The Guv'nor (9 page)

Val had disappeared by now. The strain was too much. She told me after that she'd sat on the stairs listening, biting her fingernails and praying for me to shut up. After a bit she dived in, grabbed hold of me and dragged me out. I can't say her parents blew kisses from the door.

It was the first time she had taken me to meet her people and show me off and I had blown it. Anyway, she didn't want to go home for a while so we had a bit of a walk and ended up in the park. Being kids, all we'd done so far was have a good time and plenty of laughs, we hadn't really got round to sitting down and finding out about each other. So we sat and talked. It turned out she was one of the Smiths out of Bethnal Green, a really well known family which has been in the rag trade for years and years. Good people, good money-getters, and always have been. She told me her dad had died when he was only 23. Her mum had remarried, so, like me, she had a stepfather.

Because of my experiences, I jumped straight in. ‘Bet your stepdad's a proper bastard.'

She looked shocked and a bit puzzled. ‘No, he's not, Len, he's a nice man, a proper dad.'

I felt stupid for opening my mouth.

‘What made you say a horrible thing like that?' she said, so I told her about Jim Irwin. She could hardly believe what I was telling her, but, in time, she'd see for herself that I wasn't exaggerating.

After a little kiss and cuddle, Val told me I'd better not come round to the house for a bit. And so it didn't make things hard for her, I kept out the way. It wasn't easy but I kept myself busy with a few little jobs. Weeks later, I bumped into her in the market and arranged to take her to a party at the weekend. She said that she'd had a lot of stick indoors, but it had quietened down, so she didn't think going out with me again would be a problem.

We enjoyed the party and I took her home. I was just giving her a kiss on the doorstep, when the door opened and she was dragged back inside by her mum. One of her high heels broke off and she started to cry. I said, ‘'Ere, I've brought a Chinese supper for all of us.' Her mum just screamed out, ‘Bugger off … we don't want you round here.' I shouted, ‘Well fuck you, then,' and slung two carrier bags of grub right at her. Then the old man stuck his head out of the front room and I yelled, ‘Don't you start or I'll belt you.' I stepped back, picked up some flowerpots and smashed all the front windows.

In the meantime, somebody's called the police. I think it was the bloke who lived opposite, but I can't really blame whoever grassed me. Old Bill came mob-handed, but I'd cooled off by then, so I just put my hands up and quietly got in the van. Sitting in Old Street nick gave me a bit of time to consider the 12 months I'd get for assault and criminal damage. What a total arsehole I was. At 19 years old, I should have known better. But an hour later I was back out on the streets. Those ordinary, straight people had told Old Bill to forget it.

I'm not proud of what I did. I was right out of order. Now that I'm older I've picked up those double standards I mentioned earlier. I've mixed with some rare people all my life. I've made good friends with people I met in Borstal and prison, and palled up with villains who have made headlines all over the world. But if some kid, like I used to be, turned up on my doorstep with his heart in his hand for my young daughter, I'd boot his arse down the road. If he came back, I'd fucking murder him.

So my lovely Val's parents didn't want to know me for a very long time, but she, bless her heart, loved me, and suffered earache from both sides so we could be together. It's strange how life
repeats itself. She had to suffer like my mum – stuck in the middle. Still, whether they liked it or not, me and Val courted for about 12 or 14 months. I was 20, Val was 18, and when we decided to get married, Mum was well pleased. I suppose she thought it would settle me down.

I wish now that I'd given Val a proper wedding. You know, church, fancy clothes, posh do afterwards – it's a girl's dream, isn't it? But the best I could manage at the time was the business at Mare Street Registry Office over Hackney way, and a bit of a knees-up at Mum's place.

We found a place to live in George's Square, round the back of Old Street. We rented two rooms in a little terraced house. I don't know about rooms, they were more like cupboards, and they were in a right state. I couldn't decorate and I was no handy man, so I went to see Uncle Fred Campion. That diamond of a man spent weeks and a load of his own money on doing the place up, and all he took for wages was a kiss off Val. When he'd done, it was like a little doll's house, and there was just me and Val, and she was my whole world.

