The Hackney Heroine tells why she confronted rioters
‘Welcome to the madhouse,” laughs Pauline Pearce as I step into her flat in Hackney, east London. It’s certainly hectic. A pest control officer is in the kitchen, dealing with some “little rodent visitors”. Pearce’s flatmate Ras is in the living room, dealing with four mobile phones at once. Pearce’s carer – she has a serious back condition – is expected any minute, and Pearce is rushing to get dressed: “I overslept, I’m not going to lie.”
From the stereo booms the riots-themed reggae track she was recording with five other local singers – including Ras – until 4.30am this morning, and over the top of all this, Pearce is doing a live rendition: “Say no to guns, say no to crime/Say no to knives, give something for life.” She wants to sell the single, called Do Something for Life, to raise money “for the youths of England” – but within minutes, she’s out the door, walking stick in hand, trolley in tow, making for the studios of her local radio station, Concious FM, where she’s about to present her first set since the riots: “Lady P’s More Love Show”. Despite it all Pearce says she’s feeling more rested than she has in weeks. “This is the first night I’ve been able to get any sleep since it all happened, what with all the media attention!. I’d be asleep and then the doorbell would ring, and it’d be Channel 4 news. And I’d be like, how did you know I was here?”
Two weeks ago, nobody outside Hackney had heard of 45-year-old Pearce. Then she became the Hackney Heroine – known by voice, but not name – who was filmed on the Monday of the riots confronting a group of looters on a smashed-out street next to the Pembury estate. The video was posted on YouTube, and went viral within minutes. Hands clasped round her walking stick, Pearce can be seen standing on a pavement covered in debris, in front of graffiti that says: “Fuck Cameroon.” The cars around her are on fire, and every so often you can hear breaking glass. And she is shouting. Raging, even. “Get it real, black people, get real. Do it for a cause. If we’re fighting for a cause let’s fight for a fucking cause. You lot piss me off. We’re not all gathering together and fighting for a cause, we’re running down Foot Locker and stealing shoes.”
When I visit Pearce, Clarence Road is calm. The postbox still has burn marks, but the graffiti has been whitewashed. Siva’s newsagents – ransacked live on the BBC – has re-opened (Pearce was asked to cut the ribbon, but had to go to hospital for a check-up) and the barber shop opposite has new windows. Every five minutes someone stops to say hello – wellwishers (“see, we love each other really!”) or shopkeepers hoping for a mention on her show.
It was on her return from her last radio appearance that she was caught up in the riot. “One man got physical with me, and that’s why I started ranting. There was a burnt-out car, and I said: ‘What is the point of that? It’s ridiculous, they’re our neighbours’ vehicles, and they’re trying to make a living just like you.’ And this big burly black man goes up against me, and really gives me intimidation. And I’m like, ‘Go for it, I’m ready to go, I’m at peace with the Lord.’ And that’s when I started to go off on one. I was ranting for a good 15 minutes before the clip started.”
Some people cheered, and the arsonist walked off “kissing his teeth”. But while the video of her took Twitter by storm, Pearce was still on the streets, involved in another altercation. “People were charging after this poor man, pulling him from all angles. And I’m like, ‘Get off him’, trying to get their hands off of him. And then they gave us both a shove, and I fell against this car that was burning. The flames were down by the handbrake, and my bum was stuck in the window! Ha ha ha! I have to laugh. My bum was stuck in a burning car.”
Pearce was eventually saved by a pair of vigilantes “who were out there trying to keep it less than it could have been … They were trying to stop scuffles. People were charging around burning vehicles, and they would step in and say: ‘Well, why are you burning it? What’s the point?'”
It wasn’t until the following day that Pearce discovered that she had been filmed, let alone become a minor celebrity. “I only found out when I was walking down Clarence Road, to see if they need help clearing up. People said: ‘You’re the woman with the stick, people are looking for you.’ And I’m like, ‘Me?!'”
It’s soon 1pm, and Pearce is in the studio, fielding calls on the chatshow she started after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. (“I was laying there waiting to die, and just wanted something to do to build my confidence again. And one of my friends said they were looking for DJs on the radio.”) Amid the reggae and the flurry of supportive texts – “Lady P, I was in Florida and saw you on CNN, and I’m very proud of you!” – Pearce’s own message centres on community cohesion. “Charity begins at home,” she tells listeners. “If you care about London, we need to start helping out in the community.”
Pearce is convinced, she tells me, that a heavy-handed response to the riots isn’t going to work. “We need to be compassionate,” she says. “We need to reach out. We need to understand. How do you expect these people to know anything better? They’ve not known anything but struggle, not known anything but robbing Peter to pay Paul for the bills. I’m not justifying what they’ve done, because they should be punished – but the young boy who got four or five months for stealing a bottle of water, they should have given him a smack on the wrist, make him pay for the water, give him a curfew and make him do community service.”
Young people need to be given a sense of purpose, she says. “They’re on their summer holiday, but there’s nowhere for them to go, nothing for them to do. All the parks are padlocked to keep out the junkies, and the teenagers can’t use the community centres. They need compassion. They need support. And the government needs to help them. Unless we start thinking about this, we’ll have another riot in another 25 years’ time. Because it obviously wasn’t dealt with properly 25 years ago.”
Pearce didn’t experience the riots of the 80s. She grew up in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, the only child of Barbadian immigrants. Her parents worked in factories, she went to the local grammar school and was involved in youth drama projects. She had her first child at 21 – daughter Iesha, now 25 – and Serena, 23, James, 22, and Ronald, 18, followed. Pearce had part-time jobs, but mostly stayed at home to look after her children. She married Ronald’s father but it didn’t last. Seven years ago, she moved to Hackney “for a relationship, but it didn’t really work out, so I got stuck here on my own …” It was quite a change. “I had a lovely Hertfordshire accent, and I spoke properly – but now I live in London, I’m like ‘Gerronit, bruv!’ And my children are like, ‘Mum!'”
Pearce had always been a singer, and in the late 90s she had a burgeoning career as a jazz vocalist. But her life fell apart in 1999 when, travelling home from Jamaica, someone asked her to deliver a jar of pickled peppers to their family. The jar contained cocaine, and Pearce was jailed for three years for smuggling, leaving her father to keep the family together. Pearce’s first grand-daughter was born two weeks before she was jailed, and her mother died while Pearce was inside. Since leaving prison, she has seen street violence at first hand. Two years ago, Ronald, then 16, was stabbed in the street in front of her: a teenager armed with a knife was chasing another gang member, and caught Ronald with the blade. “That’s why I feel I’ve got the right to speak, because I’ve been there,” she says. “I’ve been a battered wife. My daughter got raped. She had a teenage pregnancy. I’ve been to jail. And now I’m getting through cancer. I’ve had it all.”
Clarence Road may have been cleaned up, but Pearce isn’t convinced the worst is over. “Right now, I feel there’s a nervous calm. Can you hear it? It’s a silence. It’s a calm before the storm. We’re going to end up in two years’ time with a load of people coming out of jail with no qualifications, no jobs – and what’s that going to achieve? The government needs to be careful. Otherwise they’re going to end up with another right little civil uprising.”
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