Keeping the job in the family
	Name: Lynn and Pete Varley
	Position: Traffic Officers
	Location: East Midlands Regional Control

When Highways Agency Traffic Officers Lynn and Pete Varley took their wedding vows to stay together, they didn't think that years later they would be taking them so literally.

The couple who live in Nottinghamshire now work together as part of a team of more than 120 Traffic officers who help motorists on the motorways and major A roads in the East Midlands.

Lynn has worked in the control room at the East Midlands Regional Control Centre, off junction 26 of the M1, since the traffic officer service launched there in February 2006.

Pete joined the service last July and is an on-road traffic officer patrolling the motorways. He is based at Shepshed outstation in Leicestershire.

This isn't the first time the couple, who have been married for 26 years, have worked together. In fact they met when both were police officers in the Nottinghamshire Constabulary.

Pete joined the police force in 1972 and was a member of the traffic and motorcycle section between 1976 and 1985. Part of this service was throughout the miners strike in 1984.

"There was a lot less traffic then," he said, "But we still saw the same kind of driver behaviour back then as we see on the motorways today." He moved on to become a divisional sergeant and custody sergeant, but is now back on the roads more than 20 years later as a uniformed patrol as part of the Highways Agency.

Lynn worked as a psychiatric nurse, before joining the police and then leaving to bring up the couple's two sons. She returned to work in nursing as a manager in nursing homes and support worker in the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire area before joining the traffic officer service.

The pair work shifts, but their rest days coincide so they are able to spend time together at home.

"Working together again is a still a bit of a novelty," said Lynn. "We do talk about certain jobs together, that we've both worked on, but we don't really speak about work very much, we've got plenty of other things to talk about."

Although Pete had seen jobs in the traffic officer service advertised, it was when Lynn got her job that he decided to apply.

"I'd seen the jobs advertised, and thought it was something I'd enjoy doing, but when Lynn got the job there it reinforced it for me. She would come home and talk about the organisation and that she was really enjoying it so I thought I'd join too," said Pete.

"After 30 years in the police having to deal with confrontation I wanted to do a job where I could help people and it would be appreciated, I wanted to get some more satisfaction and after joining the traffic officer service, I couldn't have hoped for a better job - we're both really enjoying it."