Senor Nice: Straight Life From Wales to South America

by Howard Marks

  We drove west along the coast road to Ocho Rios, a cruise ship pit stop populated by higglers – tourist fleecers – musicians, ganja dealers, cocaine dealers and others who love life and are intimate with death. Rows of detached mansions and renovated plantation houses sat next to luxurious condiminiums. We pulled into a driveway leading to a cross between a stately home and a motel. A friendly guard lying on a deckchair smoking a chalice full of ganja smiled and waved us through. Beano, wearing a metallic blue shirt, Savile Row-style thin black trousers and even more gold jewellery than last time, danced out to greet us.

  ‘Leroy and Niceman. Wi start party now at my place before wi hit de hot spot. Mi hear dat yo like Front-end Loader, Niceman? Mi soon come.’

  Prescot appeared with a tray of Front-end Loaders, the guard brought me a chalice, and Beano played a Black Uhuru album. I began to get seriously spannered.

  ‘Would you like to accompany me for a short walk, Niceman? I’ll show you the grounds,’ invited Prescot, who led the way out through a garden gate.

  We walked down a grassy lane past the back of some beautiful but modest houses.

  ‘Several well-known artists and musicians live in this row,’ said Prescot.

  ‘Who’s the most famous?’ I asked.

  ‘That would have to be Mr Ranglin, Niceman.’

  ‘Mr Ranglin? Not Ernest Ranglin, surely?’

  ‘Exactly so. The great man himself.’

  ‘I don’t believe it, Prescot.’

  ‘It’s easily established, Niceman. We can call in on him. Beano told me he is at home this week.’ Dressed in a loose light shirt and green trousers, a kindly-looking elderly man with a radiant face was leaning on one of the gates. Prescot approached him and suddenly switched his speech from precise English to patois. ‘Misa Ranglin, meet mi fren. Dem call im Mr Nice.’

  I was shaking hands with Jamaica’s BB King. Born in Manchester, Jamaica in 1932, Ernest Ranglin taught himself the guitar by studying books and attending events featuring Jamaican dance bands. At sixteen, he was Jamaica’s rising star, touring locally and in the Bahamas. Chris Blackwell saw Ranglin play in Montego Bay and contracted him to record Island Records’ first release. When the tough urban sounds of American rhythm and blues began to supersede traditional mento, it was Ranglin who first combined the two to produce ska and provide Jamaica with a new sound. In 1964 Chris Blackwell invited Ernest Ranglin to London, where he played at Ronnie Scott’s and became its resident jazz guitarist for nine months. At the same time he created the first worldwide ska hit, ‘My Boy Lollipop’, for Millie Small and was voted the number-one guitarist in the world. I saw him play during this period. He was brilliant and unforgettable, and he is still playing and recording.

  ‘Ah yes. Beano told me about you, Mr Nice. I’ve borrowed the book you wrote from him. Great story.’

  There were all sorts of questions I wanted to ask Ernest, such as did Rod Stewart really play harmonica on ‘My Boy Lollipop’? I was too shy to do so and settled for a photograph with the legend.

  ‘Yo will af yo picture tek wid nuff star tonight, Niceman. Mek wi go back dong a Beano now.’

  ‘Why are you suddenly speaking patois, Prescot?’

  ‘I always do when conversing with a Jamaican.’

  ‘But you’re talking to me now.’

  ‘You’re turning into a Jamaican, Niceman.’

  The party had grown quickly. Bottles of overproof rum, cans of Red Stripe and giant glasses of Front-end Loader covered every available surface. In the garden a cameraman was doing a video shoot of over twenty girls aged anywhere between twelve and twenty wearing just dental floss G-strings and fine mesh netting dancing provocatively to the new craze from Spanish Town, Rasta Rocket. Immaculately dressed musicians, with either stunning women or terrifying bodyguards, swayed gently as they moved seamlessly from one sound system to another. Crowds of infants, also faultlessly dressed, honed their hip hop moves and hand signals. Everyone was either laughing or singing. Beano sidled up to me.

  ‘So yo meet Mo mi bredren at Tuff Gong place, Niceman?’

  ‘The Rasta. Yes I did.’

  ‘Im ano real Rasta. Im a rent-a-dred or disco Rasta.’

  ‘Disco Rasta! What’s that?’

  ‘Rasta is a holy man who nah drink no liquor an nah shave at all because de Bible tell him no. An im no fuck strange women, an im always smoke de high-grade herb. Rent-a-dred do everyting. Im drink liquor, wear dreads because lady dem find dem sexy, im fuck anyting, an smoke anyting. Mo always af good ganja. Yo snort, Niceman?’

