The Underworld Captain: From Gangland Goodfella To Army Officer

by Alexander Shannon

  After driving through Possil up to Springburn to Colston Church, we discovered the gates were locked. Despite my hired suit and hat, I clambered over, managed to find the door into the vestry and asked the minister to open the gates. The wedding was at half past three and it was quarter past already. He told me to calm down, that everything would be all right. And it was. He opened the gates, everyone walked in and the wedding went off perfectly. Afterwards, at the reception, in my speech I said, ‘I know a lot of you don’t get on with each other, but for my sake can we just have this one night without any trouble?’ And that was it. I sat down and everybody did as they were asked.

  The day after the wedding we were to travel to Gourock, where we had paid £400 to spend our honeymoon in a really nice hotel. But we both woke up the next morning hungover and decided not to go. To be honest, I think we were still shy with one another and apprehensive about how we would feel being alone together for a few days in strange surroundings. We had never been away before and so instead stayed with Angie’s mum. She pushed two single beds together for us and laughed as she said to me, ‘Now you may stay in the room after ten o’clock. I’ll be the one to sleep on the settee.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In early 1985, Alex was deployed to West Germany. He left behind a city in which drugs were spreading like an epidemic. Heroin was rearing its foul head and leaving an increasing number of casualties in its wake. As the death toll among the young mounted, police had limited success in tracking down distributors – it would be some time before they were geared up to the size of the challenge. They relied for much of their information on a network of informants, most of whom were themselves involved in the trade. One high-profile arrest was that of Arty Thompson. He was given a heavy sentence for heroin dealing, and while in jail he made himself unpopular by making threats against not only other inmates but also former associates on the outside – one of whom was Paul Ferris. A target himself with the police, Ferris had been making a profitable living through his work for Arty’s father, Arthur Thompson. During one brief spell of incarceration, Ferris also met up with William Lobban.

  * * *

  Alex and Angie had talked over their long-term plans and decided that after his posting to Germany was completed Alex would leave the army and the couple would settle in Glasgow. Angie was to remain in Scotland with her mum while he did his soldiering, their reunions limited to whenever he was able to get leave. However, hanging over them were the potential consequences of the charges following the Sauchiehall Street brawl. And Alex was about to continue his flirtation with crime, not content to have just escaped career-ending punishment for his Falkland Islands scams.

  Alex was posted to West Germany in March, but within a few days he realised he was missing Angie and wanted her by his side. He discussed his unhappiness with her in a series of telephone calls and discovered, to his secret delight, that she felt the same, so the young couple agreed to change their plans and he began the process of applying to his superiors for married quarters. During a short leave home, he was able to tell Angie these would be ready for them a fortnight after he returned, giving her time to arrange to quit work and join him.

  On the return journey, Alex found himself surrounded by Liverpool supporters on their way to the Heysel Stadium in Brussels for the 1985 European Cup final against the Italian stars Juventus.

  * * *

  I travelled by bus and train right through Germany to Zeebrugge in Belgium, where I caught a ferry to Dover, then used bus and train back to Glasgow, doing the same in reverse when it was time to report back. I had stayed too long in Glasgow with Angie and knew I would be in trouble when I got back to base for being a couple of days overdue. I was thinking about her and what I would say when I reported back, and probably daydreaming a bit on the ferry when I realised I was surrounded by crowds of Reds supporters. Glaswegians and Liverpudlians usually relate well to one another and I was wishing them the best of luck for the final. I got on especially well with a couple of Scousers – I could tell straight away they were a pair of scallywags, the sort I would run about with back home. I was 19 then, and they were slightly older than me, probably in their mid-20s. I was a really keen footballer, a centre-forward, but didn’t know about football in England. One of the things that made them laugh was that I didn’t even know Everton was a team from Liverpool! Everton could have been in London, for all I knew. As you can imagine, that went down a treat with them – the equivalent of an Englishman telling Rangers fans he thought Celtic were from Edinburgh or Dundee.

  These guys, though, were not Reds but Everton supporters. They were going to the Heysel all right, but seemed to have thought up a bizarre way of getting revenge on their rivals from across Liverpool by stealing from them. They admitted they were basically a pair of pickpockets and had already made a few hundred pounds. They were hoping to make more and thought the whole scam was hilarious. They reckoned they’d pull a few final tickets as well, leaving Liverpool fans looking glum and ticketless. We sat drinking for virtually the whole of the crossing and when we docked in Belgium I discovered my train wasn’t until half three in the morning, with theirs slightly later. So, rather than waste time hanging about, off we went in search of some more pubs and it wasn’t long before we ended up starting to pickpocket as a team of three. Since I had already been at this in Glasgow when I was younger, I knew what I was doing. So I did the stalling, acting as the diversion, while they were in and out of the pockets of victims.

