Uprising
I can’t believe I’m actually telling a story that begins ‘It all started’ because I always used to hate the stories that began that way, but I guess history will have to repeat itself because I hate telling this story.
This all started about four years ago, towards the final days of September 2010, and you probably won’t believe this was the catalyst that brought this country to its knees, but it was students.
Back then there was a Coalition Government, and they had proposed spending cuts to education, and some other noise about tuition. I’m fuzzy to the exact cause and reasons, mainly because it didn’t affect me and I was ignorant.
But holy shit did I see the news.
What had started as a small peaceful protest grew in size like a disease, before long London was a crawling cesspit of people who had long forgotten why they were rioting; they were just destroying things for the sake of the destruction.
Then there was the other side to the equation, the police trying as best they could to control the situation and the ordinary citizens fighting tooth and nail to protect what was theirs.
Every day I saw imagery of fire, fighting and bloodshed.
A generation clad in black, their faces distorted by makeshift masks throwing rocks, throwing punches and looting from stores they had smashed their ways into.
I thought I had seen the worst, but it was yet to come.
I remember the day it happened, the pictures and sounds burned into my memory forever by the ferociousness of the actions.
A group of protesters a thousand or stronger, a stone’s throw from the London Stock Exchange were lining one end of Newgate Street, with a small army of fully armoured riot police in formation marching from the other end towards them.
A break in the police lines started to appear as two police Tangi armoured Land Rovers slowly rolled through and on for about twenty feet.
As this happened, the police behind reformed their ranks and stopped in a wall formation, their riot shields held high.
I watched this in confusion, as I had only ever seen the armoured vehicles before during the troubles of Northern Ireland, Heck my dad had driven them whilst there with the British Army.
One of the Land Rover’s had a hatch on the top as if it was a tank and from there a Police officer appeared with a Bullhorn, he looked behind him as if nervous and looking for assurance he was doing the right thing, and gave a hand signal to someone behind him, nodded as if he’d had a favourable response and turned to the crowd of protestors.
They had by now started throwing things towards the Rovers but luckily they were not being thrown far enough to hit the officers.
“Please disperse and vacate this area, I repeat please disperse and vacate this area. We will be marching forward in 2 minutes time, and anyone that is in our way will be dealt with using non-lethal force” Said the officer from the bullhorn.
It was a sight to behold, the city of London, the tall buildings being destroyed and the debris across the roads, if I hadn’t known better I swore this was an action film.
I became distracted from the TV for a brief moment by a text message on my phone, ‘free minutes and texts, only from 3 mobile text this number….’ yadda yadda… just another load of crap from my network provider.
I became more engrossed in my phone, checking twitter and other sites to see what other people were saying about the riots, and that’s when I heard it.
The scream,
I looked up at the TV to see the officer who had just issued warnings to the rioters, on fire.
I was confused as all hell, what the fuck had just happened?!
I picked up the remote control and hit re-wind, to see one of the most haunting things I’ve ever bared witness to.
A person had come from out of now where, screaming towards the blockade at speeds I’ve never seen before, he jumped up on the bonnet of the Tangi, and smashed what must have been some sort of petrol bomb onto the officer and into the vehicle.
I watched in horror as the officer and his crew tried to scramble from the flames, all whilst their clothes and everything around them burned.
The driver seemed to get out pretty quickly and tackled the person who had attacked him, causing them both to go up in flames more so than before.
The officer that had the bullhorn seemed to struggle to get out and away from the fire, as if he was caught on something.
Before long about four or five other police officers had arrived to try and put out the fire with their small extinguishers, as well as trying to save their trapped colleagues.
And as this started to unfold the news station had suddenly switched back to the news room, Huw Edwards with a dumb struck look on his face, he stood in silence for what seemed like eternity until he started to speak.
“We apologise for the break in that story, but we feel it is far too graphic to broadcast at this particular time” he said, nervousness trembling his voice.
Now I’ll admit right now that the rest of the story is a blur, mainly because I just couldn’t believe that it was happening.
Because of the break in the news, the BBC never did show exactly what happened, but I’ll try to explain…
To put it simply, the officer who got hit by the petrol bomb died.
Now sadly this wasn’t the worst part of those first few days.
The police line was said to be nervous and broken by what they had just witnessed, after they realised their friend and colleague was gone.
One by one, the riot officers took up their riot shields and batons and marched forward.
With each step they drummed their baton against their shield, making a sound like warfare.
They had soon swarmed the baying crowd, and began to fight for their fallen comrade, beating back the protestors with baton, fist and shield.
It was one massive street brawl, but it kept getting bigger, the police got back up, and when it seemed they had the upper hand protestors from across the city would appear to bolster their own ranks.
By the end of the day it had ended in bloodshed and broken bones, no arrests were made.
The police retreated to safety,
The protestors continued to destroy the city.
A family lost a father, brother and a son.
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Black Branches
AdventureAfter rioting in London precipitates the events that will eventually destroy Britain, Carl is thrown into turmoil. Will he carry on looking out for himself and his friends, or will he take on a bigger challenge against all that oppose his way of lif...
