by Lenny McLean
When he went for a piss, Ron followed him, pulled a gun, shoved it in his face, chipping one of his teeth, and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t go off. Ron laughed, took the bullet out, and gave it to George, saying, ‘This is your lucky day.’ Anybody else would have spent the rest of the night sitting on the toilet, but George took that sort of thing in his stride. And he’s got medals to prove it.
He was driving down the road one day when he saw this kid taking shots at everybody. He stopped the car, went back, and took the gun off him.
Another time, a bloke started flashing a gun about in the City Arms, Millwall. George grabbed the shooter and downed him. He was awarded a bravery medal both times. They’re good people – they’ve suffered and both paid their dues. Good luck to them.
Now that my reputation has spread all over, Frank Warren was working overtime. He rang me up one day, all excited, and said, ‘Seen the papers today, Len?’
I said, ‘No, I’ll pop out and get one.’ So I went round the corner and got myself a Daily Mirror and rang him straight back.
‘Have you read about the SAS man who tried to snatch Biggsie the train robber from Brazil?’
I said, ‘Yeah, he’s on the front page – so what?’
‘Lenny,’ he says, ‘I’m going to try and get a match with you and this bloke Miller. Can you see it – MCLEAN FIGHTS SAS MAN – we’ll rake in fortunes.’
I said, ‘Lay it on, Frank. I think anybody who wants to capture a bloke to face 30 years inside deserves to be beaten to death for nothing.’
Frank got through to this Miller but he didn’t want to know. He was nicking fortunes out of the papers and touring round universities telling them what a hero he was.
Frank tried the same with Mr T, the big black guy out of the television series The A Team. At that time he was a minder and a fighter like myself, but he’d just been offered the film part, so he didn’t want to risk any damage to himself while he had the chance of being a star.
Frankie doesn’t give up, though, if he thinks he can make a few quid. A while later he pulled the newspaper stunt again. The phone rang – ‘Have you seen the papers? Go and get one.’
‘Fuck me, Frank, why can’t you just tell me what’s on your mind and save me the price of a paper?’ He loves a bit of drama.
This time he wanted me to fight John Bindon. Now this wouldn’t be such a pleasure as taking on Miller, but John was well in the news and that would bring the punters in.
The word was that John had picked up a contract for ten grand to do away with a bit of a gangster named Darke who was running a little firm on the South side called ‘The Wild Bunch’. Who really chopped Darke to bits in a yacht club over in Fulham I don’t know, but Bindon got a ‘not guilty’ and that put him in the public eye. As well as being a hard man, he’d done a bit of acting, and often used to pop up in The Sweeney and stuff like that. So that was his excuse – he was back in the film world and didn’t want to meet me. Frank offered him ten large through his girlfriend Vicki Hodge, the model, but he still wouldn’t budge.
He was good stuff though. John and me never fell out and I was sorry to hear he’d died. If he’s remembered for nothing else, he had one little trick that at parties he’d do at the drop of a hat – or his trousers. He’d balance six half crowns along the length of his ‘old man’. He used to knock about with Princess Margaret and her mob, and it would be hard to believe that he could resist opening the royal eyes with his favourite stunt when they were all having a knees up on that Caribbean island they used to go to.
I’ve spoken about Alex Steen and Joe Pyle; good men and well respected. As soon as I had nicked the title from Roy Shaw, they started doing a lot of business with me and, why not, they’re businessmen, they want to put their money on a winner.
Joe Pyle has had a great deal of respect in South London for years. Back in the Fifties he was arrested on a murder charge and that was when hanging was still around, but he got a ‘not guilty’ and I think he’s lived his life to the full ever since. When Roy Shaw came out of his 15, him and Joe became friends and started doing shows together, Roy fighting and Joe promoting.
Unfortunately, my lovely pal Joe got stuck with a 14-year sentence. For most of his time he was banged up on A Section in a shit-hole of a prison, Whitemoor up Cambridge way. When you’re on A Section you’re watched all the time and in the cell 23 hours a day, so you suffer double punishment. I’ve still got a letter he wrote to me one year that reads, ‘Len, Christmas was a bastard for all of us here. You probably read about the riots. Well, because of them we spent Christmas day choking on the stink of fires and two inches of water on the cell floor. Wasn’t like being at home.’
