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Not as a criminal but as a potential victim?
My lad was asking about kidnapping yesterday (long story) and it reminded me a my near miss when I was about 6 or 7. I had cycled up the road to the post box, it was the furthest I was allowed on my own. A van pulled up and the person in the van asked me for directions to the primary school where they were going to a car boot sale. The side /sliding door then opened and the woman in the back suggested I get in the van to show them the way. Obviously I cycled away as fast as I could, looking back now as an adult I realise how bad that situation was.
The other near miss was not me but my dad, he had shop just down the road from RAF Uxbridge. He came in one morning and found a huge bomb below tarpaulin in his back yard. It had been dumped there ready for IRA to move that evening.
What is your near miss?
I got chatted up in a bar by a Louise one night....
not me personally but my mum was approached by Myra Hindley 'to see some puppys' and Harold Shipman was my dads doctor!
Sailor74 is Kenny senior. 😂
Not me, but the mum of one of my kids classmates was involved (as a victim) in both the IRA bomb at the Arndale in Manchester and the bombing of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. She was injured both times, thankfully not seriously.
Nobeerinthefridge
Free Member
Sailor74 is Kenny senior. 😂
😆😆
Again not me personally but my ex-wife was in Harrods about a half an hour before the bomb went off in 1983. She was still in the area at the time of the explosion.
Me and the missus were in the Sari Club and Paddy's bar in Bali the night before the bombings. If we hadn't flown home that day we would have probably been in either one or the other when it happened.
Depends if having the shit kicked out of you is a serious crime. Having grown up in Leigh Park, dodged this a few times. Most memorable was with my younger brother coming back from Southsea Skatepark, we got surrounded by 6 lads intent on doing us damage. A kind fella getting in his car gave them some verbals - “takes 6 of you does it?” and they backed off, amazingly. I took 1 punch from one of them and I threw him in the road, shame the oncoming car missed him, gave us a chance to run away.
Back in '94, a group of staff from the Glegg Arms split between two cars to travel to a football tournament in Manchester. In a last moment change, it was decided I wouldn't travel in Andy's car and Andy set off with his passengers. Next time we saw their car was with Andy dead ~5mins up the road on a lethal crossroads on the A540, with passengers injured but thankfully they all made it.
I don't know if more has happened since, but Andy's mum was still capaigning to get this crossroads made more safe in 2017.
Charlie and I we're in the park, then this man came up and said would I like to see some puppies. I said yes. I was going to go but then Charlie stopped me. Charlie reminded me my mum says I shouldn't go off with people I don't know. Then the man went away. We went and told mummy and she said we'd been very good. I got an apple an Charlie got something he likes.
A van pulled up and the person in the van asked me for directions to the primary school where they were going to a car boot sale. The side /sliding door then opened and the woman in the back suggested I get in the van to show them the way.
That happened to me, very similar situation except it was at night, a car, and looking for a house. I did get in. Thinking they would give me some money. They didn't. Nothing happened.
We were playing in the park as a kid around 10ish with some other kids from the street on summer with, what I thought at the time to be one of the other kid's uncle/relation.
My parent's told me at dinner that night did I know the man and did anything peculiar happen? Turned out he was a known paedophile and had just been arrested.
I took the kittens to be chipped and snipped this week. I was very early, the vets didn't open for another 20 minutes.
So I'm sitting in a car in a side street, with a basket of kittens next to me, seeing a load of schoolchildren file past and thinking "I'm totally going to jail in a minute".
Charlie and I we’re in the park
Well played.
When I was young I had lots of curly hair. One day I was walking my dog to the woods along a busy main road.
A car with 3 men in it pulled up beside me and the front passenger said " oh it's a boy".
I couldn't figure out why they thought a girl would be able to give directions but not me.
I mentioned this to my dad and he did the whole stranger danger thing but only once I
had grownn up did I realise what could have happened.
My doctor when i lived in newton aycliffe was Howard Martin.
Went on trial a few years later accused of murdering several patients.
Thankfully i was never seriously ill when i lived there.
I have a good one about my dad in the 70s in Belfast. He was walking home after seeing my mum which involved going passed a bit of a hotspot. My dad was by himself as a large group were walking towards him. He knew if he crossed the road, they would go after him. He stayed put and the large group of around 20 split as my dad walked down the middle. Genuinely fearing for his life, he heard a voice 'alright Eddie?' My dad quickly replied but kept his head down. The next day in work a colleague came up to him and told him he was in the group and that if he didn't know of my dad, they would have given him a good hiding. A few were armed. The guy didn't know my dad that well, only really by name.
