‘I FUCKED THATCHER’ - PART TWO

 Last added to on September 29th

CHAPTER THREE   - I MEET ‘MAD MARK’

 I  had noticed a bloke walking towards me that looked like he was in a
hurry.As he came into clearer view,he looked like a cross between a
punk, a
skinhead and and a bloke on the run from the law.Apart from his beanied
headCheck Mail
and the colour of his clothes,,it was like looking in the mirror.He
wore a
black bomber jacket,black jeans cut off above 14 hole steel capped
Docs’
with red laces,black fingerless gloves,and a black beanie covering,but
not
conceiling, short bleached hair.As he got closer,I clocked the way he
was
moving and I’d seen it before.He walked like a ‘jack-the lad’ that
ruled the
manor.It was a deliberately exagerrated,cocky,self confident stomp.He
didn’t
so much as give me the once over,as shove his face in  mine and
ask,”Alright…”!,in a cockney accent.He then circled me like a shark
round
a shipwrecked sailor,and began asking me questions about myself.This
was a
turn around.I was used to playing that role.Do you like Conflict,?…Do
you
support the Provisionals?…What about the A.L.F..?…He was
direct,abrupt
but friendly,and had an instant magnetism about him that was
unmistakable.Looking back on it,it’s such a fuckin’ coincidence that me
and
him met-and on my first real day in London-considering the other 11
million
Londoners out there.He asked me where I was from,and I told him
Australia.He
introduced himself as ‘Mark’,and then told me his ‘nick-name’ was
‘Chuck’.I
told him my name,and,straight off the bat,he starts calling me
“Kangaroo”…He’d known me all of 30 seconds and he pulls out two eight
inch
flickknives from either side of his hips-unleashing their shimmering
blades
similtaneously with the touch of their release buttons like a
gunfighter in
a spaghetti western.And,before telling me that the National Front are
after
him,hauls out this iron bar from the back of his jacket and waves it
front
of my eyes-in broad daylight-telling me that he’s gonna give it to the
first
NF’er that crosses his path.People are like walking past this bloke,
stareing at the iron bar and the knives,and he’s like yelling”Alright”!
at
them as casual as you’d greet a neighbour on a Sunday morning….and
the
most amazing thing was,that, they all smiled and replied to him.After
volunteering that he’d just gone up to sign on the dole at the
Limehouse
Social’,he did something I still find fuckin’ amazing….a cop van was
cruising past,and,on seeing it,he screams at the cop
van,”A.C.A.B”!!…and
I’ve got absolutely no doubt that they heard him-but they kept going.In

Oz,they’d of come back and given us a proper kicking before throwing us
both
in the lockup.It took me about a week to  fully understand why you
could get
away with stuff like this in the Eighties in England-if you had the
guts to
do it.At this point-since I suspected he wasn’t drunk-I didn’t know if
he
was totally potty or he really did have balls of steel.All this had
taken
place in the spate of five or ten minutes.He told me he lived in a
bedsit,above the cafe on Burdett Rd.,and then asked me if I had
anywhere to
live.There was a genuine concern in his question,and I said no,and that
I
wanted to get a squat at Limehouse-that’s where I was going
now.”Right,lets
get going then,we’ll get you one now”.He took me on a guided tour of
the
Council Estates between Mile End,Poplar,Isle of Dogs,and Shadwell.And
what
happened inbetween left me totally fuckin’ gobsmacked.We only got as
far as
the corner of Burdett and Commercial Rd’s,at Limehouse-just a few
hundred
yards up the road,and he jumped into the middle of the intersection and

threw a lucazade bottle straight into the windscreen of a white
van.”Fuckin’
Scabs”!, he yelled as the bottle exploded into a million fragments and
the
driver swerved towards him, trying to run him down.He didn’t move-he
just
kicked the van with his boot as it passed-screaming,”Class War”!,at the

terrified driver.As soon as I saw that,and heard him utter those
immortal
words,I knew two things;one,this bloke was a complete nutter.Two,he was

exactly the sort of bloke I’d come here to meet….I’d been with Mad
Mark
for 30 minutes….

“Fuckin’ white mice…”! Mark snarled after we ran down through the
Burdett
estate away from the scene of the van attack.
“White mice,I responded.What have they got to do with a lucozade bottle

splattered across a van windscreen?”.”They’re scab paper vans from
Wapping,and they try to sneak in and out of the plant from different
exits
where there’s no pickets,he replied with wry grin.I told him I’d only
been
here a day but I’d read about the Wapping dispute on the newstands this

morning.Mark was a veteran of the dispute.He’d been there the week
before
and had played a major role in the riot.He explained how the the huge
trucks
that came out of Wapping were called the ‘arctics’,cos they had bright
blue
canvas sides,and that he’d smashed a few of these trucks’ windscreens
with
bricks during the riot.He said he’d run amok up there and that the cops
had
suffered a beating at the hands of pickets and anarchists.He said the
pickets were ’sound’,”except they all ate meat…”.He said we would go
there
tonight and that there was a march every Wednesday and Sunday night
from
Tower Hill tube station,to the gates at ‘Fortress Wapping’.The only
time
he’d stopped for a breathe for nearly 20 minutes was when he threw the
bottle at the van;so I told him to shut up for a minute, so I could get
a
word in too.He was startled a little at being spoken to like this,but
he
smiled,and gave me the green light to ‘hold court’ until his next
verbal
assault.There was a hundred questions I wanted to ask him,but the one I

