I had plenty of friends. I reunited with Joe Armstrong, who I’d been at school with.
When we were six we were led into the assembly hall to meet Santa Claus. I was excited—I’d heard good things about him and trusted what adults told me. ‘Ho ho ho!’ A large man in red with a fuzzy white beard stepped on the stage with a big red sack, and started calling names and giving out presents. I barely breathed. When Joe came back from getting his, he whispered, ‘It’s the caretaker.’ My jaw dropped. ‘Who?’ Then Santa called, ‘Cecil Waters!’ When I took my present I titled my head from side to side to peer through the bushy beard. I didn’t recognise him but Joe took a lot of the magic out of Christmas. Even at 17, a cynical ex-borstal boy, I still wanted to believe in that most fanciful concept, Santa. And I was to meet him, too.
Joe and I watched a lot of Westerns. Joe avoided the limelight except when asked to imitate a cowboy. He’d slap on a hat, grab his banjo and yodel. He had a real talent for it too. He wasn’t violent and was the gentlest member of our gang.
Dennis Murtagh was another childhood friend. He didn’t like many people and never let his guard down. This knockabout became called ‘Dennis The Brick’ because he threw or hit his enemies with a brick. Later he graduated to an iron bar. We’ll go to the Bowling Green Hotel with the local men and congregate in The Vault where they could swear freely. Men in Chorlton were respectful talking around women. Ladies went to The Lounge. I drank orange or grapefruit juice, flirted and sang. Teetotalism was taken as an insult for some peculiar reason, and one slurring belligerent slapped a beer in front of me. ‘Look, nobody drinks orange juice with me. I’ve offered you a real drink. You goin’ to refuse it?’ Dennis smirked with anticipation as I raised the beer. I drenched the man and belted him.
Norman Pilkington was a thrill seeker who wanted to be in everything.
Jack `Tarzan’—for obvious reasons—Ogden, sometimes hung out and did jobs with us. On jobs he chewed unlit cigarettes, though, a fitness fanatic, he never smoked.
Dennis and the other rogues—thieves, vagabonds, conmen, pimps and pros—congregated at Jack’s Coffee Stall, a shed on wheels, in Manchester’s Dilly [Piccadilly] area. They’d flash their cars, birds and knocked-off gear there, which is why the police didn’t close it down—good intelligence and easy to pick up villains. Male-dominance brawls would erupt. One night there I subdued Billy Ingram, tall and mean with a razor slash across his throat, and gained a lot of respect, though it didn’t leave me feeling too healthy either.
Queer-baiting helped my reputation and when a lipsticked and rouged queer minced up to us at The Dilly like he had a walnut between the cheeks of his bum, I blew him kisses. ‘Would you like a bit of tail? Bit o’ the other?’ He stopped and said, very camp, ‘Stop or I’ll box your damn ears.’ I kept it going. He took off his overcoat and put his arms up in a ridiculous way. I threw a punch, he bobbed and knocked me to the ground. ‘Poor diddums.’ I got up, threw another and he flung me to the ground with a spectacular high kick. Eventually, I slung it in. He could’ve killed me without ruffling his perm. I learned two things: treat bold homosexuals with caution and the value of learning ju-jitsu.
At Jack’s I struck up a conversation with a camel-hair coated fellow with an Oxbridge accent who liked to be whipped and would pay £5 for it, as long as it was done in a specific way. Never one to reject a fiver in the hand I said I’d oblige him, and he drove me to a posh part of town, where he had a richly decorated flat. He strode across the thick carpet and opened a polished wooden cabinet. I thought it held fishing rods but it held beautifully crafted whips and canes. He chose a rod, undressed and asked me to strip to my underpants. His instructions were meticulous. First, I walked the room flexing the whip while he perved. Then he stood against the wall, hands outstretched, and we began. ‘Up, up, up, up! Down, down, down, down!’ Tears trickled down his cheeks as he howled and moaned. Something distracted me and I was whipping down when he was yelling `Up’! His trance rudely broken, he went berserk, grabbed the whip and lashed out at me, ripping the lapel off the coat I was grasping. I didn’t stop running or start dressing until I was streets away.
