Hateland

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Around this time in 1984, the ceiling of my brother Paul's council flat in Clapham collapsed. The man upstairs had forgotten to turn off his bath taps, causing a flood. Paul was given temporary accommodation nearby.

  On the Sunday morning before he was due to move back in, he went round to check everything. He discovered the locks had been changed. He knocked next door. His neighbour told him that, in his brief absence, a group of squatters had moved in. Apparently, there'd been a large influx of them into the borough following the mass eviction at Effra Terrace in neighbouring Brixton.

  Paul banged on his door, shouted through the letterbox and knocked on the windows, but no one answered. He decided he'd wait until the squatters returned, rather than damage his windows and doors trying to get in. He intended removing the squatters promptly and permanently, without recourse to the law.

  Paul came round to the pub where we always met on Sunday mornings and told us about the squatters. I said when the pub closed we'd go round and evict them for him. Everyone was egging each other on, ranting about 'scum' taking over our towns and now our very homes. No fucking reds were going to take the roofs from over our heads. 'Kill, kill, kill' expressed the general mood. At closing time, Paul went back to his temporary accommodation to pack his bags. Meanwhile, five of us went round to his flat to evict the red scum. When we arrived, the back door was open, so we walked straight in. Nobody was home.

  We picked up the squatters' belongings and threw them onto the pavement. We deliberately smashed things like the stereo, the television and the chairs. We ripped up all their clothes. Then, after carrying out the beds, we slashed the mattresses and

  pillows. As soon as we'd completed our squatter-cleansing mission, Colin and I went round to Paul's to tell him he could now move his stuff back in. Paul looked puzzled. He said, 'What do you mean, "move all my stuff back in"? Has it all gone then?' Most of the property we'd trashed was his. He never did see the funny side of it.

  CHAPTER 7

  STEAMING THE RED RABBLE

  The annual 'Troops Out' march in London was a much-loved and eagerly awaited event in the Nazi social calendar. Supporters of a withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland would march from south London to somewhere in the centre. And the Nazis would traditionally attack them.

  I had mixed feelings about this. My time as a soldier in the six counties had actually strengthened my sympathies for the Troops Out cause. My Irish blood and my encounters with Catholic-hating Loyalists, as well as the fact that my dearest possessions now existed as a pile of ashes in an Orangewoman's garden, made me support the idea of a united Ireland, although I didn't want IRA violence to achieve that goal. Adolf, too, with his Irish father, wasn't entirely opposed to the key aspects of the republican cause.

  However, both of us looked forward to taking part in the planned attack on the Troops Out march for the simple reason that we wanted to bash some reds. We felt sure the marchers would be the same 'red rabble' we saw marching against Nazis, apartheid, Margaret Thatcher, the destruction of the rain forests and the clubbing of baby seals, not 'real' Irish republicans locked in a war with the Brits. In our eyes, members of this red rabble deserved a bashing whenever and wherever we could find them.

  It was around Easter 1984. The night before the march, Adolf and I helped leaflet squaddies' pubs in the Victoria area. The leaflets described 'IRA scum' marching through our streets while waging a dirty war 'against our people'. That night, we also attended a Nazi meeting at a pub in the West End. Upstairs in a small, wood-panelled room stood a long table on a small stage. A Union flag covered the table. A flag of Ulster decorated the wall behind. The speakers included two men from the Loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force. Dressed in jeans and combat jackets, and with strong Belfast accents, they ranted for ten minutes about the 'Marxist' IRA before urging the congregation of around 50 fascists to give generously to the cause.

  I gave nothing. I had no intention of ever giving a penny to the Orange bastards. Not even if they gave me my stuff back.

  The meeting ended with a full-throated version of God Save the Queen. It could have brought a tear trickling down the cheek of Elizabeth's mother, if not the Reverend Ian Paisley himself.

  Adolf got talking to one of the Loyalists. He said to him, 'You're not a Nazi, are you? You only dislike the Provos. What are your views on blacks, Asians and other immigrants?'

