The three of us became inseparable, along with Pandy’s brother Nick, who I nicknamed Paz. Our favourite watering hole was a club on the King’s Road, Chelsea, called J Arthur’s. We lived and died in that place. It was a real hotspot, frequented by a lot of Dad’s friends, including the Dennis brothers, Roy and Jerry, John Bindon, Terry De Havilland, the famous shoe designer, and my old friend Roy Nash, so I was always well looked after. And you’d find yourself sitting in the restaurant area next to Elton John and Freddie Mercury. I loved it down there.
I also went drinking with my South London pals – smart guys who were all at it and good money-getters. It was the late seventies, people had a bit more money in their pockets, and South London was once again buzzing with its own hotspots – blinding pubs that were just as my dad’s had been ten years before. Anyone from South London will remember the Gladstone, Lymans and the Southwark Park Tavern – all legendary places that played fantastic music. But, when it came to music, Lymans was king. They had all the best 12-inch imports, from disco to funk to jazz. We’d drink to the sound of Donna Summer, Earth, Wind & Fire, Change, George Benson and McFadden & Whitehead. ‘Ain’t No Stopping Us Now’ was a favourite, and in many ways the song sums up how I felt in those heady days.
And then there were the other clubs I frequented. In those days you really could get a drink in London 24 hours a day. On any particular night I might go from one club in Mayfair – often Legends – to another in Soho, to the old Embassy off Piccadilly, to Tramp in Jermyn Street, then end up in Reilly’s club near Pentonville Prison in the Caledonian Road, or a drinker that Alfie Gerrard, Dad’s best friend, had in Islington.
Sunday was always a lovely day. All the chaps and their families would congregate at the Grange, a lovely little boozer run by my auntie Mary and uncle Tom. We’d listen to Sinatra, Jolson and all the jazz standards before having a sing-song until the roast potatoes were ready. Just like we did, they also used to make them extra salty so you’d drink more, and it made for a wonderful atmosphere. Everyone would head over to the Ringside, a restaurant in Old Street owned by former British boxing champion Vic Andretti. Vic’s place did an unbeatable Sunday lunch. Sundays were a true day off: everybody was relaxed and life couldn’t have been better.
Throughout those electrifying times, girls were always flitting in and out of my life, and I had many, many dalliances, but I was never serious about anyone in particular. Always very wary of committing, I preferred to keep my options open, and I suppose I was a bit of a player for a while. But all of that changed one day when I was having a drink in the Southwark Park Tavern.
I happened to glance up as the door opened, and in walked the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. A cross between Ursula Andress, Bo Derek and Christie Brinkley, she was perfection on legs, a South London girl who looked like she was from California. ‘She’ turned out to be 17-year-old Julie Dennis, one of London’s hottest models, who featured in the biggest ads of the day. Back then, Julie’s face was everywhere – billboards, magazine and telly commercials – and she was making a great name for herself. My jaw dropped to my chest. In that moment I knew I was looking at the woman I had to be with. As anyone in love knows, when you know, you know, and boy did I know.
But there was just one problem. While I was footloose and fancy free, Julie was in a relationship. Worse still, her boyfriend turned out to be one of my mates, and there was no way I was going to go stepping on anyone’s toes.
Oh well, I thought, good things come to those who wait. I’ll catch up with her one of these days. So I decided to bide my time.
Well, I did quite a bit of biding, but it was worth it. Eventually, Julie split from the fellow and I had my chance. Having known each other for quite a while, we had become good friends. But now I could let her know how I really felt and so I asked her out. Luckily, she felt the same and said yes. My heart soared. I’ll never forget our first date. Julie wore a sky-blue parachute-silk jumpsuit. It had zips everywhere, including a long one down the front, which she wore provocatively low. I spent the whole bloody night trying desperately not to get caught staring at her wonderful cleavage. I still tremble at the memory.