My relationship with Millie Whitworth—a housewife with two children who earned 10 bob a time entertaining—petered out. On the last occasion, she refused payment. I asked her why. She grinned like the Cheshire Cat. That morning, while doing renovations, she’d ripped up some floorboards to find £1,000 underneath! Her robber brother Jimmy must have hidden it there and forgotten about it. Easy come, easy go Jimmy would be the last to hear about her good fortune; at least it stayed in the family.
I started going to motor auctions in order to deliver cars for dealers for an extra 30s or £2 cash. While driving, I’d often have to pass through the city. Never letting an opportunity go by, I’d park somewhere and walk around with the intention of doing a bit of stealing from other vehicles or railway stations. I’d nonchalantly pick up a parcel or a suitcase and hide it in the boot.
On one delivery job, I was motoring over the Sheffield moors when the car suddenly conked out. Empty tank. The icy stillness of a moonless winters night pressed in. There were no signs of civilisation. I decided to walk until I could see the light of a farmhouse, where I’d try to get enough petrol to reach the nearest garage. Groping along a lane, I fell over. A dead body?
In fact it was very much alive and let forth all manner of cursing and shouting. He frightened me near to death. I wasn’t then the bravest of human beings, especially in this alien environment. I apologised. He asked in a rough voice what I was doing there. I told him. He mumbled that I wouldn’t get any petrol in this area and would do better going back in the opposite direction. I resigned myself to a long lonely walk.
He asked me what my name was. I told him and asked his. ‘Santa Claus.’ There was a flare of light illuminating the form of a tramp holding a kerosene lantern, the type found dangling off horse-drawn carts, wood ready for a fire, a knapsack, some rubbish, old boxes and bags, and a canvas bag from which he drew a little tin of petrol. He kindly gave this to me. Why this old tramp in the middle of nowhere should have petrol in his possession will always be a mystery to me. But I started to believe in Santa Claus again!
In mid 1944 the gang started robbing warehouses. It worked like this: first, find one containing a particular type of goods like suiting or curtain material, ladies dresses or children’s gear. Then we’d go to one of our fences and ask if they could move the load and agree on a price. Then ‘screw’ the place.
Some warehouses were more difficult to break into than others. For instance, we might encounter a front or back door made of steel, or steel shuttered windows. When we came across such a situation it was up to me to find the solution. I’d check the place next door, maybe a cake shop or bakery, with nothing of value in it. We’d break in and knock the wall down. Or go in through the roof.
Tony and Bill often joined me in these raids. Both excellent street fighters, they taught me some useful techniques, such as head butting and punching my way out of brawls and arrests. I only associated with Tony to do a bit of villainy; it was a business arrangement more than a friendship. Tony was not the sort of person you’d seek for companionship—he was one of the hardest people I’ve ever known, totally without compassion.
My hatred of detectives Wagstaff and Perkins, who caught me eating biscuits on a street corner, festered over the years.
I was walking along Brunswick Street and saw them coming towards me. I blocked their path and challenged Wagstaff to a fight. He smiled charmingly and said, ‘Right, but it’s got to be a square one,’ meaning no rough-house. ‘No worries, it’ll be straight.’
Wagstaff took off his bowler hat and black overcoat and put them on the window ledge of a printer’s shop. I put my hands up in preparation to box and he kicked me right in the cobblers! Over I went. Perkins truncheoned my body several times. They dragged me to Brunswick Street Police Station and told the sergeant on duty I’d become violent and had to b
e restrained. ‘Look, this fellow kicked me in the orchestras and down I’ve gone.’ I was as green as a cabbage. Wagstaff turned around to Perkins, pulled a mocking face and then said to the sergeant, ‘What do you think we are? Animals?’ The sergeant replied, ‘Of course not.’ I knew I was in for it so I turned to Wagstaff and said, ‘I owe you one, mate.’ He laughed in my face.
Tony visited me the following night. I told him what had happened. The possibilities of revenge against this detective fired his imagination and he talked with me till late. Consequently, he missed the last bus home and had to walk. As he was leaving, Tony started shivering; it was bitterly cold outside so I lent him my three-quarter length lumberjack coat, which in those days would have been worth about £5.
The following day I asked for my coat back. Tony had sold it for beer money. I stared in disbelief. How could he do this to me? Tony shrugged; he just didn’t seem to care.
