Croydon is my least favourite area in London (technically Surrey I know), it has an uneasy feeling about it. We worked there earlier this year, outside The Whitgift Shopping Centre. Lots of Eastern Europeans congregated around there and people either very high or very drunk wandering around mid morning.
I used to work with a woman from Rhyl. She had had some dealings with the police for violence (just the two officers hospitalised, perfectly understandable, after all they were dragging her 18 year old daughter away in handcuffs) and had "anger management issues" so went to a boxing club to work them out. On one occasion she was sparring with some young lad who fancied himself, and he didn't pull one of his punches. When she complained he laughed at her. "That's out of order" I said. "What did you do?" "Well, I wasn't f***ing having him take the p*ss out of me, so I battered him." Right. That will do it. If there's a time and a place, that's it. I bet the lad in question doesn't tell that story to his mates.
Just lots of hair gelled, white shirted (short sleeved) piss heads in my day. I wasn’t fond of getting the train home from East Croydon station whenever Palace were playing Brighton.
It would have been better just not to have voted at all. Galloway (thanks for spotting typo) will have no effect on Gaza at all. So it was a wasted vote.Because a) the alternative was worse and b) his stance on Gaza was to call Israel out for war crimes and genocide as opposed to the other candidates who stated what Israel was (and still are) doing is justifiable.
P.S. Galloway
This is nearly 50 years ago so it's testing my memory.
Stayed in prestatyn recently ,right opposite that pontins holiday camp !! Lovely beach but those chalets are pretty dire ..not surprised it closed
Certainly, this was Ordsall in Salford during the Ordsall riots in the early 1990s. I would certainly say there were dangers. Was it ever a “no go area“? Absolutely not. If you were daft enough to walk or cycle alone then to be blunt you were simply a bit naive. Doing so came with risks. Were they risks relating to the whole area? Again, absolutely not. Certain streets, certain corners or tower blocks and only at certain times. Information was shared and provided you listened then you were fine. Look fearful and you’d be targeted. Move with confidence and you’d be fine.
They don't call it The Cronx for nothing!
To be fair it’s great anecdote. He took umbrage at being asked to return a gift from a young asylum seeker which he accepted in the middle of a case. Clearly unacceptable as it instantly looks like a bribe. Rather unfortunate as they’d knitted it. His wife suspected he’d slept with her and one of the other volunteers eventually grassed him up. He threw one brick at the office window and the note went awol when the brick bounced off. Came back later and fired one into a waiting room full of punters. Rang up angrily to confirm that he’d resigned but we were too busy pissing ourselves at his anger when we pointed out that the note was awol off brick two. Third one delivered on all fronts although it must have surely got back to him that one of the volunteers took the bricks home to her husband.
So, not really hard then. In Salford this was a deliberate thing for a few months. A whole spate of cyclists deliberately knocked under vehicles and several people hospitalised. Happened to a colleague on a Brompton. They were to that point a long haired quietly spoken hippy who did morris dancing and built medieval musical instruments. They resigned but were persuaded to not do so. Came back to work with a number 1 haircut and literally wearing combat gear. Also went “commando”, which mightily impressed our admin team
Prestatyn is soft compared to Rhyl.
sorry for laughing at this, there is sort of a Rolling Stone element there
I can understand why there may be a reaction like that against the police by, for example, people selling drugs. But why attack ambulance and fire services personnel?
No references, but it's a safety instruction in the city. My friend was at a fire safety conference there and someone mentioned it. My friend, the eternal sceptic and not one to mince his words, said "fxxx off! That doesn't happen!" The Leeds fireman replied , deadpan, "bloody well does, these flats and the other in Gipton, all the time. Bastards". So maybe it's a story, make of it what you will, but my mate wasn't a man to be making stuff up.