I won’t say anything about Joe’s bit of trouble, because after a long struggle he got an appeal hearing and his sentence was reduced to a seven, and now he’s free and getting on with his life outside. Good luck, Joey, you’ve been a good friend; enjoy life, you deserve it.
Alex Steen; now there’s a character. Friend of the top people in the underworld and the same with them in what he calls the upper world and well respected by both. He has never done a day’s bird in his life but he understood what it was like for those who did end up behind the door, and supported them all the way. He’s the only person I know who visited Ron Kray from the first day of his 30-year sentence. There’s not much he won’t do for his own and there’s very little he can’t do. He’s got the ear of everyone and he uses that to help people, stop wars breaking out, and keep things smooth. With his quiet voice and those dark glasses he wears all the time, his friends call him the ‘Godfather’. I think he loves it, really. Those glasses are no gimmick though; he has to wear them because he’s got an eye problem. He’s had business with or managed more famous boxers and entertainment personalities than I’d have room to put down here. He’s always there for everybody. Apart from his work, he’s a lovely family man and grandfather and I’ve got lots of time for him.
So these two invite me to Alex’s office to discuss taking on a geezer by the name of Paul Sykes, who was under their wing. A very tough man, but no fool. In the dozen or so years he’d spent behind bars, he’d not only got himself a couple of university degrees and a City and Guilds in bricklaying, he built himself up to a professional standard in the ring. In fact, he was fighting Gardner at Wembley about a week later. Alex said, ‘If he loses to Gardner I’m getting him to fight you.’ I told him I was keen to take on Sykes, but all the ins and outs he could sort out with Frank.
Frank, Bobby and me went to Wembley to see the fight. Before we went in, we saw Alex pull up in his big white Rolls Royce and out stepped Paul Sykes. I don’t know about any masters degrees – he looked a right ex-con.
Gardner had done him by the sixth round. Just before it was stopped on a technical knockout, I was watching one of Paul’s seconds jumping up and down in the corner and screeching like a girl. ‘Do this, do that, box him, throw a left.’ It was getting on my tits – I don’t know about Sykes. All of a sudden, Paul turns to the second – dodgy thing to do in the middle of a fight – and shouts, ‘Fucking shut up!’ Then Jim Brimmel, the ref, grabbed his arm and signalled the fight was over. I found out afterwards that for a second he thought he’d been stopped for swearing because he didn’t think he was anywhere near losing.
I said to Frank, ‘Go on, shoot round the dressing room and tell him personal that I’ll fight him with gloves or without gloves. But I want an “all in” – the whole business, anything goes.’
He came back and said, ‘Alex Steen’s already blown in his ear and it’s all set, but it’s got to be with gloves.’
I said, ‘Don’t matter, I’ll do him any way.’
Frank and Bobby were well pleased. They reckoned that if we held it at the Rainbow they’d pull in a stash. They put me down for a chunk, which I thought was a bit skinny, but I didn’t say anything. It was better than a kick in the nuts, though I’d probably get a couple of them before I picked up the wedge. So I went back
to training again.
After seeing Sykes perform at Wembley, I reckon he’s a pushover, for me anyway. But Mickey said we’d better cover all the angles and one of them was to take a run up to Blackpool and have a word with the bloke who used to train Sykes. I met the trainer and for a little drink he put me wise on the best way to do the business on Paul. Then he sent us along to see a doctor who’d been involved in the training. This doctor said, ‘I’ll give you an injection that’ll make you a very strong man.’
‘Fuck off,’ I said, ‘I don’t take drugs. I hate them and I’m well strong enough already.’ He gives me some old fanny though, said it wouldn’t do any harm, so I let him do it.
Later on, I went for a run. Five miles was usually plenty for me, but this time I couldn’t stop. I did 15 and felt like I could do the same again. For two days I was wide awake and raring to go.
