Hateland

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Harrington's choirboy looks and his quiet, reasonable manner had impressed many on the far-right. They saw him as a future leader, possibly capable of delivering electoral success. In the mean time, the National Front had split again. The BNP had been founded in 1982 after one such split - leader Tyndall was himself a former NF deputy leader. Now came another major split. This meant that for a while two National Fronts, one led by Harrington, vied for the hearts and minds of right-thinking people. Harrington had got in touch with Adolf because he hoped to build up support for his 'new' NF. He wanted to meet up for a drink with Adolf 'and friends'.

  We all rather liked Patrick Harrington, who was certainly no Patrick Hooligan. He came across as easy-going, modest and intelligent, the sort of bloke your mother would describe as 'a nice boy'. He assumed the current right-wing groups had left us all disillusioned. He thought his 'new' party might reawaken our interest and set our hearts beating with hope for an Aryan future. He said the launch of his new NF would be held at an exclusive hotel in Victoria. He invited us along to see what we thought of his manifesto and ideals. We told him we'd go. He seemed pleased. I suppose the problem with all politicians is they think that a yes to one answer means you're going to say yes for ever more.

  In the end, about six of us went to the launch: Adolf, Ray, Colin, Benny, my brother Paul and me. The hotel, a spit from Buckingham Palace, exuded wealth and class. Huge, crystal chandeliers complemented the thick, red carpets. We stuck out like the sorest of sore thumbs. Party workers greeted us at the door to the 'conference room'. They thanked us for coming and politely asked for a donation. We laughed and politely told them to bollocks. We barged our way past and sat in the second row facing the podium.

  We distinguished ourselves as the only yobby types there. The other 25 or so people in the room were largely elderly 'old major' types, the sort who'd retired back to England after a life spent running the colonies, only to discover the colonies had arrived before them. Even the notorious aristocratic fascist Lady Birdwood had brought her blue rinse along. The other celebrity far-right 'face' was an Italian whom Adolf called 'Bob'. He'd allegedly taken part in the Bologna railway station bombing. The anti-fascist Searchlight magazine was always writing about him. Benny referred to him as 'Adolf's wop friend'.

  The launch bored us shitless. Harrington wasn't much of a speaker and, in Adolf's eyes, his manifesto made him little more than a Tory. After the speeches, we ate what remained worth eating from the buffet and went to leave. Harrington came over and asked us what we thought. We told him what he needed to hear. He invited us to a 'social evening' at a West End pub.

  We guessed we'd be able to secure a few free drinks, so we went along. We sat alone at the bar for 15 minutes. We thought no one else had turned up. But Harrington arrived and whispered that the actual event was being held in a private room upstairs. At the entrance, party workers told us admission cost twenty pounds, 'which includes a buffet'. We ignored them and bundled in. The room contained the elderly majors from the hotel plus a group of middle-aged, leather-clad bikers from Milton Keynes.

  These sort of events were always lousy. If a black singer came on the sound system, people would shout, 'Jungle music! Nigger music! Turn it off!' Barbra Streisand? 'Jew! Turn her off!' The DJs, unable to play 'undesirable' music, didn't have much left to select. You'd end up feeling imprisoned in a First World War RAF-officers' mess tea party.

  We sat drinking their lager and eating their buffet for an hour or so. The party workers looked on resentfully. Harrington came over and asked us to make at least a small contribution. Please. We told him we didn't have any money.

  We didn't see Harrington again for a little while. Then a parliamentary by-election was announced in the Vauxhall constituency, part of our south London patch, for 15 June 1989. Harrington decided to stand as a candidate for his 'new' NF. The other NF faction also put up a candidate. Everyone on the far-right took sides - and feelings ran very high. Harrington came canvassing in our favourite local, The Royal Oak in Stockwell. He went down very well with the mainly Irish customers ('A noice lad, a very noice lad'). He could hardly fail with a name like Patrick Harrington. I guessed, like most of our little group, he had a bit of Irish in him. In fact, he informed the charmed customers that his grandmother was Irish.