REALLY wanted to know was the one I’d been wanting to ask him from the
moment I met him.”Where do I go to join Class War”.Simple.”They meet
every
Sunday night at a pub in Kings Cross.We’ll go this week…You’ll like
Ian,he’s totally mad….”..I began to wonder;is there any sane
anarchists in
London?,and as I was saying this to myself,I caught my reflection in a
car
window-nuff said-the term ‘lunatic fringe’ had more to it than I’d ever

considered…He never asked me any questions about myself;it was like
we had
come together through some freakish act of destiny,and we both knew
exactly
what the other was like from the moment we met.He was precisely what I
thought Class War would consist of-an army of Mad Mark types-I wasn’t
to be
totally disappointed.
We then spent some time on the Burdett Estate,talking to these
Pakistani
kids.Mark just walked straight up to them,and started asking them if
there
were any nazi’s round here,cos we were after them.I just assumed that
he
knew them really well cos,they started,telling us about all the hassles
they
had on the estate with cops,and pointed out which flats the racists
lived
in,and a five minutes later we’re playing a game of football with ‘em
on the
basketball courts in the middle of the estate.Us,in our 14 hole boots
running around like loonies with these teenage pakistani kids;I never
expected this at all,and it was fun, actually.All of a sudden,Mark
walks
over and picks up the ball.The kids wonder what’s up,looking at each
other
with puzzled shrugs and whispered bewilderment.”Right,we’ve got to
chuff off
now,but we’ll be back every day to make sure you’se are OK.If you’ve
ever
got any problems with the cops or fascists,we’ll help you out…”.I was

loving this.These kids were NOT paying him lip service-they dug that he
had
time for them,and his offers to help were real-and they knew it.I had
mental
images of Class War fighting cops on the terraces,picket lines and on
dirty
old streets surrounding blocks of flats;but I never envisaged it as
being
about this-and it was exhileratingly authentic,class concsious,and 100%

street politics-I’ve got to tell you the hairs on the back of my neck
were
standing to attention.I’d only been here a few hours and hadn’t thrown
a
brick yet,but I felt the rushes of pure adrenalin pumping me up, til I
was
feeling what I started to suspect he LIVED on-the absolute thrill of
the
moment,and the power of having nothing to lose as you threw yourself
totally
and completely,into the whirlpool of life-that made you feel
unstoppable!!!!.To say I was excited is the understatement of the
fuckin’
century.”There’s plenty of empties on this estate-we’ll go through to
Poplar
and knick come barrell locks from the hardware shop down there,and come
back
later and break into a flat and start a squat.We’ll get some felt tips
too-
mine are all fucked,he said”.All the way through the Estates to
Poplar,we’re
stopping every hundred yards to talk to different people-but always
about
the same things-cops,nazi’s,National Front,Scab lorries,riots…I
considered
whether or not he was putting on a bit of a show for me-trying to
exagerrate
his local standing in an effort to get credability-but it was clear he
wasn’t.This is how he really was.
I think having me with him may have made him a bit more cocky,but I
reckoned
that he was that mad he’d do it even if I wasn’t there.He’d pull up
some
black kids and roll a joint with them-in full view of everyone-and talk
to
them about reggae, and the same street politics he’d jaw to the
Pakistani
kids.I started joining in-complete with my Aussie accent-talking about
cops
and class war…I put my foot in it when I asked one of these black
boys if
he had ever heard of ‘Cocksparrer’ ,cos they came from Poplar.”Some of
the
local fascists like them…”came the reply.”They aren’t nazi’s,they’re
a
good fuckin’ punk band…”Mark threw a look at me like I was the
dumbest
cunt that ever lived,as he reworked the convo’ to common ground.

When we took off again,he straightened me out on the Cocksparrer quip
as we
went;”…I know that they’re not NF,but a lot of their following round
here
is…”Then we arrived at the Poplar shops-set smack in the middle of an

rundown estate.We hit the hardware straight away,both of us pocketing
some
barrel locks,a set of screwdrivers,and Mark grabs a can of black spray
paint
as a last minute thought.Then he puts the icing on the cake by telling
the
shopkeeper,”we’ll bring ‘em back later…”!!…,as we strutted through
the
door.The cunt was a fuckin’ lair!!!!With the benefit of hindsight,his
brashness prepared me for what happened next.I’d smashed a lot of
windows up
til then,but most of ‘em were put in,in the middle of the
night.Cars,windows,businesses,factories,heads-whatever,it was rarely a
broad
daylight affair.So we waltzed out of the Poplar hardware as if we were
two
punk wideboys on the make,and he the first thing Mark does is walk five

paces,picks up a rubbish bin, and hurls it straight through the butcher
shop
window.Glass explodes into the shop and over the pavement.He then
charges
straight over and begins kicking what’s left of the window chanting the
ALF
mantra…”meat means murder…”.And to top it off,I’m joining in the
fun,
kicking this broken window with him and joining in on the
chorus….We’re
surrounded by broken glass,totally gobsmacked Poplarites,and a butcher
shop
owner hiding under his counter like a refugee from an IRA
bomb-blast.Mark
finishes up the rant with, “up the IRA…” ….hence the moniker..’Mad
Mark’…!.Like I said,up ’til then most of my exploites of the law
breaking
kind,had been moonlight capers.But I will give Mark credit where credit
is
due,he taught me the absolutely liberating experience of doing this
sort of
thing in front of ‘the world’ ,like they were HIS audience-Like he was
showing them what was possible,what was possible once you unshackled
yourself from the invisible chains of conventional society,that keeps
most
people in their place.The most remarkable thing about this particular
situation,was that after the window got put in, we casually walked
straight
into a newspaper shop,and nicked a handfull of thick felt tip
pens.Without a
single consideration for our continued liberty-we put them straight to
work.Mark  decorated a shop front with his trademark,..’Kill NF
scum’.Watching him do this,in front of 30 people in a shopping
centre,immediately inspired me to take up a felt tip and join in the
festivities;I carved ‘Class War…rob the rich’, right nextdoor to his
‘declaration of war’,after which we strode out of Poplar,and to my
total
astonishment,a few people gave us ‘the nod of approval’ as we
left….!…This bloke had more effect on me in 2 hours than everything
I’d
read,heard, and seen up til now in my whole fuckin’ life…As we headed
for
The Isle of Dogs,I said to myself;”this is anarchy-this is what it
REALLY is
all about.

