Not that long ago I came close to having to back up a friend in a fight (or at least try to defuse the situation).

However there was a lot of us behind this guy and because he had been subjected to racist abuse and threats from former high school friends (and both of us are not white) I felt angry enough to get involved, particularly as I’d seen a rise in racism in the UK since the start of the economic depression and I’ve lived through similar bad times in my youth.

Thankfully TBH this fight never happened in the end, I think on both sides people were talked out of it. However, I’m not a big guy and I don’t like fighting but will use anything I have to defend myself and I’d probably have at least ended up arrested, if not being brought before Court.

And TBH society would have every right to bring me to harsh judgement, the last thing they need on my estate is any more grown men in their 30s behaving like 1980s hooligans taking the law into their own hands, and trying to turn it into a Tesco value version of East or SE London, there’s enough angry men trying that already as it is.

To think about it even some years later is chilling, because in just one weekend I could have fucked up everything I’ve worked for in the last 5 years and also risked the livelihoods of 100 people (as bad news travels fast and people boycott local businesses what employ criminals/thugs.

These days I socialise a lot less and am very careful who I hang around with because of incidents like this.