John Sweetman

But I was lucky enough that I got into the fingerprint section when I did.

Never looked back, like, you know, it was good to specialise in something like that because

You know, when I was going to school and stuff, I was always mad into art and detail and all that kind of crack.

So the type of work that I ended up doing in the Technical Bureau played to my strengths in that regard, you know.

And then podcast comes along.

yeah you know which is great because i'm able to go back into stuff that maybe i was involved with or was familiar with but then i'm getting exposed to so much more and i'm getting to meet people you know meet other investigators and people like that and yeah it's been it's just been fantastic opportunity where are you from i'm from north county dublin from skerry's born and bred my dad was a farmer so

you know there's no other guards in the family i don't know really how i fell into it to be honest like you know it was kind of a backup plan at the time you know i left school got a job in an animation company doing the teenage ninja turtles as in the cartoon or the comic the cartoon actual yeah one in the early 90s 90s yeah yeah so um we had the contract for that place called murakami wolf and that was great you know it was only 18 it was earning good money

And it's absolutely iconic now as well, so is there a name on the credits for that?

No, see I was a cell painter and the cell painters didn't get their names because there were so many of us and I was just about to go for an animation assistance job when they lost the contract for the Turtles and they let a load of us go and I was one of them.

Now I could have gone into any other animation company at the time but I was a bit fed up coming in and out of town on trains every day and whatnot so I just stayed at home on the farm for a couple of years

And in the background, somewhere along the way, I had applied for the guards, not really given it much thought, apart from the fact that, you know, there's a pension there, you know.

And I just kept getting through each part of the application process.

And eventually, you know, before I knew it, I found myself down at Temple Moor.

And, you know, I'd swore I'd never wear a uniform again after I finished me leave and I came home and I said, never again, never putting on a fucking uniform again.

And here I was in a bloody uniform and that's so...

It was a bit of an awakening for me.

I kind of realised fairly quickly that, Jesus, this mightn't be for me.

But it was a different time back then.

Anybody going for the guards nine times out of ten, that was going to be their career now for the next 30 or more years.

You didn't get people coming in, trying it out and then dropping out.