  He also stressed his party wasn't anti-Irish or anti-Catholic, unlike the 'old' NF, which had once referred to the Irish as 'bogwogs' and demanded their repatriation along with all the other immigrants. Harrington even coloured some of his election leaflets green. Somebody told us his mother read tarot cards. We used to joke with him that she knew the election result already, so canvassing seemed pointless. Possibly believing that we owed him for two buffets, Harrington approached us once more to ask us to show support at the poll count at Brixton Town Hall. He said it'd be shown live on television. He warned us there might be trouble, so we decided to go.

  On the night of the count, around 20 of us congregated at Brixton Hill, a five-minute walk from the town hall. We arrived there via two 'redirection' points. We walked down the hill and entered the hall to be met by half a dozen policemen who warned us that any problems would be dealt with 'swiftly and severely'. Harrington looked excited to see us. Perhaps it was just relief, because the other NF faction's supporters had got there first and, we heard later, already abused him verbally.

  Our choirboy 'leader' gave us all a T-shirt bearing the words 'NF' and his party HQ's telephone number. He said, 'Get yourselves in front of the TV cameras as often as you can. We need people to see the phone number.'

  As soon as we put on the T-shirts, and thereby clearly identified ourselves as Harrington's supporters, members of the other NF faction glared and sneered, but they lacked the bollocks to take us on. We closed in on those pointed out as having been particularly abusive to Harrington. A bit of pushing, shoving and swearing followed. It looked like it was going to kick off. Screaming Lord Sutch and a sidekick from his Monster Raving Loony Party tried calming things down, but when the fists started flying they and the other candidates ran towards the thin blue line.

  The police restored order swiftly, but hardly severely. They neither arrested nor ejected anyone. Screaming Lord Sutch came back and stood next to us with his arms folded, as if he intended maintaining order. No one was sure if he was having a laugh or being serious, so I told him to fuck off. Or else. He mumbled, 'Take it easy, boys,' then disappeared swiftly back into the crowd. Within minutes, fighting had broken out again between the factions. Again, the police restored order. This time, they said if we misbehaved again we'd be arrested.

  The TV presenter told the viewers (who could view me wearing my NF T-shirt), 'The last count should have been taking place uninterrupted, but there've been a couple of unpleasant and violent scenes. In the first, a member of the official National Front engaged physically in the front row with the Revolutionary Communist Party newspaper, attempting to grab the camera.

  'And then there was a violent fist fight between the actual candidate for the official National Front and the chairman of the other National Front, that's the new National Front party.

  'And now things are at last a little calmer, and I hope they'll stay calm for the rest of this count. That is, of course, the politics of the fringe - the extreme fringe.'

  As the evening wore on, the tensions subsided a little. People began wandering around alone. One of Harrington's supporters literally bumped into members of the old NF near the counting tables. He was a geeky suit-wearer, so someone in the old NF got brave and levelled him with a punch to the head.

  Another scuffle broke out. Although my little group and I hadn't been involved, the police ordered us all to leave the hall. As we walked out, Lord Sutch stood behind the police and shouted, 'Bloody fascists! Bloody Nazis! Go on, get out! Get out!'

  Several of us started shouting, ' Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! ' while giving the Nazi salute. We waited outside to see if the old NF would come out, but they didn't. So after half an hour we retire
d to the pub.

  Out of the 28,806 votes cast, Harrington secured 127 of them (and a black eye). This represented 44 votes (and a black eye) more than the candidate for the old NF, who got 83 votes, but only 21 more than Screaming Lord Sutch, who secured 106. A far-right victory at the polls seemed some way off.

  Some months earlier, Debra had become pregnant for the second time. In November 1989, the birth of our daughter Karis delighted us both. The time had come for one of my new starts. I know my attempts to change myself may sound half-hearted, but each time I really did try to start anew.

  I decided I'd have to make the break with south London. I started looking for work in Essex. Colin, still wanted by the army for being absent without leave, had left England to live in Sweden. No doubt he'd wanted his own new start. He had a girlfriend and a job out there, but he still turned up for the occasional weekend in London. I could hardly blank an old friend who'd travelled all the way from Sweden. So whenever he came to town, we'd meet up for a drink. In January 1990, I was in south London having one such drink. Ray had also joined us in The Heaton Arms, Peckham Rye. We kept out of our usual haunts, because Colin remained on the run.

