The Guv'nor (7 page)

‘Get the lid off that tin,' he said to me. So I whipped it open and passed it over.

He poured the syrup over the paper then spread it out with a bit of old wood. Next minute, he stuck the whole lot on the glass, picked up a bit of metal and banged it straight in the middle of the window and the whole lot just dropped down in a sticky puddle. Never made a sound. Tony picked a few bit of glass out of the edge of the frame and we were in. Yeah, we had gloves on. Didn't watch
Z-Cars
for nothing.

It was like Aladdin's cave inside; boxes everywhere, washing machines, TVs, even cookers. Every time I flicked my lighter I saw on another piece of expensive gear. The problem was, how were we going to shift it? We could hardly walk down Commercial Road with a fridge under our coats.

‘Grab the small stuff,' Tony whispered, ‘then we'll worry about it outside.' So I balanced a load of toasters in my arms and stacked them by the window. And while I was doing it I thought, ‘We could get five years for this and all for two bob.'

Anyway, I jumped over the wall in the alley and Tony started passing over the little boxes, when a voice said, ‘What's going down, boys?' I nearly jumped out of my strides. I whipped round and a torch blinded me. The same voice said, ‘Lenny McLean, I might've fucking well known.'

I said, ‘Put the light out, you mug, or I'll do you.' Do him? I couldn't even see who it was.

Tony kept dead quiet on the other side of the wall. The next minute, I heard the click of a gate latch and this old geezer's coming out of the place over the alley. He clocked the little pile of toasters at my feet and gave a chuckle. ‘Into the big stuff now, eh, boy?'

I said, ‘Yeah, I've just nicked a warehouseful, and what's it to you?' He said, ‘Nothing, boy, nothing, but when me and your dad, your real dad that is, was doing a bit of business, we sussed moving the gear before we nicked it.'

Thank fuck for that. He was a mate of my dad's.

‘I'll tell you something else, you ain't nicked a warehouseful. All you can get away is about a dozen of them,' and he kicked one of the boxes. ‘Tell you what, I'll get you a bit of help and we'll cut it up. All right?'

So that's what happened. Tony and Me kept our heads down while Old Jackie Taylor did the business. Ten minutes later, a Commer van backed up the alley, and we loaded it up with whatever was small enough to come out of the broken window. We couldn't get the door open.

The two blokes with the van couldn't have had a nerve in them because they broke into song every now and then. They didn't have a lot to say for themselves but the way they moved soon told me this wasn't their first caper. It wasn't their last, either, because in ‘72 or ‘73 I heard they both got an 18, but that was in a bigger league than our little job.

A week later, we picked up £200 each off of old Jackie. It had crossed my mind that we might have got stitched up, but I should've known better. If the old bloke was a mate of Dad's, he had to be sound. Thinking about it afterwards, I could see that Tony and me had been right prats. We went tearing in without giving it too much thought. All right, it turned out sweet as a nut but that wasn't down to us. Still, it was a bit of experience. We'd know better next time.

I was about 16 then and I thought I was the dog's bollocks. I suppose you could say I was running a bit wild. I could handle myself if I had
to, there was plenty of dough about, and I had some good pals to waste the days and nights away with.

I tried a few jobs here and there, to keep Mum happy more than anything else, and to keep my stepfather off my back, but none of them ever worked out. Same old thing every time. I couldn't stand being told what to do. I'd had enough of that all my life, so if the boss or foreman came on strong, I'd fly off the handle. I never actually put one on any of these people, because I was young enough to still have a little bit of respect for people who were, as far as I could see, older and a lot weaker than me. When you're that age anybody over 30 has got one foot in the grave.

Because I was getting to be a big lad for my age and, as I said, could handle myself, I was growing more and more confident. The trouble was confidence, in my case, having been beaten down for so many years, meant aggression. And I really think it was then that my personality took on that ‘time bomb waiting to go off' that people mention when they talk about Lenny McLean.

I've got to say I gave myself a bit of variety, what with all the different jobs I tried: driver's mate on the brewery wagons; humping stuff around on building sites; and I even had a spell of being a plumber's mate. You'll notice only the work was different – the amount of brain needed was the same wherever I went. Don't get me wrong though, I wasn't stupid. If I'd been born in St John's Wood or Knightsbridge, I think I could have gone places, but to be honest I don't think I can say I was a victim of circumstances like you read about in the papers. The truth is, I didn't give a fuck. So I gave up pretending to go after a normal working life and slowly, Mum seemed to accept that's how things were. She didn't condone what I was doing, she just never mentioned it. I've said it before – she was a great one for blanking anything she didn't want to see or hear about.

