Widows of RUC officers say they feel betrayed at changes in NI policing

Ida Donaldson recounts how her husband waved as he left home and promised he would give her a hug that evening, the evening of February 28th, 1985 - but he never came home. RUC Chief Inspector Alec Donaldson (41) was one of nine officers killed when an IRA mortar bomb exploded in Newry RUC station, the worst single atrocity against the force during the Troubles.

The mother-of-three says she can never imagine a day when she could accept the newly titled Police Service of Northern Ireland. "Alec served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary and I will always be an RUC widow," she says.

Mrs Donaldson says she felt distressed and sickened when she listened to this week's announcement by Mr Peter Mandelson that the British government would accept the bulk of the Patten report.

"There are those in our midst and especially amongst the so-called great and the good - by and large the least-affected by violence - who glibly call for us who have been hurt to forget the past," she adds.

Mrs Donaldson, who is involved with the anti-agreement Long March committee, says supporters of the police watched "almost with disbelief" at the unfolding of the Patten proposals. However, she says, she has also been hurt by the Ulster Unionist Party's agreement to establish the Executive with Sinn Fein ministers.

Mrs Jean McCrum's husband, Ernie (61), was an RUC sergeant who served the force for 36 years and had only three months to retirement when he was killed. He was working one Saturday in his wife's antique shop in the predominantly Protestant town of Lisburn, Co Antrim, when an IRA gunman struck.

Mrs McCrum now works in the RUC gift shop located at the RUC's sports and leisure complex at Newforge in south Belfast where she is surrounded by RUC memorabilia and souvenirs. She insists that the changing of the "honoured" name and badge were not necessary.

"I know what I've come through these last nine years and what Ernie's family have come through; life changed overnight for me. I feel that all that has just been brushed to one side. Peter Mandelson just wants to start afresh again and forget what has happened," she says.

By giving the Patten proposals their seal of approval, the British government effectively belittled the work of the force over the years, according to Mrs McCrum. "All these changes that are being made is just making it appear as though the police didn't do their job and what they did do was wrong. That's how I feel and it's very hurtful to me."

The name of the RUC was only changed to please republican paramilitaries not to satisfy the law-abiding population of Northern Ireland, Catholic or Protestant, she adds.

"I think there was no reason that Roman Catholics couldn't and didn't join the RUC as it was. My husband worked with many Roman Catholics and had very good friends among them. I can't see why more didn't join. They should have encouraged them to join and left it as it was."

Trade in the gift shop was booming this week with orders coming in from Britain, Australia and Canada for tiepins, cufflinks, engraved crystal, anything with the RUC crest.

"One hundred per cent of the people that come through this door feel exactly the same about the changes made to the RUC as I do - totally betrayed," she says. The chairwoman of the RUC widows' association, Mrs Iona Meyers, says members were disappointed by the Northern Secretary's statement in the House of Commons because "everything they held dear" had been done away with.

Her husband, Gary (34) a constable, was shot and killed by the IRA along with a colleague in 1990 while they were on patrol close to the Falls Road. Mrs Meyers was one of two widows who earlier this month accompanied Mr Les Rodgers of the Northern Ireland Police Federation to Downing Street to submit a 400,000-signature petition calling for the retention of the name and the badge.

She stresses it is important for the group members to be there to support each other at this time but admits all avenues to resist the changes may be closed off. "I don't know if there's anything left we can do. It just seems that minds are set," she says.