Young Winstone

by Ray Winstone

  We bang kids up in these fucking conditions, but at the end of the day whatever you’ve done you’re supposed to go into the system to be rehabilitated, and that just wasn’t the way it worked at the time. What you see happening in Scum is more about punishment, and while I do think there are certain people who need to be punished, it’s not a good principle to run the whole system on.

  Because of the Scum connection I was invited to Rodney Wing at HM Prison Portland a few years after the film came out to see the work they were doing there trying to rehabilitate people. The idea was to come in and have a chat with the kids and try to do a theatre group with them – just to give them the idea that if I can do it, maybe you can too. I must admit I was very apprehensive about doing this at first. I just thought, ‘Fuck me, some of these kids are probably in here for murder. How am I going to help them become better people just by doing a bit of acting?’

  In a way, I still think that. But when I saw what those warders were trying to do by sitting the kids around and talking about their problems, I started to see the potential of it. They were trying to do something really proper but – and sadly this is how it always works with human beings – the screws in the grown-up nick next door didn’t want anything to do with it. Their mentality was: ‘We’re here to punish these people, and that’s what we’re gonna do.’ Never mind how many statistics might show them that these kids are much less likely to be a danger to others when they go back out on the street if someone’s actually given them a chance.

  Wherever you stand on this, there’s no denying that the reason the criminal justice system should exist in the first place – which is to rehabilitate people so they won’t commit any more crimes – has kind of got lost as more and more of the system’s energies go towards defending its own status quo. You could see that very clearly in the way the political establishment clamped down on Scum. It was like the film itself was the rebel character Archer – played by David Threlfall in the first version and Mick Ford in the second – and Parliament and the BBC were the screws.

  Of course, I wasn’t overly bothered about all this at the time. I had enough going on in my life not to be too invested in it. So, in the autumn of 1977, when the original TV Scum actually got banned – which for all I knew meant my first leading role was going to go forever unseen – I just thought, ‘Well, there you go’, and effectively retired from the acting business for eighteen months.

  I’ll get onto how I made ends meet in the next few chapters, but obviously there was a fair amount of rebellion in the air in that particular Jubilee year. I didn’t dress like a punk – the safety-pin gear wasn’t for me, although the drainpipe trousers were alright – but I liked the Sex Pistols’ music. Live gigs still didn’t really interest me though. I went up the Marquee Club once and got in a big row with some pogo-ers, and that was about the end of it. If you’d told me that within two or three years, not only would Sid Vicious be dead but I’d have acted with all three of his surviving bandmates, I would probably have been a bit surprised.

  One musical opportunity I wasn’t going to pass up in the meantime was the chance to DJ for nurses’ parties. They love a dance, don’t they, nurses? And everyone knows that it’s any patriotic Englishmen’s duty to try to bring happiness to as many nurses as possible.

  How this important landmark in DJing history came about was that Tony Yeates was working as a photographer at St Thomas’ Hospital by this time – taking photos of all the operations for their records. He was, and is, a really good smudger (as photographers were always called on my plot), and it was an interesting job, if a bit gory. He took some amazing pictures of surgeons’ hands as well, and when someone offered him the chance to fake a different kind of dexterity by DJing for a nurses’ party, Tony was hardly going to say no.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it,’ he’d told them. ‘Me and my mate Ray have got all the equipment.’ Of course we ain’t got any of the equipment, and we ain’t got any DJing experience either, but if Tony Blackburn can do this, how hard can it be?

  Luckily, Tony’s younger brother Steve had some turntables we could borrow for the night, and we also borrowed Steve, who came along to show us how to use them. We set off for deepest darkest South London in an optimistic frame of mind, blissfully ignorant of the fact that there’s a mob out of Brixton who had the job before us and got sacked, who are not best pleased about losing their gig to a couple of East London pumpkins. So we’re in there on the night, making it up as we go along with all the nurses having a great time dancing to our random selection of old singles. (I remember Rod Stewart’s ‘Maggie May’ going down particularly well. ‘Mr Blue Sky’ by ELO was another winner – that was about as up to the minute as we got.) Then we look over to see this angry-looking black guy with a big velvet pimp hat on standing at the back with all his cronies.

