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Down memory lane: that white tank?

London_Calling

London_Calling

Pleasant and unpatronising
the big one with the turret and caterpillar wheels and, well, proper gun barrel.

Wondered what happened to it and the owner - think the last few times I saw it was parked part way down Acre Lane, I presume outside the owner's home :D

That was at least a decade ago, I suppose.

Anyone know the story ?
 
there was a pink tank for ages at the top of old kent road, last year it got painted dark grey and silver, and then i went past today and my step-daughter pointed out that the tank has gone :(
 
The tosser who owned it was always in dispute with the police or the council or some or other agency. He used to drive it down Brixton Road and "break down" in the middle of a junction causing fucking mayhem.

Unfortunately one of my PCs used to be in the Tank Regiment and drive the things ... and he worked out a bit had been deliberately removed which is why it wouldn't go ... which turned up in the pocket of the owner ... who then found himself nicked again ...

He was a right pain in the ass.
 
He wasn't popular with the council either...he had an ego the size of a planet...he thought everyone loved him but he was generally perceived as a tosser as you say....the noise of that tank was appalling.
 
The guy was from Norbury, and in continous dispute with one public body or another. You're right, the tank was parked for a time on Acre Lane (I think he may have had some business operating in what is now the used tyre place), and had various colour schemes. Last I saw it, it had broken down or run out of petrol by Kennington Park, returning from haranguing the crowds going into an Arsenal Match. That was a couple of years ago.

He seems to have had an especial relationship with Brixton police.

Police pay out for pig-parking prank
 
Mrs Magpie said:
It was pink
Click to expand...

It started green, then it was painted white for a wedding, then it was pink, sponsored by or jumping on the bandwagon for Tank Girl the movie, then yellow.

If it wasn't the same guy who had the marlin on the roof (John Gladden???) it was certainly closely associated with him and joined in all his protests to parliament.

The morning after a little commotion we had in 1995 when the media were all jumpy that it would be 1985 again and loads of outside police were drafted in he drove it round the centre of Brixton - it was pink at the time - with a number of inflatable pigs in policemen's uniforms tied to it.

Which always rather endeared him to me.
 
Yeah, he had the marlin on his roof, but loads of people thought he was the shark on the roof man....which was somewhere else....
 
pooka said:
The guy was from Norbury, and in continous dispute with one public body or another. You're right, the tank was parked for a time on Acre Lane (I think he may have had some business operating in what is now the used tyre place), and had various colour schemes. Last I saw it, it had broken down or run out of petrol by Kennington Park, returning from haranguing the crowds going into an Arsenal Match. That was a couple of years ago.

He seems to have had an especial relationship with Brixton police.

Police pay out for pig-parking prank
Click to expand...

That guy was cool

It all started when he stuck a massive marlin on his roof, that he caught while on holiday.

The council told him to take it down, so he went to all out war with them. :D

He even had a HUGE inflatable winston churchill on his house at one point. Fuckin class !!!
icon14.gif
 
What didn't endear him to me was the way he'd hold up traffic, buses etc as a sort of ego number...didn't care about all the people he inconvenienced and pissed off again and again and again....because he thought his obsessive spats were the be-all and end-all and he was far more important than everyone else who lived here....
 
Mrs Magpie said:
What didn't endear him to me was the way he'd hold up traffic, buses etc as a sort of ego number...didn't care about all the people he inconvenienced and pissed off again and again and again....because he thought his obsessive spats were the be-all and end-all and he was far more important than everyone else who lived here....
Click to expand...

You could say the same about many forms of demonstration.

Like those pesky Mayday soapdodgers that shutdown part of Central London each year. ;)
 
Mrs Magpie said:
Yeah, he had the marlin on his roof, but loads of people thought he was the shark on the roof man....which was somewhere else....
Click to expand...


Getting confused now.