Not a crime but my Dad's best mate from their days in the merchant navy stayed on ships after they left and was an engineer for Townsend Thorenson. He was rostered on the Herald of Free Enterprise, but a colleague wanted to swap shift with him so he was at home the night the ferry capsized. His mate drowned.
I've dodged multiple cases of vehicular manslaughter, pretty much every time I ride my bike on anything busier than a farm track...
On a more specific note, the priest at my uncle's church when he was a young boy (and being indoctrinated as a Polish Roman Catholic) was doing the obvious and some years later got quietly shipped off to Australia to avoid charges. Fortunately my uncle wasn't a victim of his.
I thought this was a very different thread to the one it is... my answer would have been "YES" to that... but to this one, nah, not really.
I was up the World Trade centre the night before 9/11. We have a photo date stamped 10 September from the top. On 9/11 we were going to the Statue of Liberty. My Metro train was stuck underground for 3 hours 200 yards away from the twin towers.
I saw Rolf Harris at the swimming pool.
More seriously, I was travelling home from Glasgow to Manchester in 88 on the a74 when the Lockerbie disaster happened, we past through before it happened so didn't see anything, but estimate we probably hadn't gone through the area much before, probably within half an hour at the most.
I was also in Manchester in 96 when it was bombed, heard it and saw some debris cloud, but wasn't close enough to be in any danger.
So I suggest people either stay very close to me, or very far away, being indecisive and opting for a middle ground isn't the safest option.
Nearly got robbed a few times working in a petrol station as a student...pretty standard stuff. Thankfully on one occasion a local had been watching these guys from the pub and came across. Compared to bombings/kidnapping etc. pretty minors stuff.
Me and a mate got held at knifepoint in Bradford on a Saturday afternoon back in the mid eighties.
Scraggy looking lad probably a bit older than us at the time claimed to be a member of the City crew and thought we were from the opposing team as we had their hair cuts or something equally daft.
Soon as we talked he realised we were not, but didn’t want to lose face so asked us for all our money. Told him to go away and gave him 50p.
Silly little twerp, but it could have been worse I spose.
Been in loads of car or foot journeys and seen an accident or incident what would have caught me had I been seconds later/earlier. Think that’s just life tbh.
Could also potentially be one of the causes for a thread like this.
When I was 22, me and a couple of mates were into body building and got reasonably well sculptured. After one particular night in town we fancied a taxi up to another friends house who lived in one of the rougher parts about 4 miles out.
Jumped into a taxi that was stood still at some lights and asked him to take us.
When we arrived, the driver looked like a ghost and nervous. Mate in the front looked at the driver and asked how much. Didn’t get an answer then we twigged he wasn’t a taxi at all, not even private hire. Poor guy must have wondered what we were doing.
Can’t actually remember how we left it but none of us were holes of the bottom so it will have been ok in the end.
mrs_oab walked home in Toxteth, on the way home from work.
She was about 30 seconds away from walking this street, her usual way home.
http://www.unsolved-murders.co.uk/murder-content.php?key=1762&termRef=David%20Ungi
I've been out for beers with him and his brother. We ended up in a Chinese eating fish head stew.
i walked past a man off his face holding a gun on cowley road in oxford. needless to say once i realised what he was holding i walked a damn site faster!
lots of police arrived quickly shortly after
Depends how you class these things I suppose, but I used to get the train to Potters Bar for school every day. Had the set of railway points in question hung on for another few hours I'd have been stood on the platform veeerrrrry near where a large piece of train eventually ended up.
When I was 7 (I think, thereabouts) I went with my gran on a dog walk in the local woods. I ran on ahead down the track to the allotments and the edge of the housing estate and some bloke was stood there. He asked where I was from and what I was doing. He said he was a friend of my mums and that I had to go with him to see her. I said no and ran back to my gran.
Later that day he kidnapped, raped and murdered a boy in the next town just a few miles away. Kid was the same age I was.
It's scary that from the small percentage of the population that are on here how many of us were nearly abducted as kids.
Working in London, I've dodged a few terrorism incidents in my time, Fishmongers Hall was the most recent. Just got back from lunch when I heard the shots.
Other than that, nothing more serious than being close to beaten up a few times (on a beach in Mexico about 3am springs to mind as one particularly lucky one).
But I'm a big lad, and usually people leave me alone.
I witnessed somebody get baseball batted in Salford Sainsbury’s when I worked there back in the late 80s.
The attack was definitely targeted rather than random, so I guess I would only have been in danger if I had got in the way of the backswing. Messy.