Bloody hell, we hadn't been tucked up in our little love nest for a week when she said, ‘Len, I want you to get a proper job.'

I said, ‘Doll, for you I'd fly to the moon.'

‘Len, just go to work, that'll be enough.'

So I got myself fixed up in a clothes factory in Kirton Grove, not far from home. Money wasn't all that, but I soon gave myself extras. My job was to pack parcels of clothes, mail-order stuff, women's coats, dresses, jumpers, all kinds. Last thing at night, I'd have to load up the van and take them down the post office, but before I got there I'd made a little detour and off-load half of them at home. Val would unpack them again, burn the packaging and flog the clothes all over the place. Nice little fiddle.

As soon as complaints came in about people not getting what they'd ordered, Lenny was looking for another job. I couldn't believe it, I stepped straight into the same sort of number in another clothes place in north London. But this was even better. The boss was an absolute prat because he asked if I minded working at night on my own. Talk about sticking the cat in with the budgie, it was fucking magic. I didn't even have to hump the clothes around, just dropped them out of the window to my mate and he carted them away in his van. Job didn't last long, though – I can't think why – so I was back to ducking and diving for a bit.

CHAPTER FIVE

I
mentioned my reputation as a fighter had spread beyond Hoxton. Well, I got a call one day from a guy in Woodford. He said, ‘Lenny, I want you to do a favour for a pal of mine. His name's Dougie.'

‘I don't do favours,' I said, ‘but as long as I get well paid I'll go ahead and see him.'

It turned out that Dougie had just picked up a big council contract. There were loads of flats to be painted and decorated, which meant he had to employ a lot of men. What he wanted me for was to mind him in case any of the blokes decided to take a pop at him when he wouldn't pay them for, in his opinion, rough work.

It seemed fair enough at the time because I know that building workers can get a bit stroppy if things don't go their way. What I didn't realise was that Dougie was a right bastard. The reason he wanted me around was so that he could screw the painters out of wages they'd worked bloody hard for. These were family men grafting to feed their kids, and I didn't feel happy about my role. We'd go round the sites with the wages and Dougie would be telling different blokes, ‘I'm not paying you for this … not paying you for that.' They didn't like it, but they'd look at him, then look at me standing behind him, and just swallow it.

He started to get a bit flash because of me, so I'd already got the hump when he came up with the idea of teaching me the decorating game. He said, ‘When you're not minding me you can be picking a trade up,' like he was doing me the biggest favour in the world.

On the Monday I was in a place in Mare Street. I was perched on
top of a ladder with a four-gallon bucket of sugar soap wedged between my knees, and I was scrubbing the bollocks out of the ceiling with a sponge as big as a loaf of bread. This filthy black water was running down my arm, through my vest, twice round my niagaras and out the soles of my plimsolls. But I stuck at it. I didn't expect to be hanging flock wallpaper on my first day. Then Dougie showed up. ‘Hold up, hold up,' he says, ‘you've missed half of it.'

I said, ‘Do what?'

‘You've left big dirty patches all over.'

I've done no more, I've tipped the whole fucking bucket of dirty water right over him. I've come down the ladder like a monkey and belted him in the mouth. This idiot's hired me as a minder because I'm the toughest money can buy, and he's got me doing this shitty job as though I'm some sort of skivvy. I didn't do my nut, just gave him a quiet seeing to. I belted him senseless – not just for mouthing off, but for taking the piss out of me and all the other blokes.

I was beginning to think that work was nothing but aggravation. Val didn't give up, though. She knew that if I wasn't working, I was going to fall back on a bit of thieving, and then get myself nicked.

Anyway, I've got home at about half-eleven, black as Newgate's knocker. Val pulled a face so I dropped on my knees and gave her a couple of verses of
Mammy
, just like Al Jolson. It didn't work. She was still pulling a face. ‘You've got yourself the sack, haven't you?'

‘Love of my life,' I said, ‘it was just a difference of opinion …'

‘And you belted him.'

‘Well, yeah, I did give him a little slap.'

