Swimming at Birchmere Lake, Thamesmead

Going for an outdoor swim at Thamesmead hasn't been top of my bucket list, but when the opportunity arose this weekend for a dip at Birchmere Lake I thought I would give it a go and I am glad I did. PTP Coaching, who run the lake swimming at Beckenham Place Park, were putting on sessions with support of Peabody to try out the lake with a view to possibly making it an ongoing swimming venue in future.

The lake is mainly used for fishing at present, but it is a big body of water with plenty of room for swimmers and anglers to co-exist. Yesterday there was a 500m swimming circuit completely separate from the area where people were fishing, with lifeguards and a sloping entry point for easy access to the lake. On this very hot day getting in to cold (actually lukewarm) water was a treat, and this could definitely work as a regular swimming spot. With outdoor swimming become increasingly popular there is a need for more such places - at present apart from Beckenham Lake and the lidos (Charlton, Brockwell Park, Tooting Bec) there is very little in South London. 

 

Fascist mob attacks Clapton fans in Thamesmead

A pre-season non-League football friendly might seem an unlikely setting for violence, but that was what occurred last night at Thamesmead Town's ground in Bayliss Avenue SE28, where the home team were hosting a visit from Clapton FC. Clapton supporters were attacked with bottles and other missiles, and the game was abandoned.

But it seems that this was not a clash between rival football fans - instead it appears that a group of far right thugs attended specifically to attack Clapton fans known for their anti-fascism. According to Clapton Ultras:

'Last night our club Clapton FC were playing our last pre season friendly away against Thamesmead in South East London. In the last few days, we received threatening messages from a fascist group regarding this fixture. This information was passed on to the football club and its fans who decided to travel as one group to the game as fan safety is the number one priority.

As we arrived at the game around 15 minutes after kick off and began to enter, Clapton fans were immediately attacked with weapons and missiles by a large group already present inside the ground, who threw glasses, bottles, bricks, signs and a fire extinguisher at Clapton fans, the vast majority of which had not been able to even enter the ground. In addition to causing minor injury the missiles damaged several parked cars in the car park outside the ground. Thankfully no one was seriously injured.

Clapton fans have no history or rivalry with Thamesmead fans and this attack was not made by Thamesmead fans. The attackers sang racist chants as they pelted Clapton fans with missiles. This was a planned attack, orchestrated by fascists and their allies as a politically motivated assault on Clapton fans for our politics of anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-racism and anti-fascism. Their interest was never in the football and they only attended the game in order to attack us.

We are calling on all supporters of Clapton and all those who stand against fascism to join us this season and celebrate football for all. Specifically, those unable to oppose the fascist White Man March in Liverpool would be welcomed at our home game on Saturday 15th August in the FA Cup against Stanway Rovers

In strength,

Clapton Ultras – Scaffold Brigada'

Dulwich Hamlet banner remembers 1940s Jewish anti-fascist 43 Group

Rather like Dulwich Hamlet FC, Clapton have a radical crew of supporters for whom opposing fascism is part of their identity. Clapton have had several run-ins with fascists previously, including in Southend last year. There is no suggestion of any link between the attackers and Thamesmead Town FC and its supporters. But it is sickening to hear of racists chanting 'we hate n*ggers' last night, just down the road from where Rolan Adams was murdered in a racist attack in the 1990s.

Racist Murder in SE London

Everybody now agrees that the killing of Stephen Lawrence in Eltham  on 22 April 1993 was a terrible racist crime and two men have been jailed for his murder. Back in 1993 it was very different - Government and media indifference (with some exceptions) and police hostility to those campaigning against racist attacks.

It was a terrible time in South East London, when the borough of Greenwich was named by some as 'Britain's racist murder capital' (Independent, 12 June 1993).  In February 1991, 15-year-old Rolan Adams was killed on the way home from a vist to the Hawksmoor youth club in Bentham Road, Thamesmead.

The Rolan Adams banner on a march to the BNP HQ in February 1992

In July 1992, 15 year old Rohit Duggal was stabbed to death outside the kebab shop in Tudor Parade, Well Hall Road. A white youth named Peter Thompson was later jailed for his murder.

Relatives of Rohit Duggal on a November 1992
demonstration to the BNP HQ in Welling

Then came the murder of  18-year-old Stephen Lawrence in April 1993, also in Well Hall Road in Eltham. As with the Adams and the Duggal cases, the police and Crown Prosecution Service tried to deny the racist aspects of the murder.

Stephen Lawrence's parents at a vigil in May 1993

There were other murders too elsewhere in South London. Ruhullah Aramesh, a 24 year old Afghan refugee, was beaten to death in Thornton Heath by a gang armed with iron bars in July 1992. In October of that year Sher Singh Sagoo, a Deptford market trader, was attacked and killed. And murder was just the tip of the iceberg - between August 1990 and May 1991, 863 incidents of racist attacks and harassment were reported to the Greenwich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks alone.

I went on many demonstrations at that time, usually led by the families of murder victims. There was the Anti Racist Alliance demo in June 1993 from Norbury Park to the scene of Ruhullah Aramesh's murder.

There was the march against the British National Party's 'Rights for Whites' demo in Thamesmead in May 1991, provocatively called a few months after the murder of Rolan Adams in the same area where he was killed. The police mobilised their forces included mounted police to stop the anti-racists who outnumbered the BNP ten to one (roughly 1200 to 120).

