1 00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:29,880 Children have been burnt, 2 00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:32,880 not West Indians, Black British! 3 00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:37,200 That is what I want said! 4 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:39,400 They're burning our children! 5 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:46,360 Why haven't Parliament... said anything?! 6 00:00:50,480 --> 00:00:53,120 This is all that remains of the three-story house 7 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:55,480 where nearly a hundred young West Indians 8 00:00:55,560 --> 00:01:00,560 were celebrating at an all-night birthday party for two young friends. 9 00:01:00,640 --> 00:01:03,520 That night, we were there at the party ... 10 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:06,400 and for people outside looking in, 11 00:01:06,480 --> 00:01:08,920 I mean, you know, maybe they can just imagine. 12 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:11,200 Just before 6:00 this morning, 13 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:13,640 the singing and dancing gave way to panic 14 00:01:13,720 --> 00:01:17,360 as flames shot through the upper floors and screaming teenagers 15 00:01:17,440 --> 00:01:19,200 began to leap from the windows. 16 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:22,720 For what we really, really went through, 17 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:27,240 that time, to be even sitting here, talking about it, you know, is--is hard. 18 00:01:27,320 --> 00:01:30,240 It was just horrific, a girl and a boy, 19 00:01:30,320 --> 00:01:33,440 they just sort of fell, right down to a basement. 20 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:36,800 The fire, you literally had seconds to get out. 21 00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:39,240 I just couldn't really believe it had all happened, 22 00:01:39,320 --> 00:01:42,080 and it just became a living nightmare. 23 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,080 I just remember kids lying on stretchers, 24 00:01:47,160 --> 00:01:49,080 burnt till they were pink. 25 00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:54,080 And the smell of burning flesh; that'll go to my grave. 26 00:01:54,160 --> 00:01:56,160 The party began at eleven last night, 27 00:01:56,240 --> 00:01:58,840 then at 6:00, there was a loud bang. 28 00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:00,480 There was just smoke everywhere, 29 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:03,040 and then, afterwards, people were telling me that 30 00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:05,840 some white man had thrown a petrol bomb through the window. 31 00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:08,920 I saw this bloke standing up in the pavement, 32 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,240 then he made this throwing movement with his right hand. 33 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:16,240 At that point in 1981, color mattered. 34 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:20,400 We are very dissatisfied with the way the government has behaved, 35 00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:22,000 Parliament has behaved. 36 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:23,880 The problem became that 37 00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:28,520 the New Cross fire became an "us and them" affair. 38 00:02:28,600 --> 00:02:30,280 It became a Black and white affair, 39 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:35,120 but this whole thing was about youngsters being murdered. 40 00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:38,960 The fire at 439 New Cross Road, 41 00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:42,760 whether it was deliberately inside, deliberately outside, 42 00:02:42,840 --> 00:02:45,880 I have always believed it was a deliberate act. 43 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:06,040 As a kid, you grow, and you have fantasies, 44 00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:08,640 and one of mine was being able to fly. 45 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:11,640 That's my way out... 46 00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:14,280 and that's what it was. 47 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:17,840 I think I still have that kiddie dream 48 00:03:17,920 --> 00:03:20,960 of flying off into the sunset and everything being all right one day. 49 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:27,560 My name is Wayne Haynes. 50 00:03:27,640 --> 00:03:31,840 I was born in London, a place called Lee Green, which is 51 00:03:31,920 --> 00:03:36,440 is very leafy, very '60s suburbia. 52 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:40,000 Don't ask me how I ended up 53 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:43,880 being a teenager living in New Cross in what we called ghetto. 54 00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:49,960 That was not part of the plan when my mum gave birth. 55 00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:52,360 But my mother and father split up, 56 00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:56,560 my mum had a nervous breakdown, I ended up in care, 57 00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:00,440 for two years, being fostered, with a white family, 58 00:04:00,520 --> 00:04:03,240 who treated me like I was one of their own. 59 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:05,120 It's life, and you get on with it, 60 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:07,760 and you learn, and it teaches you that... 61 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:09,560 people are people. 62 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:16,000 My name is Denise Gooding. 63 00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:20,760 I grew up in Camberwell in South East London, 64 00:04:20,840 --> 00:04:24,160 with my mum and my dad and my three brothers. 65 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:25,920 We lived in a flat. 66 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:27,640 It was a four-bedroom flat. 67 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:30,560 It was good, it was nice living in a flat, because it's like a community, 68 00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:32,600 so then you'd all knock on each other's doors, and in those days, 69 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:34,200 everybody came to our house. 70 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:37,920 My parents, I think they felt safer knowing that, 71 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:40,800 as long as we were there, they would know where we are. 72 00:04:42,120 --> 00:04:44,640 It was an open house in our case, I told them. 73 00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:47,240 If someone keeps comin' and I send them away 74 00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:49,920 and something happened out there, I would blame myself. 75 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:52,680 So, you know, I always let them in. 76 00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:55,800 Plus, my dad played dominoes. 77 00:04:56,560 --> 00:04:58,200 So him and all his friends, 78 00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:01,240 and have family that would be coming on a Friday night and playing dominoes. 79 00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:04,720 So while they are playing the dominoes, we'd be playing music, 80 00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:08,440 because Richard and David and Andrew were all into music. 81 00:05:11,120 --> 00:05:13,640 My name's Richard, Richard Gooding. 82 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:17,240 To be truthful, our house was pretty open with my mum and dad's friends, 83 00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:18,920 so there was always, like, music. 84 00:05:19,040 --> 00:05:21,800 We would just sit in the house, I'd play my vinyls. 85 00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:23,360 What we called "toasting" back then. 86 00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:29,520 And David would be playing the bass guitar. 87 00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:32,080 One of my friends would be singing, and Andrew would be banging... 88 00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:33,840 banging away at this thing, making drums. 89 00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:36,040 I don't know, for some reason, he seemed to like drums, I don't know. 90 00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:39,720 I was the oldest of the four of us. 91 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:41,720 David, he's a younger than me. 92 00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:44,480 My brother Andrew, he was four years younger than me, 93 00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:46,960 and my sister, Denise, well, she's always been the baby. 94 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:50,080 I mean, we're really close, just a typical family. 95 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:54,200 We didn't have much, but you know, we were really happy. 96 00:05:59,320 --> 00:06:01,360 My name is Sandra Ruddock. 97 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:03,880 Mum and Dad were the sweetest people ever. 98 00:06:03,960 --> 00:06:07,360 Uh, my dad, was a famous wrestler. 99 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:09,600 In the blue corner, ladies and gentlemen, 100 00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:13,600 King of the Headbutts, from West Africa, Johnny Kwango! 101 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:15,800 He was King of the Headbutts. 102 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:17,680 He had a really hard head. 103 00:06:20,800 --> 00:06:24,680 It was showmanship. They were there to entertain the public. 104 00:06:24,760 --> 00:06:26,000 - 105 00:06:26,080 --> 00:06:29,120 We lived in Dulwich until I was about 8, 106 00:06:29,200 --> 00:06:30,880 and then we moved to Peckham. 107 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:34,280 And we had to be careful with the friends that we chose. 108 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:37,200 Me and my brother were not allowed to get in trouble 109 00:06:37,280 --> 00:06:40,040 with the police or do anything untoward. 110 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:42,280 My mum always used to say to remember, 111 00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:45,080 "It's your dad's reputation when you go out on the street." 112 00:06:45,160 --> 00:06:47,720 We used to go to work with him. I quite enjoyed that. 113 00:06:47,800 --> 00:06:48,960 I loved going to work with my dad, 114 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:51,960 I loved it, it was nice. I liked sitting in the front row, 115 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:56,520 the old biddies going up and shouting, "Leave him alone. Leave him alone!" 116 00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:58,440 I'm going, "Yeah, that's my dad, leave him alone!" 117 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:05,440 And he's over the top for Kwango, holding the arms well. 118 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:06,840 That's got to be it. 119 00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:10,880 My mum was just a housewife, really. 120 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:13,920 They were happily married for 40-odd years, 121 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:16,120 and I remember at school... 122 00:07:16,200 --> 00:07:18,960 couple of guys, said, "Oh, if there was 123 00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:20,760 a war between Black and whites, 124 00:07:20,840 --> 00:07:22,840 what side of the fence would you be on?" 125 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:23,960 I was quite upset. 126 00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:45,320 In my time at school... 127 00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:47,600 The Telegraph and the Daily Express... 128 00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:50,240 ...Black boys were not encouraged to do anything. 129 00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:54,360 I was already being told, "You're not going to be... a pilot." 130 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:56,040 By then, you know, 131 00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:58,440 you would hear a lot of kids at school saying, you know, 132 00:07:58,520 --> 00:08:00,280 "Go back home, get back on your banana boat, 133 00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:01,680 and go back where you come from," 134 00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:03,160 and things like that. 135 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:06,120 So, then, you know, I then-- as I got of age, 136 00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:09,000 I started to hear about National Front and knew what they were all about. 137 00:08:09,080 --> 00:08:11,760 We believe that the only solution 138 00:08:11,840 --> 00:08:16,120 to the rising tide of race trouble in this country 139 00:08:16,200 --> 00:08:20,240 is for a complete stop to all further colored immigration 140 00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:23,520 and for total repatriation of the colored immigrants 141 00:08:23,600 --> 00:08:25,080 and their descendants. 142 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:28,240 The National Front is wooing the white vote 143 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:32,120 with calls for repatriation and more police. 