  ‘I take most drugs, Beano.’

  ‘Mi af di best cocaine, Niceman. Yo wa some?’

  ‘Sure, Beano. I’d love some.’

  Beano pulled out a bag of cocaine the size of a tennis ball. He opened it, dipped the corner of a credit card deep into the flake and stuck a mound of it near one of my nostrils. I sniffed as if it was my first breath. Hot jets of clarity burned through my olfactory membranes and optimism streaked through my brain. This was strong stuff. For the next hour I flirted with all the women there, thinking I was shagging them rather than just talking about myself, and kept looking for Beano to give me some more cocaine. Instead, I found Leroy looking at me more disapprovingly than ever.

  ‘Alrite, party done. Mi hungry. Mi ready.’

  We drove a few miles further west to St Ann’s Bay and parked the car at a restaurant surrounded by a tangle of fairy lights and barbecues emitting small explosions. Without asking me, Leroy ordered conch and a cold drink that smelled of turnips.

  ‘Look ya. Ano everybody yo fi tek tings from dong ya. Yo afi watch yourself.’

  ‘I had one line of coke, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘If a from Beano, everybody know dat coke from im a ten time stronger an a line from im a ten time longer.’

  ‘It was excellent coke, I admit. And the duppies have fucked off.’

  ‘Lef de coke alone, mon. Stick to de herb if ya af to take any drug.’

  The conch, prepared by chopping it with seasoned rice and putting the mixture in a silver foil envelope on the barbecue, arrived at the table. It was delicious, and I wolfed the lot in seconds – pure cocaine does not destroy one’s appetite. I sipped at the drink, which tasted like compost.

  ‘Drink dis. Dem ya roots wi keep yo healty.’

  Leroy and I left the restaurant and joined streams of excited people all heading in the same direction. We came across a giant poster that stated in huge multicoloured letters, ‘Ruddy Joe Production and Airtight Security Present a Night Call at Jus Cheers, St Ann’s’. Then came a line-up of Jamaican music legends: dancehall pioneers Brigadier Jerry and Charlie Chaplin, Ninja, Lloyd Parks & We the People Band, Leroy Sibbles, founder member of the Heptones, Luciano, the outrageous Professor Nuts and the greatest Jamaican singer ever, Ken Boothe.

  ‘All these guys are performing tonight, Leroy? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Dis ago be your best party eva, mon.’

  The venue was a large field surrounded by a high fence, outside which were parked shiny red trucks loaded with sugar cane, coconuts and machetes. Succulent chunks of chicken and pork were grilling on jerk barrels – usually fifty-gallon drums cut in half. Piles of cases of Red Stripe served as temporary bars. Ganja dealers shouted, ‘High grade. High-grade weed.’ Peanut, hot dog, ice cream and candyfloss vendors pushed their contraptions on wheels through the dense crowd at the entrance. Those filing in saluted one another by pointing their forefingers at their temples, as if their hands were guns about to blow their brains out.

  Dancehall shootings had begun when security guards at outdoor events fired their pistols into the air to signal support for a particular artist – a bad idea as falling bullets would sometimes injure members of the audience and hit men were able to use the shots as cover for their assassinations. Performers had begged their supporters to leave their guns at home, and the handgun salute replaced the real thing.

  I took my place in the queue. ‘No, mon. Wi no join l
ine. Ken Boothe no deya yet. Wi go in wid im.’

  I noticed a vendor selling magic mushroom tea. Unfortunately, Leroy detected my interest.

  ‘Lef dat shit, mon. Fungus ano herb.’

  A car with its headlights full on and a horn like that of an ice cream van was gently ploughing its way through the crowd. Beano was in the driving seat; Prescot sat next to him; Ken Boothe was in the back. He was wearing a safari-style white suit, and his face shone like that of a baby angel.

  Ken Boothe is known as Mr Rocksteady for his pioneering of the style, as Mr Evergreen for his forever-young looks, and as Mr Smooth for his stage presence. He has the most powerful and passionate voice, a gritty soulful baritone, reminiscent of Wilson Pickett’s. From humble Jamaican origins and a talented dancer, songwriter, musician and arranger, he uses his skills to promote harmony and break down barriers of race and religion. He is Jamaica’s perfect ambassador. Ken’s international recording career began with his cover version of Sandie Shaw’s 1967 Eurovision Song Contest winner, ‘Puppet on a String’. He continued to make rocksteady covers of pop and soul hits. In 1974 he recorded and released his greatest hit, ‘Everything I Own’, which topped the UK charts. It is my favourite Jamaican song.