I went back to the doctor and said, ‘What have you put me on? It’s driving me crackers.’
‘That’s a new steroid – very potent.’
I said, ‘It’s made me like a fucking raging bull. I don’t need it, I’m a raging bull anyway.’ I have never taken drugs since, unless you count what was forced on me in prison, and that’s another story.
A week before the off, Sykes went into a club in Wakefield where he lives, got well pissed and had a ruck with four doormen. He did them all but one of them got lucky and put a cut above his eye that took eight stitches to pull together. Then he was on the blower to Alex saying the fight’s off and we’re all bolloxed.
This fight’s been hyped all over the place – ‘bout of the century’ and all that cobblers to sell the tickets. It’s been all over the papers and on television. Then Frank gives me a knock back when he says ‘Len, it’s all out the window.’
Anyway, they dug up a geezer from somewhere. Big strong lad, but nutty as a fruitcake. I could’ve done this kid with no hands, but I didn’t. I played around with him. First round I danced all round the ring with him, then just before the bell I knocked him clean out, picked him up, and dropped him in his corner. He had time to come round and we’re off again. I whispered in his ear, ‘Stay on your feet, go the distance, and I won’t hurt you.’ He was still a bit groggy from being knocked out but he heard me and gave a nod. I did this for ten rounds, letting him get a few punches in to knock his points up. Final bell, they totalled the points and Donny Adams, who was the ref this night, couldn’t believe what he was doing when he had to hold up the other bloke’s hand.
I’d been pretty busy with the fight game for a few years but I was still around to help people out or do a few favours. I’ve said I don’t do favours for nothing, but now and then I’ll sort something out if I think a liberty’s been taken.
I walked into a club one night and I saw a pal of mine, who’ll remain nameless. He looked a bit sad and I wasn’t surprised because his young brother had been murdered and the slags who’d done it had just got acquitted at the Bailey. I said, ‘How you going, mate, holding up?’ His eyes filled up and he said, ‘No, Len, I’m not. I miss me brother bad and what’s gutted me is the c**ts that done him are pissing it up round the Basing House and bragging about their result.’ All I could say was, ‘Hold it together, son, they’ll get theirs when the time’s right.’
Now this bloke is well pissed, and has been losing himself in the bottle ever since the trial. He pulled out a handgun and started waving it about.
‘I’m going after the lot of them now,’ he said. ‘Me brother would’ve done it if it was the other way round.’ I took the shooter off him, calmed him down, and talked him into letting me handle it. As I told him, if he went tearing round the pub in his state he was going to get himself killed or end up being lifed off for murder. ‘You know you can trust me,’ I said. ‘I promise you they won’t be laughing by the end of the week.’
Now, I’m too well known to put myself up for this one, but I would’ve loved to have sorted them slags with my bare hands. Got to use the nut, though. No point in saving him from a murder charge and getting one myself. So I got in touch with a firm out of South London and called in a favour of my own.
Within the week, like I promised, the three of them were well sorted and put in hospital – one of them in intensive care. Didn’t cost a penny and there was no comeback. Old Bill didn’t even interview my pal, so it shows how interested they were in tracking down whoever had done it. It didn’t do anything for my pal’s brother but it made him feel a lot better knowing they’d got the justice the law couldn’t provide. There was no chance of my name coming up in connection with that business, even though it was well known that we were good mates. As it happens, when it went down Ritchie and me were in Scotland, so we were well out of it.
Arthur, my Scottish mate, had invited us both to stay with him and while we were there he took us to see the Jim Watt fight at Ibrox Park, Glasgow. We got a plane up there and he met us at the airport and took us straight back to his home, where his wife Rita had a big spread laid on. His place wasn’t just one house, it was two knocked together and inside it was like a palace. Giving it the once over, you didn’t need half an eye to see the whole place was like Fort Knox. Arthur hadn’t survived as long as he had without taking a few precautions.
You have to speak as you find. He was a tough man – big barrel chest and a fighter’s face – but a proper gentleman who treated me like a son. A lot of people wouldn’t have had the same opinion.