Most of my time I spent with the chaps, and only went home to sleep; though half the time I didn't even do that. And though I knew she didn't want it that way, it made things easier for Mum, because though Jim Irwin still picked on my brothers and sisters, it was mostly when I was around that there were terrible fights. Years later, when it was too late, I wished I'd spent more time with my mum while I had the chance. But with my life stretching out in front of me, I thought she'd be there for ever.

Tony and me used to spend a lot of our time down Hoxton Market, having a crack with whoever was down there, chatting up
the girls, or sitting in the café talking about birds, boxing or what we'd get up to next to bring in a few quid.

We'd just had a knock back on what should have been a nice little earner. Always looking for that bit extra, we had by-passed Tommy the Talker and took our latest bit of thieving to a fence we hadn't used before. We're talking good money here. Gold bracelets, chains, earrings and stuff like that. We'd gone back the same night to pick up our wages, and suddenly he's forgotten who we are. He's got a minder with him so he thinks he's Jack the Lad. ‘Go on, boys, fuck off, I'm a busy man, I haven't got time to play games.' I'm nearly 16 and this prat thinks he's dealing with a little kid. I went towards him and the minder cut in front of me. So I belted him as hard as I could on the point of the chin and he went down like a sack of spuds. I got hold of the other bloke and screamed at him, ‘Are we getting our money or are you having some of this?' and I've got my fist stuck under his nose. Needless to say, Tony and me came out of there with a nice bit of dough. Working it out afterwards, I think we got a bit more than we were due. Lesson learned that day – stick with your own.

It didn't take long to blow the money from that little job, so after a bit we were sitting in the café again, both well skint. ‘See that geezer over there,' Tony said, ‘the one with the glasses?'

‘Yeah, so what?'

‘He manages a shoe shop … let's give him a tug.'

Tony's plan was to get a bit friendly, then go round the shop with him and try to nick a few pairs of shoes.

We plonked down beside him and the geezer said, ‘You're Lenny McLean, aren't you?' I gave him a look and said, ‘Yeah, and this is my cousin Tony – how's business?'

‘Don't ask lads, don't ask, it's right down the pan.' Then he started to whisper, ‘I know you two are all right, so I'll tell you … I've dropped myself right in the shit.'

I said, ‘If it's money trouble, why don't you dip in the till?' He sort of laughed and gave me a funny look.

‘Already done it. I cleaned the till out yesterday and thought I could double it and I've just done the same this morning. All down the pan.'

Turns out he likes a bit of a gamble – horses, dogs, flies crawling up walls, it didn't matter as long as he could get some odds on it. Tony and me had a bit of a chat between ourselves, then I said to the shoe bloke, ‘How's your bottle?'

He said, ‘If I can get this sorted, sound as a pound.'

‘Right then, when do you bank your takings?'

‘Friday at two o'clock.'

‘OK, where do you bank them?'

He told me.

‘Lovely. On Friday, take whatever cash you've got down the bank, and it'd better not be an empty bag. We'll jump out of that alley down by the corner, grab the takings, and have it away. You can tell Old Bill and your head bloke that every penny that had come over the counter was in the bag – a million quid if you want, up to you. Then when all the fuss has died down, we'll cut it up between us. Your nickings get nicely covered and we all get an earner. Sound alright?'

‘Not much,' he said. ‘Thanks, boys, don't let me down.'

‘And don't you fucking let us down,' I said, ‘because we don't let anybody rump us and get away with it.'

We popped in the shop the next morning, got him to one side, and said, ‘If we've got a bit of running to do we'll need a decent pair of baseball boots apiece.' He looked a bit cross-eyed, but we got them. We were taking the piss, really.

Come Friday, Tony and me were all geed up and fidgety waiting up this alley. Two o'clock, half two, ten to three, bloody bank shuts in ten minutes. We're just thinking he's blown us out when we see this prat sailing right past us. I had to stick my head out and shout, ‘Oi, you arse 'ole, back here.'

Back he came. He didn't have his glasses on because he knew what was coming, but he didn't know how hard it was going to be. To make it look right I gave him a good belt on the forehead, and he went down without seeing it coming. He was spark out, so Tony grabbed the bag and we legged it. We ran like a couple of greyhounds, ducking this way and that, and didn't stop until we got to the canal. We just lay there for a bit getting our breath back.

