The Poll Tax had been a festering sore for what felt like an age and after a few earlier demos that had been crushed by police action the one in Trafalgar Square had really kicked off. The air was crackling with energy. Random truncheonings, police vans driven into the crowd and mass charges by riot police had only redoubled people's determination to force democracy down Thatcher's throat.
This was one of the best days I have ever spent taking pictures. I had been flattened a couple of times by angry brutal police but nonetheless I was still going well by mid-afternoon when Grand Buildings was torched by the anarchists.
By the time I left I'd had the hair on one side of my head burnt off by an exploding motorbike, my knee mashed by a scaffold clamp hurled from the top of the burning offices and had been tumbled a dozen times by cops, horses, rioters and vans. I’d never been happier.
