by Lenny McLean
So where was our mum? I’ll tell you – stuck right in the middle of a situation she couldn’t and didn’t know how to change. It goes without saying that she knew what a terrible mistake she’d made bringing that pig into our home. But batter us or not, he was paying the rent and putting bread on the table. She might have been blonde and beautiful, but women with five kids don’t stand much chance of getting a man to look after them. So what did she do? She blanked out what he was doing to us all.
Was he an actor or what? I couldn’t believe the rubbish he was telling everybody, and that included Mum.
‘I feel terrible … wicked thing to happen … but it’s that temper of his that done it … threw himself right out of my arms when I’m giving him a little telling off,’ he said, lying his way out of it. And while he was spouting on, with tears in his eyes, he shot me looks that said, ‘Get out of that, you little shit, and keep it shut.’
And me? I must have been mad, because I didn’t contradict him. See what I mean about being made to feel guilty? I think Mum knew the truth, though. When I was in hospital, she’d sit by my bed with her eyes full of tears, saying, ‘I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry.’ She never actually came out with what she was sorry about, but we both knew.
Once I got back home, Jim Irwin carried on where he’d left off as though nothing had happened. Whenever he thought we were due for another belting, he’d come out with ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’, like it was a good excuse for giving us a good seeing to. I used to dread hearing that old chestnut, because it always meant one or all of us was in serious trouble.
His sick mind dreamt up a points system for punishment. He’d give us a point for being too noisy, another one for wetting the bed, perhaps two for breaking something. Then at the end of the day, we’d all have to stand in line and get a belt for every point. Even then the bastard would pull a fast one. If you were due four belts, you’d get five or six– he just had to get the extras in. When I say ‘belt’ I don’t mean a whack with a belt-strap across the arse. He gave us the business. Punches in the face, in the stomach, and if you scrunched up to protect yourself you’d get his shoe in your ribs. We used to go to school black and blue. The teachers would say, ‘Been fighting again, McLean?’ Yeah, I had; bit one-sided, though.
If he was at home, we’d be in bed by half-past five. Imagine, we’re all laying in bed, the sun’s still shining outside, and we couldn’t talk. We had to lie there listening to the distant voices of happy kids playing football or riding their bikes up and down. We’d be hungry as well. He might have been the breadwinner, but it was mostly for his own greedy self. No wonder he was a big fat bastard. He called it ‘his food’.
I remember one night we’d been sent to bed with no tea. We heard him go out, then about ten minutes later Mum came in with a plate of bread and jam. ‘Ooh, thanks, Mum, smashing.’ Then we’re just going to tuck in when the door burst open. He’s come back, hasn’t he? He went crazy, punching our mum on to the bed, grabbing the plate and flinging it straight through the window. There was glass everywhere.
We all yelled with fright and he shouted, ‘I don’t work my bollocks off for you lot to thieve my grub.’ Then he made a dive for us. Mum threw herself right across all of us and took every punch he threw in the back. Lying underneath her we could feel every blow. He was like a wild man – face red, spit dribbling down his chin. Then he was gone, leaving us all screaming and crying.
Mrs Hayes from upstairs came down, she’d heard the set-to and she wanted to call the law, but Mum wouldn’t have it. She just slumped in the chair coughing. Every now and then, she’d wipe blood away from her mouth. It turned out that bastard – and I want to kill him stone dead right now just thinking about it – that beast had broken five of her ribs.
That night we all slept upstairs with the Hayes, and I remember one of their boys, my mate Alfie, saying, ‘Why don’t you kill him, Lenny?’ That must have planted a seed in my nut because from then on I used to plan how I’d do it. I think my favourite was to stab him with a knife when he was asleep. It never happened, but the thought gave me strength.