I mean,I hadn’t exactly lived up to my said intentions to the copper
at
Dover Police Station.But this is exactly what I had come here for ,and
then
some.All the time,we’re roaming around these East End estates,I’m
looking at
the old paint brushed grafitti on the grubby walls;’West
Ham‘…’Skins’…..’NF’…..’Teviot’…’I.O.D.’…’George Davis is
Innocent’…wait a minute wasn’t that a Sham 69 song?…I ask
Mark,”What’s
the story?”,and he tells me the time honoured tale of how George Davis
got
set up by the cops for a bank job he didn’t do,and as a result,a
massive
East End street campaign was launched to set him free.They even dug up
a
cricket pitch in the middle of a test match to give attention to his
plight.They got him a result,but he got done for a bank job later on
and
done a fair stretch inside.”Besides,Sham weren’t the real thing,he
says,Jimmy Pursey was just singing about how other people lived-he
wasn’t
anything like that himself.So I ask him how the fuck he knows
that…”Simple” he says,”I used to be in the BM,and
we followed them round-he was a fuckin’ pratt.”…”What,you were in the

British Movement,you’re pulling my leg…?” He shows me some dodgy,
half
erased Tatts’ on his hands,and explains to me how he used to run with
the
Skins,but drifted cos he liked reggae,and the blacks hated cops as much
as
he did.”It didn’t make any sense what the BM talked about,for fucks
sake…Plus I support the IRA,and they hated them…”.He’s babbling a
mile a
minute again; about his love of ska music,and how the music doesn’t
matter
that much anyways-”…it’s about what’s happening out on the streets
that
counts-not in some posh recording studio in the West End…”.He’d
obviously
already made the evolutionary move beyond protest street music,to the
REAL
rhythm of the streets,that I’d only just started-the move to put the
words
into some sort of street justice;sort of like putting the words into
action,
if you like-right NOW..!.All the time he’s talking whilst we meander
through
these shithouse looking Tower Blocks,but in my head, I’m listening to
the
only real music that was ever produced from within these bleak
surroundings…’Cockney Rejects…”We are the Firm”…”East End”…”Oi!
Oi!
Oi! .and ‘Cocksparrers’ epic,”Runnin’ Riot”…This is where it all came

from,and I don’t give a fuck what other people say or think,or what
became
of these bands later on,as far as I’m concerned,they wrote Class War
anthems
straight outta the concrete jungle.You could feel the street history in
this
joint just walking through the place-it was spine tingling….then Mark
woke
me outta my bit of ‘romantacising the street’,so to speak,”Naseby
Tower”,this is where she lives”.We get into a piss stenched lift that
doesn’t work-”fuckin’ putrid;anti-social cunts,fuck it ,we’ll run up to
the
6th floor”,he says,and he takes off,with me in pursuit;he’s doin’ a
sort of
commando sprint up these endless set of stairs.We get to the
destination,and
he bangs on the front door like a fuckin’ copper.It’s fuckin’ amazing
when
you see other people doing what you do yourself and realise how
overdone it
looks.But it isn’t that it’s all a ‘put on’; It’s just pure energy and
enthusiasm,that’s all.Enthusiasm for what? I wonder-why’s he in such a
hurry?-maybe he wants to use the crapper or something.I soon found
out-and
it wasn’t the crapper-let me tell you….!!!!!

soft voice inside cautiously asks who it is-”It’s Mark-open up!”,he
explodes.A blonde looker peals the door open and Mark races in like a
rat up
a drainpipe,with me once again ,in tow.What IS this cunts’ big
hurry?”Michelle,this is Darren-he’s from Australia…”he gives me all
the
introduction I require,and starts rollin’ another spliff-he’s 10th in
two
hours-and it hasn’t slowed him down a bit-as he talks the same
talk;NF,cops,scabs,Wapping-with anti-social bastards thrown in for good

measure this time-probably from his wiffy lift experience-the girl sits

there transfixed,soaking it all up like a human sponge-just like me.I’m

loving it.Finally,I had found someone else to do the wind up
routine.And the
cunt is on fire,he’s moving that fast. Mark is very obviously the only
human
being on planet Earth,who is affected by a hash spliff the same as most

people are affected by a shovel full of speed up their bugal…!There’s

something of a new angle, politically, here that I didn’t anticipate.He

doesn’t rabbit on about ‘Toffs’ as much as I thought he might-being the
way
he is and all.It’s all council estate,common sense sort of stuff-not
mugging
here,not littering;I’m thinking the butcher shop episode and IRA
talk,are
sort of shock politics,rather than something that was his reality-but I

could be wrong.I’m also wondering if this is a mutation of the Class
War
virus or it’s just Marks version of it.Either way,I’m totally up for
it-except for littering that is-I enjoyed chucking rubbish in the
streets.Fucked if I wanted to turn any place into a sterile ‘lego-land’

McHappy type joint.The more broken glass and shit around, made me
happy…not pissing in lifts though-that was enough to make a corpse
chunder!….-with time,and understanding of where he was coming from,I
‘changed my tune’ a bit on this one.I also had to modify my own
estimation
of what entailed “stench”,considering my exploits on my recent plane
journey.I went to pondering which was worse;the aroma of a piss flooded

lift,or a lentil and boiled egg infused gas chamber….Once again,Mark
dragged me back to reality,away from such a mind boggling
dilemma.”Right,me
and Michelle have to sort out some business,so you wait here a
while-watch
the telly if you want-and we’ll open a squat and get down to Wapping as
soon
as we’ve finished”.She tells me to make a cuppa if I want and points to
a
kettle and some tea and coffee jars.I just assumed they had to go out
somewhere….they got as far as a bedroom door before Mark practically
yanked her arm out of its socket,and that’s as far as their journey
went.So
I’m sitting there thinking to myself for about ten minutes or so,about
what
it is they have to sort out away from me.I’m thinking she must be a
dealer
or something.And with the rate that Mark spliffs up,I reckon he must
visit a
dealer more often than he visits the Khazi…thinking of Khazi’s had me

realizing I needed to make a visit to the throne myself.So I done a
quick
bit of a look around,and sussed out the dumper.Planted myself on it and
let
fly with the human equivalent of one of those hurricanes that knocks
over
Miami once a year.Shit everywhere.Marks’ banging the wall from the
bedroom,”What the fuck’s goin’ on in there-it’s a toilet ,not an bomb
dispossal site…fuckin’ hell,how am I s’posed to concerntrate with
that as
background music..!!!”…Concerntrate on what..?,I wondered.This
situation
was far from ideal.I’d only just met this girl,and I’d already
destroyed her
bog.And,fuckin’ hell,the lentils and boiled eggs were still working
there
charms-my eyes watered.I needed oxygen-fast!….I looked down,
searching
desperately for the polish paper,so as to complete this diabolical
task,and
thus free myself from this toxic tomb…..To my absolute horror,there’s
no
fuckin’ bog roll….Oh fuck…!!!!

