Читать книгу Street Boys: 7 Kids. 1 Estate. No Way Out. The True Story of a Lost Childhood - Tim Pritchard - Страница 16

In those days it was about peace and unity. Life on the estate was chilled. It wasn’t like it is today with all the guns and gangs and violence.

Pod

One of the older boys who used to be at the Angell Town clubhouse showing off his dance moves was Roger Samuels. He went by the street name of ‘Pod’. A woman from Liverpool who lived on the estate had made the mistake of calling him ‘podgy’ in front of his friends. From then on, everyone called him ‘Pod’. He and the others in the 28s used to gather at the clubhouse to meet up with girls before heading off to their ‘coch’. That’s what they called the empty and half-derelict flats in the council blocks where they could smoke, drink alcohol, party and sleep with their girlfriends without being disturbed by parents or annoying neighbours. As soon as they got wind that one of the council flats had emptied, they would kick the door down and turn it into their own place where they could hang out. It was the best place to have sex. Few parents on the estate would allow their sons’ girlfriends into the family home, let alone into their sons’ bedrooms.

That’s how Pod lived. Chilling in the ‘coch’, dancing at the clubhouse and meeting up in the stairwell of Marston House with the other 28s like Duffers, Sykes, Keith Weed, Wesley, Maddix, Gummy, Hustler and Perry, to plan what they would get up to that evening.

‘Let’s go to a funfair.’

‘Yeah we could do some robbing up there.’

‘And find some girls.’

The talk was all about what they planned to do next, where they could go to have some fun, what they could rob without getting caught.

They were careful, though, about where they went to commit their crimes. They stayed clear of robbing anyone on the estate. In fact, often one of the neighbours would lean out of one of the balcony windows and shout down to them.

‘We’re going out for the rest of the evening. Will you keep an eye on the flat for me?’

Even when one of the neighbours went back to Jamaica for the holidays they would be happy to watch out for the flat.

They took pride in keeping their estate free of outsiders.

If the gang discovered that one of the flats had been burgled on their watch it would send a surge of adrenaline through them. Over the following days they would be doubly vigilant and one of them would always be on the lookout for any strangers hanging around. If someone came into Angell Town who they thought might be responsible for the burglary they would give them a good kicking. No one came into Angell Town without the permission of the 28s.

There was nothing mysterious about the origin of their name. The gang was made up of a core group of kids who’d all gone to the Tulse Hill School in Brixton. ‘The 28s’ wasn’t an arcane reference to American gangsta culture, or to a London postcode or the lyrics of some Jamaican reggae song. Pod knew where it came from because he was there at the beginning.

We were called ‘the 28s’ because there were about twenty-eight of us.

Pod had grown up just as Angell Town was going through a slow transformation. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, life in Angell Town had been chilled, almost laid back. Social life on the estate had been built around the Jamaican-style ‘sound systems’ which were strung up in back gardens and around the Angell Town football pitch. During the weekend the smell of barbecued chicken and marijuana wafted through the council blocks to the soundtrack of chilled reggae music reverberating from huge boom boxes.

The estate attracted Jamaican DJs from all over London. They would come to Angell Town to play their own version of popular Jamaican sounds like Coxone or Saxon or Dread Diamonds.

If Pod was lucky, his father, who was the stern but respected local Christian preacher, would allow him to join the street parties and meet up with the other kids in the area. They ran from one sound system to another, fascinated by the dreadlocked DJs in their red, gold, black and green Rasta berets and by the swaggering Yardies dressed in long black coats and baseball caps and dripping with jewellery. Sometimes, though, his father would have the hump and wouldn’t let him out. Then he would be forced to observe the excitement from the balcony of Pym House.

There were never fights or arguments. It was a time of peace and unity. The police wouldn’t even need to come round because it was so chilled. They left the community alone and the community left the police alone.

It was rare that Pod got into any trouble. His father was a respected man in the community and set a good example. The only time Pod managed to get away from his father’s steely gaze was during those Sundays when he sneaked out of church. That’s when he would meet up with the other kids at the foot of Pym House. But as soon as they heard the church van bringing his father back home, they would ‘chip’, or run away. His father was so ferocious that no one wanted to hang around when he came back.

‘Get away from my doorway. Leave this area.’

That’s what he would say to any of the kids who inadvertently hung around the landing of Pym House. He was more than just the local pastor. He was a big man with a big temper and a big presence. Everyone did as he said.

At 13, Pod was allowed further afield. He went to break- dancing competitions at Brixton Recreation Centre, and body-popped with other kids from estates in Peckham and Clapham to see who was the best break-dancer. He played in the local Metropolitan Police five-a-side football competition organized by a community police officer whose name was Sergeant Hill. Pod’s team, Angell Town’s Mini Strikers, used to play other teams from all over south London. The matches, like the break-dancing competitions, created a rivalry with kids from other estates round south London. But the rivalry was always friendly.

That was lift-off for me. I was still quite podgy, but I was snappy with a ball at my feet. Those days crime wasn’t high and most guys in my age group weren’t doing anything bad. Even though we had competitions with other estates, it was all peaceful.

But that’s when life on the estate started to change. That’s when the 28s came into conflict with the Untouchables.

The Untouchables weren’t strictly a local gang. While the 28s were made up of kids who lived in Brixton, the Untouchables had their roots ‘northside’, in north London. Through family ties and connections formed in prison, the gang’s reputation had spread throughout south London until there were as many as sixty young guys who professed allegiance to the Untouchables living in Brixton. Some of the Untouchables had even turned one of the empty flats in Angell Town into their own ‘coch’ where they lived and partied. In the early days the 28s didn’t mind because some of them were related by blood to the Untouchables.

