My town

The sweltering heat wave continues. Everyone complaining; I laid full length on the common room chairs most of the day. What else was there to do?

Claire seemed a bit peeved with Jeremy when he and Peter refused to play her and Evelyn at tennis: “I know why, we were too rubbish for them.” Everything very short today, everyone irritable because of the weather, overcome by end of term lethargy. Andrew Boyd and Colin Baron came in at one for the audition preparations for Twelfth Night and I stayed behind to look at University prospectuses for courses in American Studies and Politics.

At home I was in one of my indolent, reflective moods, reminiscing already about Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Rioting in Brixton from 4 pm on, and when Mum came home she sounded worried, saying there’s been angry looking groups of W. Indians hanging about around Eastgate. In the evening I did absolutely nothing and ended up arguing with Mum about the riots, which still dominate everything. She agreed with Dad and I quoted the Guardian, perhaps sounding unnecessarily biased against the police, but also maybe trying to look at the other side(?).

Dad came home at ten with news that grills were being put up over the police station windows, and that there are large gangs of mainly white youths wandering up near the Poly, near Buckley Park and around Croft Road. “You can cut the air with a knife; hate's pervading everything.” He angrily muttered about what’d happen if “they smash up my town.” There's an air of expectancy in the house.

I listened to the police on VHF all evening.