Customs officers will never top the polls in a survey of popular professions - their role in life is to sniff out those passing through the nation's ports and airports loaded up with illegal booty. Charged with searching for the illegal trafficking of drugs, alcohol, endangered species and even people, the officers deal with aggravated and aggressive types on a daily basis. It's a thankless task, and a job made none the easier by the antipathy with which many of the cornered suspects regard the officials. Jim Feeney, Dover branch secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, says customs officers are under considerable pressure. They get a lot of verbal abuse.
Some people try to kick our officers out of the way.
You just think it's part of the job, but when it happens on a daily basis, it can wear you down. If we tried to look at everyone, you'd have a traffic queue back to Marseille. If you've got a Rolls-Royce pulling up and they say they're miners from Durham, you'd think something didn't smell right. Changing times The officers must keep up to date with immigration and drug laws, and are trained how to interview people, make arrests, and identify concealed goods. Twenty-five years ago, when I was doing the job, it was just booze and fags.