by Lenny McLean
He started to get a bit flash because of me, so I’d already got the hump when he came up with the idea of teaching me the decorating game. He said, ‘When you’re not minding me you can be picking a trade up,’ like he was doing me the biggest favour in the world.
On the Monday I was in a place in Mare Street. I was perched on top of a ladder with a four-gallon bucket of sugar soap wedged between my knees, and I was scrubbing the bollocks out of the ceiling with a sponge as big as a loaf of bread. This filthy black water was running down my arm, through my vest, twice round my niagaras and out the soles of my plimsolls. But I stuck at it. I didn’t expect to be hanging flock wallpaper on my first day. Then Dougie showed up. ‘Hold up, hold up,’ he says, ‘you’ve missed half of it.’
I said, ‘Do what?’
‘You’ve left big dirty patches all over.’
I’ve done no more, I’ve tipped the whole fucking bucket of dirty water right over him. I’ve come down the ladder like a monkey and belted him in the mouth. This idiot’s hired me as a minder because I’m the toughest money can buy, and he’s got me doing this shitty job as though I’m some sort of skivvy. I didn’t do my nut, just gave him a quiet seeing to. I belted him senseless – not just for mouthing off, but for taking the piss out of me and all the other blokes.
I was beginning to think that work was nothing but aggravation. Val didn’t give up, though. She knew that if I wasn’t working, I was going to fall back on a bit of thieving, and then get myself nicked.
Anyway, I’ve got home at about half-eleven, black as Newgate’s knocker. Val pulled a face so I dropped on my knees and gave her a couple of verses of Mammy, just like Al Jolson. It didn’t work. She was still pulling a face. ‘You’ve got yourself the sack, haven’t you?’
‘Love of my life,’ I said, ‘it was just a difference of opinion …’
‘And you belted him.’
‘Well, yeah, I did give him a little slap.’
She gave me one of her looks. ‘Oh, Len, when are you going to pack up fighting?’
She went off shopping in a bit of a huff, so I got in the bath to clean myself up. I was just drying my hair when she returned and she sounded all happy now. ‘I got you fixed up with a job down Essex Road,’ she shouted through the bathroom door. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, ‘Fuck me, now what?’ I shouted back, ‘That’s lovely, sweetheart, what is it?’
‘I saw an advert down the shops for a window cleaner, so I called in and they said you could start tomorrow.’
‘Good stuff, babe, good stuff.’ I just sat on the bog and groaned to myself. Her heart was in the right place but fucking window cleaning – leave it out.
She was right, though. I couldn’t sit about on my back-side doing nothing. The rent had to be paid, and on top of that we’d only just found out that she was pregnant. So that’s going to mean a pram, baby clothes and tons of gear for the little fella. Funny really, I never thought for one minute that our first baby could be anything but a boy. I’m over the moon, proud and excited about having another little Lenny in the house.
I didn’t mind the window cleaning, as it turned out. We started at six and finished by twelve. It wasn’t hard work, though I was never happy climbing up too high, and those cradles on blocks of flats gave me the shits. Especially when one of them broke and a bloke was killed. I was going to chuck it in after that, life’s too precious, but the firm must have thought a lot of me because they made me a foreman. That meant I didn’t have to clean windows any more. My job was to go in early, get all the sheets out, give them to the blokes, then the rest of the time go round checking up on them. I didn’t worry about that, though. Once they were all out of the yard I’d go home and back to bed. At the end of the week I’d get the sheets back in, draw the wages and settle up with the men. If they had days off I’d still book them in. But what I did was buy a load of wage packets from W. H. Smith, empty the firm’s packets and make up new ones, this time with deductions. There were a lot of workers on the firm so on a good week I could clear a monkey, plus my own wages.
Then somebody worked out what I was up to and grassed me up to the bosses. They didn’t pull me in the office and sack me, they sent one of them round my house on a Saturday morning to do the business.
I opened the door and there was this suited-up mug standing there flanked by two policemen. He said, ‘Mr McLean, you’re sacked. Here’s your cards.’ I just growled at him.
