Croydons Worst Day

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" - Franklin D Roosevelt

Some time in the Summer of 1995 I was seeing a girl called Charlotte.  Lovely girl, half American, met through work.  She worked at weekends at a club called Bagleys up in King's Cross and she invited me along one Saturday night.  Good club, great atmosphere but, at 3am, her Dad came to pick her up.  She lived in Hemel Hempstead, so I got a kiss goodnight.  And I decided to go home, back to Croydon.

Now, I have NO idea if any of you know the area but it was, in a word, notorious.  (Granted, it's a lot better now.)  There I was, alone, walking the streets of King's Cross in the VERY early hours.  I saw one mugging, one guy getting beaten in a phone box, three prostitutes (I think they had an equivalent number of teeth each too) and more druggies and dealers than I've ever seen or since.  Waiting nearly 40 minutes for the night bus to get me to Trafalgar Square, so I could get the next night bus home only added to the anxiety.

I got in at about 5:30am.  And it was the scariest night of my life.

Until Monday night, 8th August 2011.

Two nights before that, the Tottenham riots took place.  The following night, more riots broke out in Enfield, as well as other little pockets around London.  Then came the Croydon riots.

I left work a bit earlier than usual, as I had heard of tension mounting across London.  I got home about 6:15.  There wasn't anything different about the journey, nor anything out of the ordinary about my street.  Shops and businesses had closed early, but that was more precautionary than anything.  Or so I thought.

About 7ish, my friend Terry sent me a photo of West Croydon.  The 'battle' had begun.

Also see here and here...

My heart sank.  Croydon was better than this.  We are a multi-cultural town/city and should not be at war with ourselves.  I rapidly discovered that this was never about race, or religion, or status, or class.

At 7:30-ish I hear shouts and screams, coming from my window.  I look out and see about half a dozen hooded people milling around Church Street tram stop.  It was about this time that the bus parked by the car park behind my flat had been attacked.  Argos had been broken into and looted, as had the jewellery store and Lidl.  Yes, Lidl.

A few minutes later, while keeping people updated via my Twitter account, the flat began shaking, and a noise like a heard of stampeding animals went past my window.  About 60-odd hooded people/youths were running past, carrying boxes, bottles, etc.  One young man stopped and shouted "Hang on, there's more of us than them.  There's more of us than them!  Come on!"

That was when I knew this was only going to get worse.  I went downstairs to the front room, being careful not to get seen, when an explosion went off, behind the flat.  I went to the kitchen to see smoke pouring out from what I thought was the car park, but turned out to be the 157 bus that had been abandoned.

Lots more whooping and hollering, so I went back upstairs to observe, where it was safer.  I had no idea at the time that they were attacking House of Reeves.  I went back to my laptop to Tweet and update people on Facebook.  Then more shouting.  I looked again, saw some thing burning next to the flats over the road.  I looked down and saw Riot police moving down outside my flat.  I was relieved.  Thinking it was either a bin or a car on fire I just thought this was surely coming to an end now.  I went back to the laptop, and watching Sky News.

Then even louder shouting.  Not only was it House of Reeves on fire it was clearly starting to burn fiercely.  Minutes later, I could see the unmistakeable flickering orange light in the sky.  Whatever was burning out the back could NOT be going that high, and so I looked out the window.  That's when I saw the fire leaping out, over the roofs of the opposite flats.

This was about 9pm-ish.

Seeing a local landmark burning, one that was mere seconds away from my flat, was distressing.  But worse was the fact that, selfishly, I realised that I and my property was in imminent danger.  Thankfully, some of my friends had seen the inferno and rushed to see if things were OK.  We decided to just get the hell out.  Knocking for the girl in the flat next door, (who is Russian and speaks VERY little English) and her 7 month old baby girl, we all rushed out of the block of flats, not even stopping to lock up.  Standing at the Tram stop, watching rioters and looters laughing, running amok, scared me.  I looked down the road to the blaze.  I saw a woman jumping from her upstairs flat, the riot police using their shields to cushion her landing.  That scene has become one of the iconic pictures of the riots.  I took this picture a few seconds after it happened.  (I know it's not clear, I have a cheap shit phone, I'm still not stooping low enough to steal one.)

Decided to seek refuge with friends in South Croydon, we walked off, past the smashed windows and debris of Argos, et al.

The atmosphere can only be described as 'evil'.  I can't compare it to anything else other than imagining you're in the middle of a zombie film, just putting your head down, moving on, hoping not to be noticed, yet feeling eyes on you at all times.   Suddenly a guy next to me checks his Blackberry phone and shouts 'Richer Sounds, South Croydon' and about 20 youths and adults, all wearing hoods or masks just run past us, down the road.

Once safe, I called as many people as I could, to apologise for just leaving Facebook and Twitter without much warning.  But no laptop and very little battery on my phone meant radio silence from me.  So I spent the rest of the night watching Sky News, watching Reeves burn down, watching London Road burning down and just hoping that things would calm down in the morning.

I think I got an hour of sleep, maybe two in total that night.  Told work that I wouldn't be going in, and to their credit they were fine about it, telling me that I was to concentrate on being safe, first and foremost.  But I had to go back to the flat, to get a change of clothes, my laptop, charger, and other bits.  Then I was going to my Brother's down in Godstone and seeing if it died down during the Tuesday.  While I was in my flat (which was under Police guard - and thankfully undamaged and not looted) I took a picture of the remains of the House of Reeves.

Obviously, the trouble seemed to have dissipated but the scars will remain.

In my next blog, I will give my thoughts on what happens, why it happened, if it'll happen again and what we as a community, as a society can do to stop it.