That’s about the long and short of it. The BBC tactfully says that ‘Liverpool Street was closed to ease overcrowding, after about 2,000 people began partying there.’ Allow me to describe events in more detail, if you will.
I arrived at Liverpool Street at 8:50pm to find the ticket barriers closed and a large crowd of revellers gathering in a huge array of silly costumes and carrying plenty of alcohol. A large police presence was already visible- evidently they’ve discovered Facebook- with several riot vans parked outside each entrance to the station. By 9:00pm the crowd, which must have numbered several thousand, was spilling out of the underground station and onto the main concourse. At this point the gates were opened, and we all headed to the clockwise Circle line platform, which is shared with the Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines. The plan was to get on the first clockwise train after 9:00. The first train was Hammersmith & City, the next Metropolitan, and when the Circle line train arrived, with a party on-board already, it went past without stopping. The police then declared the station closed, sent everyone back to the main concourse and pulled the shutters over the entrance.
With nothing else to do, a party ensued, with police officers lurking on the stairs to the top level watching thousands of people do the conga and chant ‘Boris is a wanker!’ At one point I saw the police drag a photographer up the stairs and outside, to boos from the crowd. After wandering around for a bit making friends and taking photos I headed over to Moorgate station, hoping to get on the Circle line there. While the station wasn’t actually closed police presence was heavy, with lots of police dogs. The Circle line was being closed and revellers kicked out of the underground system. I headed back to Liverpool Street with some of them to find that someone had set up a sound system in the middle of the concourse and a mass rave was in progress, the underground station still closed. After a while the police charged into the crowd, dragged someone out and arrested him, for reasons unknown. Bottles were thrown and it looked like things were going to get nasty, but thankfully common sense prevailed from both sides, and the situation did not escalate.
After the guys with the sound system headed off, the party fragmented, some following them, some staying in the station, some heading to Brick Lane. I later ended up on the District line, where people were partying on the trains- in the absence of the Circle line, the whole of zone 1 seemed to be fair game for partying. Even when I eventually got back to Leytonstone there were revellers who had randomly ended up at the station trying to figure out how to get back to the centre. So it was good fun, and pretty surreal. This event was a prime example of the peculiarly British trait of wearing silly clothes and getting drunk in public with strangers, which can be seen every year at the Glastonbury festival. It was also a very young crowd, few people seemed to be over 30. And they all seemed to hate Boris.
To pre-empt the naysayers, firstly there was little danger of people falling on the tracks or otherwise getting injured- I’ve been in more dangerous and crowded situations than that- suited businessmen trying to push people out the way cause much more danger than a few drinkers. There was relatively little physical contact with the law, all of which was initiated by the police themselves. A few people caused minor property damage at the station by sitting/climbing on things which they weren’t supposed to, but that’s no-one’s fault but their own, and I’m sure the £4 penalty fares TFL got from all the Oyster users kicked out of Liverpool Street will pay for it. Across London, six people were arrested for being drunk and disorderly, which is probably below average for a Saturday night.
Photos will be posted when I get the films back from the chemist. Yeah, I’m old-school, me. Now I have to go clean the Pimms off my camera.
Update: for pictures, Read the rest of this entry »
