Johnny Osbourne paid tribute to the 13 young people who were killed when racists firebombed a party in New Cross in 1981.
It says a lot about Britain in the early Eighties that the New Cross fire – or New Cross Massacre as Linton Kewsi Johnson put it – was instantly and easily dismissed as an accident by the police and the judiciary.
My old friend Charlie Collins lost his son Steven that night in January 1981 – one of 13 young black people who died when racists started a fire at a house party (and another who died two years later) where Yvonne Ruddock was celebrating her 16th birthday.
I had moved to London and was living in Hackney. It was a time when the National Front was marching and committing violent attacks, demanding a clampdown on immigration in order to “Keep Britain White”, and the Anti-Nazi League was marching against them. Sounds familiar?
The media response was to give greater prominence to protests against the murders than the fire itself, after a National Black People’s Day Of Action that drew a 20,000 crowd to Central London in March.
There was a stand-off with the police on Blackfriars Bridge after officers blocked the agreed route, resulting in headlines like “When The Black Tide Met The Thin Blue Line” (Daily Mail), “Day The Blacks Ran Riot In London” (The Sun) and “Rampage Of A Mob” (Daily Express).
My friend Charlie – aka ‘Sir Collins – who died two or three years ago, never got over the death of his teenage son, and now has a luxury apartment block named after him at Dalston Junction, on the site of the 4 Aces Club that he co-founded (and where I spent much of my youth).
I’m not sure what he would have made of that – his fellow co-founder Newton Dunbar (who, like Charlie, was not consulted about it) was not impressed to be associated with the gentrification of what was once a thriving multicultural neighbourhood.
Subsequently, Charlie wrote and recorded Blood And Fire, one of several protest songs commemorating the event.
Among the others was 13 Dead by Benjamin Zephaniah, New Crass Massakah by Linton Kwesi Johnson, Strength And Power by The Uplifter, Nation Fiddler by Makka Bees, Lizzard’s Milk And Honey and Barrington Levy’s Love Of Jah.
Two inquests, one in 1981 and another in 2004, both returned open verdicts on the fire – the coroner at the second one believed it was “probably” started deliberately but declined to rule it a racist attack (confirmed by Met Police forensic scientists in 2011) – and no one has ever been charged in connection with it.
RIP
Andrew Gooding, age 14
Rosaline Henry, age 16
Patrick Cummings, age 16
Patricia Johnson, age 15
Owen Thompson, age 16
Lloyd Hall, age 20
Humphrey Brown, age 18
Steve Collins, age 17
Gerry Francis, age 17
Peter Campbell, age 18
Glenton Powell, age 16 (died in hospital)
Yvonne Ruddock, age 16 (died in hospital)
Paul Ruddock, age 22 (died in hospital).