DAD DIES TOMORROW:EXCERPTS FROM THE DIARY OF A GANGSTER, MY FATHER
ENTRY 1. THE CROSSING
“It was was a tremendous blow when my father died, and I killed him. The sad thing was that my father was a man I respected very much. The night he died I was having a fist fight with him. I don’t remember how the flight started. It wasn’t unusual for him and me to have a fight. I was on leave from the army so I was about seventeen. We were in the kitchen and suddenly he went down.“Oh,“ he said and crashed down in front of me. I knew he was dead straight away. I heard him have the longest sigh and he suddenly went white. I couldn’t believe it. I just could not believe it.
I didn’t know what to do so I went into my mum and I said, “Dad’s dead.“ She said, “God. What are you talking about?” The look on her face was unbelievable. She came running out of the door and he was half blocking the door, I can’t remember exactly only that we called the police. The police came over and announced, or the doctor announced ,he was dead. Heart attack. I was devastated. My mum went to pieces.
Then the funeral. People came down as they took him away in a steel casket. I walked around all night. I just couldn’t believe it. I just walked around. I phoned the army to tell them that my father had died and could I have compassionate leave and they said yes. I got seven days of leave and then got another seven but it took a very long time to get over that. I just walked and walked and walked and prayed to God that it wasn’t true, but it was.
I always remember the funeral. He was committed in Kingston and in those days when you went along in a funeral procession people stopped. Kids that came out of school took their caps off and stood to attention. I’ll never forget that day. And then we collected the ashes and scattered them where we used to go hunting. Lovely little place. That is the story of my father dying.”
ENTRY 2. BOYHOOD, THE GENESIS
“I was an absolute sod all of the time. I don’t know why, but I was always determined to beat the persons who was looking after me. I was a pain in the ass, a complete pain in the ass in my early years. When my sister was born, she was two years younger than me and we had a sloping driveway. I pushed her up the driveway in her pram and let her go. My mother went berserk. Got a clump over that. Our granny fed the chickens in the coop at the bottom of the garden. Once I crept up behind her, pushed her in it and locked the door. I was laughing as she screamed, “Let me out! Let me out!” But I was gone.
During the war we were evacuated. We all had tags around our necks, bloody things, like we was luggage. I was sent to Wales where I always being transferred from one auntie to the next so they could deal with me. Pushed from pillar to post in schools. Never had any learning at all. Always getting caned. Always in trouble. Nobody could look after me. I was a pain in the ass to everyone. I was with one auntie when I went out for a walk with my uncle. Just to cause havoc I threw a big rock into the river we were walking beside and it made a hell of a splash. My uncle kept calling my name, getting in a right panic thinking I’d fallen in. I was crouching in the bushes. He started looking all along the river. All the neighbors and all the people who are living by the river were out looking for me. Meanwhile, I tracked back home. It was dark when he came back.
“Graham’s fallen in the river and he’s missing,” he told my aunt.
Then, all of a sudden, I reappeared. He couldn’t believe it. They had me for about three days after that, then again I was turned away and put with another auntie.”
ENTRY 3. MEAT CLEAVERS & CARNAGE
“This is to do with the Richardson brothers that I had a row with. I had a fight with Eddie Richardson. It was a standup fight, a very good fight. We stood toe to toe for three minutes but neither of us won it. It was sort of a draw, but neither of us wanted to give up.
Well, my eyes were closed the next day so you know what kind of fight I’d been in. But I wasn’t contented with just having a fight. I wanted to go back. Finish it. We got the firm together, about twenty of us and went to the Richardson’s scrap metal yard. They were scrap metal dealers. I had a sorn off shotgun. We began marching from one yard to another. Then this bloody great lorry came around the corner and tried to run us over. I just got up against the wall – only just – before the bloody thing hit me. He meant to kill me. He went to kill me but he missed me by an inch. It was unbelievable. I took a potshot at the driver but didn’t kill him.
Then Eddie Richardson and Charlie Richardson came out and we started discussing the fight. Then Charlie went to the shed in the back of the yard and he came out with something in his hand with a bag over it. I looked at him and I thought, “he’s got a gun there,” at least I thought he had a gun so I blasted him good with my sorn off shot gun in his knee. What was in his hand was acid. It was a bottle of acid and it went over his father, it went over himself and it went over another fella. I reloaded the gun as I just had one cartridge.
“Now you fucking wanker,” I said to Eddie. “Now you’re going to have it next.”
Police sirens were coming in so we all scattered and we made out we was friends. Charlie and the other fella, they was in a state so they went back to the shed. We got into the cars and we just drove off.
They never forgave us for that. One night, three of us Terry, George and a fella called Lou Harris who wasn’t a fighter went down to the Bagelal night club in London because we was looking after the place. The doorman pulled us aside.
“We got problems down there,” he said to us.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, Charlie and Eddie Richardson is down there with about five people from the East End,” he said. “About twenty of them in all. They’re all sitting along the long table.”
“What they’re doing then?”
“They’re slinging rolls on the cabaret floor while the show is going on. Causing a nuisance, shouting and everything.”
I looked into the room, a large room, and yes, they were there. I thought, well I have to go over and say something but being a bit dark I didn’t quite see who was who. When I recognized the manager, Hogan his name was, Hagan the Hogan, I went over to him.