With her beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes, she looked breathtaking. I took her to Legends and we danced to Johnny Mathis’s ‘Gone, Gone, Gone’. It felt like the start of a beautiful relationship.
How life had changed. I had Dad, I had money, I had family. I was thriving in a world of contrasts and I was in love. Everything was rosy, and for the first time in years I felt truly happy and at ease.
THE PACKAGE
I wasn’t sure what, but I could tell Dad was putting something together. There was no question something big was going down. I could feel it.
My first inkling came on a family holiday to Cyprus. After a few days of relaxing, Dad announced he was slipping off to India. He didn’t say why he was going, and we all knew better than to ask. Dad’s business was his business, and we were too busy enjoying the delights of Cyprus to worry about prying. A few days later, Dad was back on the island, and laden with some of the most beautiful silk shirts I’d ever seen. He told us about the wild beauty of India, and left it there. Naturally, I did wonder what business had taken him to India, but that was anyone’s guess. I concluded one thing, though: he wasn’t there to check out the silk trade.
When we got back to London, it was business as usual. Almost, anyway. I was still driving Dad everywhere, but even more often than before – he’d managed to lose his licence and I’d managed to pass my test, so he needed me more than ever. This suited me fine, as there was nothing I wouldn’t do to help him.
We kept on doing the familiar rounds, the various meets, but there was a subtle difference in the way Dad went about his business. In the past he had never been complacent about his security – we’d always kept an eye out for anyone on our tail, and our noses on alert for danger – but now Dad was suddenly being extra vigilant about covering his tracks. There was a seriousness about him that told me something big was being planned, and he soon trained me up to be even more careful as I moved around.
Instead of dropping Dad at a meet and waiting for him outside, I’d be told to drive off and meet him elsewhere, sometimes the other side of town. We stopped turning up to meets at someone’s front door, but would pull up round the block and walk down a few alleyways and enter via the back garden. We’d swap cars regularly, often once or twice a day, and walk into Underground stations only to emerge minutes later on the other side of the street. I asked no questions, but still lapped up every minute of those surreptitious days.
One thing I knew was Dad wasn’t being paranoid. It was Mum who noticed that, as Dad and I left the house each morning, two suspicious-looking guys – obviously cops – would emerge from the house opposite and jump into a car. We were being followed all right, and accordingly I became a master of the U-turn. At first, Dad would tell me when to turn, but soon enough I developed an intuition for when was the right time. There we’d be, driving along in silence, eyes in the rear-view, and I’d spin round at just the right moment, put my foot down and pull over at a nearby café. We’d have a cup of tea, keep a lookout and only move once sure the coast was clear.
All the subterfuge didn’t faze me one bit. This was pure, unadulterated excitement. The way we moved around reminded me of the word ‘tradecraft’, often found in the novels of John le Carré or Len Deighton, referring to espionage techniques. Sure, I wasn’t a cold-war spy, but the myriad ways I covered my tracks sure as hell made me feel like one. There was an undeniable romance and drama to those days that the actor in me grew addicted to. Not being able to tell anyone about it, and the mystery of why we were creeping about, only added to the thrill of it all.
A lot of plotting and planning went on, and there was one man in particular Dad and I began to spend a lot of time with – Colin ‘Duke’ Osbourne. As I later discovered, it was thanks to Duke that Dad became involved in the mysterious adventure I was on the periphery of
. Dad and Dukey went way back to the 1960s. Over the years, Duke had established himself as a fine armed robber – a real money-getter – and in the East End he was known as the man who looked after the Krays’ arsenal. But Dad had lost touch with him, and it was chance that brought them back together.
Dad got wind of a man who was frequenting one of his little spielers on the Old Kent Road and regularly losing a fortune. The bloke had gained such a reputation for losing that punters were literally queuing up to beat him. He was giving away untold fortunes, so Dad became intrigued to find out who it was. Lo and behold, it was Duke.
