Pat leaned over to me. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I spend a couple of grand a week in here.’ How money talks. Still, Pat received a stern look and a quiet word from Mick – men like him and Dad like to keep a low profile, so turning over tables wasn’t quite their style.
Some of the other punters at the spieler really made me laugh. There was a lovely bloke called Stuttery John, who had the worst stutter in the world. One day when it was raining and the races were off, a couple of the guys, Bruce and Colin Buick, geed up someone to go against Stuttery John in a game of snap. The bloke readily agreed, obviously thinking John wouldn’t stand a chance getting the word ‘snap’ out quick enough. John lost the first few hands on purpose with exclamations of ‘Fu… fu… fu… fuck it!’ until his opponent got nice and comfortable. But what the other bloke didn’t know was, while John was terrible with ‘c’s and ‘k’s, he was fucking dynamite with ‘s’s. They were playing for money, and John wiped the floor with him. Seeing grown men gambling on snap was a sight to behold.
That lot were always on the hustle and would gamble on anything. I even remember them betting on which of several raindrops would run down the window the fastest, and on what fly would leave the wall first – ‘I’ll have a pony on the right one.’ That’s gamblers for you. Madness.
I was working in a proper den of iniquity, but I fell in love with it. The people I encountered were like characters out of Dickens. They came from all walks of life and were always friendly to me – as long as I did my job properly. Jovial and friendly as they were, there was one thing they were serious about: money.
I earned 50 quid a day chalking up, and then there were tips on top. Most days I’d take home between £150 and £250, six days a week, which was a fortune back then. The first time I got paid I went straight to a beautiful Italian deli in Earl’s Court and loaded up with as many goodies as I could carry – salamis, cheeses, smoked salmon, pate and good bottles of wine. I picked up a present or two for my sister, and then strode home proudly with it all. I laid the bags down in the kitchen in front of Mum, and when I handed her 50 quid I thought she was going to cry. ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’ I asked.
‘That’s just what your father would do,’ came her reply. It was a great, great feeling to finally be able to provide for the family for the first time, and I kept helping out as often as I could.
When summer was over and the new term started at Conti’s, I had grown so attached to the world I was moving in – not to mention the money – that I had a real job dragging myself away from it. In the end I struck a balance between my two lives, learning my craft by day and working down the spieler by night.
What a life I was leading. I felt like a prince in the city. London was a vast and varied playground; one moment I was with the luvvies at the National Theatre, the next I was part of an exciting and seductive subterranean world where lowlifes rubbed shoulders with the rich and powerful. It was a heady mix, and by the end of that year I was drunk on the experience of it all. In or out of acting school, the world felt truly like a stage.
But, as always, there was something missing. Dad. No matter what I did, I carried a void inside me. It gnawed away, though I suppose I learned to live with it to an extent. All I could do was try to be my usual, positive self. It had been six years now, and they’d been long years. Still, we’d always held on to the hope that Dad might be eligible for early release if he behaved himself. Some chance. Deep down, we felt the authorities would never give him parole.
But, when Christmas 1974 came around, some news arrived that made us feel as if all our Christmases had come at once. It was confirmed that Dad would be coming home. Having served over six years of his sentence, losing six months of remission for some misdemeanours, he would be released in ten months. Ten months and I’d have him back. After all we had been through, after all those years, we could all do the ten months standing on our heads. This would be our last Christmas without him.
My dad was coming home.
Overjoyed? Ecstatic? There isn’t one word that could do justice to the combination of relief and excitement – of pure emotion – we all felt as we celebrated our final Christmas without beloved Dad. Next year would be so different.
There was a big old tree, a ‘Tree of Heaven’, in our front garden that towered over our house. We loved that tree, and when ‘Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree’ had been a hit the previous year, me, Mum and Danielle never stopped singing it. The song is about men coming home, and the words really resonated with us. Even then, we were talking about what we’d do when Dad came out, and Mum said we’d get a massive yellow ribbon and tie it around our heavenly tree. I remember looking at the tree outside the window, and thinking, Yes, Dad would love that. Now, a year later, our lovely little daydream was going to become a reality. We’d be tying the ribbon in ten months. Or so I thought.