“Can I see you outside a minute?” I said and he followed me out. “Look, what are you doing Hagan? We’re looking after this place and we don’t need all this.”
“Oh yeah I know, I understand. You know, I’ll go tell the others to behave.”
“All right. Tell them we’re looking after it. You know, otherwise we’ve got to do something about it.”
So, I’m standing there talking and all of a sudden Eddie Richardson comes along and grabs my tie and sticks a knife up near my stomach.
“You’re the fucking bastard who shot my brother,” he said.
“No, it’s not me,” I said as I knew I didn’t have a chance. I was holding his wrist, stopping the knife going in. Terry and George saw the problem and ran out into the kitchen to get some weapons. Meanwhile, I was sort of saying, “I’m not the person you’re looking for.” I wanted to take time up so they could get something.
Then I see George and Terry come back holding meat cleavers. I aim a good right hander to Eddie’s chin. He went out of sight. I didn’t know if I’ve been stabbed or not. I wasn’t sure because you don’t feel a stab so much as a bullet, I suppose. I grab a meat cleaver off George and we went to work. We done some damage. We downed about eight or nine of them in split seconds. We just went into them and we cut’em to pieces. I remember George being at the top of the stairs stopping them from going out.
“George, for christ’s sake let them out!” I said. “Let them out!“
It was carnage everywhere. Blood and bodies all over the place. Anyway, eventually we got them all out. The carpet was squelching with blood. There was so much blood but there wasn’t a scratch on us three. We went outside to see if there was anyone around out of the main doors of the Bagetel. Blood went in every direction. There was streams of blood and they’d all left their coats in the club.
We knew we was like, you know, we was the victors. How we survived I don’t know, but we was. Just done it in quick time and made sure that we was not messing around.”
ENTRY 4. THE MURDER OF JACK BUGGY
I’ll tell you about a shooting now, which one of my friends, Jack buggy, was killed. It all started over a character called Wag, who was a very good friend of mine, but he started taking liberties . He turned a bit he funny in thinking he was the cat’s whiskers, although he was a good fighter.
So it all started over, as I said, over this fella Wag and I fell out with him. A couple of other people fell out with him and this guy had been my friend for twenty odd years. He first introduced me to the West End so this is how far we went back. So we had a meet with the twins – the Kray Twins -and we discussed it in full. They said let’s get rid of him. And I said well he’s got four children. I think he had three at the time. He was married and I didnt want this to happen to him although it could easily have been done. I said lets hit his pocket instead.
So it was left up to me in the end to decide what I wanted to do seeing as I had been a friend of his for many years. So I decided to bomb the club where he frequently went, where his uncle had a share and a few other friends who he was good friends with. So I made a bomb out of gelitnight and we timed it and put up behind the radiator. We just went in there and as we put it in the bomb went off or in a few seconds. Time enough for us to get down the stairs and get going.
Anyway the bomb went off and it blew the wall down and injured a guy who was sitting there. It wasn’t a big bomb but enough to do damage to the place, and it was a very nice place so we knew that by the bomb going off that they would lose their license.
So apparently there was very heavy discussion they had after the bomb as to who had done it. They came up with a guy called Jack Buggy. They discussed it and they said Jack was the culprit as they had fallen out with him even though Jack was a very nice guy.
There was a fellow in the club called Pinky who come from Brighton – he wasn’t a gangster or anything he was just a friend that hang around and he apparently rang Jack and told him they were accusing him of placing the bomb. Jack was furious because he had nothing to do with it.
The next day Jack came down to see Wag and a couple of other people who ran the club. In the heat of the moment he and Wag got arguing and got into loggerheads and Jack smashed Wag into the ground – although Wag could have a fight – Jack could have a better fight. Anyway, with that someone went upstairs and got a 38 hand gun. This is how the story went.
He came back with the gun and said to Jack, “Now you’ve had it, mate,” or something like that and he put three shots into Jack. Jack went down. They thought he was dead or he was nearly dead so they decided to wrap him up in a carpet and take it downstairs and put the carpet in the boot of the car which was a MGV. God knows how they got him into it but they did.
They took Jack down to a boat and went to put him on it but Jack was still alive. Jack tried to grab hold of Wag. This is how I hear it and Wag put another three shots into him and killed him stone dead. They got onto the boat and drove out to sea and dumped him over. Three weeks later a trawler was going through the water and it caught onto Jack. Up he come to the surface and as it happens, luck, or, I don’t know what it is, but there was two police men out for a days fishing and they pulled him in and went back to the harbor. That’s the first we knew of what happened to Jack and that the story I had been told was true.
They went to look for Wag to get revenge for killing Jack but Wag had disappeared. He went out of existence. We looked high and low for him to kill him but we was not successful in that-to do him what he done to Jack. Anyway I went to Jack’s funeral and it was sad because he was a good guy and that’s another story that happened to one my mates and it happened to many of them.
ENTRY 5. FEARLESS
“There wasn’t much of me, but I would do anything. I would kill. I would maim. I didn’t mind hurting would people. I was just not frightened. I didn’t mind getting hurt, suppose it came naturally. But then I used to wake up at night in sweats to see what I had — to realize what I’d done to people.”