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Fear and paranoia aren’t words you would normally associate with Walkley. But when I arrive in the area, it takes only 15 minutes before news of my arrival is all over a local WhatsApp group, and people start looking at me funny. “I just heard that you were here when I was in Asda,” one woman tells me when I try to collar her for an interview. Most people don't want to speak to me at all, quickly scurrying off mumbling about the situation being “too sensitive”, “tense”, or “scary”. “I’m not prepared to speak about it,” says one man as I pursue him down the street.
Sunday, 21 September started like any other in the neighbourhood. Families strolled to Aesthete cafe on South Road for a spot of brunch, while late risers headed off to the Bole Hills to walk their dogs and nurse their hangovers. After the storm of the previous night the weather was calm, if a little chilly. It was the kind of crisp day when you can see your breath in the air for the first time in months.
Around noon, the peaceful early autumn Sunday was shaken out of its slumbers. For Steve Baxter, the landlord of the Rose House pub, it happened almost without him noticing it. As he was preparing to open for the day, washing out the beer lines and refilling the ice box, he spotted someone carrying a ladder past his window. It was only later that he realised what they had been doing. Stepping out of his pub, he saw Union Flags had been erected on almost every lamppost along South Road, the main thoroughfare through Walkley.
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