We never got to tie that ribbon. That winter our tree crashed into the front of the house during a storm. None of us was hurt, but looking back it was like a bad omen. One month after the tree fell, I was no longer anticipating Dad’s freedom. Suddenly I was facing the possibility of my father staying behind bars for life.
TRIAL OF A LIFETIME
The phone rang. It was Dad. ‘I’ve been charged with the Marks thing,’ he said to Mum. ‘You’d better get me a brief…’
The ‘Marks thing’ was about Ginger Marks, an East End face who had disappeared in 1965. Little did we know, but the police had been working the Marks case while Dad was doing his ten for McVitie, and now, just as he was about to get out, they wanted to charge my father with his murder.
The way they cornered Dad was pretty low. He was in the laundry one day when a couple of screws told him he had a visit, even though it wasn’t visiting day. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Not long before, Dad’s father had been ill and Dad had been given a compassionate day release to see him. The screws had surprised him then, and now they were back. Dad immediately accepted the visit, worried there was some more bad news about his family. He was taken into a room and instantly recognised the two men sitting there. Two police officers, Chalk and Troon. They said they wanted to talk about Ginger.
This was no visit: it was an interrogation. Dad had been set up and he wasn’t having any of it. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to any of you,’ he said. ‘Now let me out of here before I smash the door down.’
The screws realised Dad wasn’t mucking about, and took him back to the wing. Soon afterwards he was taken to Arbour Square Police Station in Stepney for questioning, but his only answer to whatever they came at him with was: ‘No comment.’ Next came the formal murder charge. Three of Dad’s friends and associates were also accused of being involved: Alf Gerrard, Jerry Callaghan and Ronnie Everett.
It was a terrifying situation. Just when we were about to get Dad back, there was a chance he would be snatched away from us again. Mum must have been even more worried than me, because she knew the full extent of Dad’s involvement with Ginger Marks. I didn’t know the details back then, but now I’m at liberty to tell what went down between my dad’s firm and Ginger.
It was a family matter that began in 1964. Ginger Marks was a close friend of a safe-blower called Jimmy Evans – a nasty bastard obsessed with guns and violence, and a jealous maniac to boot. My dad’s brother George had an affair with Pat Evans, Evans’s wife. Pat was scared of her husband, and fell deeply in love with George. They used to meet secretly at a flat in Stepney, but nevertheless Evans grew highly suspicious and found out what was happening. He vowed to track down my uncle George and kill him.
After a failed attempt by Evans to shoot George at the Stepney flat – George was outside and talking to several people, so Evans bottled it – he got hold of a sawn-off shotgun and decided to do the job at George’s marital home. Evans wanted an accomplice, and that’s where Ginger Marks came in.
Another of their associates, David Norman, drove Evans and Marks to Uncle George’s flat in Lambeth Walk.
It was dark, and, having removed the lightbulb from George’s landing, the two men went to work. Marks knocked on the door while Evans waited out of sight. George answered, and Marks pretended he had the wrong address before going away. They’d established my uncle was in. Now it was Evans’s turn.
A second knock on the door. As it opened, Evans stepped forwards and blasted George point-blank in the groin with both barrels of the sawn-off. The impact sent him flying to the back of the hallway. George would have died if it hadn’t been for a Polish neighbour who heard the blast and phoned an ambulance. It took several operations to fix him. Dear George narrowly escaped a leg amputation, and in the end was left with one testicle and a big chunk out of his leg.
Dad rushed to the hospital and was angered and devastated by what had happened. The brothers had always been so close, and seeing George lying at death’s door made Dad hungry for one thing: revenge. He leaned down and whispered in George’s ear. ‘Give me a name,’ demanded Dad.
‘Ginger Marks and Jimmy Evans.’
Dad was the only person George said a word to. There was no way he was going to grass to the police, even on someone who’d tried to kill him. It’s the way of the underworld. The underworld metes out its own justice, its own retribution, and it was up to Dad to make sure the job got done. It wasn’t long before he received a tip-off that gave him his chance.