There was a time, though, when he came very close to getting it, and it wasn’t from a little kid either. I came home from school one day. It must have been winter because it was dark and freezing cold. As I came up the last flight of stairs my little brother Kruger was huddled on the floor by the door. This was Raymond, but we all called him Kruger because when he was a baby he looked just like an old German man who lived downstairs. Anyway, he’s crying, his nose is running, and he’s wet himself. I put my arm round him and I asked, ‘What’s up, mate, did you think we’d all left you?’ He sort of nodded and said, ‘There’s no one in.’ I knew that or he wouldn’t have been sitting there. Then we both jumped as the lift door opened right beside us and there was Jim Irwin, appearing like a fucking genie from a lamp.
‘What’s up with you, cry-baby?’ he said to Kruger.
‘I think I’ve wet meself,’ he said and I felt my stomach turn over. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.
Irwin flung the door open, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him inside the flat. He stripped him naked and started slapping his bare backside with his open hand. That wasn’t enough, so he took his belt off and used that. I could see the buckle cutting into Kruger’s skinny little body so I tried to grab the belt. It earned me such a punch in the head I went cross-eyed for a minute. But I had another go and Jim kicked me twice without releasing his hold on my brother. I wasn’t counting but he must have hit him about 30 times, and then he threw him on to the bed.
While he was being beaten Kruger was screaming, but now he was all scrunched up on the bed, lying so quiet I thought he must be dead. When Mum came in, Irwin told her not to go near him. ‘Rose, luv, I’ve had to give him a bit of a smack for wetting himself, so leave him to think about it in bed until the morning.’
When we all went to bed at about six, I looked under the covers and his body and bottom were all covered in bloody welts. He just lay there, white faced and shivering. Four years old and beaten worse than a dog. I got into bed and cuddled him, and do you know what that brave little fucker said?
‘I’m sorry I wet meself, Lenny.’ He was sorry – he was smashed to bits and was sorry for causing trouble.
I could hear that bastard laughing in the other room, and I thought, ‘I’m going to get you hurt for what you’ve done.’ As young as I was, I could take whatever he could dish out, but I couldn’t bear to see any of the others get it.
I lay there for hours still holding little Kruger. I heard the telly shut down. We had one by then, and I think it used to go off at about eleven in those days. Still, I lay there until I was sure everybody was asleep. Then I woke up my brother, told the others to keep quiet, dressed us both and sneaked out of the flat. My mate Alfie had a go-kart made from an old pram, and he used to keep it tucked behind the rubbish bin on the ground floor. I got that out real quiet, laid Kruger on it and, pulling him along with a bit of string, set off to take him to my mum’s mum, Nan Campion.
It wasn’t that far, but it seemed like miles. It started to snow and it was pitch dark. About halfway there I saw a copper but I pulled the cart up an alley and hid until he’d gone by. Don’t ask me why – it was just instinct, just something you always did. Eventually, we got there and the house was all dark but I banged on the door until I got Nan out of bed.
My eldest sister Linda was there, because Nan had taken her in when Dad died to make it easier for Mum.
My mum’s brother, Uncle Fred Campion, was there as well. He was halfway down the stairs in his underpants, hair all sticking up. What a diamond of a man. From the day my father died that lovely man bought all our Christmas presents, right up until we were grown up. He never married, just looked after Nan and Linda. Now he’s an old man and things have turned round. Nan’s dead and Linda looks after him. I haven’t seen him for years – you lose touch as you get older, but I’ll always love him for what he
did for us. Anyway, when they saw the mess Kruger was in there was hell to pay. Looking back, the scenes in my head are like fast-forwarding a video, all rushing and blurry.
I’m put to bed, Kruger’s taken to hospital, the police are called and, best of all, as I hoped would happen, Nan sent for her brother, Jimmy Spinks. Why he wasn’t called in years ago I don’t know. I suppose Mum was ashamed of becoming involved with Jim Irwin and kept what went on to herself. Now I’d let the cat out of the bag, not for myself but for my brother.
My great-uncle Jimmy was one of the toughest men to come out of Hoxton. He was about 21 stone and 5ft 9in, built like an ox, with powerful arms and shoulders, and a fighting reputation that couldn’t be bettered in those days. I’ll tell you more about him in a bit, but right then, when he saw for himself what had been done to that baby, he tore straight round our flat like a raging bull. The police had already been up to the flat and Mum had talked them out of prosecuting, so I expect that smug bastard thought he’d got away with it again. That was until Uncle Jim came through the door. I learned all this afterwards. He didn’t knock, he actually punched the door open.