I remember seeing riot police baton people's heads out of sight of the cameras in a car park between housing blocks on the estate. I took a friend with a head wound to Kings hospital in Camberwell as we didn't think the local casualty department would be a safe place to go.  Incidentally Stephen Lawrence (then at Blackheath Bluecoats School),  took part on the anti-BNP demo that day too.

'Horseback police in riot gear charged hundreds of screaming demonstrators as a protest ended in violence. Policy carrying batons and wearing protective visors waded into demonstrators in Thamesmead on Saturday. About 20 protesters were arrested and one PC injured as campaigners tried to block a march by the right-wing British National Party. More than 150 BNP members had intended to march from the Hawksmoor Youth Club to Bentham Road – just a few feet from where 15 year old Rolan Adams was stabbed to death in February. But police changed the route after discovering more than 3000 anti-racists were to stage a counter demonstration. The anti-BNP marchers, led by the Greenwich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks, became angered when they realized they would not be allowed anywhere near the right-wingers… as a breakaway group ran down a cul-de-sac guarded by  police horse riders, trouble flared. Police reports claim bricks and missiles were thrown at officers… An eyewitness saw three members of the crowd trampled underfoot by horses’ (Erith and Crayford Times, 30 May 1991).

Welling demonstration, October 1993

Increasingly the headquarters of the BNP in Upper Wickham Lane, Welling, became the focus of demonstrations. The point wasn't that the racist murders were being explicitly organised by them, but that they were spewing out racist poison that was legitimising these attacks.

The biggest demonstration took place on 16th October 1993.  Anti-fascist magazine Searchlight estimated 40,000 people attended, the Independent 25,000 and Socialist Worker 60,000. Either way it must have been one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in South East London. The Unity demo against the BNP started off with a massive rally on Winns Common, before heading off towards Welling.

Auschwitz survivor Leon Greenman leads the march

According to Searchlight (November 1993), 'the marchers arrived at the crossroads where one road went to the nazi headquarters and the other [Lodge Hill] was the route imposed by the police. At this point the Unity banner at the head of the march was facing into the road leading to the BNP headquarters. The stewards and Leon Greenman, an 82 year old survivor of the Nazi death camps, tried to negotiate passage through the police line. When it was refused, some of the marchers sat down'. Riot police, including some on horseback, charged the crowd and there were riotous scenes with smoke bombs,  flying bricks, snatch squads and 3,000+ police. At least 56 demonstrators were injured and 31 people were arrested on the day' (Sunday Times, 17 October 1993). Personally I didn't even see any of this until I got home on TV as I had been trapped in the crowd by Plumstead cemetery - like much of the crowd unable to move because the police had blocked both Upper Wickham Lane (towards the BNP HQ) and Lodge Hill (the route the police had earlier said the march would have to take).

One woman reported at the time 'I was sitting on a wall, just trying to avoid the police. A policeman pushed me off. The police charged from a side street. I tripped over a bush and four police just laid into me with truncheons.  I was on the floor and one of them was kneeling on me, just hitting me. Later I saw a man in a wheelchair. The police charged again and again and just knocked him over. He fell out of his chair. My friend - she's 16 - tried to help him up and the police started hiting her' (Socialist Worker, 23 October 1993) 



Anti-Nazi League chief steward Julie Waterson
bleeding after being batoned by police in October 1993

The BNP HQ finally closed in 1995, following action by Bexley Council.

See also: Bob from Brockley, pretty much summing up what I think about the whole affair; 853 - thoughts of a SE London contemporary of Stephen Lawerence, and a reminder  'that it was the community in Eltham who gave up the names of Dobson and Norris in the first place. It was the local Metropolitan Police who decided that the death of a black man wasn’t worth investigating properly, not the people of Eltham'; Ian Bone points out that one of the police officers who mismanaged the original Lawrence investigation became a Croydon Conservative councillor - David Osland wrote to his superiors in September 1993 that 'Our patience is wearing thin on 3 Area (south-east London)... with the Lawrence family and their representatives'.

[update 11 January 2012 : 'The dad of Stephen Lawrence has passed potentially crucial new evidence on his son's murder to cops, he revealed yesterday. Neville Lawrence, 69, was told a suspect had now confessed to being at the scene of the murder.The development comes after two men were jailed for life last week for the gang murder of Stephen in 1993. Mr Lawrence said: "After the verdict, I met two people in Brockley, London, on Saturday who knew one of the guys that was part of the gang. They mentioned the boy confessed that he was there on the night. They gave me their names and addresses and I passed them on to the police." Mr Lawrence called on the racist pair to tell cops where the knife used to stab his son is hidden. He added: "There is forensic evidence on that knife to convict somebody else.". His plea came as a burger bar worker claimed Norris was involved in a brutal attack on him six weeks BEFORE Stephen was murdered. Gurdeep Bhangal, 41, said he confronted the yob after he banged on the window of the Eltham branch of Wimpy. He said: "I got hold of him and was stabbed by another person." No one was arrested, [The Sun, 10 January 2012]

As Bob from Brockley reminds us in the comments, while failing to find evidence against the killers the police were deploying resources in infiltrating anti-racist groups - and indeed a former police spy has admitted to taking part in attacks on police lines in Welling (see Bob's post on this affair).