I was still thinking of him that night as a helicopter picked me up to take me to base at Crossmaglen, where I was to collect my kit. Lawrence’s brother George climbed in beside me. There we were, two soldiers, one expecting to lose a brother, the other already having lost one just a few hours earlier. George hugged me and said, ‘Don’t worry, at least you should get to see your brother before he dies.’
We were transferred via the army’s casualty evacuation system all the way back to Inverness and then went our separate ways. When I had last spoken to Tam, I’d told him to make sure he enjoyed himself and that we’d have a few pints together when he was back. Now, I too was heading for Spain, wondering if we would ever stand at the same bar again. I wasn’t looking forward to what lay ahead.
* * *
It had been a bad crash. Paramedics had performed a roadside tracheotomy so he could breathe and their skill had helped save his life. At hospital, he underwent an emergency operation but his heart stopped twice on the operating table. He was in and out of a coma for months and once a Roman Catholic priest was brought in to give him the last rites.
There were many who believed it was the presence of his brothers and their love for him that helped him survive. Brotherly love can be a powerful force – the blood bond overwhelms other ties built on affection.
There is a little known story concerning two brothers belonging to a Glasgow underworld family. As one lay ill, his wife was bedded by his sibling. When the wronged brother recovered and discovered what had transpired, his animosity was aimed not at the other man but at his wife, who was blamed for taking advantage of her lover’s weakness. She was thrown out and divorced.
Alex got to spend a fair bit of time with his brother, and as the days went on he was getting stronger, not to the extent that he was OK, but just enough to survive. To what extent he would recover, nobody could tell. When he was sure Tam was going to pull through, he returned home and to the army. After a few weeks, Tam followed. He would continue his treatment at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow
While Tam lay recovering, it became apparent that the police were looking for both him and Pawny in connection with the post office robbery that had taken place a week before the brothers flew to Spain. Realising Tam was vulnerable, it was decided to spirit him out of hospital to a safe house where he could remain until he felt fit enough to face the police and a possible court trial. The safe houses turned out to be a series of caravans in sites dotted all over Scotland.
Before long he was caught when someone close to him told the police of his whereabouts. It was done solely out of greed for money. So he and Pawny had to face the music. They were charged with holding up the post office, but Pawny’s case was dropped due to a lack of evidence and the case against Tam was judged Not Proven. However, Tam still had years of healing ahead of him. And there were apparently a lot of people from Springburn happy at his situation.
Tam himself had heard about the premature celebrations. When he was in a really bad way, people were dancing on the tables. The McIntyres and their cronies were especially happy to hear he was in a coma and wasn’t expected to pull through. They certainly weren’t laughing when they discovered Tam was going to survive because they knew he and his friends would be looking for them.
Just days prior to Tam’s accident, Arthur Thompson had died in his bed from a heart attack. He was only 61. On the day of his funeral, someone planted a device in the cemetery at Riddrie, a few metres from his home, where he was to be buried, and telephoned the police. Bomb squad officers, called in to carry out a controlled explosion, discovered it was a crude hoax. The mourners included police officers, representatives from the legal profession and a host of shady underworld characters, some of whom were part of a delegation from London. His death, following that of Arty, brought an end to the empire. His surviving son, Billy, lacked the clout or reputation to stave off fighting over the Godfather’s territories and would ultimately suffer permanent brain damage as the result of a cowardly attack near his home.
It was inevitable that at the wake following Arthur’s funeral there would be talk of the killing of Arty and the murders of Bobby and Joe. And, of course, the name William Lobban kept coming up.
Following the arrest of the Glaswegians after the Torquay bank fiasco, the trials in Devon were aborted when word leaked out that one of the men had a pistol and would use it in court to effect an escape for the gang. As a result, it was decided to move the case to the Old Bailey in London, where security was tighter. Lobban was cited as a defence witness. He was already in custody, having been arrested in London and charged with escaping from prison, and then accused over the hold-up at the Pipe Rack bar in 1991. He agreed to give evidence, provided he was not named. But word was that some of the defendants had an extra motive for wanting to be near to Lobban. Michael Healy, for one, had not forgotten that it was Lobban who had allowed Paul Ferris into his home, carrying a gun. Nor who it was who had said Healy had been badmouthing Ferris. Blink McDonald, too, had similarly been put into the Ferris bad books as a result of rumours spread by Lobban.