Dids turned up, released from prison in Glasgow. He looked tired and angry and wanted to talk to Diana but she wasn’t home. Then he asked me to show him where Mosside was, a very poor multicultural area frequented by American soldiers. He wanted to see if Diana was hanging out at the clubs there.
I took him. Few people still milled around this dirty slum area at that hour of the night. As we marched down the street we came up behind an American soldier and Diana: same colour of hair, same height, even the same walk. Dids crept up behind her and pulled a thick iron bar from under his coat. He whacked her over the head about three times. She turned, her hands clutching her head. Dids looked amazed: the woman was not Diana!
When the girl saw Dids holding the iron bar, she screamed. The blood from her wound streaked her face and floral dress. She turned very pale and crumpled. Her American escort broke the world record for the 1000 yard sprint. Goodbye, fair damsel in distress! Dids and I also made a quick exit.
Dids went into hiding. We scanned the evening newspapers for the next few days but no mention was made of the incident, so I assume the poor girl survived. Dids continued to dabble in more petty crime and was soon imprisoned again. Diana was lucky to have escaped his violent revenge.
When Dids was safely behind bars, Diana returned to stay at our place. Sylvia and I disliked her being in the house and avoided her when possible. She was not to be trusted. When I stole gear and hid it in the cellar, Diana and sometimes Mary would sneak in to take from the booty appealing items, such as sheets and women’s clothing. They were dishonest enough to steal from their own family.
One day I found Sylvia in tears because Diana and Mary had been bullying her again. I ordered Sylvia to go and knock the tripe out of them. If she chickened out, I threatened Sylvia that I’d kick her the length and breadth of Upper Brook Street. Spurred on by my support (or perhaps my threat), Sylvia went to confront them with a beer bottle. With all the fury of a wildcat, she fought them tooth and nail. It was a resounding victory for Sylvia, and she still tells me with great pride that was the day she became a woman.
Sylvia ‘the woman’ fell head over heels for Dids’s younger brother, Johnny Marshall, and they had a passionate affair. Several weeks later they married. Several weeks after that they had a huge argument and Johnny left. He wasn’t the settling-down type. Sylvia was left feeling rather disillusioned and unwell, her ‘sickness’ pregnancy. Diana and Mary looked particularly smug about Sylvia’s unfortunate predicament.
Bill had been living with a succession of women, two of whom had children by him. His latest was Betty Bergland. She had two small squat brothers, Tony and John. Tony was a well-known pimp whose face was framed by black hair and long sideburns. He dressed in beautiful suits and, maybe for this reason, attracted some very respectable women. John had a pug’s face, thanks to frequent clashes with local thugs. He always wore a gangster-type trilby and an overcoat with the collar turned up in a menacing way.
One day Betty burst into our house in a terrible panic. John had been standing outside his local when a gang of belligerent drunken Irishmen emerged and gathered around him. ‘If they knock him down, they’ll kick him to death!’ Bill and I knew how brutal those Irish gangs became. We thundered down to the pub, Bill surging ahead on his thick, muscular legs. John was being overshadowed by the taller Irishmen who were jostling and jabbing him, trying to provoke him. John was trying to talk his way out, stalling for time.
When John saw us approaching, the relief on his face was clear. He puffed himself up and said to one Irishman, ‘OK mate.’ And gave his opponent a ‘Liverpool kiss’—headbutted him. As the surprised Irishman staggered back, the others felt uneasy and turned to see John’s back-up arriving. Bill was well known as a street fighter and this, combined with his menacing appearance, struck fear into them. They started running.
Adrenalin flowed like a tide. Bill bashed and kicked one mercilessly. I chased another, who tripped on a metal shoe scraper outside a doorway, gashing his head and sending him unconscious. A woman opened the door and screamed when she saw the blood. Time to scarper …
Unwritten law of the Manchester backstreets: be wary when standing or walking outside pubs. Brawls frequently erupted. Like John, I learned the hard way. I was passing the same pub when a bloke inside made some sarcastic comment. I stopped and stood there, provocatively. He came outside, took off his glasses, spoiling for a fight. In the corner of my eye I could see my mate, Ernie Richardson, had happened on the scene and was watching developments. My adversary and I faced each other for a moment and then it was flying fists and feet. I sorted him out but it wasn’t easy as he was very strong. Had I got into any real difficulty, I’m sure Ernie would have come to my rescue. When our fury was spent, my adversary and I sat down together, talked, and realised that we liked each other. He introduced himself: Kenny Bowers, villain. I invited him to partner me on a few escapades.