So who had the Marlin? :confused:
 
RaverDrew said:
The guy in Norbury, South London.
Click to expand...

who was (or was not?) the same person who had the chameleon tank (although a weaponsnerdy friend insisted it wasn't a tank, it was a self-propelled gun) and a metal-bashing business on Acre Lane, now turned into a yuppie-yard.

probably.
 
fortyplus said:
who was (or was not?) the same person who had the chameleon tank (although a weaponsnerdy friend insisted it wasn't a tank, it was a self-propelled gun) and a metal-bashing business on Acre Lane, now turned into a yuppie-yard.

probably.
Click to expand...

Not 100% about the acre lane connection, but he definitely had a tank that he customized reguarly, to taxi himself to court and back, and parked outside his house.

Personally I only ever saw him going in the tank (upper norwwod/crystal palace way) towards croydon. Although I read and heard about him taking it up central london to protest.
 
RaverDrew said:
The guy in Norbury, South London.
Click to expand...

He. My aunt lives pretty much opposite his house. They used to get so pissed off with people trailing past his house at Chrimbo, when the giant marlin was joined by Winston Churchill, a spitfire AND a giant santa, reindeers and sled. Quite remarkable - eventually I think the council gave up with the idea of forcing him to remove the marlin from the roof, realising that perhaps the retaliatory ten tons of inflatables he kept sticking up in defiance wasn't any better.

The bloke even used to pay his employees to put on combat fatigues and "Un' blue berets on and march in front of his house from time to time. And he owns that US-style police car with the policemen (pants rolled down, receiving a batty slap) on top that you see driving around from time to time. Nutter.

Interestingly the church where the man went loopy with the Samurai sword is at the end of the same road too. It must be something about Norbury...

;)
 
Thanks for the replies. Fwiw, I do now remember it as while and pink, though I'll take your word for which came first. I also remembered we used to call him 'Rommel' for a while, though I can't recall why.

Memories, eh. Wish I had more left.
 
detective-boy said:
The tosser who owned it was always in dispute with the police or the council or some or other agency. He used to drive it down Brixton Road and "break down" in the middle of a junction causing fucking mayhem.

Unfortunately one of my PCs used to be in the Tank Regiment and drive the things ... and he worked out a bit had been deliberately removed which is why it wouldn't go ... which turned up in the pocket of the owner ... who then found himself nicked again ...

He was a right pain in the ass.
Click to expand...
i remember seeing him drive it past my flat in elephant & castle in about '96 making a sh!tload of noise....there was someone standing on the roof dressed in a police uniform but wearing a huge pig mask..they were holding a massive sign saying "we're not gonna take any more shit from the pigs!"

..so i guessed he didn't really get on that well with the Met :D
 
So one afternoon a few years ago I turned right out of St James's Park underground into Broadway, SW1... and hear this grinding noise.

The pink tank is sat outside New Scotland Yard, with the barrel swivelling up to point at the Commissioner's office.






Made my day :D
 
detective-boy said:
The tosser who owned it was always in dispute with the police or the council or some or other agency. He used to drive it down Brixton Road and "break down" in the middle of a junction causing fucking mayhem.

Unfortunately one of my PCs used to be in the Tank Regiment and drive the things ... and he worked out a bit had been deliberately removed which is why it wouldn't go ... which turned up in the pocket of the owner ... who then found himself nicked again ...

He was a right pain in the ass.
Click to expand...
was that the shaved copper who couldnt work out for 20 mins where reverse was and the fuse was taken out hahahhahahahahahhah that was the tosser
 
Think he must have been a Palace fan - I saw the tank (it was yellow at the time) parked up in a bus stop just at the Vauxhall end of South Lambeth Rd the day of the play off final between Palace and Sheffield Utd in ?1997 I think. There were a load of guys standing on the tank with Palace flags - I was on my way up to Wembley to see the game and asked for a lift to Victoria where I was meeting people. But they said it was too full already :( So I never got my go on the tank...
 
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