Thursday, 28 January 2016
The answer
I enjoyed my little quiz and it seems most who answered had at least some idea what it was and two people with a little prompting were spot on, well done Haddock and Albert. The object in question is one of the few CS gas canisters ever used on mainland Britain, it was fired during the 1981 Toxteth riots. I lived in Toxteth at the time and as a 20 year old I'm afraid to say a riot was something I was not going to miss out on.The gas canister hit a wall just above my head ( another individual was killed by a direct hit) and several seconds later I was a mess of snot, tears and puke...charming I know! A good friend of mine pulled me to safety which was nice of him as a police charge swept past and by this time they where not taking any prisoners...well not without a good pasting with a truncheon. The riots where very violent and very destructive with inbetween 700 and 1000 policemen injured, my involvement was mainly as an observer as I had friends on both sides of the line and you could walk via alleyways from behind rioters to policemen and back again quite easily.I have to admit even though people died and a chunk of the city was burned down I found it exciting but then life was different then...well at least mine was.I shall revisit this subject of the riots at a later date if anyone is interested.
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6 comments:
Top one the old milk van gone up in smoke, remember being in Birkenhead I had just come home for the weekend as I was working in London and had spent the few years before that in Saudi Arabia.
We were walking up Atherton St to Grange Road about 6 of us heading to one of the pubs and the police were ready for Birkenhead to go up in smoke and were everywhere someone across the road watched a police van go past him and shouted at it, the back doors opened and his feet never touched the ground, the back doors closed and the van took a high speed dash to somewhere with this guy in it, the police van was immediately replaced with another van which followed us up the road, they watched us go into the pub and drove off.
Had a friend who lived in Faulkner Square at the time and I went visiting a few days later, not a time to visit anyone really.
Interesting hearing it from one who was there. Ringside seat.
Was this before or after your John Peel slot, Thud?
Scrobs,did first peel session just after this and used the session and night as basis for second single which good enough was an indie hit (which only means it sells a few thousand!)We did 3 other peelies afterwards including one live from the ica on the mall.
Back in the days before the cops were all armed with guns?
Other than some special branch mooching around looking for provos the police had no guns at all.
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