  The message somehow gets through to us that this used to be their gig. Tony goes, ‘It’s on us,’ and I’m thinking, ‘Uh-oh. We’ve nicked their gig, on their manor – we’re in trouble here.’ It seems like whatever’s gonna happen is probably gonna happen, so I go for the ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ strategy, and put on that song ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ – Carl Douglas, I think it was – with a special dedication: ‘And this is for the pimp and his mates at the back.’

  They’re all getting a bit lively at this point but nothing actually happens, so I’m thinking, ‘We might have fronted ’em here.’ It’s only me, Tony and his kid brother with all this expensive DJ equipment which we’ve got to get back in the motor, because if things had gone off that would’ve probably been the first casualty of war. So, at the end of the night we pile it all into this green Triumph Herald estate we’d picked up from somewhere which you could only start with a screwdriver.

  As we pull away, we look round and see three car-loads of this mob following us. A car chase ensues, only it’s more like Steptoe and Son than Smokey and the Bandit (which was on at the pictures that year) because we’re staggering along in this knackered old Triumph throwing records out of the window at them for a laugh – only the pony ones, not The Jam or anything like that. They finally catch up with us around the back of the Italia Conti stage school in Farringdon.

  At this point we’d be very happy to discover that the whole thing is some kind of on-location improvisation workshop, but sadly that doesn’t look likely. I ask Tony if he’s ready, he nods, and we get out of the car. These geezers are all around us and they’re more than mob-handed, so I go up to the guy in the pimp hat and say, ‘Alright, mate. There’s obviously enough of you to do us, but are we men? Put up your two best, me and him [I’m pointing at Tony now because Stephen was only a little fella and we wanted to keep him out of it] will fight them, and whoever wins, wins.’

  Now I’m clutching at straws here, but we ain’t got no chance otherwise, and the tactic seems to be working because they’re back-tracking a bit – it’s like they’re not sure about us. Taking advantage of their moment of hesitation, I go round to the back of the car, because I know I’ve got an iron bar in my bag and they’re not gonna want to fight one-on-one with that. The minute I reach in the car to pull it out, they think I’ve got a shooter. One of them shouts, ‘He’s got a gun’, and it’s just starting to feel like we might get out of this alive when another car pulls up and another big black guy gets out.

  This geezer’s a mountain and we’re thinking, ‘Oh fuck! We’re for it now.’ He comes up to us asking, ‘What’s the trouble, boys?’ So, trying to keep calm because I don’t know who this guy is or what his connection is to the other mob, I go, ‘Nothing, mate – the boys are just putting it on us a bit.’ At that point he turns round to them and goes, ‘You fucking lot, get outta here.’ He’s literally the biggest black man in the world and he’s telling them to fuck off, which they promptly do.

  It turned out not to be a black and white thing to him on any level. They were a gang who were picking on us, and he was just a nice guy passing through who saw three kids in trouble
and decided to help us out. We shook his hand with a big sigh of relief, in fact I gave him a grateful cuddle, then off we all went into the Clerkenwell night. Result! In fact, a Triumph, although strangely enough Stephen never offered to lend us his DJ equipment again . . .

  CHAPTER 18

  THE 277 BUS UP BURDETT ROAD

  I had some funny old motors in my first few years of driving round London. I knew nothing about cars whatsoever, but I did have a happy knack for getting hold of dodgy MOTs, which wasn’t just useful but vital given the state of some of the heaps I was at the wheel of.

  I’d done most of my learning to drive in a knackered Ford Anglia van with a big long gear-stick. I used to have a problem going round corners in it because there was something about the layout of the pedals which encouraged you to put your foot on the accelerator rather than the brake. That’s never a good idea, especially when it nearly turns the whole thing on its side, and even more so when that happens on the rare occasion when you’ve persuaded your dad to take you for a driving lesson (admittedly I had already driven the car around on my own or with mates a fair bit before it was strictly legal). This mistake got me thrown out of the driver’s seat with a clump round the side of the head as a bonus and my dad drove home saying, ‘I ain’t getting in a bloody car with you again.’

