Being mugged changes you forever

Being mugged changes you forever. My encounter with highwaymen occurred three decades ago in a south London street, in the early evening as I emerged from a corner-shop. I was transferring some coins from one hand to the other when four men pounced on me from behind, tipped me over and dragged me down a lane between a derelict pub and a car park. I lay there surrounded, waiting for the inevitable violence, but my attackers grabbed the cash that had fallen from my hands and melted away into the night.

I was left feeling shocked, humiliated and grateful I’d escaped with my life. Sadism was part of their motive, I expect. They wanted to enjoy the thrill of wielding absolute power over a random stranger. Ever since, I’ve lived my life as a high-wire act. It could happen again, at any time. I still cross the street if I see four unfamiliar males approaching me. Three is OK. So is five. But a quartet unsettles me. And the four bandits changed my outdoor dress-code permanently. On the night of the ambush I was wearing patent leather shoes from a charity shop and a midnight blue overcoat. I never used these garments again and I adopted the invisible apparel of the underclass: frayed jumper, tattered jeans, crime-scene jacket, dead man’s shoes.

Even now, I prefer this costume because it feels safer and it signals to potential muggers that frisking me at knifepoint will yield nothing of value. But if you dress like a vagrant, you get treated like one. A decade ago, during the interval of a play in Islington, I stepped outside and crouched down on the pavement beside a wall. Moments later I became aware of a few lads on bikes, whispering among themselves.