LO70

Dave, It is possible to trace the officer with his clothes number as they are unique to each officer. This is not his force number however. Sgt's wore their stripes on the sleeve of their tunic but their number was displayed on their shoulder. Later the chevrons (stripes) and number were both displayed on the shoulder when wearing jumpers or short coats. Its true that officers from the rank of Inspector upwards did display a clothes number. It was not really necessary are there were only a few of them and not much chance of getting tunics etc mixed up. There rank of course was displayed on the shoulder. The R was necessary as reserve police were numbered numerically like regular officers so without the R there would be duplication of every number. Nowadays PSNI officers were their clothes number in the same way as the RUC did and they display their name, unit or station but not their force number. Hope this helps. Regards R

I would concur with the other replies. The tunic was still being worn well into the 80's and even with the issue of the more practical jumpers and short coats was still worn for court appearances and performing court duty and other more formal occasions. The shoulder number is known as the clothes number and is not the officers actual force number. It was simply there to identify whose tunic was whose. It was common for officers to write there actual force number on the inside label however. The letter 'R' does indeed signify Reserve, of which there were Part time and Full time officers mainly engaged in security duty. Regards