It was in the autumn of 1986 and I had been deported from Oslo after being caught asleep in a squat as I tried to raise some money for my rent in a working class hostel because I had lost my wallet with my rent in it.
Back in London I remember that it was Friday the thirteenth and the police had stopped me earning a crust but having enough for a portion of chips I decided to call it a day. Walking into Trafalgar Square passed Saint Martin’s church as I approached the South African Embassy where I came upon a demonstration against South Africa’s apartheid where I saw a police officer who had never heard about women and children first wrestling with a young woman who held a baby and trying to arrest her. That she had brought her child into the demonstration was a little foolhardy and as I found out later that also arrested and taken into the Nick was the Lady Mayor of Hackney.
I took hold of the cop and roaring like the lion in the jungle awake from his sleep of "In the jungle, the mighty jungle the Lion sleeps tonight" in an attempt to save the child who in my eyes I saw the size fifteen police boots stepping on the baby’s head. Roaring the Vajra Guru mantra of “Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum” I took off dragging the cop into the rush hour traffic across the road towards Trafalgar Square and by now I has another member of Her Majesty’s Police Force in tow.
I was arrested and taken away in a meat wagon which proved to be one of the best experiences I had as an arrested member of the public; because when the doors were locked the whole of the wagon erupted with South African freedom song that were sung as we drove towards Horseferry Road Police Station from which I had to walk all the way back to Surry Docks which now has been given the posh name of Surry Quays.
Eventually all charges were dropped because many members of the public had over the weeks taken part in the demo and I started to go to the Embassy every week though wasn’t arrested here again.
The next time I found myself in such a situation was a few weeks later when there was a big demonstration which the Reverent Jesse Jackson addressed the crowd in his sonorous tones in Trafalgar Square. Across the road the police projected the embassy for Mrs. Thatcher who stayed at home eating her Cape Grapes that hadn’t got sanctions on as she observed how Barclay’s Bank helped prop up the Apartheid regime.
I wasn’t trying to get to the Embassy but I know that the Police force always are into a good punch up or kicking and putting the boot in. It was about this time I became aware of the phrase “Maggie Thatcher’s Boot Boys”. In the miners’ strike of King Arthur Scargill the police boot boys had developed a technique they called as “Snatch squad.” The police ran in like a rugby team and grabbed bodies and took them away. They were led by a police inspector with his bright pips on his shoulder that ran towards me and I could see he wanted to arrest me.
I said to him “Come on Inspector” as I dropped backwards and threw him via my feet over my head, next thing I found that his boys in blue like Roman soldiers out for a good punch up when this place was called Londinium looking for a chance to rough up the locals.
I found myself being carried under the underpass which leads towards Admiralty Arch; on the far side of the street I found I had lost my shoes and was being filmed for the news as I roared “Free Nelson Mandela” through the gap in my long lost front teeth which I found later was why the used to say “Mind the gap” on the tube system what they were trying to say was mind the gap in Dave’s mouth. Again I was in the Meat wagon and rocking towards a police holding pound only this time I’d lost my shoes and it was a long walk home on a cold night. This time I had to go to court but gave a wrong name and had to assume a pseudonym whenever I was booked for playing music in the underground.
No comments:
Post a Comment