CLEANER TO CHECKOUTS PLEASE.
Sailor74 is Kenny senior. 😂
MEGALOLZ
Not in any way as serious as some that have been mentioned on here but first few years working in London I got called over by some blokes in a big transit van on at least 3 separate locations and perpetrators asking if I wanted some big stereo speakers for my house...
Just wondering if that used to happen in other cities in the late 90s.
Also (not sure who you'd say criminals in this case are) but I did have a bit of a 'what are you on about' type conversation one late evening with an indignant chap in a Fulham street who later I knew to be Barry Bulsara/George of the Jill Dando stitchup/cockup murder case...
Riding my Grifter home from the site where Harpurhey Asda was being built I was stopped on a quiet street next to waste ground by a bloke in a bronze Escort estate.
He said that my bike was the same as his son's which had recently been stolen. He demanded that I got in his car whilst he took us to the police station.
He was a bit sweaty and looked like Mike Harding.
I pedalled off and told my folks, who called the Police. I repeated the story and no more was said.
A few years later I was in senior school and repeated this story to a new mate - the same thing had happened to him. Same place, different kind of bike.
The bloke was arrested for kidnap and child molestation a year or two later. Turned out to be the father of a girl I knew quite well, a year below me in senior school.
Also, nearly thrown off a balcony in San Diego by a group of sailors. A longer story, probably for another time.
I was involved in a street brawl where I got hit over the head with a pick shaft. Lucky I wasn't seriously injured/brain damaged/killed. I looked pretty horrific in A&E though as I was covered head to toe in blood. Still have a lovely scar on my head.
The nearby house a few of my mates stayed in had a bit of a reputation for regular ambulance visits, best I remember was having had a few sherries I woke up on the sofa with the walls covered in blood, like a horror movie, turned out two of the guys had a 'pretend' sword fight, although the blood wasn't from the swords but one of them fell through a glass door and was cut up really badly, amazing I slept through all the shouts and screams and the ambulance turning up yet again.
Some scary bloke tried to drag me into his car when I was 9. A couple of other school mates with me kicked up an awful ruckus and he let go and drove off. I had a death grip on a hedge 😆
Naturally being 9 I thought it was something I'd done so said naff all about it to my parents.
Decided not to rush to get a train home from London one afternoon.
Turned out i likely would have been on the potters bar one.
Made getting home fun that evening though
Was out on my brother's stag night in our local town (in Northern Ireland) Was a long night plus some takeaway afterwards, we had walked to the taxi rank and surprisingly none there at 2am. We went into a phone box to phone a cab, just at that a 500lb car bomb detonated across the roundabout from where we standing (we'd just passed the car). The people outside were blown off their feet, phone box was untouched. It was loud! 4 police officers finishing their shift were injured, female officer had serious leg injuries. Detonated remotely from a carpark another 100 metres away, the terrorists had watched the whole thing.
I got into a row with a guy sat in his car blocking the exit to the car park by Chorlton (Manchester) Blockbuster Video. Despite me standing there calling him all sorts, he refused to acknowledge me. Then, whilst i was still shouting the odds, his mates, all armed with baseball bats and machetes, came running out of the Macdonalds next door with the takings. They promptly jumped in the car and off he went. Leaving me a bit shocked at the very close call i'd just had.
I got hard stopped on the M62. The cops thought (as I was in a BMW M2 with false plates) that I was a drug runner, they bought along the armed cops as they weren't sure...One of the first questions they asked me was "Why have you got 2 phones?" (one was a work phone)...I had also just sold a bike and had an envelope stuffed with £800.00 in my jacket pocket.
I honestly thought I was going to spend a few hours enjoying the hospitality of the West Yorkshire Police.
Oh, one about an ex colleague:
Him and a mate used to travel to London from Blackburn to go clubbing, pre the gay village in Manchester being a 'thing'.
They met this bloke in a club and ended up both kipping on his floor a couple of times.
A year or so later they recognised their host, a Mr Nilson, on telly following his arrest.
Not in any way as serious as some that have been mentioned on here but first few years working in London I got called over by some blokes in a big transit van on at least 3 separate locations and perpetrators asking if I wanted some big stereo speakers for my house…
Just wondering if that used to happen in other cities in the late 90s.