In a feat of utter desperation,I had to tear up the cardboard inner
tube
from the roll and gingerly ‘go about my task’-the result was far from
what
I’d call a ‘pristine job’.The next copper that coat-hangered me for a
full
body search,was in for far more than he bargained for,let me tell
you.Then,
to add to my dramas,the fuckin’ cardboard wouldn’t flush down the
fuckin’
chute properly,so I kept pushing the flush button,which resulted in
another
outburst from Mark;”What the fuck is goin’ on in there Aussie,ain’t you
got
flush toilets where you come from or what..”.?I told Mark to ‘Fuck
off’,before the rush of fresh air hit me from the opened
door.Bliss-pure and
simple-and then Mark’s on the loud horn again-”Oi,Aussie,make us a cup
of
coffee,will you-two coffee’s,milk, and five sugars-and bring it in…”
Fuckin’ Lord Muck in there bellowing  room service orders for a cuppa
that’ll send him into orbit if he actually fuckin’ drinks it;I didn’t
come
all the way over here to be be a fuckin’ waiter!The kettle boils,and I
make
the brew-a syrupy concoction that looks  like milky mud-and just as
thick.I
walk straight into the room with the cup of coffee,and what confronts
me
nearly floors me.Lying on the bed, spread eagled-with a spliff in his
mouth-looking as happy as Richard Gere with a gerbil up his arse, is
Mad
Mark.And he’s got that girl on him, fuckin’ him like there’s no
tomorrow.I
couldn’t help but notice she looked better with her clothes off than
on,and
that she had a red hot arse as well..”Need a coffee right now do you
Mark,?”He tells me with a wry grin that he needs a caffeine fix.The
girl
didn’t even notice my prescence,like I was a ghost or something-she
just
kept on humping.I put the cup on the sideboard and made for the door
sharpish,with the imprint of this cockney girls arse tattooed on my
brain-more grief of a different kind.I get to the kitchen,and notice
Mark’s
left the black spray can on the bench…And,like I said-the image of
that
girl is giving me too much to think about right now.Fuck it! I didn’t
come
all the way over here to get head fucked by the same imagery that
caused all
those sleepless nights back in Oz-bikini girls on Cronulla beach-now
it’s
cockney girls with Brazilian arses driving me potty.Out of the blue,my
heads
pumping out the Apostles,’Mob violence’ and I’m safely redirecting  my
primal urges to action of a different kind.I look around,grab the spray

can,and with the words to that immortal song fueling me,I make for the
streets to get rid of my frustration and to ’spread the word’.Mark had
shown
me what was possible in broad daylight,and how much better it felt
doing it
this way.So within the ’safe’ confines of this estate ,I put it to the
test
on my ‘Pat Malone’.I was a bit twitchy at first,but as my venom flowed
through the spray can,my confidence grew.I felt invinceable.If people
stopped and watched,I just came straight out and asked ‘em”What do ya
think
of this ay,?Class War-you heard of ‘em…?.Some people just
laughed-probably
at the gaul of me doing it in front of people in the first place.I
thought
to myself,if I was ever to have sex in front of a crowd of people-then
this
is what it would feel like.I felt totally naked and vulnerable-yet
totally
liberated….and in its own way,it WAS better than sex-well,at least
better
than the sex I’d had up to this point-no,bollox-it was better than
sex,full
bloody stop!!!!!..I fuckin’ loved it!!!!!”In twenty minutes, I had
covered
the estate in Class War slogans;’Rob the Rich-not the working
class’,'Fight
Back’,'Bash the Rich’,'Class War’…,the whole place looked like it was

‘occupied territory’,and years later, that was exactly the effect we
sought
to establish on estates like this,with the added ’sophistication’ of
candidates and local community campaigns.The spray can was empty,but I
was
weary of going back upstairs in case I walked in on a fuckin’ orgy or
something.What was this blokes ‘go’ ?One minute he’s fully out in
streets
causing mayhem,next he’s rolling around in the cot with a sheila.Didn’t
he
realise that was a waste of time?I thought that if I went back
upstairs,I
would probably walk in on a full blown domestic,that would end in Mark
taking the girl shopping for a new pair of shoes.Well,that had been my
limited experience after seeing my mates at work in their fucked up
relationships.Weren’t they all like that…?I quickly wiped that
nonsense
from my mind,and charged up the stairs to somehow get this bloke out of
the
joint.When I walked in,he’s fully clothed and doing his boots
up.Michelle’s
in the bathroom surveying the damage to her bog,”My fuckin’ god,what
happened in ‘ere..?”I didn’t know what to say,so I blamed the mess on a

severe lack of the necessary cleaning gear,namely bogroll.”What sort of

foods do you eat in Australia,lots of curry or something?”,she
replied.Then
Mark comes to the rescue;”Oh dear that is a mess-but anyways,we’ve got
to
go-we’ve got a lot of work to do”.He tells her he’ll see her again
tomorrow,and that he’ll bring  some ‘gear’ up as well.As we’re shooting
out
the door,she fires back,”Well if you’re gonna bring that ‘Kangaroo’
geezer
back with you,you might wanna bring a bundle of bog roll with you, an’
all…!,My bathrooms a state….”..We laughed our way down the stairs
and
out into the darkness of the coming night.It was then,that for a
fleeting
second,after I saw the way he was so gentle and nice to Michelle,and
the way
she was so enthralled by him and his every word-and the fact that he
got his
rocks off and I didn’t-that I thought that I was somehow cheating
myself out
of something special here.Something that made you more complete.Like I
said
it only lasted a second,cos we were back on the streets and on our
mission
again.The first thing he notices is the grafitti,and tells me “well
done..”