Duke was a true character. Very tall and lanky, in his mid-forties with long hair, he dressed impeccably – a sort of gentrified hippy look – and lived in a beautiful penthouse apartment in Sutton. We used to call him ‘Pasha’ as he was like a Turkish prince, always playing host to a harem of young people who gathered at his home to while away the time and listen to Duke’s stories of underworld adventure. Duke was a true raconteur, forever drinking vast quantities of strong tea and never tiring of company. He was a flirtatious man, who had a penchant for young men, but once we’d established I wasn’t that way inclined we became great friends.
It soon became clear where Duke was getting his money from: cannabis. He’d moved into supplying it in a big way, and that meant hefty paydays. Like so many armed robbers at the time, Duke had stopped going out on the pavement in favour of supplying ‘puff’ to a booming market. Times had changed for armed robbers – Dukey had done seven years for a past robbery, but knew full well that getting done for a similar offence in the late seventies meant a sentence three or four times as harsh. It just wasn’t worth it any more, and a lot of the criminal fraternity felt the same way. There was a lot of money to be had dealing marijuana, and the risks were comparatively tiny – a 20-month sentence versus 20 years. A no-brainer. Added to that, no one was getting hurt. The dope trade was pretty peaceful back then, and being able to leave weapons out of it made everyone involved feel a lot safer.
As for demand, people couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Everyone I knew liked a puff, and in those days marijuana wasn’t adulterated with other substances like it is today. There was no ‘skunk’, and everyone considered dope a take-it-or-leave-it kind of drug. Half the pub owners we knew were happy if people were having a sly smoke, as it meant there’d be no trouble – I’ve got many happy memories of watching roomfuls of people chilling out, dancing and laughing all night without one bit of trouble kicking off.
I’d been introduced to puffing while hanging out with Dad and his friends. ‘You like a cigarette, don’t you, Jamie?’ someone had said, passing me a joint. ‘Well, have a puff on that.’ Some people would be up in arms about a father condoning his son using drugs, but I know that Dad was happy for me to try it because he always preferred having things out in the open, and would far rather have me smoke around him than be off behind his back and potentially getting in too deep. Just as Dad first had a drink with me, and taught me how to act responsibly with it, I had my first smoke with him and learned there’s no harm in it if you take it easy.
I feel the same way about my kids – I believe that taking the mystery out of something is the only way to stop people running amok and getting themselves into trouble. It’s all about education, and I think children tend to respond well if you give them boundaries – it’s the unknown that can send them down the wrong path. These days it’s inevitable a teenager is going to encounter marijuana somewhere along the line, and I’d much rather tell my kids what’s what than have them meeting some lowlife in a pub who only wants to get them hooked on other substances down the line.
There was some amazing gear going around back in the seventies. One week it would be Thai sticks – beautiful buds wrapped around sticks like toffee apples – some of the best puff ever. You’d laugh all night on it without a trace of anxiety or paranoia. Then there was Red Lebanese, another marvellous variety. But the crème de la crème was Red Seal Afghanistan Black, smuggled from the Afghan mountains through Nepal and Pakistan straight through to London. It was black, like rubber, in kilo slabs, and I’ll never forget the way it used to break off in your hands.
Dukey was a major supplier, that much I knew, but I had no idea what he and Dad had planned. I didn’t see that it was my place to ask, although I was starting to suspect it was drugs, and that it was big. It turned out I was right. I was never given precise details, but I gathered this much: there was a parcel on its way. It was coming from overseas, and inside was a ton and a half of Afghanistan Black. Dukey had organised the route and Dad had agreed to help him shift it.
I was staggered. Forget kilo slabs, this was over two million quid’s worth – that’s 20 million in today’s money. Now I understood what all the months of planning and subterfuge had been about – a good few heads would have been put together to shift something that massive across continents. It would have been necessary to find all sorts of trustworthy people, to try out the smuggling route over and over, to make the plan watertight.
One and a half tons, that’s all I knew. It was exciting, audacious, scary, and the more meets we went on, the more new faces I encountered. Things were hotting up, the date was drawing near. But there was a problem.
