The riots gave me a flashback to my own vigilante moment

"Why were you so upset about the riots, Granny? I didn't see any waterways affected."

Well, grandchild, they gave me a vivid flashback to nearly 30 years ago.

It was about 1983, I was working in a bar/restaurant called 'Stars', near London's Putney Bridge, and we had an upstairs balcony bar overlooking Putney High Street and the big glass front of the restaurant.

(It's now a Spanish restaurant called La Mancha, and the balcony has been turned into a conservatory - see right, or click here for the Google Street View).

Late one night a bunch of yobs were chucked out for being drunk and abusive.  I was upstairs on the balcony, and heard a shriek from some girls downstairs, with a commotion at the front door below.

I looked out over the railings, and saw that one of the yobs had picked up a paving slab nearby that had been stacked by the council ready for laying the following day.  He was carrying it over his head.

I could see what what happening almost in slow-motion.  The heavy slab hit the window with a resounding - almost musical - SMASH!, and a diminuendo of tinkles that seemed to continued for several seconds.

In shame I realised I'd done nothing but watch, and knew I should have dropped something on HIM, before he caused the damage.  A row of heavy pot planters, on the balcony, would have offered the ideal missile.

I cursed my inaction.

Then I realised he hadn't finished. He'd gone to get another slab, since no one had yet tried to stop him, and there was still a second window to smash!  

So as he struggled back with the second slab, I lifted one of the heavy pots, and held it over the edge, feeling like a wartime bomb aimer, trying to match the release position with the lurching paving stone fifteen feet below.

But I bottled out of it, I held back. I feared it would maim - even kill - him.  Or just as bad, I might miss him and only anger him still more, turning him and his friends into vengeful bears.

He threw again, and the other window smashed just as spectacularly, though with fewer screams the second time.  I remember that difference.

And then all the yobs ran off, their vengeance satisfied. 

In the end no one was hurt, not even the remaining customers and staff (who'd all quickly cowered at the back when they saw the threat).

I don't remember if they were tracked down or not. Didn't really care.  All I remember, 28 years later, is hating my cowardice at not trying to stop the yob with my pot-plant bomb.  Surely no court would have convicted me. 

I've relived the moment in my mind a thousand times.  You don't often get the chance to kill someone and have an excuse.

"Every Granny post has a waterways reference, doesn't it?  So did the riots affect the waterways?"

I'm coming to that.  In short, NO.  There appear to have been no damage, no vandalism, no disaster anywhere on the waterways. They were apparently left untouched.  Presumably because there's nothing to loot, only to vandalise. No big TVs to steal, no story there, move along now.

"But I can't move on. There's a stoppage on the Grand Union's Paddington Arm."

Oh, yes, I forgot about that. Well, there was one small, half-hearted attempt, but it could have happened for other reasons.  Near Northolt, a fire was started on the wooden Smiths Farm footbridge, which crosses the canal at Marnham Fields.

It's seen above in the bird's-eye view of Bing Maps. Link to the Canalplan gazetteer - where it's known as Bridge 17a - here.

Below, BW staff are seen inspecting the bridge.

But this was an amateur crime.  It didn't go far, and the only effect was to close the bridge and canal for a couple of days while BW checked it and arranged for the council to repair it.

 

Luckily the local council built this footbridge, and luckily for us it's their responsibility to repair it.

So the waterways got off almost scot-free, it seems.  We might not be so lucky next time, not least because the yobs might be ready to drop pot plants on us as we go underneath.

[closer pics kindly supplied by BW press office]

Comments

[Narrowboat Wife]

Yep, I think it's good you restrained your violent urges and didn't maim a man with a flowerpot. Although they do say it's better to regret the things you did do, than the things you didn't...!
At the height of the UK riots a boater's car window was smashed near our remote rural mooring - we feared that the violence had even spread to the GU Wendover Arm!

[Mike]

You could always find out where he lives now and throw a plant pot at him.

[Wiggins]

Being well brought up & considerate for others is always a problem in such situations.

[Andrew Denny]

I forgot to give a link to the very place where it happened.  The place is now a Spanish tapas restaurant called La Mancha, and the balcony has had a conservatory put over it.  But you can see it in Google Street View at http://goo.gl/9eeG6

I still remember vividly, 28 years later, standing over where the word 'La' now is,  dithering about whether to drop the heavy planter on the unsuspecting head below.  

[Andrew Read]

I think you did the right thing by not dropping the pot on his head. I always regret not telling a NHS hospital kitchen chef where to stick his temporary kitchen porter job after he'd shouted at me for turning off a kitchen steamer. I was about 17 at the time and not confident enough to stand up for myself in a work situation.