I know I said we grabbed a bag, well, it wasn't. It was one of those security briefcases, and the mug had locked it. We jumped on it, battered it with a brick and even tried to cut it, but that bastard stayed shut. In the end, we took it over to Tommy and he keyed it open. The man was a pro. When it was open he didn't try to look inside, he just handed it over. I pulled two tenners out, said, ‘Thanks, Tom, you're a pal,' and we took off. When we counted up there was £410 and some silver so, with Tommy's drink, not counting the kites we threw away, we'd lifted £430 plus. Good stuff.
Later on, we sent a girl we knew round to the manager with a little packet because we couldn't go near him. He was happy, we were happy. Good result.

It was only natural at that age to want to impress a few of our mates. Let them all see that Tony and me were a couple of Jack the Lads and a bit tasty when it came to pulling a few clever strokes. The next thing we knew, the word's down the earhole of a local bloke by the name of Joey Norton. No, he didn't go to the law. He turned up at the shoe shop and told the manager that he knows the robbery was a set-up. He knows the two McLeans were involved and if he didn't give him the keys so that he could go in that night and clear the place out, he'd put us all in the frame.

What's the manager going to do? He's a straight bloke. I know he did the business with us but he was in trouble. Basically, he was a straight goer. Nice little house, wife, two kids, two weeks in Skegness every year – you know what I mean. So his arsehole drops out. That piece of shit Norton gets all pally then. ‘What I'll do is clear the shop, but when I'm going out I'll smash the door and everyone will think it's a break in.'

He gets the keys, does the business, then carefully locks up after him. Now Old Bill's not always stupid so this time they've got the manager banged up and they're giving him the old rubber truncheon before his kids have gone to school next morning. It's all over and we're in Old Street nick by dinner time.

A month later, we're up at the sessions and poor old Mum's got to face it all over again. This time she's with my grandmother, Nanny McLean, who raised Tony from when he was a little kid. My uncle Bob was there as well – a lovely man you could depend on when you were in trouble. Uncle Bob, Bobby Warren, wasn't a stranger himself to being up in court. He was a quiet man who never took liberties with his own, but back in the Fifties he'd got a seven, along with Frankie Fraser, for doing Jack Spot. At the time, Uncle Bob worked for and was a good friend of Albert Dimes, who controlled most of Soho. Jack Comer, or Spot as he was usually known, was one of the top five gang bosses at that time. Him and Dimes were always at each other for one reason or another. Then they had this knife fight on the corner of Frith Street, Soho, and both of them ended up in hospital. It was a messy business with this one doing that one, then somebody else would get some, so it wasn't just the fight that got Spotty the slashing.

Norton the grass was up in court as well, but he never lifted his
head up. He couldn't look at me or Tony, and there was no way he was going to catch Uncle Bob's eye.

The manager, because he wore a shirt and tie, got a fine. Norton got 18 months' prison, and we got Borstal, and that meant being bussed straight off to the Scrubs.

CHAPTER THREE

U
nlike before when I was green and the separation from my family was a terrible shock to the system, I surprised myself at how I accepted the situation. Over the last few years, I'd had words with a number of lads who'd spent a bit of time in Wormwood Scrubs, so I wasn't completely in the dark about what to expect. I was even ready for the ‘bend and spread' routine once you've been through reception, when a screw checks your khyber in case you've got a gun or a razor tucked up there.

First, you're classed as a YP (young prisoner) if you're under 21. If it's your first time in prison, they class you as a star prisoner and that separates you from the ones who have been inside before. Those in charge reckoned that anybody who'd been inside before was beyond help or hope, so we weren't allowed to talk to them, or them to us, in case they corrupted us stars. Apart from that little difference, the screws treated us all the same.

When they banged us up that night I found I was about six cells along from Tony. There was two to a cell, and I was sharing mine with this thick country boy. When this swede wasn't farting he was snoring. In the end, I woke him up, got him by the throat and told him, ‘If you don't shut your fucking row I'm going to do it for you.' He never made a sound for the rest of the night! I found out next day he hadn't slept a wink.

Before we got locked in the following day, I nipped into Tony's cell. I said to him, ‘When your cell mate comes up tell him to get his gear together and piss off up to my gaff because I'm moving in with you. Tell him I'll see him all right if he keeps his mouth shut.'

Nobody said anything and it was great for about a week, then one night when we're locked up, one of the screws comes looking for the kid who should've been in with Tony. He'd read the name card
on the door, opened up, and was bawling out a name that wasn't McLean. Panic stations. All of us, the innocent kid as well, were quick-marched up to the Governor's office, where we got a right bollocking and three days' bread and water each. Give the kid his due, it wasn't his fault, but he took it on the chin. I give him ten out of ten for that. Good stuff.