Now you don’t sack somebody with the law minding you, so there had to be a few back-handers flying about. These coppers are bang out of order and they could be in a lot of trouble if I squealed. So I’ve got a licence to see the three of them off.
My fuse got very short and I shouted at the boss, ‘You gutless c**t,’ and I planted one on him. The two coppers ran off. The boss picked himself up and legged it down the stairs. I was going to chase after the three of them but I didn’t have any trousers on, so I thought, ‘Bollocks to it. I’ve had a good run with the job – let it go.’ I ripped up the insurance cards I’d been given and went back in the bedroom and said, ‘Babe, I’ve had it with working for muggy straights. I don’t fit in with them and none of them know what life’s about. I’ll graft for you and the baby and you’ll never go short, but never ever ask me to take a proper job again.’
She never said a word, just looked at me with those lovely blue eyes. One minute I’m at the front door and I’m a madman. Now I’m all the other way – choked up just looking at her lying there with her little lump making a football in the blankets. I climbed into bed with her and we had a cuddle, and I said, ‘We’ve had the bowl long enough. I’m going to fill it with cherries for you because I love you.’
Two weeks later Val was taken into Bart’s Hospital and our baby was born. It was 15 April 1971 and he weighed in at 71b 2 oz. In my life, I’ve known hard times that could break your heart. But there’s been wonderful times, as well. Top of the list has got to be when I met Val, and right up there equally was when my boy was born, and a year later when my lovely little girl Kelly popped into the world.
It’s funny how women take it in their stride. Of course, they’re proud and happy, but a bloke has to go over the top. You don’t find women doing cartwheels all over the place shouting, ‘Look what I’ve done,’ and you don’t see many women dancing on the bar top buying drinks and cigars for everyone. No, I looked round the room and those young mums all had the same look, sort of queenlike. They all knew they’d done the business, and let the old man do all the crowing. After all, it hadn’t been easy for him.
Val was no exception. She lay there like a little blonde princess. She was tired, looked like she’d just run a mile, but she was sparkling at the same time. And she’d changed. I couldn’t have put my finger on it if I’d tried, but she was different. And the little doll she was cuddling – what can I say? He had red hair and his face was all screwed up and he was the beautifullest baby in the world.
She held him out to me and I felt big and clumsy with this fragile piece of life cradled in my arms. I couldn’t say what was going through my head, there was too many things, but I did think that perhaps Dad was looking down and he’d be as proud as me.
I thought it would be nice to name him after me, but Val wasn’t struck on that. She said, ‘One Lenny McLean in the family is more than enough. I want to call him Jamie.’ So Jamie it was.
Suddenly I’ve got a bit of conflict going on in my head. I’ve got a wife and son now and they’ve got to be looked after, not just with money but with some sort of sense of responsibility. Do I knuckle down to a regular job, pack up getting into rows, and take a load of shit from some mug boss? Or do I go the other way to earn a crust?
For a start, I had torn my cards up, but I suppose they could be replaced. On the other hand, my dad never did us any harm with his ducking and diving and probably a load of things we never knew about. So fuck it, I put the word out that I was looking for a bit of ‘work’.
I’ve already tol
d you that I was well known for being a hard man and for being reliable. So when this character Freddie Davis, who worked out of North Road, got in touch he didn’t have to ask me for references. Fred was a bank robber like other people are master builders, masons, or first-class joiners. It was his trade. He knew nothing else and he wanted nothing else. Of course, he made mistakes, who doesn’t? But if a joiner slips up and cuts too much off a piece of wood, he gets another piece and starts again. He doesn’t get a sentence of seven years. That was what Fred had just done when he got in touch with me. He hadn’t lost his bottle, it was just the downside of his chosen work so he shrugged it off and, being skint, was ready for some more.
