“So I thought I’d be a nurse like mum.”
Instead she married young and left school to start a family.
“I was a stay-at-home mum. In those days it was the done thing . . . you were almost looked down upon if you went out to work.”
Many years later, and after separating from her husband, she recalls hearing that the police force needed 800 new recruits.
“I knew it was time for me to start looking for a career as the kids were in their teens by now, so I applied — only to be told that I was too old. The age limit was 31 back then and I was 31 and a half.
“I was a territorial (for 13 years) and thought I’d make a good cop, so I was going to contest it. But I decided that my kids were still young teenagers and needed a parent at home base.”
Four years later she started studying to become a nurse instead.
“I found out the age limit for police trainees had been raised, so I decided to apply while I was doing the nursing training.
“I loved that so much I wondered how I would leave it should the police accept my application. But it made financial sense, because you get paid to train to be in the police force — and I was living on a benefit at that stage.
“When I found out I had been selected, I started running around the block with a smile on my face knowing I was going down to police college in Porirua. I’d never been a runner before — I was thrilled.”
By this time Pam’s children, Nelson and Joanne, were 18 and 20 years old so she left them at home and went down to Porirua to begin her police training, aged 38.
“My son was disgusted that his mum was going to be a police officer, but he got used to the idea.”
She got her first job at Tauranga Police and was assigned to the Mount Maunganui branch where she worked as a front-line police officer for five years, and then in Te Puke for two.
One of the hardest parts of being on the front line was the call-outs to crashes.
“Every time a call came through on the radio telling us about a crash, I’d nervously wait to hear what make of car was involved — hoping it wasn’t Nelson.”
Amongst her most memorable policing in the Bay of Plenty was her nine years as a police negotiator, attached to the Armed Offenders Squad. For years after, every time the microwave or any digital “bing” rang she still thought it was her pager calling her out.
“I wasn’t the same person after working on the front line. The shift work was hard on your body, it messes with your circadian rhythms because every week we’d work a different shift over a five-week rotation.”
Pam had always imagined progressing up the ranks and becoming a detective but when she saw the incredible stress her detective colleagues were under and the huge work-load, she decided to look at other options.
“So I decided to start training to be a youth education officer.
“Once I started, I couldn’t believe I was being paid to do something so fantastic.
“I never had any inclination of doing anything along those lines. In fact, I was being very courageous doing the youth ed because it wasn’t very well respected. It was considered just about lower than the dogs in the hierarchy.
“A lot of police thought youth ed should have been privatised — that cops shouldn’t be doing it.”
By this time Pam was “very single” and had started to go to Table for Six, a dinner dating club for singles.
“I was just about to give up and had decided I’d go to one more dinner — I had met some fantastic women through Table for Six but the men who went were single for a very good reason.”
That night she met her now husband Peter.
With their mutual love of all things country, dogs and horses, they hit it off.
“Pete was always talking about moving to Gisborne as he’d come here as a young surfer and stayed and raised his family here.”
So Pam decided to see if she could be transferred to Gisborne as a youth education officer, now called a school community officer, and it just happened to coincide with Tui Keenan taking maternity leave.
So she was offered the job and the couple moved here in January 2007.
For the past 12 years Pam has trained countless Gisborne children as road patrollers, traffic wardens and bus monitors, and taught them cycle safety working with Gisborne Cycles and BDO.
She is a driving mentor and has been involved in SADD (students against dangerous driving), which teaches the principles of sober driving, safe speeds, no distractions, avoiding risks, driving to the conditions and building experience.
Pam has worked with schools to teach the importance of safe, successful relationships, which encompasses anti-bullying, anti-abuse and anti-drugs education.
She has also been instrumental in running the Gotcha Safety Programme (commenced 2017) through Blue Light, where she and her team got sponsors on board to reward children and families for good practice around road safety.
In her retirement Pam hopes to continue working with Gisborne Girls’ High School on the Loves Me Not programme, which teaches the importance of healthy relationships and recognising when things become unhealthy.
This is an education programme created after Sophie Elliot was murdered by her former boyfriend, and her mother wanted to educate New Zealanders to help them recognise the signs she had missed.
As a police officer Pam has always been proactive about keeping fit and healthy, and said she had to keep up her firearms and taser training and online learning while in the force.
She and Peter live on a lifestyle block at Whangara where she has two horses, two dogs, one cat, 10 chooks and 13 ducks, and Peter does home-kill butchery.
A natural horsewoman who got her first horse when she was 11, Pam enjoys horse trekking and has a fully-equipped horse truck which she takes on the road.
“I love Whangara and Pete can never retire because I’ve retired now,” she jokes.
She plans to sell her beloved horse truck and buy a horse float, and an “upmarket camper van” so they can do some travelling.
“Pete hasn’t been to the South Island yet so we plan to go on some tiki tours next year.”
Pam has become a fixture in the Gisborne school community and will miss her police role in youth education. But she is ready to enjoy some serious sleep-ins and also plans to visit her grandchildren in Denmark in the near future. She also goes back to visit Joanne, Toni and her grandson in Katikati on a regular basis, so she knows she will have plenty to keep her busy as she eases into a well-earned retirement.