A source informed Dad that Customs had been sniffing around a major drugs-smuggling operation for months. Was it Dukey’s? Would Dad be implicated? There was no way of telling.
Could Dad have pulled out? No.
Why? The drugs had passed through too many hands around the world. People could not be let down.
The ball was already rolling.
The package was in transit.
It was on.
Danger has always lived with my dad. The possibility of being watched never put Freddie Foreman off – on the contrary, Dad always saw difficult situations as challenges to be overcome. Running scared was to admit defeat. In his mind, half the fun was negotiating himself out of tricky situations. Part of the buzz of what he did, I imagine.
If Dad was worried the police were on to him, he kept it to himself, but in hindsight I can see that he must have been feeling the heat, because a couple of weeks before the consignment was due to arrive I found that my services were no longer required. No longer did he ask me to drive him around, and suddenly there were no more errands to run. In short, my father was protecting me. If anything bad was going to happen, he wanted me out of harm’s way. Typical Fred, always looking out for his own, always putting others first.
Accordingly, I was in the dark. I stayed busy with acting work, and all I could do was keep my counsel and wait. If that was what my father needed me to do, it was fine by me.
One night late in 1978 – around October – Dukey turned up at the front door. A little unusual: we normally saw him at his place. Stranger still, he was staying the night. He’d never done that before. Strange, yes, but nevertheless we all had a lovely evening – Mum made dinner and we all talked and laughed as usual. Nothing was amiss. I asked no questions, got told no lies, and went to bed.
When I awoke the next morning, Dad and Duke had disappeared, and I was still none the wiser.
They had left at the crack of dawn, and driven through early-morning London. Months of planning and coordination had led to this moment. Scores of people around the world had done their bit, and now it was time for Dad to do his.
The plan was crystal clear in their minds as they sped through empty streets. The two men drove with steely, silent intent, put Dad’s car in a lock-up and switched to a bent Ford Zephyr. In the boot was a selection of cutting gear strong enough to tear through metal. And of course a set of scales – no prizes for guessing what they were for.
Their destination: a long-distance-lorry depot in Aldgate in the East End. Awaiting them was an empty lorry. Empty-looking, at least. Hidden in the walls and floor of the 42-foot container was 1.5 tons of the finest cannabis in the world. All Dad and Duke had to do was cut it out and weigh it. But first the lorry had to be moved.<
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Cautiously, they approached the depot and met with the lorry driver, Eddie Watkins, or ‘Scatty Eddie’. It was time to get going.
Dad and Duke drove ahead in the Zephyr to make sure the roads were clear. A few miles on and it all looked good. No roadblocks, no suspicious cars – apart from an old man and a woman sitting silently in a parked vehicle by the motorway. The sight of them worried Dad a little, but he gave it the benefit of the doubt. Dad eased up on the accelerator until Eddie caught up and overtook – now Dad could mind the lorry from behind and make sure it wasn’t being tailed.
All was still quiet on the road, and before long the lorry slipped off the motorway and rolled into its destination, a well-concealed wrecked car yard in the middle of nowhere. It was time to get cutting and get out. Nearly. One last check was needed. Before they began, Dad asked the yard owner’s son-in-law to ride his motorbike around the surrounding lanes to make sure they were alone.
They weren’t.
Somehow Customs officers were on to them. They were a mile or so away, waiting patiently to trap the men when they drove out with a car full of gear. Terrible news, and proof enough that the message Dad had received about Customs indeed applied to Dad and Dukey. They knew it was on them, and their hearts began to sink. All those months for this.
It was time for plan B. The lorry had to be moved, but retracing the route back down the lane to the motorway was out of the question. Luckily, Dad had already worked out an alternative: the lorry would drive through a farmer’s field and cut back on to tarmac that way.
Gangsters, Guns & Me - Now I'm in Eastenders, but once I was on the run. This is my true story Page 13