I wasn’t the only one he’d organised. He’d rounded up two other good men, but I won’t name them because they’re still working. He’d got a job sussed out in Hastings on the Sussex coast. I told him there were about a hundred little earners ten minutes away, but he said he had his own reasons, so that was that. It was his job. We had a meet in a pub over the other side of the water, The Black Prince near Dartford, I think, and we set off from there at about seven o’clock. It took us about two hours – there was no motorway then, and anyway we didn’t want a pull for speeding. He’d already put us in the picture. We were going after a bank, but instead of bursting through the door with the high risk of getting caught inside, Fred wanted to be a bit clever and subtle.
His information had the manager down as a poofter who lived on his own, but even if he was living with somebody, whoever it was was going to be a pushover. No women, no kids, sweet as a nut. The idea was to get in the house, grab the manager, and hold him all night. In the morning, two of us would slip into the bank with him and wait for the time lock on the vault to open. Piece of cake.
It was just getting dark when we pulled up about a hundred yards away from the manager’s house. So first off we’re having a smoke then, fuck me – I think we’re lifted before we’ve even got out the car – Old Bill comes past in a little panda car. It slows down and they give us some eyeball. Fred’s got a big map spread out over the steering wheel and he studies it enough to set it on fire. We all held our breath, then, thinking that we’d got ourselves lost, they drove on.
The car was nicked but we knew it wasn’t hot yet, so we were clear on that. With the motor tucked up a rough track near the house, one of the lads and me made our way along the road, up the drive, that was all overgrown with bushes and trees, and crept under the window. Looking through the gap in the curtains we could see a man, a woman and, fucking hell, two kids in pyjamas watching television. Suddenly it’s all blown away. Fred, if you paid good dough out for your information – you’ve been rumped and so have we. The sight of those kids and it’s finished. What are we, animals? No. It’s one thing putting the frighteners on grown people, but babies? Leave it out. I’m not giving you bollocks about villains with hearts of gold, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
While I was working on this book, a case appeared on the telly and it was exactly the same set up, except, this time, the slags carried out the job, terrorised the children in the house, and got away with it. I sat and watched it and thought, How can you be proud of yourselves after pulling a diabolical stunt like that?
It wasn’t just me; the others were good stuff and wanted to pull the plug as well. So that was it. We pulled out and set off for home.
All our faces were as long as donkey’s dangelers and Fred kept moaning over and over again, ‘They said he was on his own … they said he was on his own. No family, no dog, not even a fucking budgie. They swore it.’ I don’t know who ‘they’ were, but they deserved straightening – what a cock-up.
We were just pulling out of St Leonard’s, heading for the London Road, when Fred said, ‘Pull up at that off-licence and I’ll get some fags and some crisps.’ In he went and we sat there talking about him while he was gone. Then he came out and he opened the door, shouting, ‘Go, go, go,’ like that geezer in The Sweeney. Our driver, who knew Brands Hatch racetrack like the back of his hand, which was why he was on the job, took off like a rocket – never even asked why. We were in a Triumph Stag, a tasty motor in those days, and it went like the clappers. When us in the back scraped ourselves off the rear window, I said, ‘Don’t tell me, Fred, you didn’t pay for the fags.’ He gave a fucking great laugh and said, ‘No, I never, and I creamed the place while I was there.’ As he said that he flung a load of notes over the back into our laps.
Jesus Christ. We were doing 100 mph up this road, that silly old prat was laughing his head off, and we were covered in pound notes. I said, ‘Fred, you’ve done a wrong ‘un.’ He looked round and said, ‘What’s up, Len?’ I shoved his hat over his eyes and said: ‘You forgot the crisps.’
We cut the money up and got a hundred and forty quid each. I had to mark Fred’s card, though. I put him straight. ‘Fred, you are a lovely man, but that stunt you pulled back there could’ve got us a ten stretch and all for fucking pennies. If there’s a next time, do me a favour and leave me out, there’s a pal.’
If you were working in the early Seventies you might think that was a nice little earner for a day’s driving about, especially as most blokes didn’t take that home in a fortnight. But work it out – if we’d been nicked our wages would’ve added up to something like thirty pence a week while we were away.
I never told Val what I was up to that day. She’d stopped asking how I was bringing the housekeeping in. She knew but she didn’t want me to spell it out.
