FP in days of yore

miss annie

<P>I got a taxi home recently, and the driver was telling me some interesting tales of the area in the 70's. </P> <P>He was a fireman then, based at Holloway then moved to the newly opened Hornsey Rd fire station. He told me about fire bomb battles between the Greeks and Turkish Cypriots at Finsbury Park, being roped into sorting out various fracas at the Rainbow, and on one memorable occasion, trying to rescue an escaped monkey that was swinging round the balconies on the Andover. He was in the first fire engine on the scene at the Regents Park bombing too - the reason he left the fire service.</P> <P>Really fascinating stuff, I wish I'd thought to get his badge number - would have made for a brilliant local history talk.</P>

Ali

I saw the bomb go off in Regents  Park  from the top of Euston Tower.  It was amazing how quickly a very large number of Emergency Services got there to try and look after the  Welsh Guards and public watching them on the Bandsand.  The explosion  itself "bent" the office window from what was a   fair distance  but didn't break it.  Not sure it helped the Irish cause much as it was in the same bombing campaign as the nasty oe with the horses in Hyde Park.