Rumour reached the Shannons that Lobban had been set up, cited not so much for the reason of any usefulness he might have as a witness but simply in order that he could be murdered in prison. And there were plenty of takers.
Lobban would have known the risks when he went to London. Later on he told friends how in prison one morning he had gone for his water to make tea and was on his way back to his cell, carrying two pots filled with boiling hot water. He was conscious of people staring at him; guys had been looking daggers at him for days because obviously word had spread about the rumour that he might have been involved in Joe and Bobby’s murders. Then he had been called down to give evidence even though he had nothing to do with the bank robbery. People were trying to get him from Scotland to London so he could get nipped there. As he stood holding the pots, Gibby shouted, ‘Come near me and you’re getting boiling water over your faces!’ The incident was seen by warders and, although the other inmates left Gibby alone, he was moved into another wing and as soon as he had given evidence he was shipped back to Scotland.
The appearance of the not-so-mysterious ‘Mr A’ in the witness box was bizarre. Everyone in court knew his identity as William Lobban and that night word of what happened was the subject of bar gossip and laughter all over Glasgow. Blink McDonald, sitting in the dock, remembers Lobban arriving in the witness box clutching a Holy Bible and at one stage rebuking the jury for not giving him sufficient attention. Newspapers reported that ‘Mr A’ alleged Ferris had been responsible for the deaths of Arty, Bobby and Joe. In the end, Lobban was of no help.
All the robbers were destined to spend many years in prison. The following month, September, Lobban was sent down for six years for the Pipe Rack robbery. Eileen Glover, the pain over the loss of her husband still visible on a face wracked by grief, had determined to make him suffer; in her evidence, she had said that Lobban had told her the money counted out in her home came from the Pipe Rack hold-up. When she said she believed he had been involved in murdering Joe and Bobby, even if he was not the actual killer, he had shouted from the dock, ‘Eileen, Eileen, it wasn’t me.’ But it was not her he needed to convince. It was hundreds of others in the prison system with allegiances to the dead men and their friend, Paul Ferris.
The Shannons, too, had their issues with Lobban. Tam, still recovering from the Spanish nightmare, continued to rage over the gun threat against Pawny. And they had felt aggrieved by his moving his loyalty away from them towards Ferris, even though they had no grudges against Paul. In their opinion, though, it was better to keep their enemy close and so they continued to visit Lobban in prison.
Lobban entered Alex’s thoughts very rarely, though; his concerns were with his career and, even more so, Angie. As most couples do at some time or another, they found their marriage going through a difficult time. She was still not convinced he had severed his links with gangland, a belief that was co
rrect; however, he was determined to show her he had the desire and ability to build his career.
* * *
After the trials and tribulations of the previous two and a half years, I told myself things can only get better. I used to sing the words along with D:Ream, who had a huge hit with the song. I just couldn’t get the lyrics out of my head. They kept running around and around until I was sure someone was sending me a message. Perhaps things were on the up. I hoped so.
But it wasn’t to be. I was selected to go on my Platoon Sergeants Course, starting in January 1994, but after seven weeks of hard graft and then nearly being kicked off for fighting with another soldier, the selection board failed me for having a bad attitude. I was told it was not the way I was expected to carry myself as a future Senior NCO. It was a real blow and set me back a couple of years mentally. In hindsight, they were correct: my mind was still not settled. While I loved soldiering, I had a mouth and a temper to match, and in the army you need to learn quickly that there is a time and place to be seen and heard. I’m afraid I was a slow learner in this department and tended to challenge authority on behalf of everyone else; I could never just shut up and play the game like the rest of my close friends. I suppose I can say, ‘Look at me now.’ Although I was ostracised and criticised at times over the years, I still made it, and I’m proud of the way I did it.
