 which you can CLICK HERE to view.
Since the early 1950’s new recruits hired in the UK would attend a 3 month training course at the Police College at Mill Meece, in Staffordshire, prior to coming out to Bermuda, whereas local recruited officers would either spend a few days reading through manuals and law books at Hamilton Station, or sometimes attend a short course held at Prospect using an instructor brought out from the UK.
On his arrival as Commissioner of Police in 1961, George Robins recognized the huge disparity in training for local recruits compared with overseas recruits. Commissioner Robins was instrumental in creating our own Police Training School which opened in 1961, and from that time onwards all previously untrained police recruits would attend a 3 month Basic Training Course at Prospect.
A policy was introduced to photograph all new recruits at the end of their Basic Training Courses, and we are in the process of posting all the Basic Training Course photos here on our website under Training Courses. CLICK HERE to view the list which has so far included all the Basic Training Courses from 1961 – 1981. We plan to publish them up-to-date by the end of this year.
Most unfortunately, this did not apply to new recruits with previous police experience who had already undergone a 3 month courses in the UK. They would attend a brief “Localisation Course” usually held for several days, or approximately one week, and it was rare to have an official course photo taken for these “Localisation Courses”.
Getting back to the request from Tom Tarte for information and possible photos of his father, we have so far not been able to find his record in the Police Register or any photo taken when he and his group attended their “Localisation Course” .
On searching our website we were able to locate two photos of “Malky”, one of him when he was due to fight in our annual Boxing Tournament, and the other is an excellent group photo of Eastern Division (St. George’s) taken in 1970 in which Malcy is in civvies and may well have been serving as an Aide in Eastern CID. We blew up the section of the photo of Malcy and used it to head this article.
Eastern Divisional Photo - taken in the Fall of 1970
(l-r) Front row - Sgt. John "Rigor" Morris, Sgt Barrie Meade, COP George Duckett,
St. George's OIC Insp Peter Stubbs, Sgt Mike Burke, and Sgt Brian Flook,
2nd Row - Alan Kennedy, Brian Anderson, Frank Smith, D/Sgt Dudley Swan, Sgt Eric "Wee Eckie" Laing,
D/Sgt Laurie Jackson, Mike Cresswell (deceased) and Neil Cox
3rd Row - Bill Cree, Angus Brown, David Furbert, Malcolm Tarte, Patrick Hamlett, Perry Fox, Dave Inwood
4th row - Arden Cato, Laurie Phillips, Paul Hendrick, Mel Gibbons, Robert "Bob" Payne, John Wilkinson,
Paul Yates, Dave Purcell, Winston Esdaille, Roger Hind
Top Row - M. Sample, Stephen Bond, Ken Bent, Ronnie Boggan, ?
On checking the list of Malky's colleagues when he first arrived on Island, we found two members of that group who are still on Island, and they are Rex Osborne and Peter Counsell. Rex has very good reason to remember Malky because they fought against each other in the annual Police Boxing Tournament in 19?? Not only did they fight against each together, Rex and Malky won “Fight of the Night” with Rex awarded the decision.
Below is the boxing photo referred to by Tom Tarte in his email. We are not yet sure of the year it was taken.
Police Boxing officials and participants - Year?
(l-r) Arthur Wallington, Alex Forbes, Mike Caulkett, Eric Sanderson,
Rex Osborne, Syd Gordon, Ian "Baby" Douris, Ron Wallace,
Howard "Stumpy" Kirkham, Malky Tarte, Mike Palmer, and Brinley Jones
In one of his subsequent emails Tom passed on the following information about his father:-
“After leaving Bermuda in ’72, I think he also left the police behind. I’m not entirely sure when as he doesn’t meet my mother until ’86 but I know for a fact that in the early ‘80s he had started work in a factory. He would remain at this factory, Copperweld, advancing to factory manager until his death in late October 2003 after a short illness. He was a Shropshire lad so when he returned to the UK, he settled only a few miles from the home he was born in and he also took up running, ran in the first London Marathon as well as the second and some more closer to home.”
We have passed these photos on to Tom and we are asking any of our colleagues who can provide information about Malky or any photos to please contact us either through our website at info@expobermuda.com or through our ExPo Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BDAExPolice
First published
5th June 2022
