Dave,
i have read the comments about what was worn on the epaulettes of the RUC tunic and the information while well intentioned is incorrect. Every officer was given a unique force number when they joined, males had a number only, women had a number preceded by PW. Reserve officers numbers were allocated differently, males had an R preceding their Force Number and females had an RW.
As Force Numbers were unique to each officer it was not practicable to issue a set of shoulder numerals matching the force number to each officer, otherwise they would have had to discarded once that officer left the RUC. Therefore on joining, each officer was allocated a set of numerals and they could be either 4-digits or 5 digits and were issued to male & female officers. Reserve officers had an R permanently attached to the top of the numerals and were issued to males & females. The shoulder numerals were reissued when an officer left the police or was promoted to the rank of Inspector and above (they wore badges of rank only).
The shoulder numerals were not a clothes number, nor were they used to distinguish who owned what tunic. The shoulder numerals were worn by Constables & Sergeants in order for members of the public to identify individual officers, particularly in the event of a complaint about an officer. In addition Sergeants wore their badge of rank (Gold chevrons) on the right sleeve only. Officers were not allowed to wear the numerals of other officers.
Hopefully this helps
Peter