During the summer that year, along with the rest of my company, I went to Cyprus for six weeks on a training course. It was an amazing experience and then, training over, we were allowed five days of freedom to go to Ayia Napa, one of the main seaside resorts on the island, for a spell of rest and recuperation.
When we arrived, we all hired mopeds and rode round like a gang of Hell’s Angels. One night, I was in one of the main nightclubs when I overheard a group of girls talking and could tell right away from their accents that they were from Glasgow. After a while, one of the girls came over and politely asked if I was one of the Shannons from Springburn. When I told her I was, she asked my name. ‘Oh, then you’re the one in the army,’ she said. ‘My brothers talk about you all the time. They think the world of you.’ My curiosity was really aroused, so I asked who the brothers were. ‘The McGoverns from Springburn,’ she said. I told her I had always felt the same way about Steven, Tommy and Tony.
We spent the next hour talking about what had gone wrong and who was behind all the mixing that led to the troubles of a few years earlier. Before we parted, she said that as soon as she was back in Glasgow she would tell her brothers about our talk. ‘They didn’t know the whole story,’ she said. ‘They were only getting one side, which was coming from Duncan and Joe McIntyre.’
She was true to her word. A month after returning from Cyprus, I received a message through a third party to the effect that Tony was asking for me, that all was well and he wondered if in the future we could meet up for the drink he had first suggested a few years earlier. Sadly, things happened that prevented me from accepting Tony’s invitation. I’d love to have spent an evening in his company, but by now I was totally focused on my career and adamant that after all the troubles of the past I was going to get myself in order and make a life for me, Angie and the kids with the army.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Each summer the royal family traditionally heads north to Balmoral Castle, a beautiful estate home near the town of Ballater in Aberdeenshire. The castle looks as though it’s been dropped in from a fairy tale, with its ivy-covered granite walls and spectacular turrets. Nearby lie fields packed with shaggy, long-horned Highland cattle and through which runs the River Dee, where the Duke of Edinburgh at one time loved to fish. In the distance, snow-covered hills and mountains look down on the scene. Balmoral is the personal property of the Queen. Frequently, she will invite guests to share this wonderful house with her. These may be members of other royal households and heads of state. On warm August days, royal parties will head off in search of game or a quiet hillside on which to picnic. Every year, she and her family work hard for these pleasures, but the annual holiday represents a security nightmare. Local police are augmented by members of the Metropolitan Royal Protection unit, which comes under the control of Protection Command, and at times of medium to high alert, members of the SAS will secretly hide out in the hills and woods surrounding Balmoral, but the task of showing high-profile security is left with the army. Each year, a regiment will be tasked with guarding Balmoral. It is a prestigious operation, giving ordinary soldiers unprecedented access to the royals. Hardly the setting for a man with a Glasgow gangland background; one accused of attempted murder and knife crime, no less, and with a criminal record. Yet in the summer of 1994 Alex found himself dancing with the Queen and enjoying a boozing session with the Queen Mother.
* * *
Guard duty at Balmoral? Totally fantastic. Something a soldier probably only gets to do once in a lifetime. We were in Inverness when the order came through that we would spend three months based at the Victoria Barracks in Ballater as the Royal Guard. We were divided into three platoons. One is Pony Platoon, going up into the hills to stalk deer with the royal party; the other platoons mainly do guard duty at the various entrances to Balmoral and within the area around the castle. Until you are tasked with duty at Balmoral, you cannot understand just how amazing a duty this is, not least because of the access you have to the royal family. Guys who are used to guard duty at Buckingham Palace just don’t understand how close Balmoral duty takes you to the most exclusive family in the world.