  Colin was staying at his father's house in Stratford, east London. At around 10.30 p.m., he said he had to go. Ray asked him how he'd be getting back.

  He said, 'I'm going to get the tube to Stratford.'

  I'd noticed a group of very large men, probably in their 40s, standing nearby, but I hadn't paid them much attention. They must have overheard our conversation.

  That day, Millwall had been playing their arch east London rivals West Ham again, this time at home. I hadn't bothered going: I'd wanted to stay out of trouble. I can only assume that when Colin mentioned Stratford in the East End these probable Millwall supporters thought we were West Ham.

  Ray went home first. At closing time, Colin and I left the pub. I was walking just slightly in front when I heard a loud thud. I turned to see Colin lying on the ground. Four or five men - the group of 40 year olds from the pub - stood over him with baseball bats. I ran to help him. They knocked me unconscious. A witness told police that as I lay comatose on the ground, my assailants had smashed my knees with their bats. Someone had been shouting, 'Cripple the bastard! Cripple him!'

  I awoke in King's College Hospital, East Dulwich. I had stitches in my head. Both my knees had swollen to twice their normal size. I asked after Colin. A nurse said he'd been hit in the face between his chin and nose with the baseball bat. The blow had broken his jaw and a cheekbone and knocked out several teeth, pushing them flat underneath, and above, his tongue.

  I had no money on me. I didn't know if it had been lost or stolen. I told the nurses I was going home. They found this amusing, because my injuries meant I could barely sit up. However, I crawled out of bed. The nurses remonstrated with me, but I kept on hobbling down the corridor and out onto the street. Blood covered my clothes. It was about eight in the morning. I'd been unconscious for 36 hours. I'd never been in so much pain. I scrambled onto a bus full of commuters. I said to the driver, 'I've just come of out hospital, mate. I've got no money. I've got to get to the tube.' He didn't say anything. I sat down. Without any kind of ticket, I managed to get the tube and then a train to Basildon.

  I must have looked like an escaped lunatic sitting there, covered in dried blood and disorientated. I thought I'd made it home without a ticket, but two stops before Basildon an inspector got on. He asked for my ticket. I said, 'Look, mate. I've had a bad fucking day. Leave me alone. I'm not in the mood. Go away.' He did.

  I've since had five operations on my knees. I underwent physiotherapy every week for almost two years. In 2003, I underwent another six months' physio when a muscle in my right leg ceased functioning. It still doesn't work. I continue to suffer from arthritis and other conditions related to the injuries sustained in that attack.

  I've returned to that pub with my friends a few times, but I've never found those responsible. In wartime, I suppose the attack would have been investigated as a 'friendly fire' incident. I still dream of catching up with the hooligans who attacked us. I even hope that someone reading this book might possibly identify our assailants. Then, of course, I'll finally be able to make a citizen's arrest and claim a reward from Crimestoppers.

  CHAPTER 12

  DISCO DAVE

  In March 1990, I started working as a doorman at a nightclub called Raquels in Basildon. I'd just turned 30 and wanted to earn a bit of extra money with a job that kept me closer to home.

  In the early days of my new job, I'd have at least two fights a night. These weren't usually gentle scuffles with harmless drunks. Our valued customers didn't tend to observe the Queensberry rules when brawling. If they hadn't brought along their own weapons - knives, machetes, knuckle-dusters, coshes and axes - they'd use whatever came to hand: heavy ashtrays, bottles, glasses, chairs and tables. The dance floor was as often the venue for pitched battles as for dancing. Fractured skulls, broken bones and comas were what customers often took away from the club. Ears, eyes and parts of noses were what they sometimes left behind.

  Bouncing troublemakers down three flights of stairs and throwing them into, then out of, the doors didn't always end the trouble. The aggrieved revellers, especially if part of a gang, would sometimes call for reinforcements and try to storm the place.