Evans was set to rob a jeweller’s in Bethnal Green, and Marks would be with him along with three others. The date was set for 2 January 1965. All Dad had to do was wait. The night came. With Alfie driving, they followed Evans’s crew to the jeweller’s, then sat it out until the moment was right. The opportunity came when Evans and Marks walked past Dad’s car. Alfie rolled out and drove up behind them slowly.
Dad wound down his window and called Marks’s name. As Ginger stopped and turned, Dad emptied his .38 revolver. Ginger went down straight away, but Evans acted quickly and used Ginger’s body as a shield until he had the chance to make a run for it. Alfie gave chase, but Evans got away.
What happened didn’t stop him coming back, though. A couple of days later, Evans and his firm returned to the scene of the crime to attempt the jewellery robbery again. Stupid bastard – he was the key witness to a murder inquiry, for fuck’s sake. Little did he know it but he was under constant surveillance. Surprise, surprise, he and his crew got nicked.
Dad’s firm were all questioned about Ginger’s murder, but what they didn’t know was that Evans had already snitched, naming Dad, Alfie, Jerry Callaghan and Ronnie as culprits. But the police hadn’t enough evidence to arrest them. For one thing, they didn’t have a body. But they all knew that Evans was scared. After all, he knew Freddie Foreman still wanted him dead. His fear sent him into self-preservation mode. The more public Evans made himself, the less likely anyone would be to touch him. He was happy to be featured in newspaper articles about the Marks murder: I’ve seen the photos of him pointing out bullet holes in the walls.
After being overheard boasting about it, Evans twice went to court accused of shooting my uncle George and possessing a firearm (which had been found in his home). He was acquitted both times. This might have had something to do with my uncle never agreeing to testify against Evans, but my dad suspected Evans got off because he was cooperating with the police, possibly over the Marks murder.
The police had their suspicions about Dad’s involvement with Marks, but others were suspected too, and Dad never got nicked for it. Three years later, in 1968, Dad was arrested for Mitchell and McVitie and given his ten years.
In 1972, Evans was charged with the murder of William Fernie, a Scottish carpenter. The bloke had nothing to do with the underworld: he was doing nothing more than mucking about with a few mates, surrounding the car of Evans’s common-law wife, Anick Webb. For this, Evans decided to stab Fernie and he died instantly. He beat the murder charge but got seven years for manslaughter in 1973. While Evans was on remand, the police asked him further questions about the Marks affair, and my dad is convinced that this was the time he struck a concrete deal with them. We all are. Maybe it’s a coincidence that Evans served only three of his seven years and happened to be the key witness in the Ginger Marks inquiry, but somehow I doubt it.
Evans is a grass and he’ll die a grass. It’s thanks to him – and only him – that my uncle George nearly died, and that my dad was suddenly facing a trial that could rob him of his freedom for life. Evans was prepared to sacrifice the liberty of other men to save his own skin, and it’s disgusting, pure and simple.
I was devastated when Mum told me that Dad had been charged. The dark clouds were back again. All the optimism I’d had about him getting out vanished and I was left with a feeling of pure dread. I was old enough to know what a life sentence meant – 15 years minimum. How the fuck was I – how the fuck were any of us – going to cope with that? That we might lose Dad again felt like the sickest joke in the world.
But I didn’t go to pieces. None of us did. The news of the charge and the impending trial took a terrible toll on us, but we held it together. Sitting around depressed has no value in such a situation. There are times when you have to keep going; you have to fight tooth and nail against the demons in your head and keep moving forward. I was older now. I’d been through this before, and now I’d do it again, and do it better.
I’d be lying if I said my dad being accused of murder didn’t bother me. It did, but only at first. After all, I had never heard of Ginger Marks, and didn’t understand what had occurred. But once everything was explained to me and I understood why my father had taken a certain course of action, I can honestly say I had no conscience to wrestle with. If that sounds bad, so be it. I knew that Dad did what he did for a reason, and a good reason at that. My father is my father, and I know he has never – and would never – take unjustified action against another man. That’s why I would stand by my dad no matter what.
