1984

While my college was occupied, a rumour went around that a court-appointed official called a Tipstaff would be arriving shortly, accompanied by hundreds of police, and that they would batter down the big front doors for him, so he could serve a court order on us, which would mean we would have to give in, or face more legal proceedings.

We went into a frenzy of activity. It took us hours to gather every single chair in the building and pile them against the heavy double doors. When we’d finished, we stood back and considered our achievement. To be honest, it didn’t look very strong, just dangerously unstable. It was impressive – there were hundreds of chairs – and we had enjoyed doing it, but it also seemed as if it would only have taken a couple of good hard bangs on the doors to make the whole edifice come tumbling down. It reached quite far out into the main entrance lobby too and no one felt very safe walking past it. You could see people break into a nervous little scurry as they passed it, on their way to the central staircase

What made it worse was we had covered over the windows and I don’t think anyone could actually see what was going on outside – whether there really was a great mass of police, followed by the mysterious Tipstaff, or just a handful of bored journalists and cameramen.

I had never spent much time with the politically active students at college before, and some of them turned out to be a lot nicer than I’d thought. There was a definite sense of mutual distrust between them, and students like me, but once I’d proved my usefulness, mainly by working very hard and being extremely good at lying outrageously to the media, they made me feel almost welcome in their little offices.

We still had arguments. Once I spoke to a reporter from Daily Telegraph who was surprisingly helpful and generously shared all his contacts with me. The students who were members of the Socialist Workers Party were incandescent with rage and said it didn’t matter how nice the man was, or how helpful he had been, he was the enemy and I should have told him to get lost. I said surely it didn’t make a difference who we accepted help from, or who I gave an interview to – any publicity was good. I think in the end we just agreed to disagree, and they generally let me get on with it

There had been about five of us who’d volunteered to take over from the regular student union official in charge of press and publicity, who also edited the student magazine. He’d been taken to court and given an injunction which meant he couldn’t come anywhere near the college. If he did, he would be sent straight to prison, so there was no one to handle all the media interest

I was thrilled to be able to help. I was very angry at the way the National Front had taken over my college. You could see them most weekends using the same tactics in many parts of London. They would pick somewhere they knew would be provocative for one reason or another – Brixton, the East End – places where there was a big ethnic minority population for instance – and they would have marches there, or stand on a street corner selling their magazine. Of course this led to huge scenes of protest from local people and sympathisers, and just as obviously, it also led to great publicity for the National Front.

They’d done the same at my college. There was a man who was leader of their youth movement or something. He’d enrolled at PNL a few years before, on a philosophy degree, but hadn’t attended a single lecture. He had never even registered for a library card. Suddenly, that year, he started coming in every day, and wandering through the corridors, noting down names from the myriad posters on the walls where people had signed up for different groups or put their names and addresses on petitions.

PNL was the most left-wing college in the country at the time, as well as being known for its tolerance towards all different sections of the population. People went there because they felt safe, whether they were black, or gay, or lesbian – they felt accepted, which wasn’t always the case in those days, so there was a huge outcry when this man turned up. He brought his minders too – horrible thugs with thick necks and shaved heads. They would wait outside the classrooms for him.

It was all so obviously designed to provoke for publicity’s sake, and of course it did exactly that. We were outraged to be used in that way, and we were angry that the safe tolerance of our college had been shattered. I don’t think there was anyone who didn’t understood that our reaction was exactly what the National Front had been hoping for, but there was no alternative – or if there was, one no one came up with it at the time

So, one thing led to another. The lecturers wouldn’t teach, the students wouldn’t go to lectures, the police were called, the placards were printed and the crowds gathered outside to heckle as this one insignificant looking man strolled through the sea of shouting people, flanked by thugs and accompanied by police to keep them safe. When the student union was taken to court and the named officials were threatened with prison if they were seen at college, a whole group of us dyed our hair pink; partly to make a splash, and partly to show we didn’t care. That got us on the six o’clock news.