and with a smirk on his face, adds that we both had some action.He
cruised
the entire estate,looking at my handiwork and pointing to places we
should
do next time we were up this way.His time indoors ‘on the job’ hadn’t
slowed
him down a bit.He was every bit as loud,unrestrained and ‘full
throttle’ as
before.
Whilst we walked back towards Limehouse,I’m busy tellin’ him about the
buzz
I got from painting up the Estate in front of people;about how it made
an
already blatant statement against the authority of the state all the
more
forceful because of doing it so obviously.Only I couldn’t word it
right-I
just couldn’t put into words what I felt whilst I was doing it.He
laughed at
me after my 20th failed attempt at describing the liberation of the
human
spirit through direct action.Years later Mr Bone would described it as
“Action is the lifeblood….”.We talked and swathed a path through the
middle of of the estates until we reached Limehouse.All the
time,talking
about ‘the struggle’,people he knew that we should visit,and the
various
forces within the subcultures on the streets of London-who were our
allies
and who were our foes.Then,he dictated our nights agenda.Standing
outside a
crumbling old cemetary on the Commercial Road;he had decided the time
was
right to open a squat before we took a visit to Wapping.I could barely
contain myself.I had to restrain myself from screaming out a battlecry
right
there and then.We marched onto the Burdett Estate,and stood by the
netted
off Basketball courts where a few hours earlier we were playing
football
with some local kids.We surveyed the grotty looking estate from its
centre.Classic post WW2, ‘Homes for Heroes’ material.It was full of
empty
flats with the windows boarded up with plywood,and the front doors
barred
with a black, steel locking device that went in through the
letterbox.Mark
decided either Limborough House or Tasker House was the go,and then
asked me
which one I preferred.”Grab Limborough House,cos it overlooks that main
road
out its back windows-that might come in handy when we have to keep an
eye
out for the cops”.We took on the stairs commando style,again,until we
reached the third floor.The empty was at the end of the walkway,number
39,and I looked over the door and this steel lock.I tried to budge it
but it
didn’t move.I didn’t have time to question Mark on what our next move
was
gonna be-he pulled off a sheet of plywood over a window and smashed his
way
in.Once in,he told me to wait outside.Next thing the steel lock falls
to the
ground in front of me,and Marks standing in the open doorway.”How the
fuck
did you do that?”…”Once you get in,he says,all you have to do is
unwind
the back of the locking bar”.The flat was two bedrooms,with a bathroom
and a
kitchen-and it was clean;what else would I need?We put the locks we’d
pinched from the Poplar hardware on the front door,and tested the door
for
locking.It was all sweet.”All my stuffs at left luggage at Victoria
station-I’ll have to go get it”.But I was speaking to an empty
flat.Mark was
busy banging on the neighbours door,so I walked over to see what he was
up
to now,when a women greeted the barrage at her door- through her letter

box.With all the tact of a bull in a china shop,he layed it all
straight on
the line;”Right,we’ve just opened a squat next door,so there’s no need
to
ring the Old Bill.We’re not junkies and we’re not gonna cause you any
grief,do you understand”.The reply was a brief,”Alright,no
problem…”.All
this all happened within 10 minutes of us deciding which flat to
squat.And
this approach was new to me.When I had opened and lived in various
squats
back in Sydney,it was a very ‘cloak and dagger’ affair-you got in as
inconspicuously as possible,and you did your best to keep your face out
of
the way of your neighbours.Obviously,this was completely different.As I
was
to discover;squatting in England was a much more acceptable within the
working class than in Sydney,where it was much more of a ’subcultural
lifestyle’ for punks like myself…And that was 1980’s London for
you,and
for those who weren’t there,it was before crack and the avalanche of
coke
and smack bombarded the streets.

.Up until this point,like I’ve said,I beleived what I was doing was an
attempt at some form of social justice;be it an attempt to ‘return the
serve’ at a system that was doing everything to grind the life out of
people.But I didn’t have the recourse to social responsibility that Mad
Mark
had.I hated ’straight society’ with a passion-that was part of the
reason I
was a punk.Mark seemed to find it just as important to talk to people
about
all this ‘class war’ stuff as put it into action-and people actually
listened to him;it was nothing short of fuckin’ unbelievable.If I was
to put
into one sentence what I loved most about England in the
mid-eighties,it was
that there was a level of support for some very radical ideas,action
and
people, within working class communities.There was a very real ‘power
vacuum’ in many areas of the country that got left behind by Thatcher
and
her politics of greed.We just weren’t organised enough to step into
thses
vacuums and declare them ‘Liberated zones’.And we paid the price for
this
lack of confidence in our ideas,let me tell you;the drug dealers and
‘gangsters’ stepped in and took over,making these areas WANT the
cops,instead of previously despising them.Well,it was all a learning
curve
for this Aussie punk.Up ’til I met Mark,I’d spent most of my time
threatening,or argueing with straight people,now this bloke had me
giving
‘em the Class War spiel,like a sort of street spruiker down the
markets.And
the basic jist of the patter was taken on board by  yer average head
nodding,bemused pleb cos it all seemed common sense.”Fuck Maggie
Thatcher”,”Coppers are Thatchers first line of defence”,”We’ve got to
run
the nazi’s out of the estates”,”Look out for each other”,…and so
forth;there wasn’t any compicated theory to it-I reckon I’d only read
about
2 books, cover to cover, in my life.I don’t know about Mark;he might
have
done an appreniceship down a fruit market,the way he gave his mouth so
much
exercise.But for all his verbal-none of it seemed like he’d practised
any of
it in front of the mirror with a shaving brush in his hand for a
pretend
microphone and his reflection for a receptive audience.

