by Linda Calvey
First published by Mirror Books in 2019
Mirror Books is part of Reach plc
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© Melanie and Neil Calvey
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ISBN 978-1-912624-59-1
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Cover images: iStockphoto
For Melanie and Neil
Prologue
“Come ON!” I screamed as the men in balaclavas ran towards the van, sawn-off shotguns in their hands. They flung open the doors and threw themselves in just as I slammed my foot down on the accelerator. The tyres squealed. “Get us out of here!” Brian shouted, pulling up his balaclava, a wild look on his face.
“Hold on!” I swung round the corner and screeched down a side passage to the far end, turning into a backstreet residential road, before abruptly drawing to a stop. I glanced in the car mirrors, making sure we weren’t being followed by Old Bill.
“All clear,” I barked. “Carl. Balaclava in the bag.” Carl pulled off his headgear and thrust it at Brian. “Now go!”
Carl jumped out and slammed the door behind him, throwing his gloves back in through the window. We sped away in the van as Carl sauntered off in the other direction towards the bus stop, smoothing down his hair, looking to all intents and purposes like a normal bloke just going about his daily business. Brian packed the shotguns away into the holdall containing the money, and stuffed the balaclavas and Carl’s gloves in on top. The sirens squealed in the distance behind us as I rounded the next few corners at full speed, and shuddered to a halt a few streets further along. Every police officer and squad car within a three-mile radius was heading our way.
“It’s clear, Brian. Meet you at Harpley Square later.” Brian gave me a brisk nod as he leapt out of the van with the holdall, pulling his gloves off and packing them away as he walked towards his own car. He got in and drove off as casually as possible.
My heart was pounding as I tore off once more, alone. Brian had the loot, but the coppers would still be suspicious if they found me in my gloves – I couldn’t take those off until I was out of the van, to avoid leaving prints.
I raced round the next few bends, still on full alert, expecting the cops at every turn. I pulled up again 10 metres short of my car, which I had left innocently parked up at the side of the road, took off my red wig and dark glasses, and shoved them into my handbag. Then I jumped out of the stolen van, checking we hadn’t left anything in there, pulled off my gloves, walked to the car and set off for home.
As my mind began to clear, I realised that we’d done it. In five frenzied minutes, Brian and Carl had robbed a bank security van in broad daylight on a busy street in London. They’d legged it from the scene, brandishing their shotguns. Weeks of meticulous planning had come off exactly as we wanted. I’d suggested the bank to the boys as a perfect target, and it was me who’d gone to scout the area. We’d discovered the times when the security van pulled up to load up the day’s money, and I’d made sure there were three possible exit routes in case of trouble. And I’d stayed cool in the heat of the moment, closing the deal in the getaway vehicle. It was far from over, but I was one of them now. Once Brian had dropped the guns and disguises off at the garage he rented, we’d all be meeting back at my place to share the spoils.
The air was heavy with police sirens as I turned onto the main road, straight out in front of a police car that was hurrying to the scene of the crime. My heart skipped a beat as I glanced in the mirrors, and I drove on at a normal speed with the traffic. But they hadn’t paid the slightest attention to me, and the Old Bill soon got fed up of following along behind. I allowed myself a wry smile as the police cars sped past me, sirens blaring, and disappeared up ahead.
You were born for this, Linda.
Chapter 1
East End, Born and Bred
1948-60
I grew up in the East End of London, the home of the underclass, the seething, broiling hunting ground of the city’s criminal establishment. My family lived just a stone’s throw away from the area ruled by the Kray twins, near the streets that Jack the Ripper once prowled. East London meant gang wars, violence, poverty and brutality. And yet alongside it was a real sense of yearning for a better life: a life where housing wasn’t in slum tenements with outdoor shared lavvies, where clothes weren’t all bought second- or third-hand at the Mission, where children could play in streets without coming home covered in filthy residue from the nearby dockland industries, where they could breathe in air that wasn’t filled with the stench of the tanneries, the boozers and the warehouses. We wanted more than we were born to, and yet we had no way of getting it. Not legally, at least. We survived by ducking and diving, by wheeling and dealing, by looking after our own, under the wing of the women who got us through the post-war deprivations with a grim smile, hot suppers on the table and endless love.