  They must have done about ten guys in Zeebrugge and made a fortune. They kept handing things to me and I found myself holding something like nine tickets to get into the game. I actually wasn’t doing it for money or to be able to get to the final, it was just because I thought they were good guys. At the end of it, they had a lot of money and tried to give some of it to me. I told them no thanks, so they said to come along with them to the stadium. Unfortunately, I was already overdue returning from leave, so going to the match would just make it worse. One of the guys – Dave, as I remember – and I exchanged addresses and off they went to the game.

  It’s well known what happened. An hour before kick-off a concrete wall separating the two sets of fans collapsed, killing 39 people, most of them from Italy but including a Liverpool fan from Northern Ireland. More than 600 were left injured. Fearing violence if the match was called off, the authorities allowed it to go ahead and Juventus won 1–0. In the aftermath, Belgium was banned from hosting a major European final for ten years, while English clubs were banned for five years from European club competitions.

  Back at camp, I was given seven days’ Restriction of Privileges, which basically meant I was fucked about from dusk until dawn, given any crappy task that happened to come into the mind of my superiors, in particular the provost sergeant, who seemed to have a downer on me for some reason. For example, I had to parade at the guardroom at seven in the morning, twelve in the afternoon and six at night, basically just to get messed about. And then I ended up getting another seven days added to my original seven because somebody wrecked the provost sergeant’s car. Word got back to him that I had done it and for the next seven to ten days I was going down there every day and getting set about by him. I just had to stand there and take it, and he kept adding days on and adding days on. I was waiting for Angie, who was coming over in a few days, and I couldn’t afford for her to arrive with me still on some form of discipline, so I couldn’t say or do anything. Every day I was getting mucked about by that arsehole. He was quite a tall, well-built guy, with a bit of a reputation, but I hadn’t touched his car at all. Somebody had tanned it simply because they didn’t like him and I got the blame.

  I was in the Officers’ Mess one night, as part of my Restriction of Privileges, cleaning silver but also watching the big game on television when the horror of Heysel unfolded in front of me. All I could think about was Dave and his mate. Next day, I fired off a note to Dave at the address in Liverpool he had scribbled down for me to see if he was
OK, asking him to drop me a line. I was relieved a couple of weeks later when I got a letter from them, saying they were all right. They were a pair of brilliant guys.

  Angie found it tough going when she first arrived in Germany. We had nothing when we moved into married quarters – nothing except what she was able to carry in three suitcases. We had even lost our wedding presents by giving them to a friend to look after. She had got involved in drugs and had sold them. The army had provided a settee and some cutlery, but we had to build everything else up from scratch. It took a while, and yet we got there eventually. We had no help from anyone, and in a way I’m glad because that meant I didn’t have to thank anybody.

  We quickly settled into a routine, finding the social life vibrant and fun. There were bars in camp but most soldiers and their wives preferred going into nearby towns, where there were discos and dances, and prices were cheap. I soon found myself in demand as a footballer, playing twice a week and being called on to take the field against visiting teams, including Hibs, when a pre-season tour took them to Germany. But there was even bigger news around the corner.

  Angie had only been in Germany a couple of months when she discovered she was expecting our first child. We were young and newly married and realised everything had to change. So as soon as we found out she was pregnant, we made a vow that we would ensure any kids we had now or in the future would not suffer in the way we had at times in our childhood. This was a new start for us, our lives would never again be the same, and we wanted to get the decks cleared of any past problems. I wanted to prove myself one of the best soldiers in the regiment and be taken seriously.

  One problem looming on the horizon was my pending appearance before Glasgow Sheriff Court to answer charges following the street fracas. The case had been delayed because we were living in Germany, but I had indicated to the authorities in Glasgow that we could get leave shortly before Christmas and would travel over.

  We had no money to pay for a solicitor, so when we appeared in court on 19 December 1985, it fell to me to defend us. I was charged with a breach of the peace and assault, and Angie with a breach of the peace. I had no experience or knowledge in this field, but knew I was innocent. I wanted to show I had done nothing wrong and that the police had charged the wrong person, but, like so many before me and since, I learned that when it comes to a policeman’s word against that of a civilian, there is always going to be one winner, regardless of whether the civilian is innocent or guilty.

  We pleaded not guilty but were convicted of all charges; however, the sheriff took a shine to me and told me he was impressed with my defence and the fact that we had travelled all the way from Germany, paying for our flight from our own pockets. In addition, I made sure the court could see Angie was showing how heavily pregnant she was. He admonished us on all charges, to the very obvious dismay and disgust of some of the police officers I was supposed to have assaulted. Of course, I didn’t point out that the army had flown us back to the United Kingdom for annual leave over the Christmas period. It all ended well, but I had yet another conviction to add to my list.

  After Christmas, we headed back to Germany. The next 18 months were demanding on both of us. Our son, Thomas, was born on 3 April 1986.

  In hindsight, I would say this period of time was to be the foundation block on which I built my career as a soldier. It began with me doing a course at Warminster, near the great army training area of Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. It lasted eight weeks and the content was military communications and Morse code. I excelled in both and felt I had taken my first tentative steps onto the promotion ladder – and was over the moon when I was promoted to lance corporal. News that our next deployment would be to Northern Ireland came in 1987. I had known that at some stage we would be going there; now it was confirmed.