  Beano introduced me and Leroy to Ken, and we followed him through the entrance. The security guards knew Beano, Prescot and Ken Boothe, but not me or Leroy.

  ‘This is my security,’ said Ken, pointing to Leroy, ‘and this is my producer from London,’ pointing to me. The security guards gave us VIP AAA passes.

  The VIP area did not resemble the heavily staffed and cordoned-off sections full of minor celebrities one finds in London; it was simply the part of the field nearest the stage where the performers hung out. There were no guards stopping any of the audience from joining them, but no one tried. The punters were there to dance and listen to the music, not hassle those who provided it.

  On stage, older guys were positioning microphones, assembling drum kits and connecting 30,000-watt speakers to turntables, mixers and other DJ equipment while kids were carrying up boxes of 45-rpm records.

  Beano, Ken and I shared a chalice of high grade, while, somehow, Prescot managed to get me a crude Front-end Loader. Leroy approached me with Leroy Sibbles and a man dressed in flowing shiny white robes wearing a large oriental lampshade on his head.

  ‘Luciano and Mr Sibbles, this Mr Nice.’

  Luciano – Jepther McClymont – is a deeply religious man and was responsible for reintroducing spiritual lyricism and humanity to dancehall when many of his contemporaries were stricken with gangsta fever. During the early 1990s, Luciano, so called because of his ability to sound like Pavarotti, alternated periods of extraordinary chart success, including songs like ‘Shake It Up’, with spiritual sabbaticals and the pursuit of his social agenda. He is a passionate supporter of legalising marijuana. I was honoured to meet him.

  Elevated by the ganja, ego-stroked by meeting the reggae legends playing on stage and elated by their music, I determined to dance until everyone else dropped. But this was Jamaica. When dawn broke, not a single person had left or seemed the least bit weary, except Leroy.

  ‘Ya afi to catch de iron bird soon, mon. Time fi lef dis place.’

  Groups and families were still arriving as Leroy and I walked back to the restaurant’s car park and climbed into the car for an effortless two-hour drive back to Morgan’s Harbour Hotel and Beach Club. I quickly grabbed my things and checked out. Leroy took me to the airport.

  ‘Yo see. Mi do wah mi say mi can do. Mi show yo everyting: de four Rs of Jamaica – rum, reggae, reefer and Rasta. An mi show you Henry Morgan’s treasure.’

  ‘I know. It’s been great. I’m going to miss it, and you. How long before you are back in Britain?’

  ‘Mi no know yet. Mi hav someting fi tek care of. But mi soon come.’

  ‘I’ve had an idea. Why don’t we get a local craftsman to build a statue of Henry Morgan in Port Royal?’

  ‘Money talk an bullshit walk. Anyting yo want an yo have de money, yo can do. Af a safe flight.’

  ‘Bye, Leroy. Make sure the statue’s face looks like mine.’

  Seven

  BRAZIL

  I walked downstairs into the dark basement of a West End lap dancing club in Soho. Naked Russians twirled around the poles, lights flashed and music blared. I vaguely recognised the silhouettes of Dave Courtney, Bernie Davies, Tony Lambrianou, Charlie Breaker and other members of the Firm huddled together with the Alabama 3. I moved towards them.

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Thanks for coming along, Howard. Haven’t seen you for a while.’

  It was Bruce Reynolds, mastermind of the Great Train Robbery and the most gentlemanly of those who live outside the law. I first met Bruce during the mid 1980s. Actor Larry Lamb had played him in the film Buster and Larry was friendly with my first wife, Ilze. He had introduced me to Bruce. I met him again ten years later through his son Nick, a talented sculptor and musician who played with the Alabama 3 and with whom I had worked at various spoken-word events. It had been a year or two since Bruce and I had last met, at Farringdon’s Tardis Studios, where we had read extracts from our respective autobiographies. He had seemed troubled. I remembered our conversation.

  ‘What’s up, Bruce? You seem worried.’

  ‘It’s not really a case of worry, I’m just concerned about Ronnie. You know me, my boy Nick, Dave Courtney and Roy Shaw went out to Rio to see him for his seventieth birthday?’

  ‘Yes, Nick told me about it. Wasn’t it also the birthday of the robbery?’

  ‘That’s right, the thirty-sixth anniversary. We did the robbery on Ronnie’s birthday in 1963. We always have a laugh about that. But Ronnie’s ill, really seriously ill, and completely skint.’

