Chapter Seven

       The 28s

      In those days it was about peace and unity. Life on the estate was chilled. It wasn’t like it is today with all the guns and gangs and violence.

      Pod

      One of the older boys who used to be at the Angell Town clubhouse showing off his dance moves was Roger Samuels. He went by the street name of ‘Pod’. A woman from Liverpool who lived on the estate had made the mistake of calling him ‘podgy’ in front of his friends. From then on, everyone called him ‘Pod’. He and the others in the 28s used to gather at the clubhouse to meet up with girls before heading off to their ‘coch’. That’s what they called the empty and half-derelict flats in the council blocks where they could smoke, drink alcohol, party and sleep with their girlfriends without being disturbed by parents or annoying neighbours. As soon as they got wind that one of the council flats had emptied, they would kick the door down and turn it into their own place where they could hang out. It was the best place to have sex. Few parents on the estate would allow their sons’ girlfriends into the family home, let alone into their sons’ bedrooms.

      That’s how Pod lived. Chilling in the ‘coch’, dancing at the clubhouse and meeting up in the stairwell of Marston House with the other 28s like Duffers, Sykes, Keith Weed, Wesley, Maddix, Gummy, Hustler and Perry, to plan what they would get up to that evening.

      ‘Let’s go to a funfair.’

      ‘Yeah we could do some robbing up there.’

      ‘And find some girls.’

      The talk was all about what they planned to do next, where they could go to have some fun, what they could rob without getting caught.

      They were careful, though, about where they went to commit their crimes. They stayed clear of robbing anyone on the estate. In fact, often one of the neighbours would lean out of one of the balcony windows and shout down to them.

      ‘We’re going out for the rest of the evening. Will you keep an eye on the flat for me?’

      Even when one of the neighbours went back to Jamaica for the holidays they would be happy to watch out for the flat.

      They took pride in keeping their estate free of outsiders.

      If the gang discovered that one of the flats had been burgled on their watch it would send a surge of adrenaline through them. Over the following days they would be doubly vigilant and one of them would always be on the lookout for any strangers hanging around. If someone came into Angell Town who they thought might be responsible for the burglary they would give them a good kicking. No one came into Angell Town without the permission of the 28s.

      There was nothing mysterious about the origin of their name. The gang was made up of a core group of kids who’d all gone to the Tulse Hill School in Brixton. ‘The 28s’ wasn’t an arcane reference to American gangsta culture, or to a London postcode or the lyrics of some Jamaican reggae song. Pod knew where it came from because he was there at the beginning.

      We were called ‘the 28s’ because there were about twenty-eight of us.

      Pod had grown up just as Angell Town was going through a slow transformation. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, life in Angell Town had been chilled, almost laid back. Social life on the estate had been built around the Jamaican-style ‘sound systems’ which were strung up in back gardens and around the Angell Town football pitch. During the weekend the smell of barbecued chicken and marijuana wafted through the council blocks to the soundtrack of chilled reggae music reverberating from huge boom boxes.

      The estate attracted Jamaican DJs from all over London. They would come to Angell Town to play their own version of popular Jamaican sounds like Coxone or Saxon or Dread Diamonds.

      If Pod was lucky, his father, who was the stern but respected local Christian preacher, would allow him to join the street parties and meet up with the other kids in the area. They ran from one sound system to another, fascinated by the dreadlocked DJs in their red, gold, black and green Rasta berets and by the swaggering Yardies dressed in long black coats and baseball caps and dripping with jewellery. Sometimes, though, his father would have the hump and wouldn’t let him out. Then he would be forced to observe the excitement from the balcony of Pym House.

      There were never fights or arguments. It was a time of peace and unity. The police wouldn’t even need to come round because it was so chilled. They left the community alone and the community left the police alone.

      It was rare that Pod got into any trouble. His father was a respected man in the community and set a good example. The only time Pod managed to get away from his father’s steely gaze was during those Sundays when he sneaked out of church. That’s when he would meet up with the other kids at the foot of Pym House. But as soon as they heard the church van bringing his father back home, they would ‘chip’, or run away. His father was so ferocious that no one wanted to hang around when he came back.

      ‘Get away from my doorway. Leave this area.’

      That’s what he would say to any of the kids who inadvertently hung around the landing of Pym House. He was more than just the local pastor. He was a big man with a big temper and a big presence. Everyone did as he said.

      At 13, Pod was allowed further afield. He went to break- dancing competitions at Brixton Recreation Centre, and body-popped with other kids from estates in Peckham and Clapham to see who was the best break-dancer. He played in the local Metropolitan Police five-a-side football competition organized by a community police officer whose name was Sergeant Hill. Pod’s team, Angell Town’s Mini Strikers, used to play other teams from all over south London. The matches, like the break-dancing competitions, created a rivalry with kids from other estates round south London. But the rivalry was always friendly.

      That was lift-off for me. I was still quite podgy, but I was snappy with a ball at my feet. Those days crime wasn’t high and most guys in my age group weren’t doing anything bad. Even though we had competitions with other estates, it was all peaceful.

      But that’s when life on the estate started to change. That’s when the 28s came into conflict with the Untouchables.

      The Untouchables weren’t strictly a local gang. While the 28s were made up of kids who lived in Brixton, the Untouchables had their roots ‘northside’, in north London. Through family ties and connections formed in prison, the gang’s reputation had spread throughout south London until there were as many as sixty young guys who professed allegiance to the Untouchables living in Brixton. Some of the Untouchables had even turned one of the empty flats in Angell Town into their own ‘coch’ where they lived and partied. In the early days the 28s didn’t mind because some of them were related by blood to the Untouchables.

      But as the 1990s began, clashes between the gangs became pointed.

      Pod first noticed it during the ‘All Dayers’ held at the Bogle Factory in Somerleyton, just across the road from Angell Town. That’s when the so-called ‘clash of sounds’ was held. Different sound systems from all over London would meet up in an old factory and try to outdo each other with their music. The events would start at midday and go on until midnight. Pod and his crew would turn up with his sound system called ‘King Agony’. The idea was that he would compete with rival sound systems from neighbouring estates in Kennington or Clapham or Peckham with names like ‘Goldrush’ or ‘Silver