by Bill Carson
Sadly, Andy died in his late thirties. I’ve been thinking about him a lot during the writing of this book. He was a troubled character who found it difficult to handle the real world. We had some good laughs with Andy – he really was a likeable man. I did my best to help him when he was in trouble and I know that he appreciated my efforts. We drifted apart over the last few years and only bumped into one another very occasionally. I received my usual Christmas card from him and then found out four months later he was dead. John and I still make reference to him when we’re training in the gym. If we hear an unexplained creak or a bang, or if the door will mysteriously open of its own accord, one of us will always say, “It’s ok, it’s only Andy mooching about.”
Strange, isn’t it? Only when someone is no longer around do you really begin to realise what you thought of them. Wish you were here, mate… But life goes on.
CHAPTER THREE
First Night Nerves
Friday 13th September 1993
My very first night on the door was for some guy who I worked with. He was arranging an eighteenth birthday party for his daughter and was concerned about things possibly being ruined by gate crashers. The venue was at a local cricket club. The party was to run from eight until twelve and was by invitation only, which would make life a bit easier. He paid up front; I think it was thirty quid. I needed a partner as it was a two man job, so my mate Pete volunteered to keep me company.
We were obviously as green as grass and didn’t really know what we were doing or what to expect, this being our first night, but we’d worked out a few strategies in case it all went pear-shaped. Our philosophy was that we would treat people the way we would like to be treated ourselves, and anyone who gave us any attitude problems would get zero tolerance.
We put a great deal of thought and energy into finding the best ways in which we could eject troublemakers quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Not an easy thing to achieve. I studied a lot of restraining techniques from the karate and judo manuals that I’d accumulated over the years. My search through the numerous books led me to find a manual that I had completely forgotten about: it was called All In Fighting. It’s a Second World War unarmed combat instruction booklet, with some very attention-grabbing techniques inside. Further research on this subject led us to discover a total immobilisation strangle and choke hold.
The trouble was that this jiu-jitsu technique was an extremely dangerous one and had to be used with caution. If you were to lock the hold on for too long or with too much pressure on the person’s neck, it could cause serious injury – dislocation – or death. But the beauty of it was that if you performed it correctly, you got complete control over the transgressor. I practised it over and over. I consider myself to be very proficient in this particular method of restraint and over the years I’ve used it dozens of times (but only when necessary) without any problems.
The drawback to continuously practising these strangle holds was the wear and tear on the neck and throat area – we both had sore necks for a month. The only way to find out how effective your strangle holds and arm locks are is to execute them on your training partner, and vice versa. That way you get to know how much force is required to get the desired effect, namely compliance.
On the night of our first job, I picked Pete up at half seven. He jumped into the motor and we headed west into unknown territory. We arrived at the venue at about ten to eight. It was a beautiful late summer evening and as we pulled into the car park behind the cricket pavilion, a welcome cool breeze greeted us.
We made our way along the narrow straight path to the bar and once inside a short fat barman called us over.
“Are you two looking after the door for us tonight, then?” he said.
With that he produced two bottles of lager from the cold shelf. We thanked him for the beers and had a walk around the place. It was a rectangular-shaped sports hall. At one end people were busying themselves setting up a makeshift bar as the other one was off limits for the guests and at the other end the D J was plugging in his speakers and testing the microphone, “Testing, Testing, one, two, three, screeeeeeeeeeeech!”
Pete was savouring the last drops of his beer with a broad grin; he liked the occasional drink. We took up our positions either side of the door; black suit, white shirt, very smart. The family arrived and introduced themselves, and then the rest of the guests started to file past, each producing an invitation.
There must have been about a hundred or so in now. One woman, who was of rapidly advancing years, shall we say, kept looking over in Pete’s direction. She approached him and whispered in his ear, “You’re a big boy, are you big all over”?
“You can’t half pick them mate,” I said.
She was as rough as old Harry (whoever he was). I spoke too soon as she came over to me next. At the same time, this other old trout was dancing provocatively in front of Pete; she was gyrating her very large backside in his direction. Every now and then she would lift up the front of her dress, exposing her enormous thighs. She was stomping about like a young elephant. Once around her would be twice around the gas works.
Everyone was having a really good time as the party got into full swing. We had no trouble of any serious nature to deal with. The only problem we had was trying to hide ourselves from the attentions of the over-amorous old grannies. I don’t think they had a full set of teeth between them.
“When are you two going to take us out for a drink, then?” one of them asked, winking at me with one of her mascara-encrusted eyes.
“They must have turned up on the wrong night. Grab-a-granny night is next week,” I whispered to Pete.
