Which reminds of a little anecdote that I thought about posting earlier.....maybe to counterbalance some of the war stories (i.e. this kind of thing happened at least as much as coming to grips with the baddies).
I had a flatmate - J - hadn't known him that long, he worked behind the bar in the pub I used to go to after work and me and my mates regularly got stuff on the house from the landlord because we were in there so much. Anyway, gradually me and J got friendly - he needed somewhere to live and the mate I'd had in there before had moved out, I needed someone to help share the rent....
So he moves in and we get to know each other a bit better. He's sound enough so he gets to know a bit about my politics and he begins to express an interest in joining AFA and coming on some activities. It's a little bit tricky trying to find the right opportunity 'cos he's obviously an unknown quantity - but then what seems like the ideal opportunity comes up.
The ratcatcher tells me one night that he's aware of a load of fash stickers going up in an area one of his relatives lives. So me and him head down there one night and right enough, there's KKK, NF, BNP, NSA, Surrey Border Front on more or less every lampost around a group of 5 or 6 streets. All long streets of suburban semis with pedestrian alleys cutting between them. The alleys are stickered too.
So the plan is that we'll go down there again, put a few AFA and RA stickers up, just to lay down a marker, so to speak.
This will be the ideal opportunity for J - we'll need to have our wits about us, but we don't anticipate any fisticuffs - and the ratcatcher says he knows the area.
So one light summer evening, there we are, more or less at the top of one road, having stickered the length of it - when I hear the sound of a group of blokes chatting and about to come round the corner. J is 15 foot up a lampost that some particularly agile fash has stickered, so I tell him to get down quick.
He's just in time to avoid a group of 12-15 blokes coming round the corner. The ratcatcher says quietly, "Let's just walk back to the car, casually - don't rush." Which is no easy feat, given that the car is some 400 yards away and I've clearly started to hear mumblings behind us of "Oi! Look at this!" and "Fucking reds" and "These are fucking recent."
But we hold it together - or at least me and J do: though we started off together, the ratcatcher beat us back to the car by a good 60 yards - again, no mean feat given his build.
Anyway, that was J's first and last time out with AFA - and he moved out of the flat in fairly short order, too.
The tale of how we subsequently tried to get to grips with the 15 fash is another story, but one I won't be repeating on here.
