Ridgers reminisces. Photo & text Derek Ridgers (5/5)
Posted: December 2, 2011 Filed under: Crime and Punishment, London Types | Tags: Freddie Foreman, Jack 'The Hat' McVitie, London underworld, Tony Lambrianou Comments Off on Ridgers reminisces. Photo & text Derek Ridgers (5/5)
Tony and Freddie, Southwark, 2000. Photo © Derek Ridgers.
Derek Ridgers writes:
This is a portrait of Tony Lambrianou (RIP) and Freddie Foreman commissioned by Vox magazine. Freddie Foreman who is, incidentally, the father of the actor Jamie Foreman, was once known as ‘Brown Bread Fred.‘ If you don’t know your cockney rhyming slang, the significance of this nickname won’t be obvious but save to say they were both once rather dangerous men. They were both associates of the Kray firm and they both served serious prison time for their involvement in the murder of Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie.
I photographed them around Freddie’s old manor, in the area south of Southwark Bridge in London. I went on a pub crawl with them afterwards and they were very amusing company, with endless stories of the old days and all their friends, euphemistically known as “the chaps.” They were nice but, even in their dotage, I’d be lying if I said that they were completely devoid of any hint of menace. If I’d have met them in their pomp, in the ‘60s, I’d have run a mile.
The thing is, back then, they might not have let me.
© Derek Ridgers. From The Ponytail Pontifications.
Summertime Blues. Text assembled by Charles Jennings, photo: Tim Marshall.
Posted: August 19, 2011 Filed under: Crime and Punishment, Street of Shame | Tags: Anarchy in the UK, feral youth, Hoodies, JD Sports, journalistic cliche, London riots, urban rampage Comments Off on Summertime Blues. Text assembled by Charles Jennings, photo: Tim Marshall.
Essex Road. Photo © Tim Marshall.*
Newspaper quotes from August 2011:
She knows what she has done.
In order to get people’s respect and get noticed, this mother brazenly walks out of the back door of an Argos store. As a Glaswegian I was relieved of course.
There was more. After being yanked away by a hooded looter, the son of an evangelist minister ‘stole from supermarket’, admitted burglary by looting a £7.49 bottle of wine, and left stupid messages on Facebook.
Trying to gouge out a policeman’s eyes, the teenager then blamed the police for his crimes, adding that everything he had worked for is destroyed.
But victims will be given the chance to speak out, clean up in an orange jumpsuit, sweep scum off our streets, and be rightly alarmed.
Modern-day Fagins, on the other hand, cannot have people being frightened in their beds, or running into their basement flat with electrical items. It is deplorable behaviour, leading to instant ‘no-go’ areas to tackle mob violence.
At last, though, there is a smell of fresh paint, as well as vicious infighting between politicians and senior policemen. The public is finally seeing proper medicine handed out. Residents cheered police as they carried out the operation!
Some would argue that this all smacks of headline grabbing; others, that the dehumanising epithets flew like bricks through a JD Sports window.
But what matters is that this kind of anarchy is never allowed to happen again.
Nurse accused of sending saucy underwear pics to schizophrenic patient.
(Taken from The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Express, Daily Mirror.)
* Disclaimer: in the interests of full disclosure, I must point out that the photo above was not taken during this month’s disturbances, but some years ago (the date is uncertain) and forms part of Tim Marshall’s 38 Special project, which we have already featured on The London Column. Whilst the young men in Tim’s photo were not looting anything, we have posted some contemporary riot photos on our Facebook page. D.S.
The London Column 