SIX months ago, new recruits Rob Kilgour, Andy Henson and Emma Cooper took their first tentative steps out on to the streets of Chippenham as police officers.

Since then they have tackled burglars, caught shoplifters and fraudsters, talked to grieving parents and arrested thieves, but have found the law-abiding residents of the town to be friendly and respectful of the police.

Already they have been praised by their superiors for their professionalism. And all three agree they love their job and have no regrets about joining Wiltshire police.

PC Henson, who joined the force as a teenager and has since celebrated his 20th birthday, is looking forward to at least another 30 years of policing as he says he has found his dream career.

PC Kilgour, an ex-Royal Marine and civil servant, is 37 and only wishes he had joined the police earlier.

WPC Cooper, 22 has been learning about the administrative side of policing after a knee injury sustained just weeks into her new job has unfortunately kept her from patrolling the streets for some months.

PC Kilgour is still as enthusiastic as he was on day one and said he enjoys every aspect of the job.

"It is everything I expected and more," he said.

"I've found the fact I'm a bit older than everybody else has been more of a benefit for me than a hindrance and I'm loving every minute of this job."

The Scotsman, who has moved to Chippenham with his wife, has raced ahead and completed all the tasks he is required to carry out within his two year probationary period already.

"I am attached to a very very active shift and this has made it easier for me to get all the various competencies ticked off," he said.

"There's also been a very big chunk of luck because of the variety of jobs I have been to.

"I've been happy with every job I've done, even it's meant standing out in the pouring rain closing a road off to prevent accidents."

But, as PC Kilgour explained, not every job is as easy as the next.

When young boxer Ranje Singh's mother found him dead in his bedroom surrounded by empty aerosol cans and sherry bottles, PC Kilgour was one of the first on the scene at the house in Charter Road, Chippenham.

"You've got to know where to put your emotions," he said.

"You don't want to show it when you've got a parent there trying to think how to grieve after finding her son in those circumstances.

"It sounds tough but you have to keep yourself together and put your emotions to one side otherwise you'd never be able to go on to the next job."

PC Henson, who used to work in Halfords and was a special constable before joining the regular force, has found Chippenham to be a quieter beat to patrol than he had imagined.

"In all honesty it is quieter than I thought, although I'm not saying there aren't times when it's very busy," he said.

"When I was a special in Trowbridge it was constant and you never had time to stop.

"Here you do, which is good because it means you can spend more time with the public and the injured persons."

In fact PC Henson's favourite part of the job is meeting members of the public, the majority of whom he has found helpful and friendly.

"It is good interacting with the public," he said.

"Sometimes it's nice on a Friday or Saturday night when you're out patrolling the streets and people just want to come up and say hello. It makes a change if they don't want to spit at you. But in general people in Chippenham are very pro police anyway."

On one memorable job PC Henson said he and a colleague arrested two men who had hundreds of pounds worth of forged banknotes hidden away in every conceivable nook and cranny of their van.

"At first I didn't have a clue what we were going to arrest them for because it's the not the sort of thing you'd go through at training school," he said.

"This job has given me a much wider outlook on life."

PC Henson's boss, Sergeant Willie Glasgow, says he has the makings of an excellent constable.

"He is confident, enthusiastic, has had a good grounding and is coming on very well. Now he just needs to go out and bring his own style of policing to the job," he said

"He is certainly capable of becoming a very good police officer."

PC Kilgour said the best thing about the job was the way colleagues stuck together as a team and were willing to help each other out.

"The comradeship is first class," he said. "The only regret I have is not starting this job years ago."

PC Kilgour's boss, Sgt Wayne Bagnall, said: "Rob is exceptional. I've never come across a better probationer, and I think that's because he has a lot of experience of life.

"He is consistently good and everyone who has dealings with him says exactly the same."

Sgt Bagnall said it was obvious how much PC Kilgour loved his new job, to the extent it was sometimes difficult to send him home at the end of a shift.

WPC Cooper's knee injury happened in a car accident, and she has been doing light duties ever since.

She is currently off sick after having had an operation last week, and is now keener than ever to get back into the job.

"I've been keeping up with a lot of courses at headquarters and doing admin work but now I really can't wait to get back into it.

"I hurt my knee just ten weeks after I started and I had just been certified for independent patrol. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to work and out on shift in about a month."