On the bright side of the terrible rioting in the UK, a woman named the "Heroine of Hackney", has spoken of her embarrassment at becoming an internet sensation after confronting rioters on a street corner in east London.
Pauline Pearce, 45, a grandmother, jazz singer and community radio activist, shook her walking stick at youths, told them they were looters without a cause and said it made her ashamed to come from Hackney.
In the clip, filmed by The Daily Telegraph, she asked the rioters: "Why are you burning people's shops that they have worked hard to build up?
"And for what, just to say you are warring and a badman? This is about a man who was shot in Tottenham, this ain't about busting up the place."
"We're not gathering together to fight for a cause, we're running down Foot Locker and thieving shoes, dirty thieves."
After more than a million people logged on to watch the video, she said yesterday: "I had to say my piece and everyone stood and listened and some people were saying 'Hear hear.' "Some people even clapped, but now I feel embarrassed."
At one stage Mrs Pearce said she rushed down the road to intervene before a photographer was beaten up.
"I've got a big mouth and I said, 'If you don't want you face on camera then don't come out'."
Known as "Lady P" she has a Monday afternoon show on Conscious FM. She uses a walking stick for a slipped disc, but that did not stop her waving it at the youths she confronted. Via telegraph.co.uk
Rioters in action