Jim Irwin just had time to come out of the sitting-room before he was battered, semi-conscious, back in again. Now remember, Uncle Jim was twice his age, but Irwin didn’t stand a chance. As he got to his feet those massive fists put him down again, then out came the cut-throat razor. Whether he would have used it we’ll never know, but he was more than capable and it wouldn’t have been the first time. Mum pleaded with him to give Irwin another chance. So for her sake he didn’t use the razor, but told him to ‘Fuck off’ there and then or he’d, as Uncle Jim put it, ‘end up with a face like mine’.
Now that was a threat because Uncle Jim’s face had so many knife and razor scars that it looked like a map of the Underground. Irwin got the message. He might have been the business when it came to knocking the bollocks out of little babies, but fronted up by a real man that gutless coward went to pieces and buggered off without arguing.
Uncle Jimmy was a very tough man and in his day was the Guv’nor of Hoxton. He was what they called a ‘ten-man job’, because to bring him down you would have to go ten-handed or turn up with a shooter. I’ve got to say I’ve heard that said about myself and I’m proud to think I’ve inherited that from him. He was a very hard man – a tearaway. He was in one of the gangs that worked the horse racing circuits, running protection. He used to mind the bookies and the number one bookmaker in that area at the time was a Jewish bloke called Lasky. Jimmy would mind all the other bookmakers on the street corners in that area. That was his block and he was a force to be reckoned with.
I looked up to Jimmy when I was a young boy. I used to love seeing him because he always gave us money and in those days there wasn’t a lot about. He always had money. Jimmy was very powerful and menacing, but a loving man to all his family, and always dressed immaculately – white shirt, tie, the big hat, the Crombie overcoat, and the pinstriped suit – the typical Al Capone gangster. He was the main man. I remember when my father died, Jimmy went round all the pubs and had a collection for my mum. That was in 1953 and he raised a load of money and handed over every penny. I think that probably helped to feed us until Irwin appeared on the scene. I don’t forget things like that, even though I was only five years old.
My nan told me a story. She said her brother was down the Nile one day (a part of Hoxton named after Nile Street), when this geezer with a grudge crept up behind him and smashed him over the head with an iron railing. She thought it was one of the Birmingham mob from the Elephant and Castle, who he’d had an upset with. Anyway, Jim stayed on his feet and then knocked the bollocks out of the bloke before wrapping his white scarf round his head and walking to the hospital. When they saw the state of his head they called a priest, but Jim sent him packing, let them bandage him up, then discharged himself.
He had a run-in with the Sabini gang which got him banged up for a spell. The Sabinis were a force to be reckoned with.
They’d started in about 1910 and based themselves in the Yorkshire Grey, Clerkenwell. There wasn’t an English man amongst them so they were known as the Italian Mob. Most of their business was done at the racetracks, so when Jimmy wanted to sort out a grievance he fronted up thirty members of the Hoxton Mob and headed for Brighton Racecourse. The battle that followed earned Uncle Jim, as one of the ringleaders, five years in prison. That was in 1936, which in those days meant spending your time breaking rocks, not weight-lifting, watching TV or studying for a degree. I know he changed all the names, but when Graham Greene wrote Brighton Rock, a lot of it was based on what happened that day.
But Jim wasn’t just a tough old villain; he looked after people. I’m often told of little incidents by people that knew him, like helping an old lady across the road, then slipping her a few quid, saying, ‘There you are, mother, treat yourself,’ or he would buy sweets for the local lads. Reg and Ron Kray would confirm that. Jim was in his local one day when an American film producer, noting that he looked the business, offered to take him to Hollywood to act in films with Cagney, Raft and Bogart, but he turned it down. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘I was born in the East End and I’m going to die in the East End.’