Yes, think they target students. I know a few people that bought them. Must be a common racket as I was up north. I'm not sure how criminal it is, I mean, they're just selling speakers right? If they were a well known high-end brand then maybe, but they were a weird brand that I'd never heard of. 'Audio Solutions' or something similar. I imagined them to be buying them cheap as chips from some warehouse and knocking them out to freshly loaded students Delboy style for a big markup. Enterprising really. I mean what first year student lad doesn't want a big pair of speakers? Can't remember anyone complaining about the speakers themselves, or how much they paid. I can see them now, big ugly pine-coloured floorstanders. Used to spot them in many a student house-party 🙂 In fact, I have vague memories of DJ'ing at one, blowing a pair of those speakers and having some mad hunt for another pair before everyone left.
They pulled me over a few times but I've always been a bit of an audio fiend so have always been good for speakers. I remember it being a bit market trader style bartering. Like you ask them how much they are and they ask you how much you want to pay etc etc, after which I generally wandered off.
Funny the stuff you forget.
Whilst driving the university safety bus I had a pair of dealers get on who threatened me so I had to run them around on their deliveries. Always one stayed in whilst stopped until we were on a dead end road. I booted it up to the end to turn round, both of them stood blocking the road, I decided I wasn't stopping and eventually they jumped out of the way. It was "interesting".
My dad was taught by Fred Talbot, he didn't do anything to him, too ugly for the paedos.
Me and about 4 mates got threatened by a wanna be gangster in Moss Side by the International 2 I think. We agreed he could probably shoot maybe 2 of us before the rest of us stamped his head into the pavement. We're all still standing.
I'm shocked at the number of attempted child abductions !
Not sure what the guy had planned but he chased 6 of us (boys and girls aged 10-6) home from the local park. Luckily we all lived in the same street and our parents rushed out to see why the kids were running up a hill like their lives depended on it. The guy stood at the bottom of the hill, watched the hysterical children being consoled by bemused parents before turning and walking off.
Had an interview with a policeman later that day who said he knew who it was when I said he had a tattoo on his cheek..... we weren't allowed out to play for weeks unless one of the parents was there. Never saw him again though thank god !
The answer is, I'm not sure.
I do a bit of urban photography and have a penchant for dilapidated buildings. Was out on a wander in the back end of Birmingham (Digbeth for those that know it) and there was a great looking building that looked suitably moody, not only that, it also had what looked like an old fella stood outside having a fag. A perfect scene.
Took the shot and started to walk away when the old fella came running towards me, he was not old and instead was a very rough looking gangster type, probably 25, who was not overly chuffed about his picture being taken. He got right in my face, screaming and shouting, asked for ID and who I was, threatening a right beating, and demanding I give him my camera. And as this was a quiet end of town there was no-one else around.
After a couple of minutes of this adrenaline hit and something in me decided to get out of their or get stabbed, so I sprinted as fast as I could for half a mile towards the city centre. No idea how close to a serious crime that was, but I was extremely glad I'm fit enough to outrun most people.
I've been much more careful about taking urban shots since then.
I was in Paris on a school trip in July 1982, we walked past a cafe that the Armenian Secret Army blew up 30 minutes later.
Not a crime, but feels like a near miss as well - same trip I was stood next to a random tourist on the roof of the maritime museum which looks over the Jardins de Trocadero towards the Eiffel Tower, he was right next to me no more than a foot away, he dropped his camera, tried to grab it, fell over the parapet onto the slabs 50ft below, I've had an issue with heights ever since, but still love Paris.
I tried typing this on my phone but it just freezes up.
So, not me but my OH's uncle was quite the young man about town in that there London back when it was swinging and hip and all that on the gay scene. One morning he was awoken by some persistent banging on his front door.
Two plain clothes officers are stood looking anxious and asked him his name and for ID to prove it, when he showed them one dropped to his knees on the doorstep in relief and the other started chugging cigarettes for fun.
They'd gone through Neilson's house the day before and found a list with his name on it, one of a few that wasn't scribbled out.
He's got plenty great stories of life in London as young fella but no others about dodging murderers.
Not really, more of a tenuous link, but I was drinking in a pub opposite Westminster (St. Stephens Tavern) and then crossed the road and walked over Westminster Bridge a few days before the Westminster Bridge attack, along with hundreds of thousands of other people of course. It was quite sobering to think afterwards.
Mate of mine used to park outside Fred West's house occasionally, pretty much to the day he was discovered by police.
I have a few stories on this front, mostly from my last job!
I was on standby to be a relief Night BSO (guard) for our Droitwich branch but was not needed as the regular one was back, the night I could have been working there this happened:
The internal footage showed the BSO sat in their chair and only seconds before the JCB came through the wall did she get up to go to the loo, she hadn't moved for nearly an hour before that. So could easily have been me.
