A RAF POLICEMAN from Puddletown has just returned from the 'trip of a lifetime' on a detachment in Australia.

Flight Sergeant Barrie Tanswell, now serving at RAF Kinloss in Scotland, was taking part in an annual personnel exchange with Australian and New Zealand Forces.

Named Exercise Long Look 05, it was held to 'broaden the experience and professional knowledge of selected personnel'.

Flt Sgt Tanswell said: "I worked as an instructor teaching arrest and restraint techniques at the police school in Brisbane where the Australian Air Force recruits were in the last six weeks of their course.

"After that I served on an air force base for a week before touring the rest of the country's bases.

"I got to visit all the usual tourism sites along the way including Gold Beach, the Great Barrier Reef and Surfers Paradise.

"I even went to the Australia Zoo where crocodile hunter Steve Irwin works and had my picture taken with a koala." Flt Sgt Tanswell also managed to find time to meet up with relatives he had never seen before.

He added: "I met the daughter of one of my aunts and she brought her son with her, and we had a great day getting to know each other in Sydney."

Sgt Tanswell has been in the RAF Police for 25 years, having signed up at the Careers Information Office in Bournemouth in 1979.

He has also been awarded an MBE for his charity work and fundraising activities within the armed forces for Age Concern.