She gave me one of her looks. ‘Oh, Len, when are you going to pack up fighting?'

She went off shopping in a bit of a huff, so I got in the bath to clean myself up. I was just drying my hair when she returned and she sounded all happy now. ‘I got you fixed up with a job down Essex Road,' she shouted through the bathroom door. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, ‘Fuck me, now what?' I shouted back, ‘That's lovely, sweetheart, what is it?'

‘I saw an advert down the shops for a window cleaner, so I called in and they said you could start tomorrow.'

‘Good stuff, babe, good stuff.' I just sat on the bog and groaned to myself. Her heart was in the right place but fucking window cleaning – leave it out.

She was right, though. I couldn't sit about on my back-side doing nothing. The rent had to be paid, and on top of that we'd only just
found out that she was pregnant. So that's going to mean a pram, baby clothes and tons of gear for the little fella. Funny really, I never thought for one minute that our first baby could be anything but a boy. I'm over the moon, proud and excited about having another little Lenny in the house.

I didn't mind the window cleaning, as it turned out. We started at six and finished by twelve. It wasn't hard work, though I was never happy climbing up too high, and those cradles on blocks of flats gave me the shits. Especially when one of them broke and a bloke was killed. I was going to chuck it in after that, life's too precious, but the firm must have thought a lot of me because they made me a foreman. That meant I didn't have to clean windows any more. My job was to go in early, get all the sheets out, give them to the blokes, then the rest of the time go round checking up on them. I didn't worry about that, though. Once they were all out of the yard I'd go home and back to bed. At the end of the week I'd get the sheets back in, draw the wages and settle up with the men. If they had days off I'd still book them in. But what I did was buy a load of wage packets from W. H. Smith, empty the firm's packets and make up new ones, this time with deductions. There were a lot of workers on the firm so on a good week I could clear a monkey, plus my own wages.

Then somebody worked out what I was up to and grassed me up to the bosses. They didn't pull me in the office and sack me, they sent one of them round my house on a Saturday morning to do the business.

I opened the door and there was this suited-up mug standing there flanked by two policemen. He said, ‘Mr McLean, you're sacked. Here's your cards.' I just growled at him.

Now you don't sack somebody with the law minding you, so there had to be a few back-handers flying about. These coppers are bang out of order and they could be in a lot of trouble if I squealed. So I've got a licence to see the three of them off.

My fuse got very short and I shouted at the boss, ‘You gutless c**t,' and I planted one on him. The two coppers ran off. The boss picked himself up and legged it down the stairs. I was going to chase after the three of them but I didn't have any trousers on, so I thought, ‘Bollocks to it. I've had a good run with the job – let it go.' I ripped up the insurance cards I'd been given and went back in the bedroom and said, ‘Babe, I've had it with working for muggy straights. I don't fit in with them and none of them know what life's about. I'll graft for you
and the baby and you'll never go short, but never ever ask me to take a proper job again.'

She never said a word, just looked at me with those lovely blue eyes. One minute I'm at the front door and I'm a madman. Now I'm all the other way – choked up just looking at her lying there with her little lump making a football in the blankets. I climbed into bed with her and we had a cuddle, and I said, ‘We've had the bowl long enough. I'm going to fill it with cherries for you because I love you.'

Two weeks later Val was taken into Bart's Hospital and our baby was born. It was 15 April 1971 and he weighed in at 71b 2 oz. In my life, I've known hard times that could break your heart. But there's been wonderful times, as well. Top of the list has got to be when I met Val, and right up there equally was when my boy was born, and a year later when my lovely little girl Kelly popped into the world.

It's funny how women take it in their stride. Of course, they're proud and happy, but a bloke has to go over the top. You don't find women doing cartwheels all over the place shouting, ‘Look what I've done,' and you don't see many women dancing on the bar top buying drinks and cigars for everyone. No, I looked round the room and those young mums all had the same look, sort of queenlike. They all knew they'd done the business, and let the old man do all the crowing. After all, it hadn't been easy for him.