One of the highlights is the Ghillies’ Ball. Soldiers and some members of the police get invited and it gives you a chance to let your hair down and have a drink with the royals. Ghillies go out on fishing or stalking expeditions and ensure all goes well, offering advice and help when it is needed. They are glorified gamekeepers, really, but they are highly regarded and often chosen for their discretion and good manners. The ball is one of the highlights of the summer holiday at Balmoral.
I looked forward to the big night and made sure my uniform was immaculate, buttons and medals gleaming. When I arrived at the castle, I was told I was being given a very special task. I was to stand at the head of the staircase in the private accommodation area and wait for the Queen Mother. I was then to escort her all the way through the castle and down the staircase to the room where the ball was taking place. As I waited upstairs, I watched footmen calmly and professionally going about their business and I must have been there for up to an hour. As the time passed, I would now and then be offered a drink. Well, the night wore on and the drinks became more frequent. In fairness, I was tanning them. I’d had a couple before I started just to calm my nerves and was pretty close to being half cut when I spotted the Queen Mother making her way towards me. I tottered down the staircase with this wonderful and gracious lady on my arm and on reaching the bottom she asked if I would get her a gin and tonic. I did, and was about to leave when she told me just to stand there with her. And so I ended up standing with the Queen Mother for about an hour and a half, as the officers at attention behind us tried to find excuses to get me away. All the time, the Queen Mother was chatting to me. It was crazy. But she was brilliant.
Eventually, I went off to join in the ball. And here, to put it mildly, I made a bit of a mistake. For one of the dances, the females take the inside, with males outside, and you go in opposite directions. When the music stops, you dance with whoever is standing opposite you until the music stops again and then the whole thing begins over. I had joined in and was enjoying this when the music stopped and I discovered I was standing in front of the Queen. She put out her hands and told me, ‘It’s your lucky day.’ She stood waiting for me to take her hands and commence dancing. At my side was this old guy who must have been in his 70s. He was shaking with excitement. I felt sorry for him and said, ‘Ma’am, I hope you don’t mind, but I think he needs this more than me. It’s his lucky day this time. I’d like to step to one side.’ Then I just switched places with him.
I’m sure
the Queen looked stunned, but later on that night my chance did come again and this time I took it, dancing the Eightsome Reel with the Queen and Princess Anne. It was a truly unforgettable experience. Ask any soldier and they will tell you they love Balmoral guard duty. You get to experience the royal family at a very personal level and see how much they enjoy their holiday at Balmoral.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A few hundred yards from where I lay, I heard the sound of firing and knew what it was coming from. A farmer was blasting a shotgun into bushes. This wasn’t an idle waste of pellets; he was doing it just in case there were any soldiers lying in hiding. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see anything or anybody. He had probably heard whispers that an undercover army team was somewhere in the area hiding up, watching the home of a leading terrorist, reporting back on his movements, photographing and snooping. I hoped he wouldn’t come any closer. If he did, I would have to decide whether to give my little group away by taking evasive action, thus ruining a very well planned and vital operation. It was my operation and I wanted it to succeed, but this was South Armagh, danger country, where dozens of policemen and soldiers had been murdered simply because they wore a uniform. You never knew what to expect next.
And there we were, huddled in the middle of a gorse bush, tired, unwashed, stinking, cold, hungry, wet and cut off. We had been there for ten days. There were four still to go. I’d waited for eight before having a crap, and now that was in a bag inside my pack. ‘Leave nothing, not a trace,’ I had been told. I longed to feel a bog seat under my backside, taste a warm drink, eat hot food, lie in a bath, live like a human again instead of an animal.
It didn’t pay to move too much. I had sited us in the middle of gorse bushes. At night, rats and furry things ran over us. Things crawled inside our stinking clothes. I was hungry. My wife was leaving me. Maybe she had already gone, I had no way of knowing. But this was the life I had chosen, the one I had picked. I wondered whether Tam and Pawny had caught up with the McIntyres, if Lobban had done another runner, if there was a chance of holding onto Angie.
The Underworld Captain: From Gangland Goodfella To Army Officer Page 23