One of the same blokes on that job got in touch a bit later. He said, ‘Lenny, we’ve nicked a load of penguins and we need a hand to shift them.’
I said, ‘Leave it out, what do I know about animals.’
He said, ‘No, the chocolate kind.’
‘Just joking, why don’t you bring them round then. I love them. I’ll eat the lot.’
‘Lenny, pal,’ he said, ‘even you couldn’t manage this lot. Meet me in the Green Man.’
So him, his brother and me all shot down to Hertfordshire where he had the stuff hidden up in a barn on this famous actor’s property. He’s dead now but I’ll leave his name out because his kids are all in the film game. This barn was like an aircraft hangar, and inside was the biggest container lorry I have ever seen in my life. It must have been a hundred feet long and it was packed solid with boxes and boxes of these biscuits. What we had got to do was transfer that load into two other lorries and deliver them to a big café on the A10.
We set to. At first, we were laughing and fucking about and talking about what we’d spend the money on. But hours after, when I had eaten two boxes of those bastards, I was feeling a bit unwell, and it looked like we hadn’t started yet. I said to my mate, ‘I wish the law would hurry up and give us a raid because I’m absolutely bolloxed.’ We didn’t finish until early next morning and I don’t remember the delivery. I went out like a light as soon as we pulled away from the farm. Cash was on the nail and we cut up eight grand between us. Well worth the graft. Next time you read about a little tickle like that, think about the poor sods who’ve sweated their cobs off – it’s not all roses.
One night I was getting dressed to go out on a job with some of the chaps. I pulled on a black roll-neck and all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. My face went bright red and I said to Val, ‘’Ere, babe, this jumper don’t half seem tight.’
She gave me one of her looks. ‘I ain’t surprised, Len, you got your head through the fucking sleeve.’ It was a good job she told me, or I might have choked to death before I got to work.
I was in The Fox in Kingsland Road one day when Fred Morris, a well-known bloke in the demolition game, gave me a pull. He said, ‘Business is good, but I’m getting loads of aggravation from plastic gangsters trying it on. ‘Specially this wanker, with a new East London name behind him, that wants his bricks and stuff for fuck-all, or else.’
I said, ‘Don’t worry, Fred, if you see me right I’ll sort it. When’s he due?’ He told me he thought the geez
er was going to show the next morning. I said, ‘I’ll be there.’
Next morning, I tucked myself in the caravan they used as an office and I sat drinking coffee, having a smoke and keeping an eye on the gates.
A tipper lorry pulled in and this big fella jumped down, all boots and no fucking brains. I watched him as he went over to Fred. They started arguing and Fred got poked in the chest by this mug’s finger. They came over to the caravan and Fred said to him, ‘My partner wants a word.’
As he put one foot on the metal steps I’ve chinned him. Down he went like a bag of shit. But I picked him up and did him again; four of them and he’s unconscious. Once I start I don’t stop. He had blood coming out of his ears and nose, and his forehead was split open. I was going to give him some more but Fred grabbed my shirt and pulled me back. ‘Enough, Len, enough, don’t kill him.’ So to get rid of some steam, I picked up a lump of concrete and flung it through the windscreen of his lorry. We brought him round, slung him in the back of the tipper, and parked him two streets away. Never saw him again.
There was a big notice at the front of the compound saying ‘Beware of Guard Dogs’. Some prat painted out guard dogs and wrote in ‘Lenny’. Gave us all a laugh.
Fred squared me up nicely for that bit of business. Then he come up with, ‘How about a hundred notes a week to keep an eye on the place?’
‘Lovely,’ I said. So I was on a retainer. A few hard nuts tried it on, but I soon saw them off. Word must have got around and it went nice and quiet. That started Fred thinking he was throwing his money away, so my £100 suddenly becomes £50. I didn’t draw up every week. I used to let it run up, so when I was expecting to pick up 600 notes, I got 300. No problem, I kept my mouth shut. I had a quick think. Do I belt him or box clever? I went for the last one.