  The Loyalist wasn't entirely sure what to say A black in Northern Ireland at that time was about as common as a four-leafed clover. Most blacks encountered by Loyalists would have been wearing a British Army uniform. The Orangeman struggled for words before saying he couldn't understand why blacks had it in for Unionists. His response puzzled us.

  During the meeting, we'd been told that the two most likely opportunities we'd get to steam the reds would be when the march passed either Lambeth North tube station or The Bear pub in Kennington Road. If the police presence was too strong at these locations, then we were to head to a 'redirection' point at Waterloo Station, from where we'd be sent elsewhere. Very few meetings or 'actions' took place without our being herded around first from one non-location to another, the final destination being kept secret until the last moment in an effort to thwart the reds. If the latter knew of a venue before a meeting then they'd sometimes try to launch an attack. The men who stood at the redirection points had a dangerous job. The reds beat them up regularly.

  On the morning of the march, we met up in a local pub when it opened at eleven. By the time we had to head for Lambeth North tube station, we were all drunk. As we made our way to meet the red hordes, other people from pubs along our route joined us. Around 70 of us prepared to do battle - Nazis, squaddies, ex-squaddies and ordinary members of the public who'd seen their city bombed by those the marchers seemed to represent.

  Soon, we could hear the pipe-and-drum band accompanying the marchers. Before long, the republican flags and banners came into view. The enemy column remained a few hundred yards away when somebody began shouting, 'The fucking scum! Kill the fucking scum!' Screaming like primitives, we all began running towards the marchers, who probably numbered about 500.

  I felt like a footsoldier in a medieval battle as we charged across the road towards our foe. I was half-expecting a hail of arrows to meet us. We crashed into the front of the march, a clash of mutual hatred. I hit several people, but I don't know who. I just lashed out in a frenzy. The leading marchers had difficulty fighting because many carried large banners. Some tried retreating, but found themselves pushed forward again by those at the back.

  In a few seconds, it was over. Everybody, including the marchers, began shouting, 'Police! Police!' I turned and started to run. I looked over my shoulder to see a line of police officers running towards us. I kept running until I was several streets away. Then I made my way back to the pub where we'd agreed to meet.

  Adolf and my south London mates had got there first. The assault on the reds left everyone excited and laughing. It had been such good fun that everyone wanted another crack at the bastards. We decided to attack the march at another point. We walked to a pub half a mile away where we knew the march would have to pass. We planned to run out at the marchers as soon as they arrived. But the police put officers on the doors of both exits and told us to stay inside until the march had passed.

  A few people got angry with the police. They asked how they could protect people who supported groups that murdered police officers. 'Why don't you just go round the corner and let us at the bastards?' The police ignored them. A fight with the police began to seem the most likely scenario.

  The march soon reached the pub. We tried to run at the marchers through the police line. The marchers saw us - and tried to run at us too. The police pushed us back into the pub. Adolf lunged forward and two officers wrestled him to the ground. They told him he was under arrest before bundling him and others into a van. Adolf was charged with a public order offence and bailed to appear at Horseferry Road Magistrates' Court
in Victoria. We all agreed to go with him on the day of his court appearance, because we guessed the Anti-Nazi League would congregate outside. We were right. Around 20 reds and the same number of police stood there. The reds shouted abuse, took our photos - something they always did - and hissed at us, but no scuffles occurred.

  Members of the BNP and the NF stood inside the lobby, trying to recruit those who'd been arrested. Both groups offered to pay the fines of their members: 'Join us. We look after our members. Unlike the others.'

  In his defence, Adolf claimed not to have been part of any group that day. He always met with his friends in that pub after work on a Saturday. On this occasion, when he'd gone to leave he'd been prevented from doing so by the police. A fight had then broken out among other people with whom he wasn't associated. Fearing he might be about to get caught up in an unpleasant altercation, he'd tried to flee, but the police had pounced on him, mistaking him for a troublemaker.