As the night descended upon us,we once again made off into the
streets.We’d
opened the squat,had an introduction to my knew neighbours,and now it
was
‘Wapping time’.The air of excitement and expectation crackled around us
in
the still, blackness of the back streets of London at night. .And that
also,
was one of my lasting memory of  England-that expectation you felt
whenever
you walked the streets-day or night-it was a feeling that evoked a
sense
that it was ALL about to go down.It was an inescapable sensation that
was as
evident in some grimey,East End council estate,as in the bright,but
equally
dirty,West End streets.And here were two blokes that wouldn’t just sit
back
and laugh if the whole rotten facade fell to bits right in front of
them-they’d happily help it on its way.We were heading back to
Limehouse,
when Mark did an about face and rang the dinner bell,so to speak.I
wasn’t
complaining,my guts were an empty cave that needed stuffing with
something
other than boiled eggs and fermented lentils.”Lets go down the cafe
under my
bedsit,and I’ll introduce you to Paddy;I’m famished”.As we marched down

Burdett Road,he gave me the run down on his gaff.He lived in a
bedsit,which
the social security paid for.His landlord,’Paddy’, was running a right
little scam there-bleeding the social for all sorts of extra’s and such
for
half a dozen ‘ghosts’ that supposedly lived there.The cafe was directly

underneath the hotel,and I followed Mark in the front door as he gave
his
trademark ‘Alright’ to a curly headed man at the top of the
stairs.Before
the bloke could say a word ,Mark issued a threat that someone had been
cooking meat in some of the frying pans in the kitchen,and they hadn’t
washed them up afterwards.He was ready to ,”kick their fuckin’ heads
in..”
if they persisted.The man said he would see into it.Mark then said to
me
,”This is Paddy”…’Paddy’,was from Belfast,and he was a Prod.Not that
that
stopped Mark from constantly carrying on about the IRA to him.He was a
bit
of a veteran of drama with the cops,and knew all sorts of methods of
disruption to police raids and investigation.It was clear he liked
Mark,but
was weary of him.I think he was worried about the inevitable heat that
a
person like Mark attracted.Now there was another just like him.He was
looking worried,soI told him I was moving into a squat up the road,that
we
had just opened.I swear I almost saw him breathe a sigh of relief.He
was
definetly a nervous bloke.Not without good reason either.I went with
Mark as
he unlocked the door to his room,and he said he needed to get some
extra
rizzla’s before we had something to eat.His room was a cavern
wallpapered
with posters from ‘Class War’,the A.L.F.,the I.R.A.,Conflict,The
Specials,Madness,and West Ham United.There were two suitcases and a
bed;a
small ‘ghettoblaster’,and clothes hanging in an open wardrobe;The bare
essentials that could be moved in a hurry if an occasion demanded it.

What was in the two suitcases is what was
> > interesting.One suitcase contained
> > a complete assortment of jams and spreads-I mean
> > every variety you could
> > possibly think of.If it was fruity and could be
> > squeezed into a jar,Mark had
> > it ready to be pasted onto a slice of toast.For a
> > moment I wondered if he
> > intended writing a brochere for some senior citizens
> > magazine or
> > something.The other case was full of homemade
> > compilation cassettes.When I
> > saw them,I presumed they would be all anarchist punk
> > classics,reggae and
> > ska.Wrong.On the surface of it the geezer had the
> > most varied taste in music
> > imaginable,considering his dress style and street
> > antics, that is.But upon a
> > closer look,I saw what purpose they
> > served.Everything from David
> > Bowie,Slade,Yazoo,Depache
> > Mode,Conflict,Apostles,Specials,Madness,Sham 69,
> > to early Mod stuff and Reggae.He had a totally
> > mongrelised taste in music
> > that could not be pigeon holed.BUT,what the music he
> > had taped in that
> > suitcase did have in common was that they were all
> > songs that made you want
> > to get up and ‘have a go’.It was all ‘aggro’
> > music,in it’s own way,and 20
> > odd years later,I still get the same kick out of
> > listening to such music-it
> > made you feel ALIVE,and for some reason,intended or
> > otherwise,it made you
> > want to go and smash it all up.Mark also possessed
> > the greatest assortment
> > of leaflets and brochere’s from political
> > organisations I had ever seen.He
> > called it ‘boompf’.And he had bags of it.Animal
> > Liberation,IRA,Class
> > War,Squatting,Direct Action,Picket-you name it ,he
> > had it.He gathered up a
> > load and put it neatly in a pile for me to go over
> > later on.And that was the
> > next thing that struck me-the bloke was a neatness
> > freak.Everything was
> > designated and orderly and exactly the way he wanted
> > it.I was scoping the
> > joint when he bounced off his ‘military style’
> > precision made bed-complete
> > with perfect ‘hospital corners’- and announced that
> > we had to eat and get to
> > Wapping;He got no arguement from me.We charged into
> > the cafe and put in an
> > order of eggs and chips and beans and,with the
> > volume turned up full
> > blast,conducted a full scale rundown of the Wapping
> > dispute to date.It’s a
> > wonder that my mates in Aussie didn’t hear the
> > convo, it was that loud.As
> > you could imagine,I was full of questions about
> > Class War,violence,and
> > whether or not anymore aggro was in the off.He
> > didn’t give a fuck who heard
> > him-in fact he WANTED ‘em to hear every word and I
> > dug it,and joined in with
> > equal fervour.It was all out in the open and ‘in
> > your face’ in a way that is
> > difficult to put into words;except to say that our
> > convo was turning into a
> > rally without a pre-invited audience.Every second
> > word was
> > ‘fuck’,’scab’,'coppers’ and ’smash’.I was born for
> > this.He knew
> > everything.And he made it sound like the Miners
> > Strike part 2,except that it
> > was in an urban environment,which Mark maintained
> > was much better suited to
> > street level guerilla warfare than out in some field
> > by a coal mine.He said
> > the best tactic for destroying the trucks and vans
> > that transported the
> > papers from the scab plant,was hit and run.The big
> > demonstrations that
> > occurred were good for a riot,but they didn’t happen
> > often enough for him.
> >He ordered two cuppa teas-”with the usual, girls…”-which meant with
soya
milk,as he’d bought his own down there and they kept it in the fridge
for
him.I’d already made him what could only loosely be called a cup of
coffee,during my previous ‘close encounter of the Mark kind’,on the
Isle of
Dogs.But that didn’t prepare me for his antics with a simple cuppa.The
looney grabs the sugar bowl,and proceeds to unload its contents into
his cup
whilst engaging me in more of his diatribe.”How many teaspoons was
that,?”I
asked with a mind boogled look on my  face..”Who the fucks
counting”!….perfect answer…All that mattered was what was really
necessary-everything else was a distraction.He laid down the nights
battleplan between slurping and siping and the rolling of multiple
joints in
preparation for the coming festivities.This was again,radically
different
from the actions I’d been involved with so far.It wasn’t break a few
windows
and scarper off home.It was more like smash the scab lorries and
vans,and
KEEP smashing them all night to try to intimidate them from coming out
of
the plant.It had an achievable goal that depended upon us attacking
them and
keep on attacking them.If we made it so that we controlled the
streets-not
the cops-then there was no guarantee of safety for the scabs.They would
be
too scared to deliver the papers,and the strike would be won.This was
anarchy in action.As he spoke he rationalised his opinions with the
action
he planned.Everything he proposed in its own way was part
spontanaiety,part
organised.He said he hated the Sun Newspaper and everything it stood
for.It
encouraged the working class to aim their anger at all the wrong
culprits-at
the
those they perceived as beneath them,rather than those at the top.He
carried
on about ‘page three girls..’,but I’d never read the paper so I didn’t
have
a clue what that meant,so I asked him.”It’s young birds with their
knockers
out for dirty old men to masturbate over…”.The sound of silence from
the
Australian comrade,as I contemplated my own ’sleepless nights’ and just
how
that figured into Mad Marks ‘Page Three politics’.He noticed the
symptoms of
lockjaw had suddenly come over me,as I shifted about in my chair like a
kid
with a bad case of tapeworm.I didn’t know where to begin to describe my

