Something special

In a busy, busy week something really special happened.

On Friday I was at a client's site in London when a note came round advising us to be careful because a demonstration was to be held in the vicinity by the "English" Defence League.

I was particularly concerned because I knew that one of the lads in the office was a devout Muslim and his route to the rented hall where they held Friday prayers would have taken him near to the demonstration. With his obvious ethnic minority complexion, beard, cap and dress, he looked like  an obvious target. (Incidentally when I nip out for the lunchtime service at Westminster Methodist Central Hall I tell him I am off to "Wednesday prayers")

I did offer to walk with him pass the demonstration but he assured me that he would be safe. However I did nip out of the office at lunchtime and joined a counter demonstration, even getting filmed by the Metropolitan Police.

When I returned to the office we had a conversation. I explained that my school had a large Jewish contingent and they had suffered the same sort of provocation in the early 1960s from the forerunners of today's BNP.

He told  that he had many elderly Jewish neigbours and they had told him of thier struggles.

As we talked we both realised that in fact, thirty years apart, we had attended the same secondary school in Hackney. Like my big brother he had been born under the auspices of the Salvation Army Mother's Hospital in Clapton. My mother had been evacuated to Willesley Castle for the actual confinement. He had attended a primary school, not far from mine who rivals at football.

Suddenly I felt the Hackney of the 1950s and 1960s merge with the Hackney of today. That lad was one of us.