Honour at last for police dead
A national police memorial will be unveiled in London next week after a decade-long campaign by film director Michael Winner.
The memorial takes the form of a black-clad stone tablet, with a glass box set into its face.
Inside this vitrine is a book of remembrance which lists the names of every British policeman and woman who has died in the course of duty.
Alongside the memorial, at Cambridge Green, near Horse Guards Road, is a slender glass wall, which will be illuminated to echo the blue lamp that once burned outside every police station. The twin memorials stand on Portland stone.
It will be unveiled on Tuesday at a ceremony attended by the Queen.
The design is by Lord Foster, the architect whose creations include the Swiss Re tower - nicknamed the Gherkin - and City Hall.
Mr Winner, chairman of the Police Memorial Trust, said he was inspired to create a tribute to the police dead after Pc Yvonne Fletcher was shot outside the Libyan embassy in 1984.
He said: "I was absolutely determined that the police have this memorial. They are fighting a war and, unlike the other services, their war has no beginning and no end."
Mr Winner said of the memorial: "It is a wonderful design, so simple."
It was erected on the site despite objections from groups including the London Historical parks group and a residents' body.
It stands on a sensitive site, but Mr Winner was helped in gaining permission by the fact that the memorial conceals an unattractive Underground vent.
The pages of the book inside the memorial will be turned from time to time, to display new names. Officers who have recently been killed will have their names displayed on a page of their own.
The memorial has been sponsored by the Police Memorial Trust, which for more than 20 years has placed plaques and organised ceremonies at the site of each death.
There are about 1,600 names in the memorial book, which records the details of each officer who has died on duty since records started three centuries ago.
Foster and Partners and other contractors gave their services free.
