[Skamonics] Skamonics Xmas Gig

[Info about the Skamonics]

They liked us so much at the White Hart that they have asked us back
for a Christmas gig of full on ska.

This will be on Friday December 15, and we will probably be playing
two sets at around 9 and 11.

The White Hart is 1 Mile End Road, E1 4TP

It's on the corner of Mile End Road and Cambridge Heath Road. It's
midway betwen Whitechapel and Stepney Green tubes, and not that far
from Bethnal Green (if the Central Line is easier).

The White Hart is a traditional East London pub, that has been
tastefully modernised. It's got a proper stage and we will be doing
our own sound. This is normally better than other people doing it.

As we like to keep things educational, the pub is directly opposite
Sidney Street - the location of the famous Sidney Street Siege.

It has nothing to do with ska, but read on for an extract from the
East London History website.

Nigel

The Sidney Street Siege was one of the most notorious confrontations
in East End criminal history - an affair wrapped in myth and
confusion, it prompted the ill-advised intervention of a
publicity-hungry Winston Churchill.

And it was to give rise to no less than three feature films: two by
East London's own master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock; a third
starring sixties cult TV hero Peter Wyngarde as the mysterious Peter
the Painter.

The build up to the dramatic events of 3 January 1911 had begun nearly
three weeks before, when PC Piper knocked on the door of 11 Exchange
Buildings in Houndsditch. Banging and tunnelling noises had been
reported by neighbours. The constable couldn't have expected what lay
inside. A gang had been steadily tunnelling through to a neighbouring
jeweller's shop. Caught in the act they decided to shoot their way
out, leaving Sgts Bryant and Tucker and Constable Choat lying dead.

The gang escaped, though one of their number, George Gardstein, was
badly wounded. Amazingly, other members managed to drag him half a
mile through the night-time streets of Whitchapel to their lodgings in
Grove Street. A Dr Scanlon was called, and told the gang that
Gardstein needed urgent hospital treatment. Unsurprisingly they
refused. The doctor then left and immediately phoned the police.

It was midnight by the time the police got to Grove Street, and a
story began to emerge which was much stranger than a mere failed
burglary.

Along with the body of the now-dead Gardstein, they found a room
filled with guns, ammunition and anarchist revolutionary literature.
They quickly learned that the robbery had been designed to raise funds
for a group of Russian and Latvian anarchists, aiming to fuel
revolution in Russia.

But if the anarchists were stunningly inept, the police didn't perform
much better. They failed to find any proof that the five they had
arrested had fired the fatal shots. Worse, they knew that the key
figures in the robbery had slipped through their fingers. Fritz Svaars
and Joseph Marx, along with the shadowy figure of Peter Piatkow (Peter
the Painter) were hiding somewhere in the East End. The problem was
that the Eastern Europeans who lived in the area were saying nothing.
Their experiences of police were coloured by the bullying and
brutality they had experienced back in the pogroms of Russia and
Latvia. And with feelings running high against their countrymen they
were scared of reprisals; they closed ranks.

But on 2 January 1911, the police got a tip off that Svaars and Marx
were hiding at 100 Sidney Street. Once again the Met's approach was
bizarrely naïve. As the gang were armed and dangerous, only unmarried
officers were call up for the raid. But the same officers were then
armed with single-shot rifles fitted with .22 calibre practice rounds,
as well as revolvers and shotguns. It was a fatal error - the
revolutionaries had Mauser semi-automatics, high velocity and quick
and easy to reload. Then, in a misguided show of fairplay, Sergeant
Ben Leeson was sent to throw pebbles at the windows of No 100, to
attract the anarchists' attention and invite them to surrender. The
response was a hail of fire, and Leeson was hit twice.

More firepower now arrived in the shape of Scots Guards from the Tower
of London. Home Secretary Winston Churchill also arrived. Soon after,
flames were seen from the building. Along came the Fire Brigade, but
they were forbidden by Churchill to extinguish the blaze. Churchill
was later criticised for his dramatic intervention.

Two bodies were discovered inside the house, one on the first floor
where he had been shot, and the other on the ground floor where he had
been overcome by smoke. An unfortunate neighbour was killed by a
collapsing wall.