Five Pillars

Gary:
I remember that day. I was nine. Or maybe eight. I remember watching them fall, wondering what they must have been thinking. "It's alright, it's alright. So far, so good." That hope that everything's okay while you fall into oblivion. And I wondered if anything like that could ever happen here."

Sophie:
What am I going to do? My mum and dad will kill me.

Rachel:
Sophie, I'm so sorry.

Sophie:
What for? It's not like anyone died. The opposite in fact.

Sophie:
People are always looking for blame in something, even when there is none.

Billy:
Get off me you f***ing Paki!

Ishmael:
[punches Billy again, repeatedly] Go on, say it again you little wanker!

Paul:
Look at what you've done to him you little prick!

Graham:
They chuck you out then?

Darren:
Honorable discharge. Medical grounds.

Graham:
[raises an eyebrow] Don't know what your great granddad would've said about that.

Darren:
Yeah, well - things were different back then.

Graham:
He came out of the army when the job was done. Didn't cut and run leaving someone else to finish things.

Darren:
Neither did I.

Graham:
They're your family you know. Those lads you serve with. That's what he always used to tell me. He'd say that he had two families - the one back home and the one out there in Africa, where he was fighting.

Darren:
I've not come here to fight, granddad.

Graham:
Sounds like you don't want to fight anyone.

Graham:
Half of them don't bloody belong here anyway. They're not rioting for a cause, they're rioting for themselves.

Darren:
You reckon?

Graham:
There are no causes worth fighting for these days.

Darren:
No point in me staying in the army then, was there?

Ruth:
Seriously David - just because you grew up on a council estate twenty years ago doesn't make you a social worker.

David:
I never said it does! But it wouldn't hurt for you to start and see things a little differently, would it?

Ruth:
I see things perfectly well, thank you very much! I see what we have here. A nice home, cars, holidays, a nice life - everything that we worked hard to get. And I See people like that every day at work. Leeches with their hands out, wanting to take something they feel they're entitled to, something that someone else has worked hard for. When are you going to wake up and realise they're not the idyllic, salt of the earth, working class anymore?

Graham:
Some folks have their reasons for falling out.

Darren:
What were yours?

Graham:
Probably the same as most people's. Fathers and sons don't see eye to eye sometimes and have to go their own way. Live their own lives.

Gary:
Maybe we're just fed up of being told how much better everyone else is than us... What about being white? What's wrong with that? It doesn't pay to be white and working class anymore.

Ruth:
Look, Mister Kinneally - if that is your name - it's my job to see whether or not your father is fit to work. If he can, he would be better off working than on benefits and that's what we would recommend to the DWP.

Gary:
I'm doing a bit of my own stuff now, freelancing.

David:
That's the best way, working for your self, no boss. You'll be middle class before you know it.

Sophie:
You made me feel like I was some kind of missing piece in a jigsaw when I was with you. Just something that made you complete.

Darren:
I didn't mean to.

Sophie:
You can't use me to fill the empty gaps in your life Darren.

Darren:
Some of them fighting out there - they're only kids, you know? Thirteen, fourteen, sometimes younger. Can you imagine how it feels to kill someone Billy's age? Younger?

Darren:
They'll stick a gun in your hand at seventeen and tell you that you can travel the world, see new sights, do exciting things. [pause] Blow sh*t up.

Graham:
A lot of us were involved in that sort of thing in the 1970s. Young lads, we worked hard, looked around and saw a lot of these coloureds taking jobs, taking women, getting everything gien. There used to be a time when if you were a working class lad you had folks to look out for you - your mam, your dad, your community. Unions. Labour Party. [pause] But all that changed.

Gary:
I heard what you were saying the other day. Talking about me and Billy like we were criminals just because we get our hands dirty working for a living. [to Ruth] It doesn't make you an angel, love, sitting on your arse behind a desk all day. Crushing other people's lives.

Gary:
You'll only keep people like me down for so long. Cause and effect, my friend.

Graham:
There was this group of lads, looked up to me like some kind of leader. They murdered a Sikh teenager from their school. Stabbed him to death with his own kirpan. Then they dumped his body outside my house like some kind of offering.

Rachel:
Your life is like a soap opera, Sophie. I only keep you by my side to save me from watching Jeremy Kyle.

Darren:
You were my mates, my life. All of you. I felt like I belonged to all of you, like I was somebody.

Paul:
Darren, don't do this!

Darren:
I came back to be with you all again. To be a part of something. And this is what I get?

Graham:
What have I done for you, England, my England? / What is there I would not do? / With your glorious eye austere / As the Lord were walking near / Whispering terrible things and dear / As the Song on your bugles blown / England! / Round the world your bugles blown!