144 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:34,880 So, no chanting, no singing, no banner waving. 145 00:08:34,960 --> 00:08:39,160 You're just pedestrians out for a stroll to give out leaflets, all right? 146 00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:41,520 My name is George Rhoden. 147 00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:45,760 I grew up in a time when racism was prominent. 148 00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:47,280 I know that there were National Front. 149 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:49,200 I've seen them walking in through town 150 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:52,640 and they've got their leaflets, they're handing out their leaflets, 151 00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:54,520 the same white middle-aged men. 152 00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:56,840 And they've been stopping immigration right away. 153 00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:00,120 Sending out their messages, driving along in the street. 154 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:02,880 The National Front say stop immigration. 155 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:05,040 Then screaming out obscenities to you. 156 00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:08,840 I'd seen them outside the school, and so anyway, one day, 157 00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:12,480 we're having a laugh after school and things like that... 158 00:09:12,520 --> 00:09:15,600 and I could see a little bit of a flicker of a flame. 159 00:09:15,640 --> 00:09:19,880 And saw a small group of people burning a cross. 160 00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:23,520 We all looked at each other and think, "What they doing?" 161 00:09:23,600 --> 00:09:27,080 Like that, I was probably what, I don't know, 14, 15? 162 00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:29,760 "What they doing?" And then you saw... 163 00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,440 the guy with the hood, he was probably the only one with a hood on. 164 00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:35,080 That was the Ku Klux Klan. 165 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:37,720 I never proved it, but why would you be burning a cross, 166 00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:38,960 and the guy's got a hood on? 167 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:42,080 Could it just be a little bit of a joke? Don't know. 168 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:45,080 But scared the shit out of me. 169 00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:47,960 Stop colored immigration. 170 00:09:48,040 --> 00:09:49,760 My name's Mykaell Riley. 171 00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:53,160 I grew up in Handsworth, in Birmingham, 172 00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:57,480 as a first-generation Black British-born individual. 173 00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:00,720 Back in the '70s, 174 00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:03,160 my household, as with many households, 175 00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:07,280 had the Queen adorning the top of the fireplace or something. 176 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:11,040 And we would complain about society 177 00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:12,640 outside the house. 178 00:10:12,760 --> 00:10:14,600 And our parents would always default 179 00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:16,600 to assuming we'd done something wrong, 180 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:19,760 and we were ignorant of our own history. 181 00:10:19,840 --> 00:10:21,960 Right? So we're trying to find ourselves. 182 00:10:22,040 --> 00:10:26,440 And then, Bob Marley arrives with a narrative which has given us 183 00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:29,400 an alternative sense of identity. 184 00:10:44,760 --> 00:10:46,720 So we're listening to each record 185 00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:49,360 to get a sense of who we are. 186 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:55,200 And songs like "Concrete Jungle" 187 00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:59,000 directly spoke to the challenge of growing up, 188 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:00,360 to being Black British. 189 00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:07,440 And this is the Britain that I'm growing up in 190 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:12,200 with aspirations to... conquer the world through music. 191 00:11:12,280 --> 00:11:15,480 In the background of most, if not all reggae, 192 00:11:15,560 --> 00:11:17,120 it stems from suffering. 193 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,360 Reggae is suffering, basically. 194 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:27,440 And it's truth as well. 195 00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:38,200 My name is Alex Wheatle. 196 00:11:38,280 --> 00:11:41,200 I grew up without any family whatsoever. 197 00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:43,480 My mother could not look after me, so... 198 00:11:43,560 --> 00:11:44,960 I was placed into care 199 00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:47,560 and so, I was totally detached from my culture. 200 00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:49,160 Until I went to Brixton. 201 00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:55,040 I mean, I was growing to love Reggae music, 202 00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:57,360 from even before I moved to Brixton, 203 00:11:57,440 --> 00:11:59,280 and to hear it, everywhere, 204 00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:01,600 it seemed to be every street corner. 205 00:12:01,680 --> 00:12:03,480 I remember Soferno 'B'. 206 00:12:03,560 --> 00:12:05,920 I remember Desmond's Hip City. 207 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:10,920 I remember Bob Marley's track "Concrete Jungle." 208 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:12,680 I had very much low esteem. 209 00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:15,880 I had to fight against that almost on a daily basis, 210 00:12:15,960 --> 00:12:18,480 to reclaim my identity, 211 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:21,640 and Reggae music helped in that process. 212 00:12:25,560 --> 00:12:30,800 My name's Andy, and I was a friend of Paul Ruddock's. 213 00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:35,440 I first became aware of Paul due to the music. 214 00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:38,040 He was playing his radio quite loud. 215 00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:40,440 Capital Capital Capital... record break. 216 00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:49,760 He played "Rock Your Baby" by George McRae. 217 00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:53,920 I didn't know he was Black for the first month. 218 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:55,920 Couldn't actually see him, he couldn't see me. 219 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:57,960 'Cause we were both in traction. 220 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:00,920 I had to look up to the ceiling because 221 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:03,840 it's the most comfortable place to rest my head. 222 00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:07,360 I had a severe motorcycle accident, 223 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:10,640 and found out that he had a motorcycle accident. 224 00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:13,440 Anyway, the rooms were adjacent. 225 00:13:13,520 --> 00:13:16,240 He used to play music-- Capital Radio at the time. 226 00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:18,920 I used to play music, Radio One. 227 00:13:19,400 --> 00:13:22,680 But it was really hot, summer of 1976. 228 00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:25,200 So we had the windows open, the doors open, 229 00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:27,280 and we used to like shouting to each other, 230 00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:28,800 "Did you like that song?" 231 00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:30,960 It was a bit of a competition, really. 232 00:13:31,040 --> 00:13:33,840 We had two different stations blaring out the music. 233 00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:37,800 The nurses used to come into the room and say, "Right, stop. Stop!" 234 00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:40,320 And then they would walk off, 235 00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:42,560 and then we'd turn the radios up again. 236 00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:48,920 I played him "Play that Funky Music White Boy" by Wild Cherry. 237 00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:54,720 I'm not sure that Paul actually liked it. 238 00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:01,120 He was quite interesting to talk to, and confident. 239 00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:04,160 But he used words that I had never heard before. 240 00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:07,840 He used the word "cool," and "Oh, that's cool." 241 00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:10,880 And, "Oh, what does that mean?" You know? 242 00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:16,240 When I came back to London, 243 00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:18,720 and they had moved my mum to New Cross, 244 00:14:18,800 --> 00:14:22,160 we lived on the estate with a bad reputation, 245 00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:24,040 Milton Court Estate. 246 00:14:24,120 --> 00:14:26,200 That's the beginning of ghetto. 247 00:14:26,880 --> 00:14:29,680 We called ourselves the "Ghetto posse," 248 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:33,160 but the police created that ghetto where... 249 00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:35,840 the way how you policed it and handled it, 250 00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:38,040 you've locked us off into our own little circle. 251 00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:42,640 Back in our day, the police used to pick you up as a youngster. 252 00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:45,200 They're not phoning your parents as soon as they pick you up. 253 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:48,600 They take you down the police station, or they take you in the back of the van, 254 00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:50,920 and they kick hell out of you... 255 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,040 and then they just let you back out on the street. 256 00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:03,360 My name is Peter Bleksley. 257 00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:06,920 By the late '70s, at the end of my 18 months in the cadets, 258 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:10,080 I became the uniformed police constable, 259 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:12,080 and I'm told I'm going to Peckham. 260 00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:14,720 I learned very quickly that it had a... 261 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:18,120 considerable Afro-Caribbean population. 262 00:15:19,400 --> 00:15:22,640 I've lived in Bexley Heath, I've been trained in Hendon. 263 00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:24,320 I'm a teenager. 264 00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:28,160 Black faces I think frightened me. 265 00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:30,880 I... I wasn't familiar. 266 00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:39,080 And I pretty quickly learned that there was 267 00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:43,080 a lot of racism within the police force. 268 00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:45,160 People were fitted up with bags of drugs, 269 00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:47,320 people were fitted up with offensive weapons. 270 00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:48,480 What's going on? 271 00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:50,280 Sit in the back of my motor and I'll tell you. 272 00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:54,320 And so often, they were young Black people. 273 00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:56,360 When I'm walking on the streets at night, 274 00:15:56,440 --> 00:15:57,680 they just come and stop me. 275 00:15:57,760 --> 00:16:01,360 They start picking on me and asking me where I'm going, where do I live? 276 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:03,840 And if you don't answer, you find yourself in the back of the car. 277 00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:04,720 True. 278 00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:09,400 In Brixton, there's been a 25% increase in violent crime, 279 00:16:09,480 --> 00:16:11,400 things like robbery and muggings. 280 00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:13,400 Well, from leaving training school... 281 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:16,240 The dilemma has been how to respond to repeated calls 282 00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:17,880 for more Black policemen. 283 00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:20,840 In uniform, it's really... nerve-racking. 