About the Series

Back in the days when Keswick (‘Hawthwaite’ in the novels) still had a police station and adjoining magistrates’ court (now jointly a restaurant), and dozens of Cumbria’s villages had a resident constable in a police house. The culture and efficiency of rural policing have now been permanently diminished.

The Cumbria Police Novels are as much about the county as they are about police work and procedures, serious crimes and lengthy investigations.  They very deliberately include a portrait of the people, the history, culture, dialect, wildlife and landscape of this remarkable region.  Indeed, most of the banner photographs at the top of each page on this website are intended to show readers a few glimpses of Cumbria and the Lake District.

Being a police officer – a ‘bobby’ – in such a wonderful area might appear laid-back and easy, but don’t be deceived! The Lake District National Park and the surrounding county of Cumbria in the extreme north west corner of England are indeed beautiful but the Lake District is also by far the most-visited national park in the world, with over 16 million people travelling here every year.  So even though the region is certainly not like big British cities in terms of crime, the huge  throughput of humanity, combined with the challenging and fragmented terrain, creates significant problems for officers of the law and the other emergency services.  Indeed, while Cumbria is the second-largest county in England, the Constabulary has one of the lowest numbers of police officers of any of the counties, yet those officers serve half a million residents in addition to the millions of tourists mentioned above.

Cumbria, the northwestern-most county in England.

I hope you enjoy the books, starting with ‘My Cup Runneth Over’ which is set in the mid-1970s.  They give a fictional but in-depth insight into the dramas, challenges, dangers and frequent laughs attached to the job of one young constable, as well as adventures and encounters in his personal life.

Very pleasingly, the writing style and very deliberate humour in this series have both repeatedly been compared to that of the famous veterinary surgeon and author James Herriot but any such similarity has never been planned. None-the-less, the fun is still only a part of it. Within the books you will also encounter things that in real life naturally cause much  fear, anger or sadness.  All too often, that’s what being a police officer involves and it takes a certain strength of character to deal with, day in and day out.

Now, keep the ‘Dialect’ and ‘Police Jargon’ tabs (at the top of each website page) handy, if you need them, and enjoy the tales! 🙂

Please feel free to post your “reader’s opinion” of the books in the Comments section of any of the blog posts (see the right-hand sidebar) or send it to me via Contact.

Steve Shearwater