2003-04-11
... ? ...nazi fuckers......The Railway Tavern is a small, grotty pub with peeling green paint, squatting inconspicuously opposite Chelmsford railway station. Inside, Charlie and Steve Sargent are sitting silently, awaiting my arrival. Charlie is in a dark, tetchy mood, answering questions with a brief "eah" or "naa". A baseball cap is perched precariously on his large head. As the "Big Man" of C18, he has already warned me at our previous meeting "not to stitch us up, or we'll fuck you over badly". I have come to see the brothers on home territory - their power base - to try and understand something about them as people, about their motivation and their aims for the future. This bustling Essex commuter town, with its territorial pubs and large, white council estates, will be the centre, C18 argues, for a paramilitary struggle. The group will slowly and surely take over the estates, populated as they see it by white East End emigrÈs, and become the dominant political force in the area. Like other such areas, Chelmsford has a schizophrenic character. On the one hand, there are quiet, suburban parks and green-belt areas. Marconi has its headquarters there. Bright Christmas lights hang over the old market area and a single tiny mosque nestles inconspicuously behind a curry house. From this angle, it seems a quiet, suburban commuter town. However, the street with the longest row of pubs is known locally as "The Road of Death", due to the number of fights which take place there. At weekends, young lads from the surrounding towns and villages pile into nightclubs - looking, as Steve Sargent says, "for booze, a shag and a fight". And the predominantly white, working-class estates have proved themselves to be an ideal breeding ground for the insularity and youthful discontent upon which C18 thrives."... Voting time again here soon....These jokers, too lame a phrase I know, always try it on and take 100 votes as some sort of "Mandate from the people"...More like a "Note from your Mum".. As promised, Minty.... sorry for delay....being lumbered with Sloth DNA is no phun...I owe ya a drink now...(Catch ya at the Weekend probably...)...
