JOE Dyson didn’t need to go and see the world. The world came to see him.

Huddersfield-born Joe, a former Special Branch policeman, is now aged 79 and lives in London.

He was a bodyguard for a long succession of world-famous folk, not least our own Harold Wilson, PM Jim Callaghan and MP Roy Jenkins.

But he also shadowed Emperor Hirohito of Japan and his sister-in-law, Princess Chichibu, the Kings of Belgium, Malaysia and Jordan, Queen Frederika of Greece, Imelda Marcos, President Nixon, and the leaders of Uganda and Bangladesh.

He ‘baby-sat’ Jacob Cohen of Tesco, the evangelist Billy Graham, and the Prime Ministers of Egypt, Israel and Japan.

His story starts in Huddersfield. He was born the eldest of three children to John Dyson and his wife Ethel, nee Valentine.

“According to my birth certificate, my mother was a housewife and my father was a ‘scribbling engineer’ – probably a posh designation for fettler,” said Joe.

“The later years of his working life were spent at Crowther and Nicholson’s mill near Woodhouse.”

Joe was educated at Stile Common and Hillhouse Schools until 1944, but, by his own admission, didn’t pay much attention.

“I believed my destiny was to prevent the Luftwaffe from blowing Huddersfield’s renowned Georgian railway station to smithereens and, to a lesser extent, stopping the total domination of Europe by Nazi Germany.

“In my mind’s eye, though not in my teachers’, I was a Spitfire pilot, sending the imaginary Messerschmitts and Heinkels lurking in the cumulus over Fartown Bar crashing in flames into Fixby golf course.”

With the early death of Joe’s mother, Joe was a frequent visitor to his supportive paternal grandparents, Lily and Dan Dyson, of Lightridge Row Cottage.

“Lily and Dan had selflessly cared for my father, sister Sonia and me since the death of my mother,” said Joe.

“I regret not telling them of the gratitude and admiration I felt for them before they died in their 90s. To say they sacrificed what should have been their retirement years would be the understatement of the millennium.”

Sonia now lives in Newsome with her husband, Ronnie Donkersley, a semi-retired joiner. Their children, Alan and Lynne, live with their families in Kirkheaton and Golcar.

Joe’s brother, Ronnie, was cared for by Mrs Linda Firth, their mother’s sister. Ronnie, now living in Marsden with his wife Maria and son Stephen, is described affectionately by Joe as ‘an unsung, talented self-taught artist, the Van Gogh of Marsden’.

After school, Joe did day release and evening classes in electrical engineering at the then Huddersfield Technical College. Those studies were linked with apprenticeships at an electrical company in Venn Street (1944-46) and W S Weston and Sons of Colne Road (1946-48).

Joe recalls trips by bus as far afield as Elland and Halifax with a string of electricity meters round his neck, on his way to convert homes from gas to electricity.

“In June 1948, I was conscripted into National Service, the bulk of which was spent as an RAF Police Corporal (a Snowdrop) at number three Flying Training School, RAF Feltwell, an isolated airfield in bleakest Norfolk.

“My RAF ‘bobbies’ job’ taught me one valuable lesson: that there are easier ways of making a living than bussing around with a string of electrical meters around my neck.”

Shortly after demobilisation in May 1950, Joe was accepted by the Metropolitan Police as a constable and was soon directing traffic, often in the shadow of Big Ben. It was a job he found tedious, soul-destroying, and the most physically and mentally demanding police officers had to endure.

One of his police duties as part of the Royal Division was guarding monuments, palaces, Number 10 and other government buildings.

“Sadly, police duties around those glamorous sounding places are almost as soul-destroying as impersonating windmills in traffic,” said Joe.

“Anyone who thinks otherwise should spend a cold night languishing on the garden terrace of Buck House, as Buckingham Palace is known.”

Joe studied Pitman’s shorthand and French to qualify for Special Branch work at the ‘Loony-bin’, as Scotland Yard is known to its inmates.

After spells of uniform duties in Central and SW London, he served in that branch from March 1955 until retiring in November 1980 as a detective inspector.