THEY know what to do if you’ve had your milk stolen, you’ve got a kangaroo in your garden or witnessed a pile-up on the M40.

Specially trained operators at Thames Valley Police’s largest police enquiry centre handles hundreds of emergency and non emergency calls from all corners of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire every day.

Yet despite the life-or death drama often unfolding at the end of the line, the enquiry centre at Kidlington remains an oasis of calm.

Operators spoke to the Oxford Mail after the force issued an appeal for people to only dial 999 when there was a genuine emergency.

Carrie Anderson, information and communications officer, said: “These people are tying up the phones so genuine emergency callers can’t get through.

“We are really trying to promote the 08458 505505 non-emergency number.”

Gemma Willis, 29, has been taking 999 calls for three years and expects to answer six calls an hour, many of which include crime reports which can take up to 25 minutes to process.

But she never knows what situation she will be faced with on the end of the line.

She said: “It can be exciting. It’s usually when there is some sort of major incident going on and everyone is looking in the log to see what it’s about.

“I like the job when I know I can resolve something.

“We quite often get people who are intoxicated and don’t know where they are because they are in the middle of the countryside and decided to walk 30 miles home.

“I had one lady who had a panic attack and asthma attack and had gone to buy some cigarettes, and she couldn’t remember where she was.

“We do get quite a few suicidal calls. We had one this morning – a chap in Oxford phoned to tell us someone would probably find him.

“Local officers recognised the description of the circumstances and he was found, and he is okay.

“I have also had theft of milk from the doorstep this morning. In the morning it tends to be overnight crimes like criminal damage and burglary and then people wanting officers to update them.”

Last year the force dealt with 284,000 emergency calls and 978,000 non-emergency calls – although police cannot tell how many of those came from Oxfordshire.

At its peak, usually on Friday and Saturday nights, there can be up to 60 enquiry operators taking calls at Kidlington, overseen by team leaders, including Rhian Parham and Paula Lloyd, answering non-emergency calls in under 40 seconds and a 999 call in under 10 seconds.

Mother-of-one Hannah Mills, 37, has been in the role for eight years.

She said: “On one of my first emergency calls when I first started, I was about to go home after a night shift and I had a call from a woman who had opened the curtains and had a kangaroo in her garden. It was a bit of a shock.”

“You can get people who panic, but it’s my job to keep them calm and control the call.

“I just ask them questions and get them to concentrate on what I’m saying rather than what’s going on around them. If they are really getting over-excited I will stop and get them to take deep breaths and focus, but you don’t generally get many calls like that.”

In case you were wondering – the kangaroo turned out to be a wallaby, which was captured and returned to a nearby breeder.

eallen@oxfordmail.co.uk