A WIDOW who lost her police officer husband in the line of duty will be visiting St Paul's Cathedral in London for the first annual National Police Memorial Day.

Marie Milne will travel to the capital on Sunday to remember her late husband Bob who died 25 years ago.

Bob died from a heart attack as he dispersed youths fighting at a community youth club at St Anthony's Church, Cadley Causeway, Preston, on October 21, 1979.

The event is to honour more than 4,000 officers who have died in the line of duty since modern policing was founded in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, a Conservative Prime Minister and Home Secretary. The ceremony will be a tribute to the courage and dedication to duty shown by fallen officers.

It will be attended by members of the Royal Family, ministers and senior representatives in the police service, including Lancashire Constabulary's chief constable Paul Stephenson.

Mrs Milne, who is also a Preston City councillor, said: "It was devastating at the time. Bob was three months off his 50th birthday, he was due to retire.

"We were going to buy a bungalow in the country, it was a very sad time. I don't know how I will feel at St Paul's on Sunday."

Mrs Milne, who has seven children, 16 grandchildren, and three great grandchildren, will travel down with two of her sons and their wives.

The Police Roll of Honour Trust has worked for the past 20 years researching those who died in the line of duty to make the first memorial day possible. Chairman of the trust, Sergeant Anthony Rae, said: "The roll of honour contains the names of many heroes and heroines but mostly the names of ordinary men and women, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, partners and colleagues.

"What makes them extraordinary is not how they died but how they lived, doing an often dangerous and thankless job, forgotten until needed, protecting the community for which in the course of duty they lost their lives."