The Ely Riots: A Reflection
After the shocking events that occurred in Ely on Monday 22nd May, we pause for reflection with Canon Dr Peter Sedgwick. Peter is a retired Anglican priest married to Canon Jan Gould, vicar of the Church of the Resurrection, and lives in Ely.
What was striking about the riots in Ely this week were two things. First, they came without warning. Secondly, they overwhelmingly involved young people. We have lived on the estate for nine years, and my wife Canon Jan Gould has been vicar of the Church of the Resurrection, Ely for seventeen years. There have been other incidents on the estate in past years, and all of them happened suddenly. In October 2012 a van driver who was mentally ill but who had stopped his medication drove his van around Ely, killing one person and seriously injuring twelve others, many of them young. In December 2017 completely false rumours on social media that a primary school head was going to discipline pupils because of poor behaviour at a Christmas carol concert in the Church of the Resurrection led to a large disturbance outside the school, which had to be dispersed by the police, resulting in much social tension. None of these events were expected and in all of them, there was anger, distress, and a need for reconciliation. In all of them Jan Gould, and the church community, were central to bringing calm and healing.
This week’s riots involved over a hundred young people, and after the riot many of them stood around in the road where the accident happened, creating a shrine out of flowers and balloons, their anger spent (although buses were stoned on Wednesday in Ely), as if they did not know what to do. At the vigil on Friday, when balloons were released, over 800 people came peacefully and there was an enormous sense of love and support for the families of Kyrees Sullivan and Harvey Evans. The Church of the Resurrection was open on Saturday and many young people came to light candles, be silent and weep. There were no words, except heartfelt messages written in the visitor’s book. ‘God bless and ride hard’ said one message from one of his friends. As Canon Jan stood outside to chat with them as they came out, two things were striking, as they had been all week. First, she was recognised as embodying the love of God, and this came out when she and Bishop Mary (very new in post) walked the estate together. Secondly, young people were at a loss to know what they should do, or how to behave. As Canon Jan said repeatedly in over thirty-five interviews, these are young people with energy that is not being channelled in any way.
Forty years ago there were manual jobs that gave young people a sense of pride and skill, in the brewery, paper mill, and local factories. All of these have gone, swept away by globalization and automation. There were also many youth clubs and they have all gone too, closed by spending cuts. One valuable initiative which does remain is Making Music, Changing Lives ( MMCL), which is a charity that provides almost free music tuition for schoolchildren, founded by Canon Jan, who was a professional musician herself before ordination (https://makingmusicchanginglives.org/). MMCL has a good orchestra, and children who take part in this find their lives transformed. After the Hit and Run tragedy, many children expressed their feelings of grief and despair by playing their instruments at the MMCL weekly session. We need to bring back many more such venues for young people on this estate.
It is a warm-hearted, loving and close-knit community, with a great wound, which is the sense of hopelessness among many young people. Most of Cardiff is prosperous, but there is an arc of poverty across the city. Some of it is centred in ethnic minority areas, but at either end of the arc are St Mellon’s (another estate) and Ely. For years kids have not been helped by the educational courses which they take, although the teachers do their best, so sadly there is a significant number who leave school at 16 with no future, either in work or in education. The big difference from the disorder and riots of the 1980s is that this is driven by young people, with no job prospects, and a minority being into drugs and crime. There are schemes for them when they leave school, but they don’t work very well. Above all young people need their energy channelled into constructive activities, need a good police/community forum, and much more effective education in secondary school.
There is very much a drug problem on the estate, although it is important to say categorically that there is no evidence linking the boys who died to this. Bikes and scooters have been a menace for a long time, driving head-on to oncoming traffic. They tear up and down the local playing fields where we walk the dogs. Every evening in the summer for years we have had petrol motorbikes doing wheelies on the road outside the vicarage and riding on the central grass verge. It was bound to go wrong sometime. On the whole the police are very good, though clearly how they handled the deaths of the two lads, and the communication breakdown on the police van following them, was disastrous. They have much to learn, but it is a difficult job which they do. The community forum packed up a few years ago and it needs to restart.
Theologically this is about incarnational ministry, earning the respect of the community, with the MMCL venture showing how spirituality and the arts can transform lives. There have only been four incumbents at the Church of the Resurrection (The Res) since 1934, and every week there are two to three funerals there. A joint funeral for Harvey and Kyrees will be held in the church. During the Covid pandemic in 2020, there were seventeen suicides in three months, all of whom were young people, and an average of ten funerals every week, and although the church was not allowed to open, all the funerals were done by Canon Jan. At this season of Pentecost it is important to realize that the Spirit poured out in Acts 2 is also the Spirit which was present at creation (Genesis 1:2). It is a broken society in Ely at the moment, but also one where the church is deeply respected and brings healing. Al McFadyen in an article thirty years ago on violence in inner city areas spoke of the pathology of violence there, and the need for the demons of disorder to be met and overcome. Importantly he spoke of how much there is a need for proper order in such communities (‘Crime and Violence’ in God in the City ed Sedgwick, 1991). The task of the church, government and the police is now to heal the disorder so that the community can again be a place of wellbeing and flourishing. There is much to do, and above all a need to show Ely’s young people their future as one of hope and promise. It is far from that at the moment.