284 00:16:20,920 --> 00:16:22,600 But those Blacks who do sign up 285 00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:25,160 are often seen as having joined the other side. 286 00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:30,200 I was interested in policing from a really early age, 287 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:33,560 but at 16, I didn't know what to expect. 288 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,520 And, uh, when I told my parents, 289 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:39,560 they looked at each other, and you could see that 290 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:40,960 there was fear in their eyes. 291 00:16:41,040 --> 00:16:43,960 They knew what the police were about, they knew that they were racist. 292 00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:45,040 They knew. 293 00:16:45,640 --> 00:16:47,520 But they never, ever said anything. 294 00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:49,400 They-- all they did was supported me, 295 00:16:50,160 --> 00:16:53,760 When I told my friends, everybody just stood there looking at me. 296 00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:56,160 And, one of them just stepped forward, 297 00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:59,520 and he just said, you know, "Are you fuckin' mad?!" 298 00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:01,360 He said, "Boy, you're going to become a traitor." 299 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:03,000 He looked me up and down, "You're going to become a traitor." 300 00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:05,720 And I'm like a little bit shocked at his reaction. 301 00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:08,920 Are things between you and the police getting better or worse? 302 00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:10,760 Worse. -Well, I'd say worse. 303 00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:13,680 I said to the policeman that you're not supposed to be parked 304 00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:15,240 on a double yellow line, 305 00:17:15,320 --> 00:17:17,440 so I carried on walking up Leyland Road, 306 00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:19,880 and then he just followed me slowly with his car. 307 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,560 And then he was calling me "Black bastard" and... 308 00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:25,320 we should go back to our own country and all this and that. 309 00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:29,800 These are the lifestyles of what we were living back in those days. 310 00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:32,000 We used to get picked up just for loitering. 311 00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:36,480 So my first day, on duty, as I walked in, 312 00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:39,280 it just went quiet, and I see everybody looking. 313 00:17:39,320 --> 00:17:40,800 Can you produce your form numbers, please? 314 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:43,720 So the sergeant said, "Right. PC300," 315 00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:46,760 which was my number, "Yeah, you will be with PC so-and-so." 316 00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:50,920 And all I heard, "You must be fucking joking." 317 00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:57,200 And you are taught to take your radio and do your signal checks. 318 00:17:57,280 --> 00:18:02,480 Like, "Charlie Victor from PC 300, can I have a signal check, please?" 319 00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:05,760 And then they're supposed to come back, and all I got was 320 00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:08,880 a barrage of monkey noises that came through that radio. 321 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,400 The Evelyn Estate in South East London 322 00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:16,560 is typical of the urban battlegrounds 323 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:18,720 in which the muggers and their victims meet. 324 00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:20,560 Here, the unemployed youngsters' 325 00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:24,440 impulsive need for cash can easily be gratified. 326 00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:27,080 I put the purse my shopping bag 327 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:29,080 and I came round to the lift and pressed the button, 328 00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:32,760 and as I did so, I turned round and this dark fellow followed me in, 329 00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:34,800 and I put my hand in my bag to get my purse out 330 00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:36,400 and it wasn't there to take it out. 331 00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:39,520 That old lady, the fear she and her friends have, 332 00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:41,160 is the fear of being mugged, 333 00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:43,320 and it's been associated with the new generation 334 00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:45,400 of Black teenagers in the capital. 335 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:49,880 Mugging, it was just seen as being exclusively Black, 336 00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:53,960 as though it had been imported into the U.K. by Black people. 337 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:56,040 And the victims were white women, 338 00:18:56,080 --> 00:18:58,680 and so it became very very emotive. 339 00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:00,680 I think as well, one's got to say 340 00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:03,400 that there is a certain element of racism. 341 00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:06,760 Now I hope that we move away from that, and as Black people... 342 00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:08,440 My name is Russell Profitt, 343 00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:11,560 and during the late '70s, I was working 344 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:13,960 in primary education, 345 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:18,200 and I also was a local councilor on Lewisham Council. 346 00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:23,080 It really was very, very difficult to shift the public perception, 347 00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:26,200 away from the issue of muggings, as such. 348 00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:29,400 It was plastered all over the local newspapers. 349 00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:32,560 Incidents were happening everywhere. 350 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:35,520 When you looked at the facts, that was not the case, 351 00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:37,920 and it was a shorthand way, basically, 352 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,240 of saying to young Black people, 353 00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:43,320 "You will be criminalized." 354 00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:46,320 As the majority of police are white, 355 00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:48,400 might not like Black people, you know what I mean? 356 00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:51,720 They're always on about, saying Black youths mugging old women and all that, 357 00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:54,520 so that sort of brings out prejudice against us. 358 00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,040 Who's making a complaint? Who's making a complaint? 359 00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:02,880 At the time, the Black community found themselves 360 00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:08,080 the scapegoats for a lot of the ills then taking place. 361 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:10,560 I think a lot of is scapegoat politics. 362 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:14,920 Um, I think that people seem to think that Blacks are easy targets. 363 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:18,960 There was a sort of a-an arrest spree-- 364 00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:23,640 21 young people arrested on suspicion of muggings. 365 00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:25,400 My name's Syd Shelton. 366 00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:28,240 I was both an activist and a photographer. 367 00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:30,320 The Metropolitan Police, at 5:00 in the morning, 368 00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:33,040 smashed the doors down of 21 houses 369 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:35,800 and arrested 21 young people. 370 00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:39,760 I heard about it because I was asked to photograph the man 371 00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:42,920 leading the campaign for the freedom of the Lewisham 21. 372 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:45,800 And some of the people were little more than children. 373 00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:48,800 But it was what inspired the National Front 374 00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:52,800 to set up what they called the Anti-mugging March, 375 00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:56,520 which was scheduled for the 13th of August, 1977. 376 00:20:56,560 --> 00:21:00,080 They proposed to march through New Cross and Lewisham. 377 00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,560 The National Front decided that that would be 378 00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:05,000 their way of showing that they were 379 00:21:05,080 --> 00:21:07,200 clearing out the neighborhoods. 380 00:21:07,280 --> 00:21:09,760 Now is the crunch. 381 00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:13,080 It's going to be a test of stamina, 382 00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:16,480 it's going to be test of nerves. 383 00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:20,560 We have got to institute a swift and immediate program 384 00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:24,040 of humane repatriation of all colored immigrants, 385 00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:26,800 their descendants, and their dependents 386 00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:30,760 since the passing of the British Nationality Act in 1948. 387 00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:32,280 Including those born here? 388 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:35,480 Absolutely, yes. Including those born here. 389 00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:38,320 The fact that they are born here doesn't make them British. 390 00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:42,720 There is a community that you're part of that sees you as alien, 391 00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:46,880 that sees you as other, that sees you as momentary, 392 00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:50,800 and we're looking back at our parents, 393 00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:54,320 and we're thinking "Hold on a second, we were born here. 394 00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:55,920 We are British. 395 00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:00,360 How can you be applying the same mentality, the same mindset to us?" 396 00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:05,320 My generation, the first generation U.K. Black, 397 00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:08,640 refuses the National Front, 398 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:13,800 the British Government, and anybody else's calls for repatriation. 399 00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:16,120 How can you send me back from where I came from? 400 00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,840 I was born here. I'm going back where? 401 00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:21,960 Well, I was anti-National Front anyway. 402 00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:24,400 We were living in a multicultural society. 403 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:27,200 I found it was different, it was new, 404 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,160 but other people were scared of that. 405 00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:32,840 I used to go and stay at Paul's house, 406 00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:35,840 439 New Cross Road and... 407 00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:38,720 he invited me up there because there was gonna be 408 00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:41,240 a National Front march through Lewisham. 409 00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:43,800 The march is due to start here, at Clifton Rise. 410 00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:46,720 Most residents say they'll be staying at home, 411 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:48,480 the odd houses already boarded up, 412 00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:52,840 and the police have advised everyone to keep away from Clifton Rise. 413 00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:56,680 This was like, about two nights before the march was due. 414 00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,360 Paul said, "Let's go and get a kebab." 415 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:04,600 Went in the kebab shop, and this white chap started racially abusing him. 416 00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:08,360 So Paul picked him up off his feet, 417 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,880 and he just threw him out into the street. 