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After a childhood spent watching Z Cars and Dixon of Dock Green, I'd studied criminology at university, so a career in the police force seemed appealing. And a neat marketing campaign trumpeting the independence, the responsibility, the fast-track career path for graduates ... blah blah ... swayed me. Contemporaries were heading off to cut-throat jobs in the City and accountancy, ready to be trained in the art of exploiting the world, whereas I was off to save it - or so I thought.

So it was that PC 1926 Paul Seligman came into existence and from the outset it was an unmitigated disaster. The whole point of a university education, other than running up large overdrafts and drinking too much, is to learn to think and to question things. But I rapidly learned that 'why?' was not looked on very favourably in the police force. Indeed, the only possible response to any instruction, no matter how bizarre or downright stupid, was a chirpy 'Yes Sir!'.

If ever there was anyone less suited to the police, it has to be me and why careers counsellors, lecturers, family, basically anyone who knew me failed to point this out is a great mystery. I have always been, and remain, an awkward git or an unfettered, creative free-thinker (depending on whether you like me or not). I was never going to accept mindless authority unquestioningly or play by the rules when, to my mind, there was a blindingly better way of doing something. Unsurprisingly, the police force and I did not make a happy team and the result was a rapid exit.

I stayed such a short time that I have no photographs of me in uniform but, as soon as my hair had grown back to an acceptable length, I had this one taken. Clearly a spell in the force hadn't dulled my fashion sense!

Within a few months I'd found my true vocation joining Seagrams USA as an international marketing trainee. After all, if marketing had lured me into the police force, it was obviously a smart industry to be in.

On reflection, I rather regret not having made a career in the police.

They need a few non-conformists to shake things up and I suspect that, in the current climate of greater tolerance and flexibility, both of us would be much better suited now.