While out on my deliveries one day (security van delivering cash) I've twice had 'that' phone call where I've had to stop what I was doing and make my way to the nearest police station due to information of an imminent attack being received. Once was a false alarm, rabbit season and I'd been in a car park where someone had been seen with a shotgun in their car boot while I was collecting from Castell Coch Cardiff, but the other on was genuine and I had to floor it to Llanishen Police Station where the Armed Response officers had closed the high street down for me to get there safely. A gang was found waiting for me at my next stop, 3 banks in a row.
I've also had to report an imminent threat to an ATM crew when some man was asking me when the ATM was being refilled while I was collecting from a supermarket (separate vans). I knew they were usually due just after me as I usually stopped there for my lunch so rang it in to the reporting line and the police arrived and found a crew in a car tooled up for an attack.
I've also been in the uncomfortable situation where I was on night ATM replenishment work and have switched runs with another person only for them to be attacked later that night. They were beaten up quite badly and it was even worse as I was working at their branch to cover for staff shortages due to a wave of attacks. I had to spend a week off work and report my whereabouts at all times while they investigated it, standard procedure to ensure it wasn't an inside job. I was in the clear though as the other 3 lads (2 man crews) confirmed the person who was attacked had asked me to switch runs rather than me asking him.
Back when I worked for Barclays we had an attempted robbery but the guy was an outpatient from the local mental health hospital so was completely useless, he was also dressed as a cowboy. He was acting incredibly odd for a good 5 minutes in the banking hall so we pressed the Panic button and the police were there in under a minute (rural branch behind the police station!). He had a fake firearm in his bag but it had got tangled in an internal strap so he couldn't get it out to actually rob us! He was sectioned rather than imprisoned and his car was seized, a red Pontiac Trans-Am, and sold at auction. I bought it and then sold it on for a tidy profit. The only time I can say that crime has paid for me!
It’s scary that from the small percentage of the population that are on here how many of us were nearly abducted as kids.
Not me but a few of my female friends had close calls one evening. We were all roughly 14/15 and there was a red Escort van cruising around one Friday night chatting to all of the girls they could find. Word spread around quickly so nothing happened in our small town but the next night a 14 year old girl was abducted and raped in Builth Wells, only 20-odd miles away by a group of guys in a red Escort van. We all stayed at each other's houses for the next few months instead of the local parks.
Not me, but the mum of one of my kids classmates was involved (as a victim) in both the IRA bomb at the Arndale in Manchester and the bombing of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. She was injured both times, thankfully not seriously.
My dad was in London during the late 70's and twice he was just a few hundred yards from where an IRA bomb went off. It was one of the reasons he moved back to South Wales.
Just the three for me. Witnessed two armed robberies, one at a jewellers in Bradford and one at a pub just outside Ilkley. The Ilkley one we were in the car park as then ran out so we gave chase. Unfortunately they were in a Golf GTI and we were in a Vauxhall Vectra so they dropped us after a few miles (drivers idea to chase not mine I hasten to add).
Third was the London Underground bombings. Was on a train in to St Pancras that morning but luckily it was due in at 9.05 so we got stopped at Kentish Town and turned around. Colleagues on an earlier train to Kings Cross also got prevented going down to the tube station but then walked to the office via Tavistock Square and only just missed that one too.
June 2017, London. Mrs a11y was putting our kids to sleep in hotel in Blackfriars. Rather than sit silently in a dark hotel room or hang out in the bar, I headed out along the Thames taking photos. Thankfully I didn't get further than Southwark Bridge before getting the "kids are asleep, plz return with wine" message. That was 90 mins before the atrocities on London Bridge and Borough Market. Very glad my kids decided to go sleep early that night.
I’ve been in a couple of fights in my youth that turned nasty. Just blind look that I didn’t get seriously injured. I was an absolute tool in my mid to late teens and wouldn’t back down from anything. One of said fights was an attempted mugging and another stepping in to prevent one.
Other than that I have two old friends who both did time for murder. One of them took his own life in prison. The other is out now and living a quite life. I’ve also been stopped by dodgy adults in cars when I was little and bimbling about on my BMX. As per other posters I just cycled off and told the parents. Oh and one of our neighbours when I was a kid turned out to be a flasher who, when caught, tried to make out he’d just been trying to show teenaged girls his furry pencil case.