  The leafy suburbs of Winchmore Hill was where I took my driving tests. One of the times I failed, the examiner did me on driving too close to parked vehicles. I asked him, ‘Did I hit any?’ He answered, ‘No’, so I said, ‘Well, how can I have been too fucking close then?’ And yet still I failed – where was the justice? There might have been a bit of an altercation after that – I was going through a bit of a hot-headed phase – and I eventually passed at the third time of asking. I don’t know how because that was probably the worst I’d ever driven in my life. Maybe the examiners just wanted to get rid of me.

  Their plan worked, because as soon as I could get out of Enfield under my own steam, that place didn’t see me for dust. I’d had a few trial runs down to Whitechapel and Stratford on my dad’s moped. He was in the process of giving up on the fruit and veg game by that point because the big supermarket chains had killed it, and was doing the Knowledge to become a black-cab driver.

  He already knew London like the back of his hand, so he passed the test really quickly, but while he was going round studying his little clipboard with a map on it in the daylight hours, I used to sneak into the garden of an evening and borrow his bike to head off to the East End. It was best not to get caught, because he still wasn’t the biggest fan of two-wheeled transportation, but he couldn’t really say too much about it now he was off out on a bike all day himself.

  Once I started to get my hands on vehicles of my own, I loved the sense of freedom I felt bombing back home through Hackney and then up the A10. I had an old claret Cortina for a while (all it needed was some blue trim and the colour scheme would’ve been perfect). There was a side-window missing which I’d had to replace with some plastic, and one wing was all bent back where I’d hit something. Overall that car was a total rust-bucket, but it did used to go. Then there was the Triumph Herald estate which got us out of the sticky DJing situation, and last but not least was a black Triumph Herald convertible which I borrowed for a long time. That one only started with a screwdriver as well, but it was so worn you had to physically turn the whole ignition. I think in the end only the wires were left.

  The places I’d be going to would be Moro’s or the Two Puddings in Stratford, or a pub called the Charleston further over towards Maryland Point. Obviously it was the height of the disco era, but although I’d loved Motown and early seventies soul, I wasn’t so into disco. I still learnt how to use the music to my advantage. If John Travolta and The Bee Gees could, then why shouldn’t I? But I wasn’t having the fashion. When the big round collars and the stack-heeled shoes came in I wore them once. That night I slipped on some ice on the platform of Bruce Grove station and to my embarrassment fell down onto the track – fucking stack-heels! No, thank you very much – it was back to the old straight jeans and winkle-pickers for me.

  Our status as nightlife apprentices on Martin Nash and Neville Cole’s firm broadened our range of places to go out as well. I remember hearing an enormous crash outside Tipples once. We ran into the street to see a car more or less cut in half and Neville getting out of it with one of the Hariths, who were a big family from another area. They were both all bruised and cut up, but they just walked into the pub and said, ‘Come on, we’re going to Beirut.’

  That’s what we called the Old Kent Road in South London, because when you went down there at the weekend, all you’d hear was sirens. On the night in question we got in another motor and drove to Le Connoisseur, which was a Greek restaurant but with a club above it. I remember going to use the toilet in this bar and looking up to see a camera pointing at me. I suppose it was there to stop people snorting Charlie, but that wasn’t the purpose of my visit. I went back out there and told everyone, ‘There’s a camera in the khazi’, and they all went, ‘No!’

  The number of stabbings on the Old Kent Road was outrageous in those days. Someone would say, ‘We’re going over Beirut on Saturday’, and you’d just think, ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’You’d want to come back to Bethnal Green for a bit of peace and quiet . . . yeah, right.

  It was buzzing on the weekends in E2 at that time too. There were a lot of good pubs, and if you’d pulled and you wanted to take a bird out on your own, the place me and Tony Yeates would always go to was the Venus steakhouse in Bethnal Green Road. I’d always have the same meal in there: start with a prawn cocktail (it was the seventies after all), then T-bone steak, obviously, and a bottle of that Portuguese fizzy rosé to help it go down.

