Goth attack

I was walking past Grey’s Monument in Newcastle the other evening on the way to my Book Group meeting when my mobile rang. It was Son No. 2 (aged 15) who announced: ‘I’ve just been attacked.’

When I’d sufficiently recovered from the shock, he told me he’d been walking back from school along the tiny street of shops ten minutes away from home. It was half past five in the evening when four youths pulled him into a dark alleyway between two shops. It’s normally a busy street but all the shops were closed and no one else was about.

(The reason why he was later than normal was because he’d left his mobile on the school bus and had to wait until the same bus came back round from the bus depot to collect it. That’s another story however.)

He said they were all tall and dressed in black with caps pulled down over their eyes so he couldn’t see their faces. Luckily for him they just prodded and pushed him about a bit and then they ran off. He was shaken and scared however and phoned his dad who immediately left the house to come to meet him. Of course they missed each other because he’d gone the long way round to avoid any more dark alleys. Then he rang me.

After telling me not to come rushing back from Newcastle, he said they’d called him a Goth. Now this I found amazing because his ‘teeny greeny’ phase on old Eldon Square complete with blue black hair, skull bandanas and studded belts is way behind us. He has now embarked on a very smart stage with straightened hair and was wearing black school trousers and a long black winter coat.

His dad reported it to the police as soon as they managed to catch up with each other. The police said we were right to report the incident even though no harm was actually done. Two lady police officers came out the next evening to conduct an interview. He was asked if he was traumatized and advised that counseling was available. They then went away to investigate the CCTV footage above the alleyway and to ask questions in the shops.

However a week later a police officer rang him to say they had closed the case because no information was forthcoming. No-one had been on the street to witness the event, not even a bus had passed by, the shops were all closed and the CCTV camera wasn’t working.

‘Lot of fuss about nothing, I wasn’t even hurt,’ he mumbled but he could have been. They could have had knives, weapons anything. They could have taken his newly rescued mobile phone. It isn’t even safe to walk along a main street of shops at five thirty in the evening anymore.

So now of course I am paranoid and have become even more of a taxi driver than ever before. Why does parenting become harder instead of easier as they grow older?

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