Mrs Shep and I enjoyed a splendid evening meal and wonderful night time views of Manhattan at the Windows on the World Restaurant at the top of WTC1 on 10 September 2001. We vowed to return first thing the following morning to beat the crowds and catch the views from the observation deck in daylight. Fortunately, we followed the meal downing a good few cocktails at The Best Bar In The World, across the lobby. We left at closing time and totally slept in for the morning visit. We were woken by lots of sirens and turned on the TV to see news reports of a 'light aircraft' hitting WTC1. Once the 2nd plane went in and it was clearly terrorism, we phoned home to reassure family. Kind of sobering that a good bucket saved us from adding to the statistics.
Just missed the IRA bombing at London Bridge in 1992, had just got off the train and was into the bull run off the same platform when it went. Felt the shockwave wham through me. That was pretty scary.
And doing jury service at Borough, we had the day off when some guy got sprung from the security van as it entered.
And years ago as a venture scout we had an evening activity with the scouts running a checkpoint. I’d just packed a group of scouts off down the road when I heard 2 almighty impacts and legged it towards them (and in the same direction I’d sent the scouts). A very drunk drunk driver had cannoned his pick up off the back of another car which had people in it. Second crunch I heard was as the airborne truck landed on its side. Had to climb on top to pull the guy out then stop him doing a runner. Sat on him until the cops turned up. We had kids in that area all night!
Now I think of there’s more close calls I could mention!!!
and then crossed the road and walked over Westminster Bridge a few days before the Westminster Bridge attack
My son was on a school trip to see our local MP - being part of school council they had a trip to see Parliament, they were then supposed to walk over to the south side by the aquarium / city hall and have their picnic lunch there but because it was pissing down the coaches came and got them from Parliament Sq and they ate their lunches on the way back to school.
They'd have been an hour - 90 mins sooner anyway, but close enough.
But as said above, I've also seen the immediate aftermath of a multi-vehicle crash on the motorway that if I'd made a set of lights earlier, or not popped back into the house to grab something I could easily have been in.
A relative of mine was on American Airlines Flight 11 which flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.
Decided not to rush to get a train home from London one afternoon.
Turned out i likely would have been on the potters bar one.
Made getting home fun that evening though
My friend was on the London bound platform when the train crashed into it. He usually commuted into the City early in the morning, but for some reason had taken the morning off. I think it quite affected him as he wouldn't speak about the experience.
Nearest for me was nearly getting a good kicking when 4 of us Leeds fans were surrounded by about 12 Man City fans near Elland Road, not helped by one of the guys I was with was having a verbal go at them. Fortunately, some Police on horses passed nearby and saved the day.
Also got chased by two guys after I had finished a shift as a barman at a pub in Headingley, one I knew as a customer who had been barred for trying to headbutt me a couple of weeks earlier and was very heavily built and known as being a bit of a psycho, the other I didn't recognise but had apparently also been banned from the pub for assaulting the manager with a knife. They were both sat on the wall of the church opposite the pub under some trees and I was walking to get a Chinese when they saw me, and the first guy recognised me for getting him barred and came at me. I tried to do a runner but was caught by both outside the pub opposite the one I worked at, and had just taken a couple of blows when the landlord of the pub heard the commotion and came out and pulled the two guys off. Fortunately the landlord knew the psycho guy very well so the attack ended there. The Police got involved but (maybe stupidly) decided not to press charges.
Not me but a friend from Sunderland...
During the 70s he was a kid in Sunderland, he wondered why his Dad never went to work other than working away a few days a year? Lived in a nice house, nice cars, nice holidays but not flash.
Anyway years after his old fella passed away his Uncle told him just before he passed away that the brothers made a living from "doing" Securicor vans in the "smoke" during the 60/70s none of them ever got nicked.
I was cycling to work for a nightshift across a local park. I noticed a gang of youths by a playground who sort of ran towads me, although they didn't manage to get closer than about 20 yards as I went by and since it was dark I really didn't know what to make of it. Next night at roughly the same time, same place, some bloke on his way to the shops was attacked by a gang of youths & two teenage girls were charged with attempted murder (never did find out if they were convicted)
But as said above, I’ve also seen the immediate aftermath of a multi-vehicle crash on the motorway that if I’d made a set of lights earlier, or not popped back into the house to grab something I could easily have been in.
I've had a couple like that - one a motorway pileup where I was stuck a few hundred metres behind it for 6hrs while they cleared up all the dead people. The second was cycling to work one morning, I got 100m down the road and realised I'd forgotten my work pass which cost me a minute or two. 20 mins later approaching the turn onto the bypass, there was a massive crashing noise - when I got there a lorry had overturned on the roundabout. I'd have been right on that roundabout without the delay.