  Angie and I made every effort to get back to Glasgow when time or money would allow it. It was always good to be home, but I stayed well clear of criminal friends, with the exception, of course, of Tam and Pawny.

  William Lobban had been jailed for six years for his part in an armed robbery on a Group 4 security van. He was a model prisoner, realising that keeping his head down and obeying the rules was the surest way of guaranteeing maximum remission of the sentence.

  Tam had been out of the scene for a while after being jailed in 1984 for possessing a shotgun. Now he was out and had immediately linked back up with Pawny, who was starting to get more involved in things, mainly on the drugs scene. They were both earning names for themselves as young men who could be trusted, and their reliability brought them to the notice of major players in London, who reckoned they were a steady team with whom to do business.

  Sometimes when we’d gone for a drink while I was on leave, their London friends would show up. I never really knew who all of them were, but it was clear from the way they behaved that they were in some way involved in crime. For instance, they were so wary of strangers, wanting to know the name of anybody who showed up unexpectedly. They spoke little and softly, making sure nobody could overhear, and had a hard look about them. These were men who had chosen a life that constantly put their freedom at risk, so it was hardly surprising they were so distrustful. It was only in later years I learned their names. I was only being drawn in on the social side but was conscious that when we went out, people would stare and whisper questions about me. Who was I? What was I doing? When they learned I was in the army, I guess they wondered just how proficient a man I was with weapons. I merely stayed in the background.

  By mid-1987, the regiment was preparing for the forthcoming tour of West Belfast in November. I had hardly seen my wife for much of the year. In between courses, we were on exercise or training, and because I represented the regiment at football, most weekends were spent playing in competitions all over Germany. Looking back, I suppose it was unfair on Angie.

  That summer, Glasgow Rangers visited the region and when I realised Robert Fleck was in the party, I kept going on about my mate who played for Rangers. It was clear those around me were sceptical; I was sure they thought I was simply boasting to make a good impression on them. Eventually, however, I persuaded them to travel and watch Fleck and the others in action. It was a journey that took several hours deep into Germany.

  As Fleck was coming off the team bus at the stadium, I was shouting, ‘Rab! Rab!’ but he just nodded his head and walked straight by me. I was raging. He’d embarrassed me in front of all my pals, yet the two of us had been good mates. I used to go and play five-a-side with him. Even though he was playing for Rangers, we’d go into the ash parks at Possilpark secondary school, so we kind of grew up together. He stayed on Sunnylaw Street and I lived in Burmola Street. Then I’d seen him every day with his then girlfriend when I was working on the YTS scheme. We knew each other really well. I felt snubbed.

  * * *

  With West Belfast looming fast, I was instructed, at short notice, to return to Warminster, this time to complete a communications instructor’s course. It would last six weeks, and two days later I was on my way with the rest of the regiment to Ulster. The date was 14 November 1987.

  Six days earlier, during a Remembrance Day ceremony at the war memorial in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, a bomb planted by the Provisional IRA exploded, killing 11 people and injuring more than 60 others, some seriously. News of the outrage caused worldwide horror and revulsion, while the moving story of how Gordon Wilson held the hand of his daughter Marie as she lay dying beneath the rubble led to intense feeling against the Provos. Partly due to the hatred engendered by the bombing, on the day the regiment arrived and made its way to its base in North Howard Street, James Molyneaux, then leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and Ian Paisley, then head of the Democratic Unionist Party, were attending a protest rally against the Anglo-Irish Agreement in Hillsborough. It was a bad omen for the new arrivals. To outsiders, nobody seemed to want peace in the province and the soldiers were in the middle of it all.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  My
first experience of Belfast left me wondering just how crazy the black humour of soldiers could be. On one of my earliest patrols, we had left a police station in a team of four. I don’t know whether the other guys were winding me up, but we were heading up the Falls Road away from the police station when they disappeared left down an alleyway and left me walking alone in the street. I turned around, wondering where they were, and heard cars beeping their horns.

  ‘Where the fuck are they off to?’ I asked myself. I had to run across the Falls Road and down a lane, shouting, ‘Where are you? Where the fuck are you?’ I eventually found them after seeing them about 300 metres away. When I caught up with them and asked where they were, they looked at me as if to say, ‘Who’s he?’ They were like, ‘What’s up, mate? What’s the matter?’ I reckon they had been playing a game with me.

  * * *

  Maybe his attitude to soldiering in Northern Ireland at a time when civilians and troops were being blown up and needlessly slaughtered on a near daily basis had made colleagues decide to put his apparent indifference to danger to the test. In fact, his hard upbringing and his scrapes on the tough streets of Glasgow had equipped him well for patrolling the deprived Belfast estates where Republicanism and a hatred of the British thrived. It was simply that neither he nor Angie showed the worry that lurked within.

  * * *