The papers called him the most dangerous man in Scotland. Nobody who crossed him ever got away with it, not even the law. In a case during the Sixties, one copper decided he was better off emigrating after being threatened with having his house bombed. On and off in the early years he did about ten years’ bird for assault, robbery, safe blowing and housebreaking. Six times the law got him to court for razor slashings, but they never managed to pin anything on him.
If Reg and Ron Kray needed a bit of ‘sorting’ north of the border, Arthur was the man they called on, and he never let them down. Got himself a nickname as the ‘Assassin’, that’s how well he did his job. Three months after he got an acquittal for killing Jim Goldie and Pat Welch, he was setting off to drive his mother-in-law to the shops, but as he turned the key a bomb went off under the car killing Margaret instantly. Arthur survived but, as far as I know, the bombers didn’t.
While I was sitting on a murder charge myself, Arthur wrote to me every week without fail. Then he missed a week and I guessed something was up because he could be relied on. I had to wait until the following week to find out in his letter that his son, Arthur Junior, had been shot dead at the front door while he was on home leave from an 11-year stretch. Arthur was gutted and I don’t think he ever got over it. But heartbroken as he was, it didn’t stop him from sorting out the bastards responsible. On the day they were burying his boy, the two blokes responsible were found shot dead, in a car, in the East End of Glasgow.
The first thing I set my eyes on when I woke up the next morning was this man that straight people think of as ‘that terrible gangster’. He was standing by my bed, a breakfast tray in his hands, and wearing the widest tartan braces I have ever seen in my life – they must have been four inches across.
‘Fuck me, Arthur,’ I said, ‘ain’t they invented belts up here yet?’ He put the tray down, gave his braces a twang, and growled, ‘See these, son? I bought them in Galashiels in 1951 and they’re as good as new.’ Then he dropped the daily papers on my chest saying, ‘I hope you’re making an exception for me in your headlines.’
I grabbed the People and right across the front page was LENNY MCLEAN SAYS ALL SCOTS ARE PORRIDGE-GUZZLING COWARDS. He was giving me his menacing look. ‘I never said that Arthur, honest. What I said was, “They’re all porridge-guzzling c**ts.”’ We had a good laugh at that. ‘This is down to Ritchie you know. I told that to him yesterday – I didn’t expect him to ring the papers with it, though. What’s going on?’
He didn’t have to answer. As I read the papers I could see that Ritch
ie’s got me challenging every hard man in Scotland: ‘After the Jim Watt fight on Saturday, the “Cockney Guv’nor” will throw out a challenge to any Scotsman willing to take him on. Come on, lads, who will flatten this Sassenach and defend Scotland’s honour?’
Arthur was laughing. I said, ‘You and Ritchie set this up between you, didn’t you?’
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘couldn’t resist making a few shillings out of you while you’re here – help pay for your lodgings.’
We saw the Watt fight and with everybody keyed up about the match we sat back and waited for the challenges. On Monday afternoon we got a call from somebody putting up John Curry. ‘Leave it out, Arthur,’ I said. ‘I ain’t fighting a poncy ice skater.’
‘No, son’ – he always called me son – ‘this is a very different Curry and a very hard man – well known, and his name will have the side bets pouring in.’
We never even had a chance to have a word with him. Two days later we got a call from the same bloke as before. Curry’s got himself nicked doing an armed robbery and he’s in custody. So that’s blown out.
Straight away we get another challenge, so we grab it with both hands before this bastard chokes on a haggis or something. Five grand side-stake, with six-ounce gloves, as near bare knuckles as the law allows. Not brilliant money, but a good start. Arthur fixed up the fight in one of his clubs, got the tickets and posters sorted, and we’re off.
This geezer, Robert Young, looked the business. He was 6ft 7½in tall, weighed in at 17 stone, and at one time was the heavyweight champion of the First Royal Scots, a right flash Scottish regiment. That’s where he’ll fall down. I’m a street fighter, he’s a boxer – we think different. He’s been trained up on all that Queensberry stuff. I don’t know what the rules are, and never wanted to know.