  The door staff with whom I worked just couldn't get on top of the violence, partly because they allowed a small number of local villains to intimidate them, and partly because the head doorman didn't encourage them to intervene. It was as if the sheriff and his deputies had locked themselves in jail while the Crazy Gang took over the town.

  I felt this stance put everyone in danger: staff, doormen and decent customers alike. I raised the subject more than once with the head doorman. Discussion dissolved into dispute. Our differences festered for several months before culminating in his walking out. He told the manager he could no longer work with me.

  The following day, I took over the door. I immediately set about replacing most of the local doormen. Over the next few months, under my leadership, the new team ruthlessly established a rough sort of order over the once-prevailing anarchy. The foundation stone of my new approach was that violent people should be dealt with violently. We, the doormen, had a stash of our own weapons, which we used without compunction.

  People soon began to joke about the three ways of leaving Raquels: on foot, by taxi or in an ambulance. In fact, a fourth existed - out the back, head-first down the concrete stairs. We reserved this exit for the most badly behaved customers. Some nights, there seemed more ambulances outside than taxis.

  The matronly woman who ran the cloakroom was Jewish. Before I started working at the club, some of the other doormen - all white and non-Jewish - had begun light-heartedly taking the piss out of her. She'd ignored them. When I arrived, and more customers began turning up for their cloaks in a badly beaten state, she started complaining to both the manager and his area superior about what she saw as our excessive violence. We regarded her behaviour as 'grassing'. The piss-taking became more personal and vicious. Doormen would leave pork sausages on her counter, ask for directions to Auschwitz and wail the Yiddish exclamation 'oy vay, oy vay' whenever she spoke.

  One evening, a doorman brought to the cloakroom a grey, Second-World-War German officer's trenchcoat. To it, he'd pinned a metal Wehrmacht eagle clutching a Nazi swastika. As he handed it over and received his ticket, he said to her, 'We'll be back for this - and you - later, you kike grass.' She collected her own coat and handbag before walking out. She never returned.

  Around the same time that I took over the door, the club got a new manager. Usually, it's the manager's job to get on well with the council and police. Then they all blame the head doorman for any trouble. But the manager and I hit it off, so the usual 'good guy, bad guy' scenario couldn't gel. Soon, the council and police hated us both.

  Not all of the customers were violent villains. Many were just ordinary freaks
. One character I grew to like was an awesomely thin creature in his late teens or early 20s. Around 6 ft and with lizard-like features, he'd gulp and stutter violently when he tried talking. We named him Disco Dave.

  On Mondays, we used to hold an under-18s night, which attracted 300 potential and actual juvenile delinquents from the local estates. We wouldn't sell them alcohol. It didn't make any difference. They'd just get pissed beforehand. Like their sociopathic parents, these kids would then indulge in brawls, beatings and drunken gropes. One night, we got called to a disturbance on the dance floor. As I approached, I noticed a heap of around ten writhing, spitting kids. They appeared to be attacking someone who lay on the floor beneath them. We dragged the kids off one by one to find a bleeding man at the bottom. Disco Dave had entered my life. Apparently, he'd taken off his shirt to expose his gruesomely underdeveloped body. A group of youths - who may have been eating at the time - objected. Disco told them to fuck off, and they'd steamed him. I cleaned him up and suggested he go home and come instead to the adult nights, as a few years had now passed since he'd been under 18. He said he didn't have enough money to attend the adult nights or to get home. I agreed to give him a lift when the club closed.

  He waited for me patiently. Every time I tried talking to him he became engulfed in violent gulping and stuttering. In the end, silence seemed the best policy. I sent him to sit in the back of my car to prevent idle chat. On the way to his house, the police stopped me. Not an unusual event: they liked sitting on my case. When I saw the flashing blue light, I told Disco to let me do the talking, because I wanted to get home at a reasonable hour. The policeman walked up to the driver's door and asked me the usual questions. I said, 'I've been to work, and I'm going home, and - before you ask - he's fuck all to do with me. I'm just giving him a lift home.'