“I bet your one’s flattened a bit of grass in her time,” Pete said, nodding to another over-the-hill admirer.
The only real irritating aspect of the night was the DJ. He kept coming over to us and saying that he’d done door work before and he was a kick boxer. He’d been in loads of fights, and not to worry because he’d steam in in good style if it kicked off… He wouldn’t have been able to knock the skin off a rice pudding.
The evening passed with relative ease, and was actually quite a pleasant occasion. We made our escape through one of the rear fire exits to evade our two antiquated groupies, who were loitering with intent at the main entrance. We did a quick sprint across the car park and into the little Renault 5. I pointed the car in the direction of the A4 and home.
The next day we were at our regular place of work when the guy we’d done the security for the previous evening came over to thank us. He was very happy with the way the evening had gone and the way we’d conducted ourselves. He went on to say that after we’d left the venue, the DJ had been involved in a fight. He had received a right hander from a drunken old Pakistani bloke who had wandered into the cricket ground and found his way into the back of the DJ`s van. And so the first of many nights on the door was a good one.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SLOANE RANGERS
October 1993
A few weeks after our successful debut, we decided to have some business cards printed. Pete drafted a superb letter explaining our services. We would go for a bit of a mooch around the pubs and clubs in our local area and have a butchers at the door staff to see how they shaped up. If they were a bit scruffy or looked like a couple of wallies, we would put the place on our mailing list and send the manager our details. We received a few replies, but they were not offering the right money. Earning an extra few quid was the sole reason for our entering into this line of work; we weren’t going to work for peanuts.
I want to explain at this point that we were not what you would call ‘hard men’, not sure what that actually means anyway. We didn’t want to be, either. So I think that we entered into this with the right kind of attitude. But we were no mugs though.
The next job finally arrived, through a friend of a friend. We were asked to work the door at a private party in Chelsea. We agreed the money and hours, so the following Saturday evening we quickl
y changed into our black suits, switched on, and set off for West London. We decided to take the Tube, because parking in the area was a nightmare, plus with the traffic at that time in the evening it would have taken us ages to get there.
We were greeted by a steady pelting of heavy rain as we left the station and we quickly made our way through the long wet narrow high street, which eventually led us to the corner of the road. A right turn and three doors down and we arrived. Just as I was about to ring the bell, the door opened and inside the hallway was Philip. He was of medium height with grey thinning hair and a friendly smile.
“Hello boys, I’ve been expecting you. Now, I could pay now if you like or at the end. Which would you prefer?” Philip asked.
“I think now would be fine, thanks,” I said as I held out my hand.
“How much did we agree?”
“It was forty-five quid each,” I reminded him.
He pulled a wad of notes out from his pocket. He must have had at least a grand there.
“Well, here’s fifty each. Come over here and have a drink,” he said.
We followed him into the main room of the apartment. In the corner was a large plastic dustbin which was full of ice cubes and bottles of lager; he knocked the tops off two bottles and handed us one each. Over to our left was a large fireplace with a blazing log fire in it, so we stood in front of it for a while and dried ourselves off.
On the other side of the room was a huge dining table, about a third of it covered in champagne glasses. At the end of the table were two dozen bottles of the very best bubbly.
“What I want you to do is enjoy yourselves and imagine you are guests. The main reason I wanted you here is because a couple of the people I’m expecting can get a little boisterous after a few drinks, but I’m sure they’ll behave once they know that I have you two boys around,” Philip said.
He then asked us to go down to the basement, saying that he’d come and get us if anything happened. We went down a flight of stairs and into the basement, which was quite large, about twenty-foot square, and right in the middle was a pool table. We had a few games. After about half an hour, Philip came down to introduce us to one of his friends; his name was Johnny, the Earl of Something, a right eccentric character. He was tall and thin with dark shoulder-length hair. He was already pissed and obviously on something.
That was confirmed when he asked us if we wanted any “gear”. He opened his jacket pocket and inside he had a substantial amount of pills and tablets in a variety of colours. Thanks, but no thanks; we were not interested, mate. I don’t know what they were exactly, but I would imagine that after a couple of those you would be floating around the ceiling like a fucking mushroom. Mind-bending drugs were not our scene.
The majority of the people who showed up all spoke with that plum-in-the-mouth, ridiculous-sounding accent. The upper classes, old boy. Jolly good show and all that, what, what. You know the kind of people I’m talking about – they have that certain type of attitude with an outward show of imagined superiority. After a few drinks and a go of whatever else was on offer, their masks soon began to slip, exposing their true personalities. They then became like any other annoying drunk.
