In 1981, the violent arrest of a young black man near Granby Street in Toxteth, Liverpool, led to nine days of rioting. Scores of buildings were destroyed and hundreds were arrested in disturbances on a scale previously unseen on the UK mainland. Milk floats were set alight and pushed into police lines, and the northern city saw the first deployment of tear gas outside of Northern Ireland.
“I hate us always talking about the riots,” says Joanne Anderson, Liverpool’s Mayor, when we meet at the council’s palatial Cunard Building on the Victorian waterfront. Liverpool has certainly come a long way in 40 years, but the events of 1981 were a turning point in the city’s post-war history.
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