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| Where were you when the English riots started? | Where were you when the English riots started? |
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| Seeing the riots spread across London and then the country last summer isn't something many will forget – from those directly involved and affected to those following developments on news channels and social media. | Seeing the riots spread across London and then the country last summer isn't something many will forget – from those directly involved and affected to those following developments on news channels and social media. |
| To mark the upcoming first anniversary of the English riots and the second part of the Guardian and London School of Economics's Reading the Riots study, we are asking readers to look back at where they were at the time of the riots and how they remember the events of last August. | To mark the upcoming first anniversary of the English riots and the second part of the Guardian and London School of Economics's Reading the Riots study, we are asking readers to look back at where they were at the time of the riots and how they remember the events of last August. |
| Where did you first hear about the riots starting? From conversations on a bus? Through a text from a friend? While travelling back home from a hen do? Where were you living, how did you view the riots and have your thoughts about the events changed in the last year? Do you think enough has changed to stop something similar happening this summer? | Where did you first hear about the riots starting? From conversations on a bus? Through a text from a friend? While travelling back home from a hen do? Where were you living, how did you view the riots and have your thoughts about the events changed in the last year? Do you think enough has changed to stop something similar happening this summer? |
| Share your memories with us via the Google form below and we'll select the best entries to be published on guardian.co.uk to mark the anniversary of the riots on 6 August. | Share your memories with us via the Google form below and we'll select the best entries to be published on guardian.co.uk to mark the anniversary of the riots on 6 August. |
| The Guardian's Sarah Bolesworth, who was first on the scene for the paper, starts us off with her own memory of the night of 6 August 2011 - she had been 10 minutes' drive from Tottenham when she heard that a number of people were gathering on the High Road. | The Guardian's Sarah Bolesworth, who was first on the scene for the paper, starts us off with her own memory of the night of 6 August 2011 - she had been 10 minutes' drive from Tottenham when she heard that a number of people were gathering on the High Road. |
| I was in a cinema with another journalist, and we decided to have a look. David Lammy, the local MP, had been on the TV the night before, calling for calm as speculation grew about how Mark Duggan had met his death. I was remembering Moss Side in 1981, the riots I'd witnessed as a student - and thinking how similar Tottenham felt. As we drove across the bridge where Duggan had died, a police helicopter rose into the clear evening sky above the High Road. | I was in a cinema with another journalist, and we decided to have a look. David Lammy, the local MP, had been on the TV the night before, calling for calm as speculation grew about how Mark Duggan had met his death. I was remembering Moss Side in 1981, the riots I'd witnessed as a student - and thinking how similar Tottenham felt. As we drove across the bridge where Duggan had died, a police helicopter rose into the clear evening sky above the High Road. |
| There were a lot of people on the street - young families and people in their 20s and 30s coming out of the pubs, talking, then walking in a steady stream towards the High Road. "What's happening?" I asked a guy walking next to me. "They've set a police car on fire," he said. Then, growing angry: "The police don't give a shit. They've disrespected Mark's family when they went to the police station to ask what happened. And they told us last night they don't have to tell you anything, so fuck off. They think they can treat people from Tottenham like trash." | There were a lot of people on the street - young families and people in their 20s and 30s coming out of the pubs, talking, then walking in a steady stream towards the High Road. "What's happening?" I asked a guy walking next to me. "They've set a police car on fire," he said. Then, growing angry: "The police don't give a shit. They've disrespected Mark's family when they went to the police station to ask what happened. And they told us last night they don't have to tell you anything, so fuck off. They think they can treat people from Tottenham like trash." |
| By the time we got to the High Street at 8.30pm, two cars, about 100 yards apart, were alight. One, a glowing wreck like a grim Halloween lantern, the other a police hatchback. There were about 200 people standing in groups, talking, mainly on the junctions with side streets. The atmosphere was low-key, watchful. We'd been diverted round a police block at the south end of the High Road, but groups of younger people were now walking in from the north, some then running, some shouting. Gradually the crowd coalesced and began moving with purpose towards the police station. | By the time we got to the High Street at 8.30pm, two cars, about 100 yards apart, were alight. One, a glowing wreck like a grim Halloween lantern, the other a police hatchback. There were about 200 people standing in groups, talking, mainly on the junctions with side streets. The atmosphere was low-key, watchful. We'd been diverted round a police block at the south end of the High Road, but groups of younger people were now walking in from the north, some then running, some shouting. Gradually the crowd coalesced and began moving with purpose towards the police station. |
| This was the tipping point: had the police had any kind of plan and sufficient staff to meet the challenge of what was now a crowd of about 300, the riot could not have happened, and would not have been broadcast to the world as a signal that in the cities of England, the contract between police and the policed was invalid. | This was the tipping point: had the police had any kind of plan and sufficient staff to meet the challenge of what was now a crowd of about 300, the riot could not have happened, and would not have been broadcast to the world as a signal that in the cities of England, the contract between police and the policed was invalid. |
| Light missiles were flying through the air - a black rubbish bag and plastic water bottles. Whatever the police officers guarding the station were trained to do, it surely can't have been what they did next - making feints at an oncoming crowd; they were met with jeers and counterfeints from groups within the crowd. Behind the frontline action, however, thieves were pushing in shop windows and doors. | Light missiles were flying through the air - a black rubbish bag and plastic water bottles. Whatever the police officers guarding the station were trained to do, it surely can't have been what they did next - making feints at an oncoming crowd; they were met with jeers and counterfeints from groups within the crowd. Behind the frontline action, however, thieves were pushing in shop windows and doors. |
| I'd filed by phone several times by now and other reporters were arriving. Satellite trucks were in the junction by the road block, and the mood was getting ugly: the riot had kicked in. When people started to hurl bricks at the police station windows - which bounced back, the windows being made of plastic, we decided to take cover. | I'd filed by phone several times by now and other reporters were arriving. Satellite trucks were in the junction by the road block, and the mood was getting ugly: the riot had kicked in. When people started to hurl bricks at the police station windows - which bounced back, the windows being made of plastic, we decided to take cover. |
| Alternatively, you can leave your memory in the comments section below – and read more on the Guardian and LSE's findings about the riots here. | Alternatively, you can leave your memory in the comments section below – and read more on the Guardian and LSE's findings about the riots here. |
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