418 00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:13,640 And this guy was then staggering up the road, 419 00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:17,520 and then another guy came flying out the pub, 420 00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:21,040 and he had a crash helmet on, motorcycle crash helmet on, 421 00:23:21,120 --> 00:23:23,600 and he went straight up to Paul, head-butted him, 422 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:25,520 and then he ran back into the pub. 423 00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,320 With this, Paul ran down to his house, 424 00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,840 and he'd come back with a great big knife, huge knife, 425 00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:34,800 and I said "Where's you gonna go with that?" 426 00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,920 He said, "I'm going in there after him." I said "No, no, no, come on." 427 00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:41,960 Then I realized, you know, the tension. 428 00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:44,800 There was this sort of tension there. 429 00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:09,560 The most difficult policing events for me to deal with 430 00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:12,360 was the National Front demonstrations. 431 00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:16,760 You get on the coach to get down there, and you would have officers 432 00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:19,560 from different stations that were all joined together, 433 00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:21,120 and they call it "coming on aid." 434 00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,880 And at that time, we were wearing long rain macs, 435 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:28,040 so an officer went to put on his long rain mac, 436 00:24:28,120 --> 00:24:30,120 and inside his long rain mac 437 00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,080 was a National Front badge. 438 00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:35,640 And I looked at him, and he just looked at me, 439 00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,400 put the thing on and walked off. 440 00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,920 He didn't want to hide it, he just put it, and he walked off, 441 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:42,760 and I went, "Wow!" 442 00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:44,840 The National Front is a Nazi front! 443 00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:52,120 The problem was the police allowed these people 444 00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,920 to march through predominantly Black areas... 445 00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:58,640 knowing what it's gonna cause. 446 00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:01,640 We'll be moving off in just a minute! 447 00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,080 So, they ain't coming past here. 448 00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:06,800 We ain't havin' it. 449 00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:08,680 You had the teenagers-- 450 00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:10,840 they're not having it because we were born here. 451 00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,800 Our parents came out, our big brothers and sisters came out, 452 00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:17,640 Darcus Howe... 453 00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:19,600 Everybody came out because 454 00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,160 we were not going to be intimidated in our own homes. 455 00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,760 I know the picture I took of Darcus Howe 456 00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,080 standing on the toilet block on Clifton Rise. 457 00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,840 He gave a speech which was basically, "They shall not pass." 458 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:34,920 We knew there were scores to be settled that day, 459 00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,760 we knew it was gonna be a big confrontation and a fight, 460 00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:41,160 and we must stand up to this intimidation of the community. 461 00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:54,720 So, it was a National Front march... 462 00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:03,080 Screaming obscenities and screaming racist language 463 00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:06,600 across my bowls to the other side. 464 00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:08,760 The National Front is the white man's fight! 465 00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:10,640 Join the National Front! 466 00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:14,360 I'm now protecting the National Front people 467 00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,000 from being attacked by my own. 468 00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:24,880 You know, there is pushing and shoving and pushing and shoving... 469 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,400 "Why are you protecting them?! Why aren't you protecting me?! 470 00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:30,480 "You Judas, you traitor!" 471 00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,080 I was like-- I was mixed up. 472 00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:34,600 Nazis! 473 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:39,760 All white people ain't the same, 474 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:41,680 just like all Black people ain't the same. 475 00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:46,720 And you got a whole load of English people... 476 00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:47,960 Bastards! 477 00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,600 ...they don't care whether you are Black or you're white. 478 00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,240 National Front! National Front! 479 00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,520 So, you had a lot of Black, white, pink, brown, 480 00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:58,800 out there fighting racists. 481 00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,880 These are people who are chanting, "If they're Black, send them back." 482 00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,640 These people have to be confronted and defeated. 483 00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,760 And it was very much-- almost like a medieval battle. 484 00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:16,840 I remember very well, somebody opening the windows 485 00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,320 and putting two big speakers there and putting Bob Marley's 486 00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:21,840 "Get Up Stand Up" on as loud as they could. 487 00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,200 During the Battle of Lewisham, as everyone likes to call it now, 488 00:27:55,280 --> 00:28:00,360 for the first time we felt empowered to do something about these racists, 489 00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:02,480 and people started fighting back. 490 00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:05,000 The crowd which had been held back was angry. 491 00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:06,680 They broke through the police cordon, 492 00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,720 and then another battle between them and the police flared up. 493 00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:13,960 Three and a half thousand police, the most ever seen in London, 494 00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,160 have been drafted in for today's violence. 495 00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,880 And then you started seeing police on horses, 496 00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,440 rushing down towards Peckham way. 497 00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,360 They put their entire mounted division, 498 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,800 a quarter of the entire Metropolitan Police. 499 00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:44,680 They also used riot shields for the first time in mainland Britain. 500 00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:45,920 So, they came for a fight. 501 00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:48,120 The police were attacking us. 502 00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:55,360 You couldn't attack us. There's too many of us. 503 00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:56,720 For the first time ever, 504 00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:00,000 when the police started fighting, we were fighting the police. 505 00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,280 At one stage, the crowd surrounded Lewisham Police Station 506 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,480 and set fire to a motorcycle belonging to a member of the press. 507 00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,360 '77 was the year 508 00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,000 that the racists realized they had a fight. 509 00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,960 You know, it really shows what people think, 510 00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,480 just shows how much feeling there is against the National Front. 511 00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,400 The majority of people are against them, yeah. 512 00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,200 I just think the National Front want someone to blame... 513 00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:50,480 Pick on. Someone to pick on. 514 00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:52,320 ...for what's happening to the country at the moment. 515 00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,800 About three or four months later, 516 00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:02,960 Moonshot gets burnt down. 517 00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,800 On December the 14th, when the Moonshot project 518 00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,760 was smoked out of the old mission hall in Pagnall Street, Deptford, 519 00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:12,120 many Black people in the area thought they smelled racialism at work. 520 00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,120 Moonshot, it was one of the places where 521 00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,560 a lot of Black people used to go and congregate again, 522 00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,840 and then, six seven months after that, 523 00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,600 I remember the Albany 524 00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:23,040 got burnt down. 525 00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,320 The Albany Theatre was gutted by fire. 526 00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:28,000 The blaze came only a week 527 00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,800 after the combination had staged a series of plays 528 00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,480 aimed at fostering racial harmony. 529 00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:35,600 People from New Cross went to Moonshot. 530 00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:38,160 People from Deptford went to Albany. 531 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,160 I believe that was a backlash of the Battle of Lewisham. 532 00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,280 Petrol bombs were getting thrown all-- 533 00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:50,160 they were taking white spirit and spraying it through letterboxes, 534 00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,240 when your house in darkness, and drop a match through. 535 00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:55,760 Well, that's your exit blocked. 536 00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,200 We live in flats, we live in masionettes. 537 00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,080 What you going to do, jump out-- jump out the window? 538 00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,640 That became a thing after hours, 539 00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,080 that used to happen around Deptford and Lewisham and Peckham 540 00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:09,280 and places like Brixton. 541 00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,080 Last October, there was an attempt 542 00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,440 to burn down the home of Mr. Jamal Singh and his family. 543 00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,520 It just was quite frightening. 544 00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:19,880 Racial incidents would occur, 545 00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:23,040 and none of these incidents that happened 546 00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,480 led to any arrests. 547 00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,440 There was almost like a feeling that it didn't matter. 548 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:31,880 I've never heard of anybody getting arrested 549 00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:33,440 for doing one of those firebombs. 