  I know what you’re thinking – ‘That’s a well-oiled seduction machine’ – and, to be honest, it was. But things didn’t always go to plan in that department, especially when you went off your usual manor. And even more so if you couldn’t get hold of a car, so public transport had to be factored in.

  The incident I’m about to describe definitely took place between the two Scums, because I was going to a party with Ray Burdis and some of the other Anna Scher guys I’d got to know on the first one, and by the time the second one came out I’d met my Elaine and was safely off the market. At this particular point in time I’d just split up with a bird, so I wasn’t going out with anyone, but I’d met this beautiful-looking girl through a family connection with my auntie Jeanie.

  I’m not going to say what her name was, because she’s a married woman now and it’ll be embarrassing for her, but she lived in the flats round the back of the Londoner pub in Limehouse. I went round there to pick her up and knocked on her parents’ door: ‘Hello, Mr and Mrs —, I’m Raymond’ – all very polite and wanting to make a good impression.

  They were the same way: ‘Hello, Raymond, come in.’ Unfortunately, there was a telephone on the floor of the hallway which I didn’t see, and as I walked towards the front room I accidentally kicked it – still on its cord – straight through the plate-glass door to the lounge.

  At this point, obviously, I’m mortified. The door is smashed to smithereens, there’s little bits of glass everywhere, and I’m saying, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t see the phone’, and trying to help them clear up the mess. The girl I’m waiting to go out with is still upstairs getting ready, but her mum and dad are being really nice about it: ‘Don’t worry, Raymond. Sit yourself down and we’ll make you up a nice cup of tea.’ They show me to a seat and go off to the kitchen to put the kettle on, but as I lean back on the sofa, the arm splits and falls off. I’m desperately trying to get it back on while they’re still out of the room but it just won’t hold, so when they come back I just have to say, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve broken your settee.’

  Of course, by this time they’re looking at me like I’m some sort of nutter. Fucking hell, it’s embarrassing. Luckily, at that point their daughter’s finally got herself ready, and we
set off to get a bus up to the tube at Mile End (normally I’d have got a cab, so I must have been skint). We get on the old 277 and go upstairs, and now the pain of what’s happened is starting to fade a bit – I’m not completely over it, but we’re having a nice chat.

  At this point a Russian sailor comes up the stairs – in full uniform, that’s how I can see he’s a Ruskie. He walks over and starts talking to us in broken English, but it’s clear enough that his intentions aren’t honourable.

  ‘You and your girlfriend come with me and we’ll have a good night,’ he says. I go, ‘We’ll have a what?’ There’s no other way this is going to go after that than with the two of us having a fight, and I end up giving the Russian a good fucking hiding right there, on the top deck.

  The bus driver’s going potty, so we have to get off the bus and walk the rest of the way up to Mile End. Now that’s three really bad things that have happened in the space of twenty minutes. We should have quit while we were behind, but we didn’t, and for a little while things started to run a bit more smoothly again. We got the tube over to where the party was – in one of those big three-storey houses in Cloudesley Square, on the posh side of Islington.

  I’ve bought a bottle of something. They’ve let us in fine and we’ve gone straight upstairs to the front room. I’m having a quick word with my mates. My date doesn’t know anyone, but she’s having a nice chat with the girls, and I’m keeping half an eye on her the whole time to make sure she’s doing alright. Then I look up to see her walking towards me and everything goes into slow motion – always a bad sign with me.

  The reason everything goes into slow motion on this occasion is because she’s tripped on the carpet, and I can see she’s falling towards the marble fireplace. I stick my arm out to grab her, and in that fraction of a second, just as I’m sighing with relief because I’ve saved the day, my elbow knocks into this huge cut-glass chandelier which for some reason is sitting on the table. First, it rocks – but I can’t catch it because I’ve still got Lucky in my arms – then it falls. And then it hits the marble fireplace and shatters into even more pieces than the door into her lounge did about an hour before.