Leo Robson and Bill Buford at the Paris Review:
What I recognized on that first train on that Welsh station platform was that what was being reported in the tabloids was so at odds with what it really was. I think that’s largely because nobody went in there to look at it or thought of it as a story.
I began to learn how widespread the crowd violence was. It was almost like it was the thing that everybody wanted to do. I came to think of it as basically a style thing or a fashion thing, in the same way that at different times, especially in Britain, there have been epochs of lad culture, like the Mods and Rockers, riding Vespas or Lambrette. Now they were wearing Lacoste shirts and beating the shit out of each other. Why? Because it was what the lads then did. It was fun.
This was the time of Margaret Thatcher—and the assumption was that they were the disenfranchised looking to vent unhappiness or their disgust with the state of things, and were obviously impoverished. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
more here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.