sexual dilemma’s without sounding like a cross between a basket case
and
some sort of religious nutter on a self imposed celibacy trip.I’d
gotten my
rocks off plenty of times in the past over various under-the counter
publications.I never saw it as a problem.I hated paedophiles,kiddie
porn
freaks,and violent pornography with a vengeance,and would happily have
stomped on the bastards who are into this shit if I came across
them.And up
until now,I didn’t think that any of my sexual antics were
‘anti-social’.Suddenly,I was feeling very confused.I desperately
searched my
‘wideboy’ vocab. for a swift and radical shift in convo topic-but I
came up
a blank.I wondered if anyone else who was following our volume overkill

conversation had noticed my lack of response to another of Marks
gauntlet 
throwing hate topics.I felt like every eyeball in the cafe was clocking
me
with an all-suspecting ,all knowing glare.I felt absolutely naked.And
just
when everything looked grim in the cafe -Mark to the rescue.”Harry
Roberts
is our friend he kills coppers…”,at the top of his voice.What the
fuck…I
wondered who he was screaming at,so I turned around to see two beat
cops
walking outside the cafe.Who the fuck’s Harry Roberts?,I yelled back at

him.His reply,at a half-a-pot-of-sugar induced velocity,was a
passionate ten
minute ramble about a cop killer who never apologised for what he
done,and
had become a legend to the working class ever since.Football fans had
made
up a song about him that they taunted the police with whenever they so
choosed on the terraces and the streets.I told him that I’d like to
meet
this bloke,and where could we find him.”He’s in prison still-but we
could go
visit him if you want”.”Whens he gonna get out”,I asked.”Never”,came
the
reply.”Cops can kill us lot whenever they want-but if one of their lot
gets
ironed out…run for cover…”!.”Anyways lets get moving for fucks
sake,there’s work to be done down at Fortress Wapping,and this tea is
doin’
my head in…”.Small fuckin’ wonder I thought,he might as well have
just
poured his tea into the sugar bowl and skulled it from there.

We took to the streets and made our way through
the
concrete jungle to this place called ‘Wapping’.Music spilled out of the

flats and the thud of the bass was echoed by the pounding of our Doc.
Martens on the pavement outside.We took the same path up Burdett Road
to
Limehouse where we’d attacked the white van a few hour previous.Now it
really was night.Pitch black,with only the lights from the street lamps
and
closed shops lighting up patches of inky darkness.If we felt cocky in
the
day,the night made us ten times the bantam roosters we already
were.Strangers were all greeted with an, “Alright”,and the bounce in
our
step told even the dimmest of the dim these ‘jack the lads’ were
running on
pure adrenaline.Well,one of ‘em was,the other was running on 50%
adrenalin
and 50% sugar.We were a molotov mix of Punk,class war,skinhead and
anarchy.Somehow the night freed us.The darkness added to the
malevolence of
our entire being.It felt like we were the underdogs who had got up from
our
knees and issued a challenge to all who would chain us down.We crossed
the
Commercial Road and headed towards Wapping.Boarded up shops,graffitti
and
broken glass created an apocalyptic environment of desperation.The
perfect
backdrop for the struggle we were entering into but also the whole way
we
looked ,walked,thought and acted.We reached
a small backstreet entrance that was guarded by half a dozen freezing
coppers.Don’t get me wrong,no sympathy tears from this dedicated
cop-hater,so the first thing Mark does is goad them with a short,”You
fella’s look like you’re frosting up over there…”-they smile at what
they
wrongly perceive as a friendly gesture,and open their mouths to reply
when
Mark beats them to the punch and leaves them in no doubt who they are
dealing with and where they stand on matters at hand-”tough luck
boys,you
shouldn’t be guarding scabs and that cunt Rupert Murdoch..”The coppers
gaup
back with withered faces-but say nothing.”Right,this is the Narrow
Way,and
the lorries come out of here when they can’t get out the main gate on
the
highway.He showed me a huge mural on a wall at Cable street,that
depicted
the fight against fascism on the streets of East London.The mural had
been
defaced with paint bombs by local nazi’s.A point Mark dwelled on a
while
whilst he told me about the whole anti-fascist struggle.”Anyways
there’s a
good song about this Cable Street battle by a leftie band called ‘The
Men
They Couldn’t Hang’.”Great song-shame they voted for the fuckin’
shithouse
Labour Party,though”he quipped.We headed away from the main highway
into the
back streets in preparation for our ’sniper’ attacks on the Lorries and