550 00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:38,440 Between '77 and '81, I never heard of not one arrest. 551 00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:42,200 My name is Leila Hassan, and in 1981, 552 00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,840 I was a member of the Race Today Collective, 553 00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,640 based in Brixton, and we were aware 554 00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,120 many of the police officers were National Front sympathizers. 555 00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,040 So when the fascists attacked a lot of book shops, 556 00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,480 we had a big campaign against the racist attacks 557 00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:58,800 against radical and Black book shops 558 00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,840 that was mounted by the fascists at that time. 559 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,120 The National Front is seeking 560 00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:05,960 to terrorize us out of existence, 561 00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,280 but we recognize the state has a certain responsibility 562 00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:10,760 and we will bring it to the attention 563 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,920 because if you were to arrange self-defense groups here, 564 00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,880 you can rest assured that the police would be attacking us. 565 00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,480 And not... and not the fascists. 566 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:22,760 In the late '70s, 567 00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,880 that tension was increasing across all the major cities 568 00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,960 where you have a sizable Black community and Black youth. 569 00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:34,400 The state, the police, the media was telling you, 570 00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:37,240 "You're not from here, you don't belong here. 571 00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:38,400 Go home." 572 00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:42,600 And so, your sense of what is possible 573 00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,120 is severely challenged. 574 00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:50,720 I was in the band Steel Pulse, 575 00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,800 a small band in Birmingham. 576 00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:58,320 Our songs were a direct response to the political backdrop of the day. 577 00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,880 With my foe 578 00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:14,280 From head to toe 579 00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:16,320 And so, "Ku Klux Klan" was 580 00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,840 a direct conversation, I think, with racism. 581 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:25,160 Was not dem intention 582 00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,280 We thought that these lynchings were happening 583 00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,360 by the police and by racist thugs. 584 00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:38,600 Myself and Alfonzo, the other vocalist onstage, 585 00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,560 we wore the hoods, and I thought, We want to leave you in no doubt 586 00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:44,360 of this message. 587 00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:46,880 And up until that point, our audience, 588 00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:48,840 our biggest audience, was punks. 589 00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:53,560 So we were wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods on stage to a punk audience who, 590 00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:58,200 I think in the first few times we donned the hoods, 591 00:33:58,280 --> 00:33:59,960 the audience just went silent. 592 00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,200 And outside our gigs is the National Front, 593 00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:04,600 selling their papers, 594 00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,080 and saying, "Uh, it's not about you mate." 595 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,760 On the road to... 596 00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:22,360 Terrific! You can do it on your own. 597 00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:25,480 Britain's at a turning point, 598 00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,800 and I believe that more trade-- yes, do clap. 599 00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,600 Do you see the Tory accusation 600 00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,880 that Labour has dragged Britain down as a winning strategy? 601 00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,920 I think what will decide the electorate's choice will be, 602 00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,440 Under which party do you think things will get least bad? 603 00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:47,520 There. What one pound would buy in groceries 604 00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:51,840 under the Tory government in my right, blue hand. 605 00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:53,880 From now on, both major parties 606 00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:55,760 will field their leaders more or less daily. 607 00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,640 I'd like to talk about some of the issues. 608 00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,040 I'd like to start on immigration. 609 00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:05,760 We must hold out the prospect of a clear end to immigration. 610 00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:08,800 With the backdrop of 611 00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,880 national politicians attempting to exploit 612 00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:14,760 the differences between the communities... 613 00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,480 People are really rather afraid that this country 614 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,640 might be rather swamped by people with a different culture. 615 00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:21,960 With Margaret Thatcher, 616 00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:26,960 Thatcher talked about swamping the culture of the Brits. 617 00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:30,080 That if there's any fear that it might be swamped, 618 00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,440 people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in. 619 00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,640 I saw Margaret Thatcher, with her statements 620 00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:40,120 about alien culture swamping this country, 621 00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:42,200 and, personally, I hated her. 622 00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:43,520 What is she talking about? 623 00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:47,080 In my view, that's one thing that's driving some people 624 00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:48,520 to the National Front. 625 00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,760 They don't agree with the objectives of the National Front, 626 00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,920 but they say that at least they're talking about some of the problems. 627 00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,800 We produced a special issue of Race Today. 628 00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:01,680 We understood that if a British politician could get up and say that, 629 00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,640 then really, our lives were going to be made much, much more difficult. 630 00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:07,520 The troubles began early 631 00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,840 as many of Southall's 30,000 Asians blocked off every road to the town hall. 632 00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:13,800 National Front bastards! 633 00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,360 The National Front was smuggled into the Town Hall through a back street. 634 00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:19,600 Go back home! 635 00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:24,520 Police arrested 300 people, and 40 people received hospital treatment. 636 00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,840 Blair Peach, a London teacher and father of two children, 637 00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:30,480 was hit so hard on the head that he died. 638 00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,200 Opposite the police station, a small group gathered to protest 639 00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,080 at the circumstances of Blair Peach's death. 640 00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,800 When I first heard about it, I thought Blair Peach was Black! 641 00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,760 Because everyone was so animated about that. 642 00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,160 The general discussion was, "Oh, my God, 643 00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:45,880 they're killing us on the street now." 644 00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,920 The Southall riots happened while Mrs. Thatcher was out of London. 645 00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:51,560 But at her first stop today in Huddersfield, 646 00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:53,160 she immediately talked about what she called 647 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:54,840 "last night's tragic events." 648 00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,400 We totally condemn the racial policies of the National Front 649 00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:02,080 and we have no sympathy whatsoever with any extremist group. 650 00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:06,560 But you will then have a tough new immigration policy 651 00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:07,840 should you come to power. 652 00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,160 I have described what it is. 653 00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,480 How you describe what I say is a matter for you. 654 00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,440 Hearing what Thatcher was saying, it felt, because I was born here, 655 00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:20,840 that, um, I'm not wanted. 656 00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,160 Here comes the Prime Ministerial Rover, 657 00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:26,000 bearing now Mrs. Thatcher. 658 00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,640 And this particular government doesn't want us, 659 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,160 and it felt like they wanted to purge us from the streets, 660 00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:32,840 even though we were born here, 661 00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,280 even though we were as British as anybody. 662 00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,680 Paul's family home was 439 New Cross Road. 663 00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,560 It's a three-story Georgian terraced house with a basement, 664 00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:47,080 on a main road. 665 00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,960 Paul worked in the evenings, um, in a pub in Peckham, 666 00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:55,400 which my brother worked in, 667 00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:57,520 and he introduced me to Paul-- 668 00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:00,120 we just hit it off straight away from then on. 669 00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,360 He was fun, free, outgoing. 670 00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:07,520 Everybody that met him said, "He's such a lovely guy, 671 00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,160 he's easy to get on with." 672 00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:13,680 I didn't really know much about Paul meeting Sandra, 673 00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:18,160 but he did tell me he'd met this girl, and her name was Sandra, 674 00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,000 and he said, "I'm gonna marry her." 675 00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:22,640 He asked me to meet him in the pub 676 00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:24,320 one evening after work. 677 00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:28,080 Sittin' at the bar, he said, "I've got something really personal to ask you: 678 00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:29,880 Will you marry me?" 679 00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,120 I looked at him, I went, "You're joking." I went, "Yeah, okay." 680 00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:34,960 I didn't think he was serious. 