Unlike Stamford House, this place had a lot of hard cases. Half of them were after your food, money or fags and the other half were simply interested in belting any of the kids for a bit of fun. So I had to fight. Not only for myself, but for Tony as well. I classed him as a brother more than a cousin and I'd looked after and protected him since we were kids. Knowing I was always behind him, he used to take a few liberties with all the other blokes. He knew none of them could dig him out because they were all frightened I'd belt them.

When I was number one in the kitchens dishing all the grub out, everybody had to be in full kit and all lined up neat or they couldn't be served. Not Tony. He'd come waltzing in about seven, still in his slippers and dressing-gown, march past all the others, and sail up to the top of the queue and pick up his breakfast. They would all go crazy, muttering and giving him the eye, but they'd be looking at me at the same time. I used to say to him, ‘If I get discharged before you do, this lot are going to kill you.' He'd just give that grin of his and say, ‘I know that, Lenny. That's why I'll make sure I'm right behind you when you go out the gate.'

He was a live wire and just a funny, funny kid, not a fighter. But, for me, Borstal meant fighting, and being stuck in the chokey. Come out after two days, fight again, more chokey. I was up and down like a bride's nightie until we were ghosted off to the seaside to Hollesley Bay Borstal on the Suffolk coast. It was miles from anywhere and, as we got nearer, I was thinking that there was no chance of me walking home from this place. Still, it was a big improvement on the Scrubs, and more like Stamford House. We weren't in cells any more and things were much more free and easy, and having Tony as a pal made life seem a bit more like home.

What wasn't so cosy was the fact that we had to work, and I do mean work. The Borstal wasn't just a nick, it was a working farm, so they could make bloody fortunes out of us.

We were up at six and straight into the showers. Once your towel was off you made sure you kept a tight grip on your soap, which you had to buy out of your own wages if it was a decent bit of gear. You had to keep looking over your shoulder as well because if somebody
had a grievance that was when they timed their move, when you were vulnerable. After your shower, it was a quick breakfast before lining up to march out to wherever you had been allocated.

My first work party was out in the fields digging carrots. It was freezing cold and the ground was like iron. Your hands were so cold you didn't notice the blisters until night time, then you suffered agonies. One morning I said to a screw, ‘'Ere, guv'nor, if you got yourself a machine you could dig the whole field in half an hour.' He gave me that look straight out of the screw's handbook, squinty eyes looking round each side of the peak on his cap. ‘McLean,' he said ‘You are a fucking machine … keep digging.'

I'm sure they had it in for me. I think they all used to get together in the screws' tearoom and work out what shitty job to give me the next day. Then they came up with a blinder.

‘Fore party tomorrow, McLean,' I was told. ‘Lovely,' I thought, ‘better than digging carrots.' I soon found out that fore party meant working with the pigs – and our little set-up was proud to own about 1,500.

They were all in their own little cubicles and all you could see for miles was great pink backsides. The nearest I'd ever come to a pig in my life were the trotters Nan Campion used to boil up for Saturday supper. Now, all of a sudden, I've got acres of them making me dizzy just looking at them.

I soon learned that a pig has two important bits. The front end, which you stick food in, and the back end that pours out twice as much as you put in the front. The front end had a nasty habit of snapping at you if you got within range. Most of the time that wasn't a problem because guess which end McLean was in charge of. Dead right. I didn't only shovel shit all day, barrowing it for about two miles to the pit, but I also dreamt about shovelling it at night. So my days and nights became a nightmare. I was actually pleased when one of them took a bite out of my leg and I was allowed to stay home for a week. Funny how you settle in. We used to refer to the unit as home when we were cold and tired. How do these farmers do it? They must be mad. Where there's muck …

While my leg was healing, they put me in the library. Nothing clever, just moving books around and bits and pieces. I'm just thinking this will do me until I've done my time, when they must have had another meeting and, bang, I'm out in the potato shed. This time, Tony is with me. Up until then he'd been on a nice cushy number on a shoe-making course. I told him I reckoned he'd pulled a
stroke somewhere down the line to get that job and he laughed and gave me a wink.

Sometimes we'd be picking potatoes, other times we were in this big shed grading them into different sizes. It was hard, but having Tony there made it a lot easier, because things are never as bad when you can have a laugh. At one end of the shed there was a big opening in the wall about six foot up, so when nobody was about, Tony dragged some crates over and climbed up to see what was on the other side.

He burst out laughing and shouted down: ‘'Ere, Lenny, there's two horses next door having a shag.' I thought, ‘This I've got to see,' but by the time I got up it was all over and the male one was standing there, blowing clouds of steam out of his nose. We both stared. The horse had an old bill about five foot long and it was practically touching the floor. ‘How would you like one like that, Lenny?' Tony said. I shoved him off the crate and told him, ‘I have!'

