As London burns, one woman shares her story.

For the first time since I arrived in London five years ago, I feel genuinely on edge.

I went for a run this evening after work in Queens Park, north west London and three teenage boys on bikes closed in on me, too close for comfort, then rode off ahead. I bricked it, I won’t lie. Footage of this tidal wave of violence and looting across London show ferals marauding through streets and not necessarily attacking people, but attacking properties  – of value or not – with utter disregard for whomever gets in their way. What the footage fails to document are the smaller pockets of violence. In Notting Hill, only four miles away from my home, rioters busted into a restaurant and demanded diners hand over their wedding rings and wallets. I think I can be forgiven for being on edge.

In Sydney, I didn’t live so far away from Macquarie Fields when riots broke out in 2005. That was 100 people. In London’s Antipodean honeypot of Clapham Junction, south of London, last night, there were at least 300 and for at least a couple of hours, only a handful of police officers. When more did arrive, they were still outnumbered and seemingly under-resourced. The Metropolitan police force seems woefully anaemic.

Ollie Olsen, 28, who arrived in London eight months ago from New Zealand lives in Clapham Junction. Normally  a dynamic hub of  a place populated by middle class twenty-somethings, last night it descended into anarchy.

‘All hell was breaking loose,’ recalled Ollie, who stood among the looters. ‘ I grew up in Te Awmutu in NZ and I thought that was rough. But there were easily 200 looters here just breaking into stores and some of the stuff they were stealing was ridiculous: I saw one  girl walking out of Debenhams (department store) with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.  They were also taking umbrellas and women were also running off with loads of handbags and armfuls of make-up.

‘As a spectator, you could just hang around and watch and the rioters wouldn’t hurt you. One kid came up to me and tried to sell me an iPad 2. He had a bottle of Whisky in one arm and was definitely geared up on something. Cars were driving down the small side lanes and kids were just piling 50-inch TVs in the back and the cars would drive off.’

‘There were plenty of Aussies and Kiwis hanging around in their shorts and jandals. We were all just in disbelief at the lawlessness of it all.

‘London society these days must have serious issues. When I was a kid, if you were bored, you’d kick around a footy ball or do bombs off a wall.  These kids are absolutely out of control.’

Redmond Lee, from Sydney, who has called London home for 10 years documented what he saw outside his house in Clapham as the ugly scenes unfolded.

‘Fuck this, get the fucking rubber (or real) bullets, Jesus Christ, it is absolutely lawless!!!!!

‘It’s utterly unacceptable here. There are kids riding around Battersea Rise with looted stuff in massive bags on their bikes.
‘There are looters with suitcases full of stolen goods just roaming around, waiting for LIFTS… there are cars picking them up.’
Last night, I slept with one eye open, aware that the violence could erupt literally anywhere. There is scaffolding outside my flat. Every time it creaked in the wind, I jolted upright, scarred by scenes I’d seen earlier in the day of looters storming people’s homes via rooftops. I kept a keen eye on Twitter, which swirled with rumours about where the violence was to break out.

People refused to come into work today so they could protect their homes and for those of us who did go to work, conversations were inevitably about who saw what, who knew who, and we all opined about what the police should be doing: imposing curfews, deploying water cannons, calling in the army.

Thus far, we have watched them in all their impotence, doing nothing, disempowered in the face of children younger than 20. It’s astonishing.

In leafy middle-class Ealing, where I spent three years on the beat while writing for a local newspaper, destruction reigned. In Clapham Junction, a fancy dress shop frequented by Australians and Kiwis who dress up for Sundays at The Church, and the Rugby 7s at Twickenham, is now just a shell. My London-born boyfriend is crying tears for Croydon, his old stomping ground, where landmark buildings and people’s flats have been razed.

Rush hour in London was 4pm today, as commuters raced home before the evening set in to batten down the hatches. My local supermarket, which normally closes at 11pm, was shut by 5pm. A department store by my office, also shut hours earlier. Rather than restocking shelves, staff had clearly been busy improvising security. They’d boarded up the windows and stacked and chained metal trolleys against the glass doors.

London, the vibrant, heaving metropolis, that has offered me, and others of my ilk, opportunities and a lifestyle envied by many, has turned into the badlands. This rife anarchy has astonished and frightened me. But to embrace London as I  have done over the years, is to accept the deep-seated issues that lie beneath, too. They have bubbled irrevocably to the surface and now all I can do is hope it blows over soon enough, then weigh into the heady debates that are certain to follow.

Where should London be looking for answers? How does one understand something like a riot?

Rebecca Kent, 30, is a Sydney-born journalist who has lived in London for the past five years. She is currently a features writer for TNT Magazine (tntmagazine.com), a free London street press and definitive London guide to living and working in London. She has previously worked at Regional papers in London, plus at National papers, incluiding the Sunday Times and People. In Sydney she was the health editor at the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader. Rebecca also works as a travel tour leader, leading trips of mainly Aussies and Kiwis living in London across the UK and Europe. As a die-hard traveller, this isn’t the first time Rebecca has been caught up in Riots. She found herself in the midst of the chaos that reigned during the pro-democracy riots in Nepal in 2006. For all its foibles and fortunes, Rebecca plans to call London home for a while yet. You can follow her on Twitter for further updates.