white vans.We roamed the streets for hours in the freezing cold without

sighting so much as a car,nevermind a fuckin’ scab lorrie.It must of
been
about midnight,and the only people on the streets besides us were the
coppers on the Narrow Way.We noticed that the coppers were suddenly
active
on their hand radios about something.Before they looked like they
couldn’t
chase down a snail.Now they were alert and nervous.”Here they fuckin’
come”,yelled Mark-though who at besides me I’m uncertain.So I looked
around
me to see if we’d suddenly recruited a hundred supporters without
knowing
it.The guy had the loudest gob I’d ever heard.I swear the coppers a
hundred
yards away heard his warning.

His foghorn announcement had barely faded into the night when the gates opened and a convoy of huge trucks came rumbling out.They couldn’t have made them look more obvious if they had of stuck neon signs above each lorry flashing ‘Scab’ for all to see.The trucks were called ‘Arctics’ by Mark.But to me,they were semi-trailers.They had the entire side of their trailers covered in bright blue vinyl on either side.In time to come,every person with at least one foot on the street,new they were scab lorries from Wapping,and as a consequence,they were attacked spontaineously all over London and beyond,by all sorts of people in support of the strikers.As they came out,they looked like a long blue snake coming out of a hole.And,in a slight oversight,the coppers had placed themselves on the wrong side of the lorries from the only two people between them and cooee of anything with a pulse at this ungodly hour;the Keystone cops at work again!We had stockpiled some half-bricks,broken concrete and rocks in preperation for this moment,and with a battlecry of “Fuckin’ Scabs”,Mark led the charge straight at the trucks from our position in the flats.No gloves,no masks,just the cover of darkness to disguise us.Bricks and concrete rained down on the trucks.The ones that hit the cabs and trailers made a ‘clanging’ noise,whilst the ‘bulls-eyes’ rewarded us with the unmistakeable sound of shattered glass.It wasn’t the same sound as smashing a shop window in-that was far more explosive in volume-but it was exciting and inspiring to hear the bricks hit their targets.Every time
I ever chucked something through a glass window,I always had that Hazel O’Conner song,”I love the sound of breaking glass”,playing in my head,and I’m sure there was aload of people just like me who fed their wrecking addiction to that very tune after football matches,on demo’s,or runnin’ down the streets fuelled up on booze and adrenalin.It’s amazing the tricks time plays on you.To the people like us doing ‘the business’-
time stands totally still.Nothing else matters.All those ridiculous thoughts that the system clogs our heads with to numb us to the monotony of a predictable existance,go straight out the window when those bricks leave your hands and the glass starts smashing.It is absolute therapy.You feel totally alive,and the sweat,adrenalin,and the sudden spontainaiety of those fletching moments,create the most addictive rush I have ever felt.I’ve tried every drug that you can smoke or snort,and they all ran a very distant second to the high of those riotous moments.We laughed and yelled as we ran through the estates back towards Limehouse.Our voices echoeing off the concrete walls as we slowed down and our drift back into the lights of Commercial road was like re-entering planet earth after visiting some other world.And that’s what it was REALLY like.It was as if we had very briefly broken some invisible chain that bound us our every minute.We had briefly escaped from some sort of prison and the more we ventured away from that action that had freed us, the more we came down.But,never mind all that astronomical nonsense,we had just wrecked about four trucks and now we were on the run back to safety.Safety being Marks bedsit.We could of fled to the squat we had just opened,cos it was closer,being on the Burdett estate,but we needed something more than white walls and the emptiness of,well basically, an empty flat.Fuck that for a ‘come down pad’, we wanted a bit of music and rest and relaxation.The last 14 hours of life with Mad Mark were catching up with me.I felt like I’d been with him a month.I was absolutely knackered,but too scared to slow down in case something else happened.I didn’t want it to end.I wanted to feel it-live it-as long as I could hold out.Our journey back down Burdett Road to the bedsit was all abit hazzy.When we got inside,Mark made a cup of tea,and put a reggae tape on.It was all bass and Patois,and looking out his window over Stepney and the night lights of the East End,I felt at some sort of peace.This was home-I could feel it.The day had been one of street mayhem and raw experience and he’d already promised me that tomorrow would more of the same.Saturday night was the one week anniversary of the Wapping riot,and there was promise of a sequel.But the thought that had my imagination doin’ overtime was that the next night from that,was the Class War meeting at Kings Cross,and my first chance to meet this character Mark refered to as ‘the General’.All sorts of wild expectations of that first meeting kept me awake.What would he look like?-was he young or old?,How many people would be there”,Would ‘Conflict’ be there?Would we plan the riots at the meeting?Were they all like this Mad Mark geezer?As I drifted into slumberland these were the thoughts I took with me,and,it certainly made a change from ‘G-strings on Cronulla Beach,that’s for sure,cos they really did feel like the miles away they were.

At the rate we were operating on the streets,I gave myself a week and I thought I’d be nicked and deported.The next day was a Saturday,and it started with a bellowing fart from me,and a coffee and pot induced ‘hang over’ tantrum from Mark.”You’ve turned the gaff into a fuckin’ gas chamber…,what is it with you aussie’s and farting-is it a national past-time or what…?I explained my plane trip food,and the resulting ‘omissions’, to him through bouts of laughter and digs about my lack of culinary skills.Then the shit really hit the fan-metaphorically speaking.Mark ran ’round the room like a chicken with its head cut off searching for his smoko,his rizzlas,and his pants-in that order.It wasn’t the sort of sight,or behavior, this young punk was used to,I can tell you.This geezer’s struttin’ ’round the room bollock naked,waving his arms in the air,and screaming like a kid who’s lost his lollipop.At this point,I found myself once again thinking he’d lost more than his lollipop,I can tell you