Amid more than a week of violent disorder in many UK cities, JEP reporter Hannah Esnouf, a Liverpool John Moores graduate who is still living in the city, recounts what it was like to be there as the rioters descended.
I THOUGHT the oven was making a weird noise at first. I was pre-heating it for a batch of cookies I was making and there was a sudden whirring noise outside. Helicopters aren’t an unusual sight in Liverpool, they film a lot of big-scale movies here, so this didn’t feel different. I was relieved, my cookies were going to get cooked.
But I needed more butter, I didn’t read the recipe right so I set off to the shops. I wasn’t wrong about the helicopter, but it was clearly the blue and yellow police aircraft instead. Nothing to lock myself indoors about, it is Liverpool after all and the police helicopters don’t sit still for very long. But, as I approached the shop and found it closed, then to another and more shutters, I realised town was not as busy as it should be on a Saturday in Liverpool. This Saturday was in fact quite different.
Asking a shopkeeper why he was closed he told me, “I’d stay up there love [out of town], it’s getting violent” and that’s when I started running.
Then my ears became accustomed to the levels of sirens I could hear, which aren’t an unusual occurrence in Liverpool either, especially on a Saturday when the stag and hen dos get a bit out of hand, but for the first time living in this city I felt scared with nowhere else to go.
I was not surprised there was a riot. After the harrowing events in Southport last week and the deaths of those poor children, it was only a matter of time before another one popped up. After all the alleged murderer also appeared at Liverpool’s Crown Court after the attacks, which only brought another load of media interest and political tension to the city. So, when I read that over 30 more protests were planned for the weekend, I was fully aware that that number would include Liverpool.
Yet, what it didn’t prepare me for was the feeling of rumbling tension and utter panic I would feel. This isn’t just on the TV anymore, I was in it. I didn’t know where these groups of rioters were going to go next but the shops shutting just a road away from my flat were a sign that, for a moment, the whole city was falling victim to violence.
When I got through the door I tried to focus on making my cookies, it didn’t matter if I didn’t have the right amount of butter. I was sifting flour and couldn’t concentrate, it was going all over the floor and the sirens kept coming and the helicopter was still there and I wanted my boyfriend to get home quickly. I turned the news on and texted my mum to tell her I was fine but only now am I realising how much more frightening Saturday could have been.
If any of the protesters chose to turn down a different road, it could have been my street and my front door they were smashing in. I was completely obsessed with watching the news, seeing new fires and more windows smashed and more police and masked protestors.
The scariest thing was that no one had any idea how long it was going to last or where they were going to go next.
As darkness fell, the helicopters and sirens had gone and news anchors were saying things were over in Liverpool for now but I knew that wasn’t the end of the story. Shops were still shut and there were queues and queues of traffic trying to get out of the city.
Loud fireworks and more sirens followed that night. A weird conversation then happened as my boyfriend and I decided to use the wardrobe pole and a mop if anyone came in. It’s quite amusing when nothing did happen to us. Yet there were so many people a couple of miles away who had their livelihoods and streets marred with unjustified hatred.
The events in the UK over the past week have highlighted how fractious this country is. It’s on a knife edge. As the weekend leaves us and a new week begins, there is still a larger-than-usual police presence here and rightly so, because the general public need reassurance that someone is on their side. There are boarded up windows and there is shattered glass all over the streets but the rest of the damage is invisible.
There are so many complex issues at play here, so many people to feel sorry for and no clear way out of this mess. The events in Southport last week were a catalyst for a movement which has long been brewing as part of the far right’s agenda and it is so wrong and completely backwards.
Liverpool is as multi-cultural as any other UK city and it is shameful that any sense of trust can so quickly be destroyed. What makes this more terrifying is that much of the disruption is caused by children, which is another grave issue itself.
What the riots of this past weekend has made me also feel is a deep sense of homesickness. Jersey is incredibly privileged to have not been affected by this violence. As an Island of multiple faiths and communities it represents what seems to be an ideal of cohabitation and respect that the mainland does not have. On multiple occasions on Saturday, I wished I was there instead.
One thing that has stuck with me throughout all of this is something I recently read. “Love is the ability to align your life with someone else” and that is what is missing around me in Liverpool and the rest of the UK. Love is in short supply and I can only hope it comes back sooner rather than later.
