Egged On

There's been too much doom and gloom lately, much of it personal as well as in general. So let's lighten the mood.
Have I ever told you about the day I threw eggs at a bloke from the Daily Mail while I was still at school?
And I didn't even realise it until a dozen or so years later when I had a drink with him and it all came out.
It all goes back to the heady days of 1978 when Ilford was plunged into a sudden by-election after our Labour MP died, the hardworking Millie Miller.
Now, she had a tiny majority of around 700 and the Labour Party, in its wisdom, put up some young leftie councillor called Tessa Jowell to fight the seat against an estate agent from Croydon called Vivian Bendall representing the Tories.
Extra spice was added by the resurgence locally of the National Front in what was a mixed Jewish and Asian area during a time of industrial unrest, high immigration and general dissatisfaction (ring any bells?)
Plus, James Callaghan was already trying to fend off a vote of no confidence by making the Lib-Lab deal. Losing Ilford North, which he did of course, eventually led to a general election and allowed Margaret Thatcher in.
At the time I was a 15 year old schoolboy at the local boys school when we found out the NF had hired OUR school for a meeting. We were told by the sports master who said football matches had been cancelled that weekend as a result.
Tensions were high and so some of my less Semitic looking mates - including at least two who became national newspaper journalists - went to the meeting itself 'for a laugh'.
The rest of us stayed outside, alongside an assortment of Jewish taxi drivers trying to form a blockade. and local Indian youths up for a scrap.
We all had eggs and flour and other missiles and when the NF round the roundabout, escorted by police and towards the school gates, OUR school gates. we pelted them, aiming in particularly for the bloke holding the Union Jack on a pole, as he seemed a suitable target.
Following that and other incidents the government banned any group of more than four people from getting together in public in Ilford until after the election. The police put extra officers on duty outside the synagogues. Bill Grundy sat on the wall of Dave Dillon's house (he's now the news editor of the Mail on Sunday), pointed at Hainault and basically called it a shithole on the Today show on ITV.
It was an awkward time, not least because it was my brother's barmitzvah that weekend. And we had a coachload of my mum's family - the non-Jewish lot - coming down from Staffordshire for the big event.
As their coach, driven by the ever reliable Jeff Bennett, a regular in my nan's pub, weaved its way through roadblocks and skinheads selling copies of Bulldog and armed policemen outside the synagogue, they started to wonder why on earth my mum had ever moved to 'that London'.
But back to the Daily Mail.
After leaving school, going through local papers and then joining The Sun I became industrial correspondent which introduced me to a whole new breed of journalist, and Richard Littlejohn.
One of this new breed was the funny and fantastic David Norris who always introduced himself as being from 'Her Majesty's Daily Mail.'
Despite what Max Hastings may say, David Norris was THE first journalist in Port Stanley after the liberation of The Falklands. He was already in The Stanley Arms on his third pint by the time the British Army got there though Hastings took the credit. Norris did try and shoot Hastings but was stopped by a couple of paras.
Nozzer and Littlejohn and some others were swapping stories one night at the TUC in Blackpool around 1990 I reckon.
Nozzer was quite drunk. So drunk that when a young Tony Blair came in the pub - The Alexandra - Nozzer mistook him for a freelance who had been hassling him and told him to f*** off.
Next day Blair, to his credit, came up to a hungover Norris and asked him if he still wanted him to f*** off.
One of the stories Nozzer related was when, as a young reporter for the Daily Mail, he had to infiltrate the National Front to find out about their recruiting strategy and catch them out some how. Perhaps he hoped to catch them firebombing local restaurants or something.
Trouble was, David Norris was so convincing he started to get promoted within the right wing organisation above the various traffic wardens and council workers they were used to.
So much so that when a high profile march was organised, Norris was given the duty of carrying the flag - a rare honour.
And so he did so, through the gates of Ilford County High School in front of the TV cameras one Saturday afternoon.
And as he did so he got pelted by eggs thrown by a bunch of lefties and some scruffy schoolkids.
It was only fair that I pointed out to him that I was one of those schoolkids. He made me buy him a pint as recompense and carried on telling stories. How I miss that bloke.
Cheerio....Solly