He climbed back up again and pulled out the front of his jersey, filling it up with the biggest spuds he could lay his hands on. I hope the RSPCA don't read this, but then he lobbed these taters at the horse's dangling old chap. Every spud he lobbed was missing by a mile, then, lucky shot, one of them caught that poor horse right on its bell-end. It went mad. It jumped up in the air, all its legs went stiff and it screamed like a woman with a mouse up her drawers. It reared up and ran round on its back legs, then started battering the walls with its feet. Lumps of boards flew everywhere, and the whole place shook. The only reason it didn't bust its way out was because all the screws came running to see what the racket was about. They quietened the horse down and nicked us. There was no point in denying what we'd done, it was pretty bloody obvious. That bit of a giggle earned us one month's loss of pay and loss of all privileges, but we didn't lose any remission, so it could've been worse.

Another laugh we had before Tony was moved outside, was over soap. Tony didn't smoke, so he'd save up his wages and buy the best Palmolive soap, the one that lathers up and smells a bit tasty. Me, I'd rather have a smoke so I made do with Borstal Issue White Windsor.

Because he was in the boot room and I was on the land, I used to finish about half an hour earlier, so I'd rush back and have a nice bath or shower and use his Palmolive.

One night I was laying on my bed, I've just had a bath and I'm smelling like a poof. In came Tony and he said, ‘Len, every night I go to have a shower my soap's shrunk by about half an inch.'

I said, ‘It'll soon match the size of your dick, then.'

‘No, Len,' he said, ‘I'm serious. You're using my soap, aren't you?'

I kept a straight face and just kept denying it. A few days later, I was having a rest after my bath and Tony came in with a few others and they were all laughing. ‘Enjoy your bath, Len?' asked Tony.

‘Yes, thanks, what's the fucking joke?'

‘I'll tell you. I know you've been at my soap, so every night I've been soaking it in the piss pot. Didn't you notice it had gone yellow?'

Dirty bastard. I chased him all over the place threatening to punch his head in, but I wasn't too serious. I could take a joke against myself.

So that I could get out and about, I put my hand up and volunteered to join the Army cadets while I was inside. I suppose they thought we'd straighten ourselves out and then afterwards we'd join the Army full time. No chance. It did make a break, though, and I used to get a buzz from marching through the town on Sundays. One eye ahead, the other swivelling round looking for crumpet. It didn't last long, like most things I had a go at. They kicked me out when I had a set-to with some lads who were taking the piss while we were marching. So I joined the gymnastics classes, where Tony was, and in no time I'd taken up the con's favourite hobby,
weight-lifting
and training, and I took to it like a duck to water. So what with my temper and the toned-up muscles, I was even more of a handful than ever before.

As you gradually serve your time, they move you to different blocks and houses. They're all named after saints, so somebody had a sense of humour. We started in George House, then Patrick and finished up in Andrew, where me and Tony palled up with a very likeable kid called David Fraser. Dave was one of your own, out of a good London family, and the three of us stuck together. Like Tony he was a right comedian, always ready to get up to something for a laugh.

David had about three days to go before he was due to be released. Me and Tony had about seven weeks. We were all in the television room and we'd just watched
Dr Who
or
The Monkees
or something, when the news came on. The first thing up on the screen was an update on what the papers were calling ‘The Richardson Torture Trials'. This trial had been going on for about six or seven weeks, and now it was all over. I can remember the exact date because it was 4 April 1967, five days before my eighteenth birthday.

It all went quiet as this face on the telly said Charles Richardson, 25 years, Edward Richardson, 10 years, and Francis Fraser and two others, 10 years each.

I looked over at David and he'd gone dead white and was biting his lip. Then he spotted some stupid slag smirking all over his mug. Dave picked up a chair and he was going to do the prat, but we all grabbed hold of him and told him to leave it out or he wouldn't be going home. He was so wild we had to sit on him until he calmed down. He screamed, ‘I've got to do him. That's my dad going down and that c**t thinks it's funny.'

I said, ‘Don't worry, we'll iron him later.'

The bloke who laughed had only been with us for about a week, and he didn't know who David was, and he certainly didn't know who I was, but he found out. He was a big bastard but he cried when we caught up with him and said he hadn't meant any harm. We did him anyway. Ten years is nothing to make a joke about. I told Dave to keep quiet if there was any trouble or he'd lose his remission. If it came to it, I'd put my hand up and swear I was on my own.