True crime, too close to home.

Brixton, Broadmoor, and Fatboy Slim.

A conundrum, I know!

How can all three be so closely connected to me.

I grew up in that final generation, the one where we played in the streets until darkness fell, pedophiles were a thing of the future, or was it just that we had no idea? In fact here in the UK instead of lurking in dark corners, we were happily watching some of our countries most prolific child sex abusers on television, or dancing to their pop records.

Born in 1974, I grew up in a quiet Middle class town, in the county of Berkshire, 30 minutes from London. Just up the road The Queen in Windsor Castle, close enough to borrow a cup of royal sugar.

Wokingham, for all its idyllic attributes, had a nasty neighbour. A bad taste we couldn't ignore.

We sat on the doorstep of Great Britain's most infamous high security psychiatric facility.

Home to some of the biggest names in British crime history. Biggest names meaning our serial killers, rapists and East end gangsters.

You know as a child, you grow up accepting your own reality. It never occurred to me that other children didn't listen for the test siren at 10am every Monday morning. It was a siren like the air raid warnings in the 1940s. It was routine, until it wasn't. If that siren blasted any other time than Monday morning, every school and nursery went into immediate lockdown. Every pupil was accounted for, we were locked inside, and could only leave when our parents collected us.

Obviously as kids we took it very seriously! For days afterwards we would play Broadmoor killer in the playground.

Back then, I think parents and teachers felt they were protecting us by not explaining the danger of an escaped patient.

Today, maybe we have gone too far the other way, making our children scared of their own shadows.

I moved away at the age of 18 to become something fabulous in London.

London for a well mannered, well behaved, slightly prudish girl from Wokingham was insane.

It took me years to hone my vigilant instincts, my mistrust of other people and understand how to stay safe 101.

If you haven't been mugged when you live in London, have no fear, your day will come!

I hit a tri factor in one year, three consecutive muggings. Looking back now, I can't believe how I took pretty much in my stride.

Number one, screwdriver to the neck, face down in the mud. They got him, I had to do the identification parade. I failed, but let's face it, I was face down in the mud.

Number two, does it count if you don't remember? I came round to the paramedic who explained, I had my head smashed against the wall, knocking me out… all for a Nokia 3310!

Number three, the classic bag snatch, it happened so fast, I let go, that's what we are told to do. I had a half read novel in my bag, I have never been able to finish it, it makes me feel odd.

So I was a battered and bruised Londoner. I had also lived through some of the worst IRA attacks in London. It seemed normal for bomb scares on the tube, no rubbish bins anywhere (a perfect place to hide a bomb). I had drunk in pubs around Liverpool Street with their windows taped to prevent them shattering. It was just reality.

The 17th April 1999, was when true crime really came too close.

I was on the number 35 bus, with some friends, and we were heading into Brixton for drinks.

We were gold ticket holders for our event of the year.

Fatboy Slim versus Armund Van Heldon at the Brixton Academy.

Boxing ring style DJ battle.

We had bought tickets months previously and we were high with excitement sitting on the top deck of the number 35.

We had not long turned on to Brixton high street, when everything turned to slow motion. There was a noise incomparable to anything I had ever heard, the bus shuddered and shook. We grabbed one another's arms, too confused to scream, but with screams stuck in our throats.

It stopped and for one moment there was complete silence, until the screaming, shouting and sirens began.

We were stuck there on the top of the bus, knowing we were close to something terrible but not knowing what it was.

We were not allowed to descend from the bus, and from the windows we could only see chaos on the street below.

The sound I will always remember is the wailing and screaming of ambulances and police as they desperately tried to make their way to the incident, some 300/400 metres away.

The road was blocked with traffic and they couldn't get through.

We witnessed people passing, covered with blood, people crying, people just holding one another.

Still we had no idea of what we had been so close to.

We actually thought we'd get off the bus, head to the venue and somehow our night would continue as planned Naieve, and self centred as you are at 25.

Finally, when permission was given for us to exit the bus, we were pushed, jostled and carried ng the pavement, back the way we had come.

It was only then that we began to hear snippets of information.

A bomb, a nail bomb, people were dead and dying.

We staggered up the road in our heels and dresses, feeling almost disgusted at our appearance. Showing such vanity when people are njured and dying.

We had no choice, we had to walk miles home, eventually we walked in stockinged feet, the heels were for show, not for walking.

There was no public transport, taxis were cancelled, we walked, holding hands, knowing we had just been part of something epic.

Of course the concert was cancelled, it was rearranged for the 11th June 1999. Did I go? No.. I couldn't, it just seemed wrong.

The attack was deliberately made in one of London's most multicultural areas. An eclectic and vibrant community of Nigerians, Ghanaians and British Black citizens . It was an attack made specifically to kill people of colour.

David Copeland was eventually convicted of not only the Brixton bombing, but the bombing at Spitalfields East London, targeting the British Bengali community and finally of The Admiral Duncan, a well known and much loved gay pub in Soho, where 3 people lost their lives, including a pregnant woman.

So my brush with true crime, with true evil comes full circle when David Copeland was committed to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital. Just a couple of miles from my family home.

In his own words Copeland said

"My main intent was to spread fear, resentment and hatred throughout this country, it was to cause a racial war"

He didn't win, London remains one of the most multicultural melting pots in the world. We aren't perfect, but we all rub along pretty well together.

The British regardless of skin colour, religion, gardless of your mmigration status whether you are 1st, 2nd or 5th generation. We learnt through two world wars, to put our differences aside, to stand shoulder to shoulder against a common evil.