  My wealth of experience in the dock qualified me to become Adolf's star witness. The prosecutor began cross-examining me. He asked if I'd drunk much alcohol in the pub that day. 'No, I don't drink, actually.'

  'You regularly go to this public house and yet you abstain from alcohol. A bit odd, don't you think, Mr O'Mahoney?'

  'Not really,' I replied. 'You see, I can't drink because I've got a problem.'

  'A problem, Mr O'Mahoney. And what might that be?'

  Before I could answer, Del Boy shouted from the back of the court, 'He's run out of money.'

  Even the magistrate laughed. This witticism didn't help Adolf. He was found guilty. Before fining him, the magistrate said that in a democracy people had a right to demonstrate, however distasteful others might find their cause. He added, 'I fought in the Second World War, young man. But that doesn't give me the right to walk around the West End assaulting German tourists.'

  He warned Adolf not to come before him again - or he could expect a trip to prison. We left the court laughing. Not surprisingly, neither the NF nor the BNP paid Adolf's fine. We began meeting regularly in The Falcon pub in Battersea. Nazi football hooligans from the Chelsea 'Headhunters' also congregated there. A lot of them came from Kent and Croydon and places like that. I had a fight with one idiot who said they had the 'hardest firm' in south London. I gave him a good bashing for his insolence and, as a result, my reputation rose in Nazi circles. It was after that incident that Tony Lecomber, the future BNP national organiser, began turning up to try to recruit us. Far-right groups viewed the simmering racial tension across south London as an opportunity to swell their diminishing ranks. They also needed thugs like us to protect their meetings from attacks by the reds. There's a long and well-documented history of far-right groups trying to recruit football hooligans. As one Nazi magazine put it: '99 per cent of football thugs are white and 99 per cent of those are nationalistic and patriotic and displaying the warrior instincts that made Britain and our race great.'

  I grew to like Lecomber. He was intelligent and well spoken, full of energy and ideas. You wouldn't have thought him violent, but he firmly supported 'direct action'. He wanted trouble. He wanted to cause the reds grief. So we got on well with him. Adolf, in particular, seemed to have found a soulmate.

  Lecomber was always handing out leaflets and papers for us to distribute at football matches and pubs. One time, drunk, I agreed to take 200 newspapers off him. He wanted me to distribute them to football fans at a Brentford v. Wolves game. I threw them over a hedge on the way to the match. Lecomber also encouraged us to attend more fascist meetings. The major political drama taking place in the background at this time was the Miners' Strike. It had started in March 1984 and lasted just over a year. We didn't sympathise with the miners. They might have been white working class, but they struck us as whinging northerners led by a loathsome red bastard called Arthur Scargill, who wanted to hold the country to ransom in the name of Marxism.

  All of us lived with job insecurity, so we didn't see why the miners should be the only people guaranteed a job for life. We found especially laughable the idea that the mining industry should be preserved so that the workers' children could themselves later descend into the pit. Adolf ranted regularly on this theme, describing the miners as 'typical backward northern bastards'. He'd often say, 'What sort of sick fucks want to send their kids down a mine, anyway?'

  On visits from London to my mother in Codsall, I'd met and started going out with a girl called Sarah Milner (known to me as 'Millie'). It was a case of opposites attracting, because she was quiet, caring and extremely well mannered. We got on very well, and when I was with her I found myself beginning to feel like a 'normal' human being. In Millie, I'd found a real soulmate. We did all the normal things that normal people do. Indeed, it was the 'normality' I really enjoyed. We just did everyday stuff together and she never mentioned my 'reputation'. She even used to laugh at me for getting excited about doing the most mundane things.

  However, in a place like Codsall, you can never escape your past. The village gossips soon started 'warning' her parents about me. Naturally, her parents became concerned. I met them a few times. They were good, decent people and I liked them. At first, they accepted me and tried to ignore the gossips, but then the rumours became more venomous and bizarre.

  People claimed Millie had had two abortions. The innocent truth was that, although we'd been together more than a year, we'd never even slept together. But, as the old saying goes, a lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.