But as the 1990s began, clashes between the gangs became pointed.

Pod first noticed it during the ‘All Dayers’ held at the Bogle Factory in Somerleyton, just across the road from Angell Town. That’s when the so-called ‘clash of sounds’ was held. Different sound systems from all over London would meet up in an old factory and try to outdo each other with their music. The events would start at midday and go on until midnight. Pod and his crew would turn up with his sound system called ‘King Agony’. The idea was that he would compete with rival sound systems from neighbouring estates in Kennington or Clapham or Peckham with names like ‘Goldrush’ or ‘Silver Star’. Each sound system would have ten minutes to play their own unique type of music, often competing for ‘Specials’ or ‘Dubplates’. That meant receiving a mention or praise during the set of one of the local rival sound systems, or even better from one of the bigger, more recognized sound systems like ‘Nasty Love’ or ‘King Tubbies’. Getting a ‘Special’ or mention from a rival, especially a bigger rival, was a real accolade. But that’s when the trouble would start. The rivalries were fierce, and sometimes, if a sound system felt slighted, the different crews would turn on each other. And because each sound system had its roots in different areas of London, the fighting would end up as clashes between different council estates.

If during one of the weekend All Dayers the clashes had been particularly nasty, the rivalries would often spill over into the working week, distilling down into rivalries between different gangs. And that’s when the 28s and Untouchables would clash.

To start with it wasn’t much more than chasing the Untouchables out of the estate or tracking some of their members down and stealing stuff from them. Bottles and stones were thrown. Sometimes there would be fist fights.

Looking back, though, it was still innocent. There were no knives or nothing. No guns. It was quite often about staring up each other.

‘Staring up each other’ – that’s what Pod would do on a Saturday evening if there was nothing else going on. It meant that they would just stare at each other, looking for a fight. Sometimes it was with guys from the Untouchables, or strangers who’d walked uninvited into the estate. Sometimes the 28s used to fight amongst themselves. Pod would just stare at someone until a punch was thrown in anger. Then they’d end up brawling on the ground. It was rare that anyone took on Hustler, though. He was one of the main men in the 28s. The others looked up to him because he had a reputation as an effective and fearsome fighter. Most people tended to leave him alone.

It was on evenings like this, as the 28s gathered to fight or to chat about girls and robbing, that Pod became aware that some of the little kids on the estate had begun to hang around. Kids like Elijah Kerr, the Cross brothers, Michael Deans, Fat Chris and Michael Payne.

He’d watched most of them grow up. He knew Elijah Kerr, or JaJa as he was called, from the day he’d arrived from Birmingham as a little kid with a strange accent who’d looked lost on an estate like Angell Town. He’d known Nathan Cross, or Inch as he was called on the streets, from church and from Angell Town’s steel band where he’d been the quiet little guy who played the drum and performed in front of Princess Diana and the Queen.

He’d watched them all grow up and change, becoming more confident, bolder, cheekier.

JaJa was the one who impressed him most. The kid always stuck up for himself, even when some of the older kids tried to bully him because of his thick Brummie accent. He always seemed to be one step ahead of the game.

Increasingly they’d begun to hang around the 28s, asking for money or just pestering them for no reason.

Now and then Pod would feel protective and dip into his pocket and pull out a handful of loose change which he would give to one of the kids. Then he would send them on their way with a kick up the backside.

‘Stop bothering us. Here’s some money. Now go and buy me some jerk chicken and a coke.’

Sometimes they refused.

‘Why do we have to?’

‘Coz we’re older.’

‘That don’t make no difference.’

‘Do what I say or I’ll come after you.’

Sometimes the kids would hide for a week because they thought that Pod or one of the others really was after them.

The kid who Pod had most trouble with was the one everyone called Fat Si. Pod could see that the kid lived on the edge and had a short fuse. Pod enjoyed taunting him, seeing how far he could push him before getting a reaction. It was easy because Fat Si was always hanging around Pym House with Inch and JaJa. Whenever Pod saw Fat Si he would give him a kick in the leg.

Then one day Fat Si was waiting for him.

It happened on the landing of Pym House. Pod, as usual, was teasing Fat Si. He gave him a kick up the backside to taunt him. This time Fat Si whipped out a knife and stabbed Pod in the leg.

Pod screamed in shock and surprise.

‘What the fuck did you do that for? I’m gonna knock you down.’

Fat Si didn’t back down. He tensed up, ready to fight.

‘I’m gonna get you for this.’

But Pod’s leg was bleeding so badly that he hurried off to hospital to have it stitched up.

Pod left Fat Si alone after that. He’d found Fat Si’s limit and didn’t want to test him again.

He understood it, though. The whole estate knew that Fat Si’s mum had run away to another country and left him to fend for himself.

He didn’t have no motherly love. Lucky his dad always knew where he was. Even though his dad wasn’t always

around he always knew where Si was. They were alwaystight.

But still, Pod wondered, if Fat Si is prepared to pick up a knife at the age of 11, what’s he gonna do at 16?

It wasn’t long before Pod and the others in the 28s realized that the little kids they’d seen growing up on the estate had got older, bigger and more impertinent. Now they were roaming around the council blocks in their own group. That’s when people on the estate began to make a joke of it.

‘There go the Younger 28s.’