The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Thanks to LT for the words.
It was the morning of Sunday 25 TH November 1990.
The night before we were gathered at the Angels Nitespot, Burnley. It was before the Vision nights had begun that were set to change everything for us.. I cant remember who played that night. It might have been Marcus.
I'd just turned 17.
We got wind towards the end of the night that there was going to be a party afterwards, big, nearby.
I can’t remember anyone saying the word Rave. I can’t remember us ever calling ourselves or anyone else Ravers.
It was a Mad Hatters Tea Party. Seasoned warehouse party throwers.
I had three t-shirts , a Chipie bubble jacket, a Tam O’Shanter hat and some Fila Hikers on.
Soaked. Ready.
FJ had a car and knew where to go, six of us jumping in, so as not to make it look sus I get in the boot. Logical. Sense.
Bass smothered, petrol stinking, about half way through a double drop.
It didn’t take long and we weren’t the first there.
The avenue leading down to Brownside Mill lined with cars.
It’s a fucking residential street in the earlier sleeping village of Worsthorne, East Lancashire.
We queue and argue about paying. £5 to get in.
We walk into A Homeboy, A Hippy and A Funky Dreads “Total Confusion”
There is a small rig, suitcase decks, strobe.
It’s all we needed.
It’s starting to buzz.
Then they came.
Vans full of them.
Batons, Helmets, Shields, Attack Dogs...
They’d tipped over and rolled cars out of the way and were coming in.
Front door jammed, the roller shutters got lifted just enough to fire rockets and chuck bangers at them.
French Kiss was playing, by the time it starts slowing they were in.
Some escaped out of the back, those that were left got beaten and kettled, Girls and Boys.
The rig and kit got smashed to bits.
284 of us lined up with sodium lights blinding us up against the walls.
Some ended up in stations 50 miles away.
Some of us ended up 12 deep in a cell made for 4 in Burnley.
They photographed and printed us whilst we took the piss out of them.
We got strip searched, some got the latex glove treatment.
The fan in the cell wouldn’t stop clanking out of time. Coming down for hours, some Section 5, some faces, some a long fucking way from home. Some braying at the door and shouting down the station. All of us in our teens and early twenties.
Caged … Locked Up for dancing.
12 hours later I’m let out with an arrest sheet and an aching smile that wont leave my face.
The first person I see is PV and he doesn't believe me.
Some went back that day to hoover up what was thrown when they got in.
I got home, couldn’t explain it to my family. Haven’t talked much about it since.
It got in the paper, the headline read-
“300 Held In Acid Swoop”
We were out again the next weekend. It was one of the last parties that went on like that, squads had been heavily invested in to shut us down.
We, as a Youth movement, dancers, DJs, promoters, designers, producers, young and vital people were systematically cancelled out and co-opted.
That’s how I remember it. One story of tens of thousands that make up a Culture that threatened the public and the Government so much they passed laws against it.
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