I stopped a racist attack on Kennington Road - we're becoming a nasty city again

SOME weeks ago I intervened in a racist assault. Passing a bus stop on Kennington Road on a Sunday morning, my wife Ann and I noticed a burly white man, in his fifties like me, bearing down on a frail, older black man, taunting him and grabbing at the orthopedic crutch he was using.

- Nick Curtis

I got between them while Ann called the police. The white man, possibly drunk, bumped chests with me, waved his finger in my face and repeatedly tried to edge round me to get at his victim. He kept up a stream of garbled invective as we jostled. This "wasn't about black and white" but Britain was "full".

Didn't I understand that or was I "backward"? clearly I could see him weighing up the floral scarf I was wearing marking me as an effete ponce and no fighter with the fact I was a head taller than him. Eventually, as Ann gave his description to the cops, I pushed him square in the chest and suggested he f*** off to the next bus stop.