Out Of The Blue

Chapter 1 - Dutty Babylon

By: Carl Connikie

After finishing a 2-10 pm shift at the Royal Gwent Hospital, I headed off toward town, making my way to Ziggy’s bar on Upper Dock Street. It was my usual haunt where I danced, drank beer, and chased girls until the early hours. It was a small basement club where revelers were crammed in like sardines, listening to 80s pop music. Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” was fading, and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” began playing as I descended the steep staircase and headed to my usual spot behind the DJ’s position. Dressed in black leather trousers and a red leather jacket, I looked like an extra from one of Michael Jackson’s videos. There was always tension at the club, primarily due to its compact nature, so while trying to enjoy the evening, I also remained vigilant, just in case. A slightly prolonged stare in someone’s direction or talking to a girl whose boyfriend, unbeknownst to me, had gone to the toilets, could spark a fight.

Metropolitan Training School PC Carl Connikie 19th February 1988

Once it began, it could quickly escalate, with various people joining in. Boys from local valley towns often came to Newport for a good fight, and if they could beat up a black man in the process, it capped a good night out. The hot and sticky evening ended with me and a few friends spilling out of the bar at 1 am onto the relieving cool fresh air of the pavement. We’d usually queue up at the takeaway for chips and curry sauce after an evening’s entertainment, and as we were heading that way, two men began a brutal fight outside the club. During the brawl, the aggressor, a six-foot-tall white guy with a stocky build, punched another guy, who was slightly taller and slimmer, flush on the chin, knocking him out cold. He fell like an axed oak tree and was out before his head hit the ground. The attacker was about to administer a proper beating when we intervened, preventing further head injury. At that moment, I noticed that two police officers had observed the fight and deliberately ducked back around the corner to avoid getting involved. They had been hiding, waiting for the battle to fizzle out. I was incensed; what if one of those lads had died because of their inaction? I marched off toward them to give them a piece of my mind, but their sergeant, Gary Powell, intercepted me. When I challenged him and the officers, he calmly replied, 'Listen, if you think you can do a better job, come and join the police.' I was expecting denial, aggression, or even arrest. The last thing I expected was for this guy to invite me to join the police. I returned to the fight scene where the aggressor had made himself scarce, and the unconscious guy was coming around; he was going to be OK. For months afterward, this weird invitation fermented in my head. I needed a career and thought that I could do a better job than those officers. Back then, urban Britain was tearing itself apart with the miners' strike and riots in the Black community because of heavy-handed policing.

The community felt mistreated through overly aggressive policing by a monochrome, homogenous organization. I thought, somewhat naively, that the two sides didn’t understand each other and needed bringing together. I saw myself as a Bob Marley figure, holding the hand of Michael Manley in one hand and Edward Seaga’s in the other. So, it was in this febrile atmosphere of 1986 that a 26-year-old unsuspecting Black man from Newport completed the application form to join the Metropolitan Police.

Extract of Carl Connikie’s book- Out Of The Blue Out soon!