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1990 – Approximately 200,000 protesters take to the streets of London to protest against the newly introduced Poll Tax.
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I was at that demo. It became very violent and the police used the kettling technique - At one point there was a charge of mounted police and the crowd surged away, I lost my footing, and end up on the ground, Judah grabbed my hand and dragged me up and out of the way of the oncoming horses. My jeans were ripped at the knee and my skin all grazed.
Prior to that, when we were at the barricades outside Downing Street,weweredoing that protestor thing of shouting at the police behind the barricades - and the police were doing their thing of landing a punch if anyone got too close to the barrier - we had this young lass with us- about a year younger than us in years, but much younger looking and a little naive. She'd sort of attached herself to me and J through our local circle of friends and other students and had decided to come with us on the demo. She got a little enthusiastic and was pushing up against the barrier A police officer behind the barricade threw a single full force punch and she dropped - as she started to drop two cops leaned over the barrier and were trying to drag her over to their side - we pulled her back towards us and she fell back into our crowd but she lost her shoe.*
Don't know what sparked the other flashpoints on that demo - because there were many different ones - but in our little stretch of the demo, it was a burly cop in body armour punching a young-looking and very small teenage girl in the face.
* after dragging her back, with her conscious but woozy, we got her to the nearest first aidstation which was very close fortunately.
I have a very clear recollection of approaching that first aid station - there were people sat about with bleeding heads - making our way along the main route, towards the front line of police, every so often you'd see someone coming back the other way, holding a broken wrist or being led along by a friend whilst pressing a t-shirt to their head, and blood all down their front.
It was quite an unnerving experience. Exciting and exhilarating when you're in it - but also unnerving and the second you let yourself think about the situation you're walking right into really scary.