The two of us were fast becoming a bit of a curiosity. The guests were coming down to the basement just to have a look at the ‘bouncers’, especially the women, who were poking their heads around the doorway and giggling childishly while pointing in our direction.
A group of very attractive tipsy young women were all moving rhythmically to the latest dance music surrounded by Hooray Henrys, who were studying the form and guzzling champagne like it was going out of fashion. The women outnumbered the men buy at least two to one and the basement was definitely becoming the place to be. It was getting packed and a little rowdy when Johnny came running in to where we were, glass of champagne in one hand, spliff in the other, and said at the top of his voice, “You won’t get any trouble, lads, just a few mad Sloane Rangers running around going ‘Yar’! Yar! Yar!’”
A strange man, I thought.
It was getting far too crowded for us in the basement and the air was filling with the distinctive sickly smell of weed. So we decided to go upstairs where we could breathe a little easier. We stood at the back of the main room and positioned ourselves at either side of the large table, which was full of drinks and clean empty glasses. An attractive middle-aged woman flounced over toward Pete and engaged him in conversation. He thought she was coming over to chat him up, but what she actually said to him was that she would like two glasses of champagne and a bottle of lager. He’d decided to wear a bow tie for this particular function and she’d mistaken him for the waiter. I had to laugh as the bow tie came off in a flash.
There was lots of bedroom activity, and if the bedrooms were full they mooched about in the dark corners of the large conservatory.
At about midnight Philip came over to us and said that the two guys who were going to cause trouble had left as soon as they set eyes on us, and so that meant we were no longer on duty.
“Stay for the rest of the party as my guests, if you like, boys, or you can leave now if you prefer,” a rather drunk Philip said.
Our job was done and so we decided not to hang around. If we were quick, we would be able to catch the last Tube train home.
Philip could not thank us enough. On our way out, I gave him one of our business cards. He took it and studied it under the lamp in the hall.
“Oh, that’s fucking neat. Goodnight, lads.”
As we were about to leave, one of the guests jumped out in front of us, barring our way to the front door.
“I want to take a picture of these two – they’re the fucking stars of the party. Hic!”
Philip suggested he didn’t take the photo and to step aside, as he wasn’t sure how we were going to react.
“But I want to take a picture of them. Burp!”
Philip interjected again. “These lads duff people like you up for a living, so get out of the way.” Philip said.
We boarded the train home, quite content with the evening’s outcome. It had been a good night with no trouble at all, a couple of beers and a pizza, plus fifty quid each resting very happily in our pockets. We were hooked and hungry for more.
Throughout the journey home, a pissed Aussie had been casting the occasional glance over in our direction. He eventually said, “Are you two bouncers, then?”
He was referring to our black attire,
“No, we’re with the Royal Philharmonic… so fuck off,” I said.
CHAPTER FIVE
The PROFESSIONALS
December 1993
It had been a few weeks since our last engagement, so we changed the business cards to make them look a little more professional and then blitzed the pubs and clubs with them. This was all before the new strict licensing laws that are now in place, so in those days we were a bit of a law unto ourselves. Nowadays every door supervisor has to obtain a licence at some considerable cost and attend a course as well. This deals with first aid and firefighting, and explains such things as the licensing laws, powers of arrest and the use of reasonable force. I could go on, but it’s getting boring.
We were not getting a very good response from our cards and letters idea so I decided to make a few follow-up phone calls. I rang the manager of the first pub we’d written to and asked for the name and number of the security company that they were using. Our idea was to find out if any of these pubs and clubs were unhappy with their security arrangements. If they were, we would then offer our services at a discount price. Virtually every place we contacted gave us the same company name. It looked like this little firm had most if not all of the contracts in the area. Well, if we couldn’t beat them then we’d better join them. After Pete and I had a chat, we decided to give them a ring.
A fella with a Scots accent answered the phone.
“Hello, do you have any door supervisor vacancies at the moment?” I said.
“Aye well, before
we start, I’ll need to know if you’ve done this kind of work before?" he said with a slow, confident Glaswegian drawl.
“I’ve done a bit, and a mate of mine is also looking for some work”.
“Right then, you’d better come down and see me for an interview”.
We arranged to meet at three o’clock on the following Thursday. We brought two passport-sized photos each with us, as the guy had asked. They were the worst I’d ever seen Pete – looked like he’d just escaped from bloody Broadmoor in his.
The office was located in the basement of a large restaurant. There was a small spiral staircase leading down to the back door. I pressed the intercom and announced our arrival. I knew there was someone there on the other end, even though I didn’t get a reply, and after a few seconds we heard the sound of the locks being released. Clank! Clank! Crunch! The last lock was opened.