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Revealed: the story behind the Soviet tank with its guns trained on council HQ
Sri Carmichael, Evening Standard11 Apr 2008
The sight of this former Soviet tank on a quiet London street has received more than an occasional bemused glance from passers-by.
The T-34 has recently been listed in a new guide to derelict and bizarre landmarks in the capital.
The story of how it came to be on a patch of wasteland in Bermondsey has been the subject of much speculation.
Now the Evening Standard can reveal the tank's owner lives only yards away - but it is far more than an unusual case of a grown-up boy and his toy.
The tank, which was used to crush the Prague Spring revolution 40 years ago, is a fresh symbol of dissent - with Southwark council in its line of fire, according to locals.
Property developer and military enthusiast Russell Gray, 51, bought the machine in 1995, ostensibly as a birthday present for his son, then seven.
But, according to Mr Gray's neighbours, it was a gift carefully selected after he lost a planning battle to build on the plot of land he owns at the end of Pages Walk. Southwark's decision did not prevent him placing vehicles on the land and within weeks the deactivated 32-ton tank was installed.
Residents say its gun points in the direction of the council's offices.
Now - 13 years later - it is strewn with graffiti and surrounded by overgrown nettles. Meanwhile, Mr Gray's teenage son Rhys, who once used the tank as a climbing frame, has also gained a certain notoriety.
Two years ago, he was thrown out of £26,000-a-year Marlborough College in Wiltshire for persistent yobbish behaviour - despite the best efforts of his father.
Mr Gray senior lost an action to stop the expulsion at the Court of Appeal and was forced to pay £250,000 in costs.
One of the businessman's neighbours said: "He's quite a bumptious character and his son's the same.
"He bought that tank in a fit of pique when Southwark council wouldn't let him build on the land and then trained its gun on the council offices.
"Apparently the planners didn't say anything about not dumping a tank on the land. He even let artists paint it bright pink a few years back."
The tank, which is nicknamed Stompie, was bought by Mr Gray from a military salvage dealer in Kent for £7,000 two months after it had finished being used in filming scenes in Battersea for award-winning movie Richard III, starring Ian McKellen.
It had been brought to Britain from Czechoslovakia in the early Nineties as part of a batch decommissioned by the Russian military.
Kerry Cheese, manager of RR Motor Services in Ashford, said Mr Gray was animated when he purchased the vehicle from him. He had claimed that he conned the council by persuading them to grant permission for a tank, not specifying what type.
"He said they thought it was a septic tank but the permission just said 'tank' so there was nothing they could do," said Mr Cheese, 39. "He was very pleased with himself."
Southwark said it couldn't trace the planning application and didn't want to comment.
Mr Gray, who has also bought two former British Army cargo vehicles from RR Motor Services, refused to comment, except to say it was "great" his tank was featured in the guide, Derelict London by Paul Talling.
