Just heard from two dear friends in London that they’re safe but very rattled by the rioting that has been raging across England. Makes me think back to 1981 when the Royal Wedding (Charles and Di) was followed by riots in London’s Brixton neighborhood and Liverpool’s Toxteth neighborhood (I was sent up to cover the Toxteth riots as a cub reporter, equipped with a notebook, pen, pen knife and a banana. Yes, a banana given to me by a famous newspaper columnist who was visiting the London Bureau when I worked there. Fortunately I met a very nice magazine photographer on the train who was a riot veteran and we roamed the scary streets together.)
My pal F. reports that one of my old stomping grounds – the first place I lived in England, in 1980 – Ealing Broadway was heavily damaged by rioting and my pal M reports that she almost got caught up in rioting in Tottenham last weekend when she was going to a football match. YouTube is full of disturbing riot scene videos. And one does wonder how this will affect attendance at the 2012 olympics hosted by London.
This from F.: Just to let you know – we are okay here in war torn London. Very nasty scenes in the last few nights. Disaffected youth apparently organised by gang leaders are causing mayhem…mostly in inner city areas but sad to say -central Ealing near Ealing Broadway was pretty much destroyed last night by maurauding gangs. I am pleased to say Mortlake has been untouched! All quiet in London so far but central Manchester and Birmingham are seeing big problems tonight. This is going to make our fragile economy even less likely to recover…and the Olympics is going to look less appealing to foreign visitors!
TakeBetsywithyou 