  Ronnie Biggs, fleeing from thirty years in a British prison, had arrived in Brazil in 1970. Four years later, Scotland Yard detective Jack Slipper arrested him in Rio de Janeiro. Biggs beat the extradition attempt as a result of having fathered a Brazilian dependant, Michael, with his girlfriend Raimunda and went on to record ‘No One is Innocent’ for the Sex Pistols. In 1981 a gang of bounty hunters kidnapped him in Rio and smuggled him to Barbados by boat. A Barbados court decided the rules governing extradition to Britain had not been properly adhered to, and allowed Biggs to return to Rio, where he lived in a dilapidated apartment in petty-crime-ridden Santa Teresa, on the city’s outskirts. Biggs made money by selling T-shirts and photographs of himself and entertaining tourists with escape stories. In 1997 the Brazilian Supreme Court rejected a new request by the British government to extradite him. During the next two years he suffered a series of strokes, which left him partly paralysed and unable to speak.

  ‘You know what he told me out there, Howard: “You got me into this, Bruce. Can you get me out of it? I’ve got one more wish in life, and that’s to buy a pint of bitter in a Margate pub.”’

  ‘What does he expect you to do?’

  ‘Help him get back to this country.’

  ‘What! He wants to swap a beach in Brazil for a cell in Wandsworth nick? I hope you persuaded him not to.’

  ‘Ronnie thinks he’ll get out after a while on compassionate grounds, and that while he’s in he can get proper medical treatment.’

  ‘Since when have they been compassionate, Bruce? Those Wandsworth screws would love to see Ronnie Biggs die sewing mailbags, and I don’t think the word “proper” accurately describes the medical treatment dished out to Her Majesty’s prisoners, unless it’s changed since I was there. I’d take my chances with the Brazilian doctors if I were him.’

  ‘Treatment in Brazil would cost a fortune, more than all of us together could raise.’

  ‘Won’t some newspaper fork out for an exclusive?’

  ‘I tried that. The media are only interested in covering what goes wrong for him, like all the strokes. The papers will only pay if he gives himself up. And it is his choice, after all. If that’s what he wants to do, I’ve got to help. I did get h
im into it in the first place. I’ll help him get back, I’ll get him some money, I’ll see him as often as I can, and I’ll do what I can to get an early release.’

  Several months later Nick Reynolds pushed a wheelchair containing Ronnie Biggs into the departure lounge of Galeão International Airport in Rio de Janeiro. A fourteen-seater jet chartered by the Sun was waiting to take him home. Biggs was arrested the moment his feet touched British soil. Friends and relatives arranged a series of fund-raising events to finance his bids to secure early release. This was the first event I had been able to attend.

  ‘How’s it all going, Bruce.’

  ‘OK, but Ronnie’s health is just getting worse, his family are going through all kinds of hell, and we’re finding it hard to raise any loot. Apart from us, no one cares.’

  Dave Courtney joined us. ‘You’re not wrong, Bruce. The fuckers keep harping on about protecting society and all that bollocks. I mean, Ronnie’s hardly likely to rob a train again, is he? He can’t fucking walk or talk for starters. What kind of poxy society needs to be protected from cripples on their last legs? Sadists, the fucking lot of them. Then there’s those geezers who go on about deterrence. It’s too fucking late to deter Ronnie. Ronnie’s a living commercial for a career of crime. But the creeps that really get up my nose are the ones who whinge about the train driver. Do they know what happens to boxers? What was he doing trying to stop robbers doing their work anyway? Liberty-taking fucker.’

  ‘Well, they did try to stop him doing his work – driving the train,’ I said, trying to calm Dave down.

  Bruce laughed. Dave tried not to and said, ‘You can see which one of us is the stand-up comedian. You all right, Howard? Didn’t mean to ignore you. Haven’t seen you since that Tenerife nonsense. Anyway, if Ronnie had been a nonce or a terrorist, he’d have been home …’

  Dave Courtney and Tony Lambrianou were two of the most high-profile senior members of the Firm, the organisation begun by Ronnie Kray in the early 1960s, and they had attended one of my first Mr Nice Live shows at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in late 1997. Despite the venue’s rigorous security, they had experienced no difficulty gaining access to the backstage after-show party. Dave grabbed me as I walked off the stage, gave me a huge kiss, and told me he too was thinking of embarking on a stand-up comedy career and had come to get some inspiration of the ‘If he can do it, anyone can’ kind.