  Despite my assurances that I'd treat their daughter with the utmost respect, Millie's parents made it obvious they wanted her to stop seeing me. Both of us felt deeply hurt by the desire of some locals to destroy any chance we had of a future together, but we both knew the gossip-mongers had won.

  Millie's parents had no reason to fear for their daughter's well-being on account of me. Indeed, by that stage, the evidence showed that my mother should have feared for my well-being on account of Millie. In the mid-point of our relationship, I'd visited her at her parents' house. We'd been fooling around by the kitchen sink as she did the washing up. At the same time as I stepped towards her, she turned towards me with a steak knife in her hand. The blade penetrated my left chest, pushing through my ribs and puncturing my lung. I pulled the knife out and, without waiting for an ambulance, got a lift to hospital.

  Millie stood over me as I lay gasping for breath on a trolley. I said, 'Fucking hell, Millie. I might die here.' Her demeanour became agitated with what I thought might be anguish caused by my plight. Then she slapped me hard across the face. 'Don't you dare swear in front of me,' she said. I don't think she ever did grasp the gravity of the situation.

  On Christmas Eve 1984, Millie's father arrived at my mother's house and gave me back the present I'd bought for his daughter. He told me not to contact her again. It really hurt me. I felt devastated. More than anything else, Millie and I were good friends who understood one another. The girlfriend-boyfriend thing was secondary. I wouldn't have dreamt of asking her to fall out with her parents over me, so our demise as a couple just had to be.

  I went out that night with a heart full of hate for my fellow man. Given my mood, I decided to avoid The Crown after the last violent incident during the season of goodwill two years earlier. I went instead with my friends to The Wheel Inn. There, I bumped into a female 'friend' of Millie. This person's mother had been one of the gossips passing on vile rumours to Millie's parents. When this 'friend' tried talking to me, I told her to fuck off. Her boyfriend objected. At that moment, all the resentment I felt for the good people of Codsall erupted. I picked up a bottle from a nearby table and smashed it over his forehead. It wasn't personal. It was just a release for my anger and frustration.

  As before, I was arrested, charged with wounding with intent, put in front of a special court and remanded in custody to Birmingham's Winson Green Prison. This time, I didn't even get a Jaffa Cake.

  I spent two weeks in prison before being bailed. I
n the mean time, someone confronted one of the witnesses with a hammer. Then the injured party began to wonder if he'd actually imagined the incident. He said at my committal hearing he didn't have a clue who'd hit him. The prosecution didn't appreciate this divergence from his original written statement. They deemed him a 'hostile witness', which meant his verbal evidence could effectively be disregarded in favour of his written statement. I was committed to stand trial at Stoke Crown Court.

  I returned to London to await my trial. I knew I'd be sent to prison again, but this thought didn't have much effect in turning me into a better citizen. I'd had enough of 'decent citizens'. I felt I was damned if I did right and damned if I did wrong. I decided to stop giving a damn altogether.

  Larry 'The Slash' had been a Millwall fan all his life. He'd often told me about the violence he'd witnessed at their games. Millwall's hooligans were the hooligans' hooligans. Organised and determined, they feared no one. As far back as 1920, Millwall's ground had been closed for two weeks after hooligans beat up the opposing goalkeeper. The future England manager and Knight of the Realm, Bobby Robson, had once said flame-throwers ought to be turned on them. The BBC publicised, and inadvertently glorified, their violent reputation with a Panorama documentary in 1977.

  As a teenager, I could remember Millwall's visit to Wolverhampton when the local paper had described the streets after the game as 'running with blood'. I fancied joining them. My birthday was coming up and Millwall had drawn Luton Town in an FA Cup quarter-final tie at Luton. The ground stood just down the road from where I'd been born.

  All the talk in hooligan circles around Deptford and New Cross was of the Luton match. People who hadn't been to a Millwall game for years said they were 'coming out of retirement' to attend. Everyone knew there'd be trouble.