Val was no exception. She lay there like a little blonde princess. She was tired, looked like she'd just run a mile, but she was sparkling at the same time. And she'd changed. I couldn't have put my finger on it if I'd tried, but she was different. And the little doll she was cuddling – what can I say? He had red hair and his face was all screwed up and he was the beautifullest baby in the world.

She held him out to me and I felt big and clumsy with this fragile piece of life cradled in my arms. I couldn't say what was going through my head, there was too many things, but I did think that perhaps Dad was looking down and he'd be as proud as me.

I thought it would be nice to name him after me, but Val wasn't struck on that. She said, ‘One Lenny McLean in the family is more than enough. I want to call him Jamie.' So Jamie it was.

Suddenly I've got a bit of conflict going on in my head. I've got a wife and son now and they've got to be looked after, not just with money but with some sort of sense of responsibility. Do I knuckle down to a regular job, pack up getting into rows, and take a load of shit from some mug boss? Or do I go the other way to earn a crust?

For a start, I had torn my cards up, but I suppose they could be replaced. On the other hand, my dad never did us any harm with his ducking and diving and probably a load of things we never knew about. So fuck it, I put the word out that I was looking for a bit of ‘work'.

I've already told you that I was well known for being a hard man and for being reliable. So when this character Freddie Davis, who worked out of North Road, got in touch he didn't have to ask me for references. Fred was a bank robber like other people are master builders, masons, or first-class joiners. It was his trade. He knew nothing else and he wanted nothing else. Of course, he made mistakes, who doesn't? But if a joiner slips up and cuts too much off a piece of wood, he gets another piece and starts again. He doesn't get a sentence of seven years. That was what Fred had just done when he got in touch with me. He hadn't lost his bottle, it was just the downside of his chosen work so he shrugged it off and, being skint, was ready for some more.

I wasn't the only one he'd organised. He'd rounded up two other good men, but I won't name them because they're still working. He'd got a job sussed out in Hastings on the Sussex coast. I told him there were about a hundred little earners ten minutes away, but he said he had his own reasons, so that was that. It was his job. We had a meet in a pub over the other side of the water, The Black Prince near Dartford, I think, and we set off from there at about seven o'clock. It took us about two hours – there was no motorway then, and anyway we didn't want a pull for speeding. He'd already put us in the picture. We were going after a bank, but instead of bursting through the door with the high risk of getting caught inside, Fred wanted to be a bit clever and subtle.

His information had the manager down as a poofter who lived on his own, but even if he was living with somebody, whoever it was was going to be a pushover. No women, no kids, sweet as a nut. The idea was to get in the house, grab the manager, and hold him all night. In the morning, two of us would slip into the bank with him and wait for the time lock on the vault to open. Piece of cake.

It was just getting dark when we pulled up about a hundred yards away from the manager's house. So first off we're having a smoke then, fuck me – I think we're lifted before we've even got out the car – Old Bill comes past in a little panda car. It slows down and they give us some eyeball. Fred's got a big map spread out over the steering wheel and he studies it enough to set it on fire. We all held our breath, then, thinking that we'd got ourselves lost, they drove on.

The car was nicked but we knew it wasn't hot yet, so we were clear on that. With the motor tucked up a rough track near the house, one of the lads and me made our way along the road, up the drive, that was all overgrown with bushes and trees, and crept under the window. Looking through the gap in the curtains we could see a man, a woman and, fucking hell, two kids in pyjamas watching television. Suddenly it's all blown away. Fred, if you paid good dough out for your information – you've been rumped and so have we. The sight of those kids and it's finished. What are we, animals? No. It's one thing putting the frighteners on grown people, but babies? Leave it out. I'm not giving you bollocks about villains with hearts of gold, but you've got to draw the line somewhere.

While I was working on this book, a case appeared on the telly and it was exactly the same set up, except, this time, the slags carried out the job, terrorised the children in the house, and got away with it. I sat and watched it and thought, How can you be proud of yourselves after pulling a diabolical stunt like that?

It wasn't just me; the others were good stuff and wanted to pull the plug as well. So that was it. We pulled out and set off for home.