The others who had volunteered with me, melted away quite soon, but I enjoyed it so much I stayed until the end. I didn’t like the television or radio interviews. I always tried to wriggle out of them because I could never think of anything to add once I’d tried to demolish the National Front’s protestations about how this poor innocent young man was being hounded from his college. I froze when they turned on the cameras. Luckily there were plenty of others who enjoyed that kind of thing – so I was usually able to find someone else.

I loved talking on the phone to people. I spent hours telling newspapers, and television and radio stations what we were doing, trying to explain why. They were all so helpful and generous with their time. They’d pass on contacts and give me advice for the research I was doing for an article I was writing. I also used to phone the National Front quite often too, to get information from them. I took the pseudonym the previous editor had used and changed it to a female version and I think I said I was from the Daily Mail and wanted to hear their side of things.

I’d always known more or less what they stood for, but it was still chilling reading their magazines, watching how they spread their hate, and it was even worse talking to the people from Searchlight – an anti-racist magazine. They would detail every attack, verbal and physical that was perpetrated by the gangs of thugs. I couldn’t believe there were people who would behave like that, or that they had so many supporters. I learned an awful lot during that time and it was quite sobering.

While I tried to avoid appearing in public, I couldn’t dodge my way out of the press conferences since I had to set them up myself. By the end it was so big, we had to organise them – there were so many people who wanted to cover the story. I used to make big backdrops using artwork I’d pinched from my May 1968 project which I’d just handed in. We didn’t have a very good reputation, and it was funny watching some of the journalists looking nervous while I spray painted big signs behind the table we’d all sit at. I think they felt I might spray them red or something. I also couldn’t get out of a documentary that was being made about us. It was actually quite fascinating watching them put it all together from scratch. The researchers shadowed me for days.

I can’t remember how I found out about how everyone had got the wrong end of the stick about me. I think it might have been someone from Searchlight who told me. They said that the police had come to the conclusion that I was the ringleader. I have no idea why they thought that – they always filmed us when we stood outside, but I was only ever in a crowd. I thought at first that it was quite amusing, but whoever it was that warned me, said it wasn’t really a laughing matter because the other people who thought I was a dangerous person were the National Front. I was told I was fairly high up on their list of people to hate and I ought to watch my back.

I still wasn’t that concerned. I’d seen what they’d done to people, but it was so obviously a mistake - anyone would have known that just by looking at me - I thought they’d be sure to work it out, and so I just carried on doing what I was doing.

It must have been a week or so later at my halls of residence. It was very late and I was half asleep. I remember getting out of bed, throwing on my grandfather’s silk spotted dressing gown and opening my door to go to the bathroom. It was only when I was halfway down the corridor that I suddenly realised there had been two huge men either side of my door.

I remember thinking; “no way” – and then turning around and they really were there – two massive skinheads. It was bizarre. I was too sleepy to be frightened – I was more just amazed. I think they might have been too, because they didn’t follow me, they just stood there, watching me. They looked uncomfortable more than anything else. By the time I came back with friends, they’d gone and so I just reported them to the manager.

The following day I called my friend Matt who was a freelance journalist by then. I knew he wrote for the News of the World, so I explained what had happened and asked him if he’d help. He came over with a photographer and we spent a happy afternoon making up a story about it. I sat on my bed and tried to look vulnerable while his friend took photos, and Matt and I wrote the story and laughed a lot. It was funny getting the wording right, making up stupid headlines. Surprisingly, he even managed to sell it to the paper and there I was, in the following Sunday’s edition. I don’t know if that was why they never tried again, but I really enjoyed doing it, and it was good publicity for us too.

I did watch my back when I was out and about after that. I think I was followed a few times, but nothing else ever happened with the National Front. The worst for me was the police. I think I must have been on one of their lists for a few years, because every time I left the country I would be stopped, taken into a little room, and searched thoroughly. It happened too often to be a coincidence