Chapter 47 — The Porno and the Druggie Fight

We were regimental in the way we ran the unit; it worked most of the time, and we didn't know quite how well we had structured the management until one Friday, and it became apparent what we were actually managing.

We used to run different break times for the students, so that they all didn't appear on the streets together and pile into the sandwich shop en masse. The groups which we collected from the schools in minibuses would have different breaks from the die-hard students.

One Friday morning whilst the main bulk of students were on their break, and Malc and Lee were on duty at the shops, there'd been some messing about, and Rakiya asked me to go over to the shops and get it sorted.

Lee was a lad of thirty or late twenties, was quiet, and he got on very well with the students, but he didn't have much control over them. When I arrived, Lee was trying to confiscate a pornographic magazine off one of the students, who passed it to another, and when he went for that student with the magazine, it was passed on to another ad infinitum, to the much amusement of the students crowded around the shop. I took the magazine off the students. I gave Lee the magazine and told him to get rid of it, so that the students wouldn't get hold of it. I then went into the shop to buy a sandwich.

Lee went over to the nearest bin and threw in the magazine, and before he'd turned and began to walk back again, the magazine game was afoot again, and Lee was once again running around after the magazine.

I took the magazine off the students again and was about to head off back to the unit and dispose of it properly when Rakiya radioed and said I'd better get down to the other unit quick, as there was some altercation afoot. I quickly handed Lee back the magazine, and told him to dispose of it where the students couldn't see, and I left him.

By the time I'd reached Burnett Street, there was pandemonium. A great mass of students and pedestrians were out in the middle of the street. We later found out from the police that, a few minutes earlier, a group of druggies had been walking down the road, and three of our students had said something to them. One of the druggies had gone for a student, but another student had quickly intervened and had knocked the druggie out on the pavement.

They all then fell to fighting, and this riot brought out all the students we had, even the ones still round at the shop, as Rakiya was screaming at Lee and the others to get down Burnett Street and help. We later counted how many students were out on the street that morning and it was 130.

I quickly managed to intervene and force our students back, so that the fight would stop. The druggies were having none of it though, and were still going for them. One of them was a woman, and she was the worst. I tried to stop her from launching herself at a student and noticed at that moment just how many students we had on site. I wanted to get the students back into our buildings, and seeing Lee was having no luck with them, I asked him to stop the woman from attacking the students.

'But I've still got that porno in my pocket, Karl.'

'Don't worry about that, Lee, just stop the woman from getting to the students, and Rakiya and me will get them all inside.'

Not only was the street packed with spectators, but the offices, which were many, all had their windows open, and an abundance of heads and eyes were gawping out when Lee, complete with trackie bottoms and a porno popping out of his pocket, began to wrestle with the druggie woman. Afterwards, he told us how mortified he was that this pornographic magazine would fall out of his pants and reveal itself to every bystander watching.

The magazine didn't fall out, though, and the students were all bundled back into the buildings, and when the police did arrive and speak to the 'druggies', the druggies simply denied that anything had happened, and the matter was forgotten about.

The scene did tell us though that we needed another building, and the following month, we bought one, but this time at a distance from the other two. In hindsight, it wasn't a particularly good move, and perhaps one of the few mistakes we made. We should have stayed where we were and realised that altercations between druggies and volatile excludees are somewhat inevitable.