681 00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:39,400 Lady Diana was saying nothing about her weekend with Prince Charles 682 00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:41,000 to the assembled press corps. 683 00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,920 Lady Diana's nickname at school was "Shy Di." 684 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,680 -Is she shy? - I believe she is slightly shy. 685 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,320 So few people seem to know anything about her. 686 00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:51,680 I'm not going to say anything. Oh, sorry. 687 00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:53,520 Prince Charles did give us a hint himself. 688 00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:54,920 He said we wouldn't have to wait too long. 689 00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,120 These are my wedding photos of mine and Paul. 690 00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:05,680 We got married the 19th of July, 1980. 691 00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:10,840 That's a nice photo. I like that one of me and him. 692 00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:12,880 It was a lovely day. 693 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,880 He was blowing in my face in this photo. 694 00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,560 Lady Diana is a good choice, 695 00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,120 and her father, her uncle Lord Fermoy, and others 696 00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:25,440 have even vouched for her virginity. 697 00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:27,440 She fits the bill in a number of ways, yes. 698 00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,960 Obviously, she's going to be bearing kings of England. 699 00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:35,640 Sandra was expecting. She already had a daughter, called Vivien. 700 00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:39,040 That's my Vivien and Paul. 701 00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:40,920 And he was quite excited about 702 00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,280 having a baby and taking the responsibility. 703 00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,120 After he had his motorbike accident, 704 00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:50,520 he was told that he might not ever be able to father children, so... 705 00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,320 when I found out I was pregnant with Janine, 706 00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:55,640 he was actually over the moon. He couldn't believe it. 707 00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:01,400 That's a picture with his sister Yvonne. 708 00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,760 She had the nicest personality you could ever dream of. 709 00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:08,640 Yvonne had actually said to me and Paul, 710 00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,480 "I'm going to ask mum if I can have a birthday party. 711 00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:13,480 What do you think mum will say?" 712 00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:15,640 Paul said, "We'll see what we can do." 713 00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:19,560 Her friend Angela was actually 18 714 00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,960 the same day she was 16, and they were friends at school, 715 00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,840 so could they combine to two birthdays? 716 00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,400 So... that's what they did. 717 00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,960 Yvonne was my brother's girlfriend, my brother David. 718 00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:33,880 Yvonne used to frequent our house. 719 00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:38,960 When she used to come round, we used to play tunes in the house. 720 00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,680 She liked lovers rock. 721 00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,760 I remember David giving her some record, called "At the Club." 722 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:50,960 That tune was kicking at the time, a Victor Romero... tune. 723 00:40:55,600 --> 00:41:00,920 David and Yvonne, they got together not long before the party, 724 00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,400 because I remember, it was because... 725 00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:06,080 they were seeing each other, is why I was allowed to go. 726 00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:07,960 I remember her standing in the kitchen, she said to my mum, 727 00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,320 "Could Denise come to the party? Can Denise and Andrew come to the party?" 728 00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,760 She was friendly with Andrew and Denise. 729 00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:16,040 "Remember, you have to come to my party." 730 00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,480 And if you don't come to my party, don't talk to me anymore. 731 00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:23,200 You know, and they were talking about the party... 732 00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:25,760 they were talking about it all the time. 733 00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,320 I declare Christmas season... open! 734 00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:33,920 I heard about the party at Christmas. 735 00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,080 I was gonna stay Christmas with Paul, 736 00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,040 and he said, "Oh, I am going up to Rugby. 737 00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:40,160 Can you bring my mum up?" 738 00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:42,680 So a couple of days later, I picked his mum up, 739 00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:44,520 drove her up to Rugby as well. 740 00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,880 Armza Ruddock. I was introduced to her as Aunty Gee. 741 00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:49,080 But, yeah, Armza Ruddock. 742 00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:52,520 She was the mother of Yvonne Ruddock and Paul Ruddock. 743 00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:56,640 Aunty Gee's family in Rugby lived three doors away from us, 744 00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,600 so when she came to, uh, mum's side of the family, 745 00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,440 they came there, and they must have said, "Well, your dad's side of family 746 00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,640 the Ruddocks, actually live three doors up down the road," 747 00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:07,800 so when they came and knocked on our door, and went "Oh, my God!" 748 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:09,560 They told us about the party, "Oh, we're having a party next year. 749 00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:10,640 Do you want to come?" 750 00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,480 We were getting to know each other-- the whole party was like to 751 00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,080 get to know each other's family because we didn't know each other before. 752 00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:16,840 We didn't know we had that family in London. 753 00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,160 My sound system played at the party, 754 00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,960 so we knew about the party from the time that they started to put it together. 755 00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:29,360 I wanted to have something to identity for myself so... 756 00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:31,800 me and my friends at school, we created the sound. 757 00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:34,600 Steve, Gerry, and myself, 758 00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:36,360 we fudged this thing together. 759 00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:41,680 Steve Collins, we used to call him Brillo at school. 760 00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:44,920 He had a great big afro, and it was just wiry and... 761 00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,640 Steve's dad, a guy they used to call Sir Collins, 762 00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:49,360 he had a sound system. 763 00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:52,360 He gave us our first set of bass boxes. 764 00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:55,160 Gerry Francis, again, he was into his music. 765 00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:57,920 So, either me and Steve, or me and Gerry, 766 00:42:58,000 --> 00:42:59,680 or Gerry and Steve were always together. 767 00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:03,800 If you lived in an area, and you was a Black person, 768 00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:05,000 you knew the Black people. 769 00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:08,680 Yvonne's a well-known, well-liked person. 770 00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:10,160 if we... 771 00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,000 give her one of the best parties of the year, 772 00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:14,360 at the beginning of the year, 773 00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,160 then everybody else gonna want to employ us for the rest of the year, 774 00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:19,160 because Yvonne's party was-- 775 00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:20,760 "Yeah, that was the party!" 776 00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,280 On the day of the party, 777 00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:24,320 I remember my brother Andrew. 778 00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:26,880 I remember taking him to this barber shop, 779 00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:28,960 and, you know, he had this afro haircut. 780 00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:30,360 He was so pleased, you know, 781 00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:31,880 'cause the hair was ready now, you know what I mean? 782 00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,200 And my sister Denise, Denise was quite excited-- 783 00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:36,320 I remember her in a suit she had on. 784 00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,160 Mate, I was mad excited. 785 00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:41,800 I didn't know really what to expect of the party. 786 00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,800 I just knew... I'm going to party! 787 00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:53,840 We got there just after about half past eight. 788 00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:55,600 Everybody was running around, 789 00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,080 and people were being served drinks, and... 790 00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,680 food was being cooked. 791 00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,560 My mother in-law made curry goat, rice and peas, chicken. 792 00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,880 My daughter Viv was in every room, everywhere. 793 00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:09,640 When we went to the party, 794 00:44:09,720 --> 00:44:11,960 I mean, I dropped them off there first. 795 00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,120 I think it must have been about half nine or something. 796 00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:15,640 I mean, it was a really nice house. 797 00:44:15,720 --> 00:44:18,240 I mean, you could see that the house was really well looked after. 798 00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:22,280 The party was on the first floor, 799 00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:25,560 the front room on the ground floor, and the kitchen is one big room, 800 00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:30,000 and it's got concertina wooden doors that used to slide open. 801 00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:33,120 But that evening, the doors were closed. 802 00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:35,520 The front room was special. 803 00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:37,680 We hardly ever used the front room. 804 00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:44,640 Where the party was, was actually my mother-in-law's bedroom, 805 00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:46,600 so that was all cleared out. 806 00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:48,880 All the furniture was down in the basement, 807 00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:50,520 and you had to come to the kitchen 808 00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,720 if you wanted a drink or you wanted to eat food. 809 00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,560 We had the whole thing. The crowd was going, the vibes was nice, 810 00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:02,920 the music was right. 