And he did. He was only in his early fifties when he had a brain haemorrhage. The funeral was like something out of a film – a proper gangster’s send off. There were hundreds of shiny black cars following the coffin. There were television cameras, celebrities, pop stars and almost every major villain in London. The wreaths would have knocked your eyes out, all shapes and sizes. Jimmy Spinks was a legend.
So that was Uncle Jimmy. At the time, us kids didn’t know anything about his reputation or his villainy. All we knew or cared about was that he had chucked out the bastard who had terrorised our home. If I’d known then that Irwin was only out of the way for three months, I wouldn’t have been so happy, but I didn’t, so I was over the moon.
It was at about this time when I had my first paid fight, and I think I was as pleased with what I earned then as I was with some later fights which earned me ten grand.
Barry came home one day with a bleeding lip and Mum said: ‘Now, what have you been up to?’ Through his bawling he told her that Brian Hyams from downstairs had punched him in the face. Because Brian was older and bigger than Barry, Mum turned to me and said, ‘Lenny, go down and sort out that bully.’ So down I went.
He was the same age as me but a lot bigger. Still, I steamed in anyway. Bang, bang, bang, Now he’s crying, and when you’re that age it’s the same as a knockout. So back up I go to tell my mum. Dead proud I am. Straight away she dipped into her purse and gave me three old pennies. But, in a way, the little pat on the shoulder she gave me was worth more than the money.
Still, you couldn’t buy a lolly with a pat on the back and that’s what Barry, Kruger and me did. We shot round to Morgan’s on the corner and got a little square ice lolly each. The owner, a mean old bugger, used to make them himself in his freezer, two sucks and they went white, but we didn’t care. The three of us sat on the wall, the champion and his brothers, and sucked them to death.
Every kid passing by was collared by Barry and Kruger and dragged up to look at the tough guy who’d given Brian Hyams a bashing. They were well impressed because he was a bit of a handful, but I think most of them were even more impressed when they heard I got paid for it. So, in a minor way, I became ‘the Guv’nor’ of Godwin House.
I was getting a fair reputation at school as well, but I never picked on anyone smaller than me. Come to that, I never really picked on anyone – they seemed to search me out to prove themselves tougher than me. I’d noticed that if you were a good fighter you had loads of friends – the more fights, the more friends. So I was always mixing it in the playground. Shirt-tail hanging out, knees and knuckles grazed, and the odd bloody nose. I loved it. Suddenly I was somebody who counted.
As often happens when you’re a kid, after that first fight with Brian Hyams, him and me be
came mates; there was Brian, Alfie Hayes and Frankie O’Leary. We did everything together. We’d be in and out of each other’s flats, though none of them wanted to come near mine if they thought Irwin might show his face. We’d spend hours together and we were always trying to outdo each other – who could run the fastest, who was the best swimmer, or who was the toughest fighter.
Alfie and me got into a fight one day with a kid about four years older than us – Roger Smythe, a right handful. He wasn’t going to give up and neither were we, so we took turns in belting or being belted. When Alfie got tired he’d say, ‘Come on, “Boy Boy”, your go,’ and I’d steam in until I got out of breath, then we’d change over again. What a tag team! I think it would have gone on all day if it weren’t for Alfie’s big brother Freddie, coming round the corner and seeing Roger off.
It wasn’t all fighting, though. We thought we were the business when we started a skiffle group and called ourselves The Four Lads – Barry, Brian Hyams, Alfie and me. We were terrible. I remember going to Shoreditch Carnival once and entering a talent competition. We were belting out ‘Diana’ with the veins in our necks nearly bursting, seeing who could sing the highest and loudest. We came fourth – there were only three other acts. Those lovely times outside helped me cope with the horrible times indoors.
Some of the best times for me were visiting Alfie’s home – the flat above ours. He had a great big, friendly family, about 13 in all. Most of them were a lot older than us, but they weren’t cocky at all. I used to love being in there. Some of the sons worked in the fruit market so the place was always loaded with apples, oranges, bananas – everything you could think of.