A university friend of mine was on United Airlines Flight 93 - on September 10th. Flew out of Newark, landed in San Francisco for her to continue her USA holiday.
the landlord of the pub heard the commotion and came out and pulled the two guys off
One way to de-escalate the tension!!
My first proper job was working for a BMW dealer in Stafford where I lived. In 1982 I travelled up to the dealer in Coldstream in the Scottish Borders to collect a car we'd sold and drive it back. This was at the time of the disappearance of Susan Maxwell from the village, she was found just outside Stafford 260 miles away and eventually the serial killer Robert Black was convicted of her murder. I was visited by the police and interviewed about the reason for my journey, pretty scary.
I was born in Hyde, less than a mile from the Hattersley estate where Myra Hindley and Ian Brady lived, we moved to Leeds in the mid '60s and used to travel back and forth across the moors where the bodies were found. My auntie's GP was Shipman as well.
Back in ’94, a group of staff from the Glegg Arms split between two cars to travel to a football tournament in Manchester. In a last moment change, it was decided I wouldn’t travel in Andy’s car and Andy set off with his passengers. Next time we saw their car was with Andy dead ~5mins up the road on a lethal crossroads on the A540, with passengers injured but thankfully they all made it.
I don’t know if more has happened since, but Andy’s mum was still campaigning to get this crossroads made more safe in 2017.
Bugger all change at the moment - that's just down the road from me. There's rumours there'll be something done soon...hopefully. Some funding has been secured apparently.
Heard a bomb go off close by in Belfast in the 90s, which was eye opening. My Dad was held up at gunpoint when we lived abroad. He held his nerve and refused to get out of the car, figuring that if they shot him there, it'd need a good clean. They waved him away.
I have a friend who walked away from the Moorgate tube disaster and was sat at his desk on the 9th floor of the World Trade Centre at 9am on 9/11 and walked out of that as well. He now makes a good living as a landscape gardener in upstate New York, bit less danger involved!
For a few years after my dad died, my mum, sister and I would shlep off to London for Christmas and the new year to get away from being treated like charity cases by our friends and relatives. 😀
My mum and sister would go mental spending all day shopping - back then, in the late eighties, clothes were
dirt cheap in London compared to Ireland - and that wasn’t really for me, so they’d give me a bit of cash and send me off for the day doing my own thing.
Now back then, caricature drawing was still a thing. Nowhere near as naff as it seems now. I decided to pay for one and while I was sitting there being caricatured, some older guy started chatting to me. He said there was a party in an apartment nearby and there were going to be loads of people there, lots of girls (I would have been 15/16 at the time) and it was completely free, you can imagine the shpeel. And even worse, I was kind of taken in and was thinking about it, and said to him to come back when the guy had finished the drawing. And when he did finish, I was paying him, and saw the party guy coming back. At which point the artist just said, “turn around, walk ****ing quickly mate and don’t even think about going to any party...” (or words to that effect - I can’t remember the exact warning). That was enough, I just high tailed it out of there. Jesus though, when I think what I potentially escaped... 😬
Someone tried to grab my mate as he did his paper round, a week later the same person grabbed and murdered another paper boy in Hagley just up the road.
Nearly got murdered in Galway, me and a mate, English lads in twenties with cropped hair on a night out, VERY PISSED, looking for a late drink got "befriended" by a lass who says she knows where to go. She leaves waiting on some steps while she nips off to make a call. We suddenly realise what's occurring and quickly scoot off into the night. Still found a late drink too!
Sort of close but maybe not really, plenty close enough for us though.
Mrs P and I were in Paris to see a concert in November 2015. Ours was at the Bercy stadium on the Wednesday, we flew home on the Thursday night. Friday night was the attack at another concert. 130 dead.
He’s got plenty great stories of life in London
Me too, as I was homeless in London in 1984/5. But If I did I'd have half of Fleet St on my doorstep as well as special branch.
But those stories and the information I shan't be discussing on a near public forum.
Yeah, was in a cab in Riyadh and the driver took a fancy to me. I was 23 year with blond flowing locks...he got his tackle out and said he’d take me back to his for fun times. I wasn’t really up for those sort of fun times.
I kind of needed to go to work. So I’m ashamed to say I hit him (the first and only time I’ve ever hit someone as an adult) and ran out of the cab into rush hour traffic. Raised the heart rate a tad.
I lived in a wee town in Perthshire (Coupar Angus) until I was 10, and went to the primary school there.
