“YOU’LL put a ticket on somebody’s car and then they come at you. The first thing they do is look at the colour of your skin, and they say: ‘Go back to your own country’.”

Racism like this is commonplace in examples of the abusive working conditions faced by parking wardens in Camden.

Of the 130 or so on strike this week, the overwhelming majority are black, and as drivers’ resentment boils over at being ticketed it can often turn abusive. 

One warden told the New Journal this week: “We get racial slurs shouted at us. Every day there is verbal abuse and then there is the threat of physical abuse. You get people being assaulted every day. They grab the machine, or hit you in the hand. Sometimes it’s much worse. 

“When we report it, our managers will look at the case and say that you are supposed to have taken precautions. You are supposed to defuse the situation.” 

Earlier this year, a colleague was mown down, wardens said, in an alleged road rage case by a driver who had just been handed a ticket in Kentish Town. 

In another extreme example, three construction workers were found guilty of assault after kicking and punching a warden to the ground in Agincourt Road, Hampstead, after their van was ticketed.

A rare conviction was secured in this case, in part because a passer-by caught the brutal attack on camera. 

And how does it feel to come to work in the morning for £8.92 an hour, with the knowledge of these attacks hanging over you?

“It’s a job you have to do,” one warden said. 

“But it makes you feel bad. It all adds up. It affects your mental health.”