My Dad's stapler

This object forms part of my earliest memories. I remember playing with it under the dining room table, and accidentally stapling my fingers on more than one occasion. I remember it being there when my Dad was doing paperwork, and being fascinated with it's shape and the thing on the side for removing staples, which now fascinates my son (who has not stapled his fingers). When my Dad died in 1995, it was one of several everyday items I took on, connecting me directly with feelings of comfort and security. It still works perfectly and I use it all the time. Made in England, all steel, from the 60s?

My daughter has been getting pretty angry about the whole riot thing, and said she wanted to tell people what she thought, because she’s been reading about her neighbourhood in the press. So, I said she should try and get her ideas down on paper.

Having read my previous post, she also asked me to justify why we are living here rather than somewhere cleaner, “safer”, with less unpleasant people and behaviour. Let’s not get into that here, but I think it forms some context for her comments below:

The Tesco Riot

We are a small neighbourhood and I like our independent shops. Me myself I was not happy with Tesco for deciding to build where they did.

I think that the reactions to Tesco when everyone heard about it were good. Small peaceful protests. I live around the Stokes Croft area and I believe that it was all fine.

But a group of squatters thought it would be fine to squat where the Tesco was going to be. When Tesco got round to wanting to build the the local store some protesters started acting in a way that I don’t think was suitable: Glueing themselves to the building with superglue and concreting themselves into barrels full of concrete. The police took action and I think dealt with it well, although it did stir the neighbourhood and things got worse. For me, I already had anger of the people that did the out of order stuff. I really didn’t like the unthoughtful reactions.

Then when I was starting to feel better and my anger had gone out of my system the Tesco opened and on Thursday the 21st at around 10pm I couldn’t get to sleep because of a loud helicopter sound. I decided to go upstairs and ask my mum what was happening. She was there staring out of the window, so I went to join her.

The next morning I asked my parents what was happening. Turns out my Dad had been there for about 5 hours just watching the scene unfold. I also happened to be walking down the Stokes Croft way on Good Friday. What I saw was horrible. So careless.

The next day I read an article about the night and it pointed out that someone threw a concrete block onto the police! That is what really annoyed me the most! One person did that yet over everything else that annoys me the most. So careless and unthoughtful.

Maybe people should have thought before they did anything.

11 yrs of age

a personal view

This has been written off the cuff, and I may rework it. I may read it later and wonder what the hell I was thinking. We are all fallible.

Pictures here

I witnessed the events of last night, and I think I saw as much as any individual possibly could of the events, from about 10pm through to 3am. Throughout this time I was reflecting on what I was witnessing, and this morning the news and comment I’ve picked up has forced me to reflect more

This is not a simple issue. It is not about squatters, petrol bombs, vandalism, nor Tesco.

Of course the behaviour of a small element of the public was wrong, and it should be condemned as such. But when I hear people draw a line under the matter at this, it concerns me greatly. When my children do wrong things I challenge them, and even punish them. But I would be a bad parent if I didn’t ask myself why they did these things. To be confident in challenging the behaviour of others, we must look to ourselves critically, and ask what the drivers are for this behaviour. We may learn about far more important things in the process.

I observed different groups with a myriad of motives for what they were doing. For my part, I live in this area, I care passionately about it, and I value its richness. I have chosen to bring up my children here. I will not lie in bed while these events unfold, no more than I will simply pay my taxes and expect others to make my life tidy and comfortable. I will witness the reality, and I will engage with things that it might be nicer not to have in society. We must engage.

I saw people of all ages and genders drunk, and looking to make a statement verbally, and I saw those that simply wanted to fight for the sake of fighting. I saw others who fought because of more deeply held convictions - a moral sense of the need to resist, which is of course an essential human quality. I saw people there to be entertained by these actions, and many more who wanted to be simply visible, to say, “We are here, this is where we live, this matters to us.”

Under the circumstances, I feel I saw professional, if forceful, behaviour from individual police officers. It is not always nice, and it will provoke some people, but once they are put in the line, they have a tough job to do. It will never be perfect.

I also think I saw those officers execute the tactics as they were directed pretty well. They seemed to be well trained and very good at working effectively in holding a line or clearing a street.

But my oh my, I could not understand the strategy behind this. The result seemed to be a gross fragmentation of the disorder - not a dispersal, creating running battles through residential streets on several different fronts. Ultimately the police lost control.

But I know nothing of the theory of crowd control. Once this event started, it was to become harder and harder to manage. I do not know what the experts would consider a “job well done”. But ultimately it didn’t look well done to me.

Let us assume that the police have found petrol bombs in the house opposite Tesco, intended for use. Was this the best way to prevent their use - on a weekend, knowing the streets would be full of hundreds of drunken people as the night wore on? With hindsight, might there have been another way? Quite possibly.

But let us go back further. The council could not legally prevent the opening of Tesco. Did Tesco act illegally in acquiring and opening the shop? No. But, morally? Questionable. Sensibly? Definitely not. Tesco is not acting maturely, or responsibly.

As for the accusation that it is “a minority of unemployed wasters” that are opposed to the opening of the store, or corporate globalism. This is wholly wrong. Every well-to-do, middle-class, individual I know in this area is opposed. We would not take up arms, but we are opposed. We largely agree with the moral standpoint of the younger, “less empowered” members of our community. We want what they want, at least in this small respect. Show me a more diverse community that is more cohesive than this one. It is incredibly diverse, and yet there is a broad acceptance of each other. It faces a huge range of stresses and challenges, and yet there is incredible patience and tolerance. It is a community to be hugely proud of.

Last night, this community certainly felt a sense of invasion (be that corporate power, physical control, the presence of a huge number of heavily equipped police, many from outside the area) and it’s patience failed. For some that resulted in violent action, for others simply standing by. Enough people, had enough (albeit different) reasons.

What I think I witnessed last night was a venting of anger. Anger at our political leaders, at those who make money after the economic destruction they caused, and the social destruction that is now beginning. It is the least empowered who will pay the greatest price for this. For those that feel little power, it is a sad truth that the police are the only tangible means by which they can connect with the source of their frustrations, and the windows of Tesco of course.

Some behaviour is wrong. Those that stand in judgement must nevertheless step up and ask what their part has been. That includes me, and you, and you in your comfortable suburb, not just the great power-brokers.

I will take the risk of making just one sweeping statement: Whatever the scale of vandalism that took place last night, it is nothing in comparison to the vandalism inflicted upon this community by the owners of Westmoreland House and The Carriage Works over the past decades, and the political leaders who failed to deal with it.

Written the day after the first riot in April

Let me tell you my little boy
About a night we spent together many years ago.

I was hiding from our torment of sleepless baby nights
And your Mother brought you to me in the spare room.

I held you soft in my arms.

Cradled on my beating heart.

And I couldn’t move for fear of your reprisals.

For three hours in a trance.

Your every stirring answered with a whisper.

Remembering a night in 2003

A moment of quiet.
The eye of a storm.

I scarcely dare breath
lest my slightest movement

tip
time forward and the world come rushing in.

Lucy is still.

Only her tiny fingers work the object she holds.
Only her delicate intake of breath breaks the silence as

she stares intently
and tries to know what she holds.

Like trying to touch water without making ripples

I stare at Lucy.

For a brief eternity
The world is mysterious
and we chase our imaginations through fairytale forests.

Then

she remembers
and looks up at me

and we smile.

From 2000