811 00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:10,440 I remember thinking this party is amazing, 812 00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:12,920 because obviously, I'm used to my brothers playing music, 813 00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:14,320 so I knew all the tunes. 814 00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:15,880 Do you know what I mean? All the lovers rock tunes. 815 00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:21,880 My sister was dancing with this guy all night called Frank, 816 00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,520 and they were rubbing up, scrubbing up, as you want to call it, all night long. 817 00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:27,280 And I'm thinking, "What's he doing with my sister?!" 818 00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:28,960 But... it's a party. 819 00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,040 You know, it's funny, music can tell the story of my life. 820 00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:43,200 The track for '81 is definitely Jean Adebambo, "Paradise." 821 00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:52,760 At the time, Jean Adebambo's song was like one of those songs, 822 00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:55,320 it was one of those big lovers rock tunes. 823 00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,480 One of my favorite tunes, my girlfriend's favorite tune at the time. 824 00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:02,480 My girlfriend at the time, Rosaline Henry, 825 00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:04,960 I remember, when we played that tune, she took the microphone 826 00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:06,600 and she was singing it like, 827 00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:09,120 it's the man-feeling-great 'cause she's looking at me singing, 828 00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,360 and she's got the mike in her hand, so like... 829 00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:12,560 She had a good voice. She could sing. 830 00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,320 I was in and out of that party 831 00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:25,480 'cause, remember, the party was a 16-year-old's party, 832 00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:28,040 right, and we were like 18, 19. 833 00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,720 But one or two of my friends were there, 834 00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,040 and I remember standing on the stairs. 835 00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:35,760 I remember I was talking to Lloyd Hall for quite some time. 836 00:46:36,720 --> 00:46:39,280 The party was great, it was a good party. 837 00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:43,080 You had generations coming at different times, 838 00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:46,000 so you had the younger ones who were there from the beginning. 839 00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:48,840 And then you had the older ones 840 00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:50,720 who were coming in for Angela's side of the party, 841 00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:52,840 and they're coming in at like, 12:00. 842 00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,360 So, loads of people were there. 843 00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,880 You had to squeeze past people going up the stairs. 844 00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:03,800 I stayed downstairs most of the evening. 845 00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:06,440 The older adults were there, in the kitchen. 846 00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,720 They were having their sort of own little party in the kitchen. 847 00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,040 Paul was just generally keeping an eye on 848 00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:15,000 who was coming into the house. 849 00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,440 It got to about half past three, 850 00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,560 and my Viv was really overtired, 851 00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:25,440 and I took Viv home. 852 00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:28,560 I don't know no more till 853 00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:30,960 about 8:30, when my door went. 854 00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:36,120 Richard had come a couple of times to pick us up, 855 00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,760 but this'll tell you how good the party was, we were not ready. 856 00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,600 The first time he came, we were like, "No, we're having too much fun." 857 00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:43,480 Second time, "We're having too much fun." 858 00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:46,240 And then when he came the last time, 859 00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:48,080 I couldn't find my bag. 860 00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,320 Denise and Andrew were quite close together 861 00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:51,720 and doing a lot of stuff together, 862 00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,800 so I didn't really feel that there was anything wrong. 863 00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:56,920 Remember, David was there as well and... 864 00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,000 we weren't new to the Ruddock house. 865 00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:01,240 You know, it was getting about 866 00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,760 four, five o'clock in the morning, that sort of time, 867 00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:07,480 so I thought, "Oh, I'll just go and sit in the front room." 868 00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:09,120 And... 869 00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:12,120 I think a group of girls came in, about five girls. 870 00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,880 I remember them like asking if I had a cigarette or something... 871 00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:17,680 Andrew was just sitting there. 872 00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:19,760 I think he was a bit tired... 873 00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:25,960 but mainly we was just sitting there, just... talking. 874 00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:30,160 And then they left, and I thought, "Right, I'll get up." 875 00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:32,080 At 5:30 in the morning, 876 00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:34,760 I could still see people dancing. 877 00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:36,680 It wasn't just a couple of people in the room. 878 00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:38,320 We still had a lot of people in there. 879 00:48:40,240 --> 00:48:42,840 The last track I remember being played was 880 00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:48,360 "Kingdom Rise and Kingdom Fall" by Wailing Souls. 881 00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:52,600 "Kingdom Rise and Kingdom Fall." 882 00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,120 In the kitchen, Paul's mum, Armza, 883 00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:05,360 out the blue, she just said, she said something to Lesley Morris, 884 00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,520 "Go and check on... go and check..." 885 00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:11,600 And he went out the room, and he come back. 886 00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:12,960 Said, "Look at this." 887 00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:18,560 The ground floor front room was totally ablaze. 888 00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:22,120 People ran out into the street. 889 00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,640 I remember... I think it was Paul's mum, 890 00:49:25,720 --> 00:49:28,680 shouting up the stairs, "Fire, fire!" 891 00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:32,600 The window exploded. 892 00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,880 Bang! And it was like, glass flying everywhere, you know. 893 00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:40,160 You had to run into the road, and Paul was next to me. 894 00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:43,760 He said to me, "Where's Yvonne? Have you seen Yvonne?" 895 00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:47,040 I said, "No. I think she's still in there, Paul." 896 00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:50,760 With that, he said, "Stay here," and he just ran straight into the house. 897 00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,000 I started to smell something, like burning, 898 00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:02,880 but something getting blown, an amplifier blowing 899 00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:05,080 or something was a regular occurrence. 900 00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:07,120 And I remember saying to Steve Collins like, 901 00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:08,920 "Can you smell that? Can you smell that?" 902 00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:10,760 and he was like, "Yeah, it smells like something burning. 903 00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:12,560 Let me go and have a look behind the case," 904 00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:14,560 where we keep all the amplifiers. 905 00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,120 I think Gerry was probably still in the record box, 906 00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:19,200 searching for the next tune sort of thing. 907 00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,280 So, I said, "You know what? I'm going to go and get a drink. You want something? 908 00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,520 And that was it, and I went off. That's the last time I saw everybody. 909 00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:34,680 I've come down the first set of stairs, turned the balcony, 910 00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:37,520 and when I saw the smoke, I turned round and ran back upstairs. 911 00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:41,000 I remember going back into the room and shouting "Fire..." 912 00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:45,680 for which I believe, Paul had been in the room already... 913 00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:53,440 We were in the party, and Paul came in... 914 00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:56,440 and Paul came in, and he shouted fire. 915 00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:57,520 And, it must have been some kind of light, 916 00:50:57,600 --> 00:50:59,440 whether it was the fire behind him or whatever, 917 00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:00,600 like a silhouette on him. 918 00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,840 And when I looked at him properly, you could see the soot on his hair. 919 00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:05,400 You could see stuff in his hair, 920 00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:06,880 and that was the last time I saw him. 921 00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,600 But that would mean that Paul either passed me coming up the stairs 922 00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:12,640 or passed me coming down the stairs. 923 00:51:12,720 --> 00:51:14,400 Don't remember that. 924 00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:20,360 Everything's gone out, there's no electric, I can't see anybody, 925 00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:21,760 I don't know what's going on. 926 00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:24,760 And all hell broke loose. 927 00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:27,200 And people started to panic, right, so even when you'd get to a window, 928 00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:30,600 people are pushing you back, and there's panic. 929 00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:34,120 What I-- what I remember and what I saw 930 00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,400 was like watching an old Charlie Chaplin movie, 931 00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:39,960 a black-and-white Charlie Chaplin movie, 932 00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:43,640 where you know everything looks like it's going in slow motion, 933 00:51:43,720 --> 00:51:45,280 but it's going really fast. 934 00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:47,640 Like you got people screaming and shouting, 935 00:51:47,720 --> 00:51:50,200 and you got people going to try and climb out a window 936 00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:52,000 and other people pulling them back... 937 00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,520 The whole place just went mad. 938 00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:57,960 And I remember it getting really hot. 939 00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:01,760 And it was coming up. 940 00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,960 Heat was coming up from underneath, 941 00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:07,440 and it was just getting hotter, and you know what... 942 00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,920 I remember, standing there, doing this, thinking that I am wiping-- 943 00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:15,040 Sweating, wiping sweat. 