I was there that night too and also lived in Handsworth at the time. Clarence Road. Before that Crocketts Road then eventually we moved a bit more up market to Camp Lane off Forge Lane. As a kid I used to go for a walk with my Nan and Grandad in the Summer on a Sunday afternoon down Soho Road. People would say Good Afternoon to you and smile. The shops would all be shut obviously but we would look in windows and maybe get an ice cream from the van. Now what a total bog hole it has become. Filthy streets, hundreds of cars parked illegally, prostitutes working during the day as well as night. You could build a beautiful brand new housing estate with lovely houses and shops but if you let the wrong people in them it will be a ghetto inside a couple of years. There are people who are quite happy to live in squalor and I feel very sorry for the people who have to live in places like Handsworth and try to maintain their bit of it because they are fighting a losing battle.