The inspiration behind Top Boy from writer and creator Ronan Bennett

‘Hackney, where I live, is like much of inner London. There are streets with nice shops, good restaurants and houses for people who are doing well. But turn a corner and you are in a different world: grim, sprawling housing estates where windows are barred, pit bulls are exercised in the courtyards, and families struggle to make ends meet. There are guns and knives, and people get killed by both.

‘One day coming out of the supermarket I noticed a boy of about 12 - one of the "tinies", as I later learned they are called - hanging around the forecourt. An older man approached him. They exchanged a few words and briefly shook hands - I just about saw the money passed over. The boy slid away. A couple of minutes later a second tiny came up on a bike and spat something on the ground. The older man stooped to retrieve it and strolled off.  It was a drug deal, five minutes from my home.  

‘I wanted to know more. I was already thinking about writing about this world, but I knew that if I did I would want to write about it from the bottom up, from the point of view, not of the police, but of the ‘tinies’ and ‘youngers’ hanging around the supermarket forecourt every day. But how was I going to get into this world?

‘I have a friend of Jamaican descent, Gerry Jackson, born and raised in Hackney. Gerry is a popular and respected fitness coach who has done a lot of work with Hackney kids, encouraging them to keep clear of drug and gang culture through hard physical training.  For many kids Gerry is something of a father figure, someone to bring their problems to, who will listen and try to help. I asked him if he would introduce me to kids on the street. Within days he set up the first of many meetings.

‘I wanted to hear about the mechanics of drug dealing, but I also wanted to know about these kids’ lives. What were their homes like? Did they go to school? What did they think about their parents, teachers and the police?  What music and clothes did they like? Relationships? What did they want from life? What were their expectations? How did they view the world? They talked with incredible and surprising candour. Some admitted to carrying guns, others bore the scars of knife wounds - "Yeah, that was the time I was stabbed in the heart", one said casually opening his shirt.  Some stories were brutal and frightening, others sad - "I saw my father on the street," a 17-year-old told me, "I hadn't seen him for about six years. We talked a bit but he has problems so I didn't even ask him to stay in touch."  Some were unintentionally funny - "I didn't get focused on making money until I was 13," one ‘younger’ with a captain of industry's soul said wistfully, "all them wasted years!"  Others hoped to get out.

‘Over the months, with Gerry's help, I came to realise that the lives I had glimpsed on the supermarket forecourt were more complex, deep and rich than I'd imagined.  "Just because someone is buying and selling drugs in Hackney," a detective told me, "doesn't mean they're bad people.  In parts of Hackney, dealing drugs is how some people make a living.  It's part of the fabric of life."