One of the first jobs we did was to rob Mark Coynes, the pawnshop owner who’d been ripping-off my family and other locals for years. The only way in was through the roof of his shop. We carefully took apart some of the slate tiles, bashed a hole through the ceiling plaster and dropped to the floor. The shop was filled with second-hand goods, Aladdin’s Cave. I found the huge safe, knowing that heaps of jewels and other valuables lay inside. It had a brass handle on the outside and a plain key lock. Kenny and I didn’t know how to get into this sort of safe; it was frustrating.
We busted open some thick wooden drawers in a cabinet and removed about £80. We pocketed a few rings and watches. There were parcels containing goods I refused to touch because they belonged to local folk. We unlocked the front door and left in a civilised manner, feeling content; we’d taken sufficient revenge on a man who earned his living by robbing the poor.
Kenny and I made a good smash-and-grab team. We’d take turns to smash a jeweller’s shop window, grab the display and make a dash for it, or to wait in the getaway car parked around the corner.
Once I tried to break one of these windows with a brick, not realising it was a special reinforced glass. The jeweller looked out at me as I was banging away and went whitey-green. I dropped the brick and disappeared smartly.
Kenny and I also did the ring snatch. On one snatch, Kenny was the driver and had parked the car out of sight. I examined the display in the front window of a jewellery shop, selected a suitably expensive ring, entered the store and asked if I could examine it more closely. When the assistant held up the tray to show me the ring, I grabbed the ring and ran out. She shouted: ‘John! John! John!’ I leapt in the car, which was already moving. Consequently, I ended up precariously balanced half in and half out as Kenny accelerated.
Later, we were robbing another jewellery shop and it was my turn to drive. After the burglary Kenny came running down the road laughing wildly with excitement and fear. Overcome with hysterical convulsions he fell into the car at an awkward angle, unable to reposition himself. His pursuers were hot behind him. I had to drive away quick smart. Kenny held on tight, his legs dangling. His laughter was infectious and it’s a
mazing we didn’t have an accident considering the hilarity inside the car!
My illegal activities escalated when I met an older criminal, Forsythe Williams. His speciality was stealing from dentists in broad daylight. While the dentist was engrossed in the contents of someone’s mouth, Forsythe would nip in and pinch boxes of gold fillings and filings. A clever thief and conman, he made good money. He was a friend of Ellis Ralph, The Walking Liar, who had conned people out of thousands. He schooled Forsythe in all manner of thievery and skulduggery and this knowledge was passed, on to me.
Forsythe and I robbed railway goods yards together, sometimes with the help of Tony, Bill or Kenny. I’d steal a car or a van from a carpark or outside a cinema, ones that had a Lucas ignition with a black key, which was no obstacle for me if I had a pair of scissors, a safety pin, a narrow screw driver or anything flat and broad. Easier still, most keys were numbered MRN 1 to 50 and I carried around a bunch of MRNs anyway. I was slowly building up my collection of these by getting my mates to go and purchase them from various garages. Lock numbers were conveniently etched on the car door handles. It was ridiculously easy.
Then someone would drive us to the wall of the yard, drop us off and return in about half an hour. We’d climb over the wall and slide open the doors to the railway trucks. These carried goods from clothing to groceries. When we discovered a suitable load of valuables we’d carry it to the wall and wait until the car or van returned. Just throw the gear over the wall straight into the vehicle and zoom off.
It’s unbelievable how many valuables went unattended in those goods yards. There was usually only one watchman who walked his rounds and often, when he went past one point, he wouldn’t return for two or three hours. Ample time. Sometimes, when a colleague and I would be robbing Ancoats Lane goods yard, Sylvia would come along, stand in a doorway and act as a lookout. She’d give a distinctive family whistle to alert us of approaching danger.
Hellbent: Ces Waters & Me Page 12