I'd be about 8 or 9, and I was singled out for some intense bullying by a then 14 year old from the attached junior secondary, where my mum taught. Pretty odd behaviour, a 14 year old bullying a wee 8 year old, in retrospect; he didn't only terrify me, he actually assaulted me and left me with some pretty nasty bruises. We moved away much to my relief. A few years later the guy was convicted of murder, after beating an elderly man to death (with his own walking stick) and throwing him over a bridge.
Who knows ? lol. I've certainly been around plenty crime that's for sure 🙂
I reckon I've dodged at least one murder though.
During the 1984/5 football season, me and my friends sat in the same block of seats for every home game. We were a bit late getting to the ground for the last game of the season. My team had won the league, so the crowd was larger than usual and no seats were available in our usual place. So we sat at the other end of the stand.
Half way into the first half a fire broke out in the block of seats where we normally sat. The fire developed really quickly and tragically the result was that 56 people died. I often think about what could have happened if we hadn't been late getting there that day.
My parents invited my Maths teacher round for a week during the holidays to give me extra tuition. On at least several evenings they used the opportunity to go out leaving him to babysit. Following summer I did an organised cycle tour ending up in Scarborough where he lived - he came and picked me up and took me for a drive around Scarborough. Nothing happened (to me) but many years later he was convicted of you know what whilst at the school I attended.
Junior school. One female temp teacher took a shine to me, got me on my own once for a chat, but was interrupted by another teacher.
She left not long after. I was far too young to know what was going on.
The local vicar allowed all the local kids to play in the vicarage. Nice chap, young, seemed ok, but would be quite selective of who he let in the house, i.e. not us. We were told that we werent to go there anymore, he wasn't allowed to let kids damage the property.
He was heavily involved in my high school, was well regarded, ended up performing my older sisters marriage.
Roll on a few years, he appeared on GMTV, then police got a call claiming he'd abuse kids. Several corroborated stories and he's arrested and put in jail.
High school.
Deputy head was a bit of a weird one. Seemingly nice enough, used to take boys swimming classes after school. Didn't think much of that, aside from being a bit playful with done of the younger lot,around 14 ish.
When I was in 6th form, I'd been out on the bike in our games class, popped into his office about one of the class assignments. He straight up asked me to lift my t shirt and show him my cycling shorts. I just said, no, don't think so, and left it. Still not sure why I didn't say anything to anyone!
Away from pervs.
Nearly got mugged for my bike in maryhill whilst riding up for a MTB club ride. Two neds, bit worse for wear swinging empty Buckie bottles at me. Thankfully I was quick and managed to dodge and shoulder them out if the way.
Couldve been serious as I don't think I'd have given up my bike easily. :-/
Not me, but a few years ago I knew a Woman who was a firearms officer in GMP, she was back in the station part way through signing her weapons back in at the end of her shift when the call came through to attend a burglary. Due to the delay in getting her weapons back out two of her colleagues got there before she did, sadly those two were killed by Cregan
Overslept and missed my usual train to Paddington.
Although I don't think I dodged anything, I was fairly close to a couple of infamous crimes. In 1987 I was in my second year of a Computer Science Degree at Thames Poly. I was made team leader for an assignment group including a student called Mahmood Hussein who was retaking the year. I gradually became fed up of trying to chase him up for his contribution to the team effort. Anyway after a short break for a reading week or Easter we found out he wasn't coming back to college because he had been arrested for the murder of a third year (from the same course at Thames) student at Preston, who was out on an industrial training placement. The third year started going out with an ex of the murderer who went to confront him at his digs. After killing Peter Mosley he also murdered his two flatmates. I think he was released from prison in 2010.
Forward to 1995 I was working as a Further Education Lecturer in IT at Erith College in South East London. One of my classes were a back to work set of mature students. One of the students, Graham Moore, seemed to particularly enjoy my sessions on Computer Security. Anyway just before the end of the academic year I heard he had been arrested for ATM fraud. He and his older brother were part of a gang created by the infamous Kenneth Noye (M25 Road Rage murderer) to intercept data between ATMs and the banks. He still came to the end of year drinks in the local pub with us and brought his brother along. Really charming, friendly guys. They claimed that the police had no evidence and they would be cleared. They said (I doubt this was true but it wound me up at the time) that the police had confiscated all his lecture notes and wanted to know who this lecturer was that had been teaching him all about computer security. Anyway the brothers went down for about 3 or 4 years each and they were all dubbed 'The hole in the wall gang' by the national press. I think the first of many to get that tag but they were more sophisticated than the ones who used JCBs.
That year I got out of working in IT for something a bit more sedate.