Dad was moved from the Scrubs to Wandsworth, and we went to visit him at the first opportunity. There he was with that same old wink and a smile.
‘It’s all a get-up,’ he said. ‘We’ll beat this, don’t you worry. They haven’t got anything.’
Knowing what he knew, Dad must have been sick with worry, but he didn’t let on for a second. As always, he was a pillar of strength in front of me and Mum. Even so, there were things we needed to discuss. The cogs for building his defence needed to be set in motion, but we couldn’t say a thing thanks to two screws noting down every word we said.
‘Is this how it’s going to be?’ said Dad, looking at the screws.
‘’Fraid so, Fred. This is what we’ve been told to do.’
‘Well, fuck this then.’
Dad turned to us. ‘Listen, don’t bother coming back here. I’ve only got a few more months and then they’re going to move me to Brixton on remand. We’ll get proper open visits there, so let’s save it till then, eh?’
Mum agreed; me too. Desperate as I was to see Dad and help in any way, being glared at by a bunch of nosy screws made it impossible. We said our goodbyes and left. Anyway, there was plenty to be done on the outside. The machine went to work, as it had done for Dad’s previous trials.
The committal came around – a hearing to decide whether the case went to trial or not. It was my first time in court and I’ll never forget what it felt like seeing Dad and his firm entering the room. Alfie, Ronnie and Jerry walked in and stood in the dock, and then my dad was brought in, handcuffed to two of the biggest screws you’ve ever seen. Dad flashed us a smile as he sat down in front of the three chaps. So strong, so relaxed: Dad’s demeanour was formidable. The accused all nodded to each other as proceedings began.
Chalk and Troon, the two coppers who had interviewed Dad in Wormwood Scrubs, got up to say their bit first. Referring to their interview notes, the officers began by asserting that, when questioned about Ginger Marks and Jimmy Evans, my father had called Evans a ‘git’ and said, ‘One of these days I’ll shut him up for good.’ This was su
pposed to prove a link between Dad and Ginger.
Now, people from my father’s world may use many strong words, but ‘git’ is not one of them! It’s such a police word – the kind of thing you hear on telly – and I’ve never heard it used by anyone from my neck of the woods. The idea that Dad would have used ‘git’ in reference to a bloke who’d just grassed him up is laughable, let alone saying that he’d ‘shut someone up for good’ to two policemen. As soon as the cozzers opened their mouths, it was obvious to anyone who knew my dad that their evidence was unconvincing. But there was nothing we could do about it. Not yet, anyway.
Evans stood up and said a few words.
Another witness was brought in. His name was Smith, and Evans had solicited him to give evidence against Dad. He took the stand, and what happened next blew me away. Just before the hearing I’d been introduced to a bloke named Harry, who was there with us. He’d looked very pumped up but I thought nothing of it as we took our seats in the gallery. It wasn’t until the prosecutor, Mr Matthews, began to question Smith that the penny dropped. Smith kept looking towards the gallery, his eyes directed at Harry. Every time Smith looked up, I saw Harry slowly shaking his head. It turned out that Harry was Smith’s brother. Harry was a friend of my dad’s, and it was just like the scene in The Godfather when they bring the old boy from Sicily over. Needless to say, Smith reneged on his statement. So, right away we’d managed to cut one bit of evidence off at the knees. He was a good man, Harry. We are still close to his family, God rest his soul.
With one witness down I felt a glimmer of hope that the case might not go to trial. Wishful thinking, really. The judge committed my dad, Alf, Ronnie and Jerry to trial several months down the line at the Old Bailey. Shattering news.
I looked at Dad as he was led towards the door and prayed there would be a way out of this. He still looked calm and collected, but suddenly everything changed. As Dad was about to pass Chalk and Troon, he yanked at his handcuffs and lurched forwards, bringing the two screws with him until he was level with the two policemen. He was wild with rage.
Gangsters, Guns & Me - Now I'm in Eastenders, but once I was on the run. This is my true story Page 8