944 00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:19,800 And... turns out later on, 945 00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:21,960 that that sweat was actually my skin 946 00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,680 that was peeling off of my face like that. 947 00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:28,480 It felt like it was... like, I'd got sand all over my face. 948 00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:33,480 And the more I wiped it, the more the skin kept coming off of my face. 949 00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:36,720 I remember when I put my head out the window, 950 00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:38,120 I was getting burnt. 951 00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:41,840 and in the confusion, I am thinking, "Why am I getting burnt?" 952 00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:44,960 And I will never forget, the floor felt spongy to me. 953 00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:46,520 It felt spongy. 954 00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:51,880 I was at the top of the house, and it's a three-story house. 955 00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:54,280 So I was at the top in the back 956 00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,760 when I heard someone shout fire 957 00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:00,560 from downstairs, as they were running up the stairs. 958 00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:03,080 Um, we could hear someone shouting, "Fire, fire, fire!" 959 00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:06,800 But it all happened so quickly. 960 00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:11,000 Yvonne started to run downstairs, shouting for her mum. 961 00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:13,600 David then ran after her, 962 00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,640 and I looked at Andrew, David went that way, 963 00:53:16,720 --> 00:53:20,600 it just seemed like seconds before it was just thick black smoke. 964 00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:22,920 And you can't see anything, you can't breathe, 965 00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:25,320 and you can't feel-- it is the thickest smoke. 966 00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:28,040 I remember... 967 00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:31,240 there was about four people just standing up on that wall, 968 00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:34,000 just leaning, like in shock. 969 00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:37,680 They didn't know where to go, what to do, they're just standing there. 970 00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:44,880 And I remember turning like that, looking at them, looking at the window, 971 00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:46,960 and the chaos and the mayhem that was going on 972 00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:49,480 of people trying to get out of the window. 973 00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:55,600 And I just grabbed my coat back on, and just opened the door and... 974 00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,880 and went running through the fire and tried to get upstairs... 975 00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:03,760 and I just remember going... 976 00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:05,880 feeling my way through the smoke. 977 00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:10,880 Falling over, tripping up, scared, 978 00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:12,720 really, really, really scared. 979 00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,840 The heat from the smoke is so intense, 980 00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:17,560 I can remember feeling like, 981 00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:20,120 I'm being pushed, you know, like we're all trying to fight 982 00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:22,440 to get to-to this one window. 983 00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,880 I'm only 11, and I remember thinking that... 984 00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:28,960 I haven't even lived my life, do you know what I mean? 985 00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:31,560 I have not even lived my life and now this is it, do you know what I mean? 986 00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:35,960 There was some guys trapped in-- 987 00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,760 I think, they must have run up to the top floor, 988 00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:41,440 and they were having trouble getting the windows open. 989 00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,240 And I can remember these guys kicking the windows out 990 00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:48,120 and literally taking a running jump, 991 00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:50,520 coming flying out the windows. 992 00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:52,480 And they had to jump, because... 993 00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:54,400 there were railings, 994 00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:57,600 and they... they obviously realized they had to... 995 00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:01,360 I jumped... 996 00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:03,200 out of the second floor window. 997 00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:04,680 But, um... 998 00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:06,280 I remember I crawled onto the ledge... 999 00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,480 the ledge, and I thought to myself, "You can't jump out," 1000 00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:13,680 because, at the front of the house, you had--you had spikes 1001 00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:15,360 the front of the gates... 1002 00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:16,720 you had spikes. 1003 00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:18,560 So if you jumped out, you could have landed on the spikes, 1004 00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:20,680 so I just jumped out and jumped straight down. 1005 00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:23,800 I only hurt my arm.. 'cause my arm, 1006 00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:26,120 couldn't come down. 1007 00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:27,240 That's all I remember, my arm was up there 1008 00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:29,000 and that was it, I went to the hospital, 1009 00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:30,960 with my arm up there for some reason. 1010 00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:33,240 But that was my only injury I had, 1011 00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:34,720 so I was like a little cat. 1012 00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:37,000 Desmond Brown was like a cat. He got out there. 1013 00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:39,640 So we were lucky, where other people... 1014 00:55:39,720 --> 00:55:41,400 weren't so lucky. 1015 00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:45,320 I think I was trying to obviously, 1016 00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:47,640 navigate my way out of this window when 1017 00:55:47,720 --> 00:55:50,200 last thing you know, I'm being lifted. 1018 00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:52,920 It's like I was coming down the drainpipe with somebody 1019 00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,600 and then, halfway down, I heard someone say, 1020 00:55:55,680 --> 00:55:57,600 that's the last thing I can remember, someone saying, 1021 00:55:57,680 --> 00:55:58,920 "You're on your own now." 1022 00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:04,000 And then, I remember falling and hitting on my back. 1023 00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:07,320 Eventually, I got to the top of the stairs. 1024 00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:09,560 I remember falling over twice. 1025 00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:13,120 And, um, when I got to the window, 1026 00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:15,080 there was already a guy on the window ledge. 1027 00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:18,120 He climbed out... 1028 00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:20,400 and I went right behind him. 1029 00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:23,920 I was like, "Whatever is happening, I ain't dying." 1030 00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:26,440 I went straight behind him, and I went out the window, 1031 00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:27,720 stood on the window ledge... 1032 00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,440 feeling for a drainpipe now, 'cause my eyes was hurting... 1033 00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:35,120 my-- everything is just going mad, I'm... 1034 00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:37,760 adrenaline's flowing, I can't think straight... 1035 00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:40,640 I found myself a drainpipe... 1036 00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:44,400 grabbed hold of it, and started climbing down. 1037 00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:48,680 I think my head just about got below 1038 00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:51,280 the level of what would be the window ledge. 1039 00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:54,240 And the drainpipe just pulled away from the wall. 1040 00:56:55,240 --> 00:56:57,320 I ended up falling down 1041 00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:01,880 and going straight through the roof of an old outside toilet. 1042 00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:09,160 I've landed on my right leg. 1043 00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:12,480 And my right leg ended up in my chest. 1044 00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:17,480 I had smashed my hip into a hundred odd pieces, 1045 00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:22,760 broke my thigh, broke my shin, smashed my foot up. 1046 00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:25,880 I see Yvonne jump out the window. 1047 00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:28,040 She looked badly injured. 1048 00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:32,160 I was getting really worried, I thought Paul hasn't come out. 1049 00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,200 The fire brigade seemed to turn up in minutes. 1050 00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:37,520 The guy jumped out. 1051 00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:40,760 I don't know why he come over to me, he come running over to me, 1052 00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:43,600 and he said, "Is there anyone in there?" 1053 00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:45,560 And I said, "Yeah, it's full of young kids." 1054 00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:48,200 And they went straight in. 1055 00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:50,840 And I thought, "Oh, thank God for that." 1056 00:57:50,920 --> 00:57:53,080 So I was then waiting there outside the house 1057 00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:54,360 in the middle of the road, 1058 00:57:54,880 --> 00:57:59,280 and I see Paul being brought out on a ladder. 1059 00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:03,160 They used the ladder as a stretcher. 1060 00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:06,080 They put him straight in the back of the ambulance. 1061 00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:08,800 They said, "Get in, go in with him." 1062 00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:13,360 When I came to, there was a person either side of me, 1063 00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:16,880 and I remember one of them was saying, "Help me!" 1064 00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:18,800 But I was thinking... 1065 00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:21,320 all I kept thinking about was, "Where are my brothers? 1066 00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:22,920 What's happened to David, what's happened to Andrew? 1067 00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:24,000 Where are they?" 1068 00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:25,640 No one could tell me anything. Do you know what I mean? 1069 00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:26,720 It was just horrible. 1070 00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:29,360 My sister, Claudette Ruddock, 1071 00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:30,800 before the fire started, 1072 00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:32,960 she saw somebody in a white car, 1073 00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:34,920 throw something in the house. 1074 00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,000 So, a lot of people believed it was a... definitely a racist fire, 1075 00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:40,200 a fire attack on that party. 1076 00:58:40,280 --> 00:58:43,280 That's what they believed, and all of us believed that. 1077 00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:45,400 A hundred percent. Well, why wouldn't you?