You have to be born within the sound of Bow bells to be a proper Cockney, and I was born in Ilford, so don’t quite have that privilege. But nowadays it’s a rare honour anyway, as most of the maternity hospitals within earshot have closed down. I was born in 1948, the second of nine children. My mum was the pillar of our family, as most East End mums are. It was only three years after the end of the war, and the country was reeling from the loss of a generation of men.
My father was a soldier, a tall lean man with dark hair and eyes that twinkled with mischief. He’d clapped eyes on Mum back when she was working her coffee stall under the arches at Stepney East Station. The story goes that even when the air raid sirens were wailing across London, Mum resolutely refused to go into a shelter, and carried on serving coffee to those who also didn’t care for a night spent breathing in the smells of other people, the unwashed, unshaven masses huddling together on the cold steps or floor of the Underground platform. Mum served steaming hot drinks as the Luftwaffe tipped bombs from the heavens onto our city, as the flames rose and buildings fell to rubble, as the docks ignited and explosions were heard as far away as Bermondsey. She put out incendiary bombs in her spare time. She was an indomitable spirit. She showed how strong the women of East London were back then. She didn’t tremble at the sound of the sirens – she just got on with it, like thousands of others. She was fierce when her back was against the wall.
It was there, under the arches, that my dad Charlie found his way to her stall. He was a dapper man, but he didn’t wear a trilby or a suit – he went about in braces, a flat cap and a shirt with a grandad collar.
My mum didn’t like the look of him at all. He l
ooked like a charmer, a bad boy with far too much confidence about him.
“Can I ’ave a tomato sandwich without the bread, please.” Dad looked at her, his head cocked to one side. Mum arched her brow.
“A tomato sandwich without the bread. D’you think I’m daft? What you mean is, you want a tomato?” she replied, caustically.
“Yeah that’s what I said, a tomato sandwich without the bread,” Dad shot back. My mum always says that at that point, she looked him up and down, and concluded that he was as good-looking as a film star but too tricky for her liking.
“There you go then, a tomato. You enjoy that, won’t you,” she said, keeping the smile off her face. She wasn’t going to give this charmer the satisfaction of seeing he’d tickled her. She knew he was flirting with her. No way was she going to flirt back.
“You got a match?” he drawled, clearly reluctant to move away from the woman he’d taken a fancy to, even though there was a queue forming behind him. Flustered now, Eileen said, “’Ere take this, I’ve got customers to serve. What would you like, love?” she said as she turned to the person behind him, handing Charlie the silver match case her father had gifted her for her birthday.
Charlie lit his cigarette, a Lucky Strike – which made Mum think he was a real wide boy, as they were hard to get. He casually shook away the flame and flicked the matchstick onto the road.
“You’ll get this back when you promise to go out with me,” he said, backing away and sauntering off down the street, whistling as he went.
“Of all the cheeky thieving so-and-sos!” Mum huffed. “He’s nicked me silver case.”
“You ’eard him,” grinned the next customer, “if you go out with him you’ll get it back… Can’t see you’ve got a choice, darlin’.”
With that, the man – who now had his hot coffee – winked at her and walked away, leaving Mum fuming, but also curious about this handsome but tricky bloke. “Well I never!” Mum huffed, her blood boiling as she carried on serving.
Mum wasn’t at the stall when Dad returned. Her sister Joyce was manning it for her.
“Tell Eileen I’m going off to the army,” Dad said. “Tell her she’ll have to write to me, and when I get back she’s gotta go out with me.”
Dad survived the war, came home, and did exactly as he’d promised. They were wed within weeks of his return, and she got her silver case back.
The docks were the centre of the working men’s world. After the war, my dad worked as a blacksmith, making docker’s hooks for the longshoremen, the manual labourers who loaded and unloaded the giant ships that brought spices from the East, and grain, tobacco, meat and vegetables from the Americas. The hooks were the stevedores’ most important tool and formed the emblem of the dock workers – so Dad managed to forge himself a niche in that uncertain world where men would queue for hours each morning at the gates to be picked for work.
Because of the docks, the East End was a prime target for German bombers during the war, and when I was growing up in the early 50s it was full of demolished buildings. It was heaven for kids. We’d spend hours running over the bombed houses, climbing piles of rubble, rifling through bits of brick and metal and digging out various old household items to take home with us. When we were getting under my mother’s feet, her first response was always to tell us to “Go and play on the bomb site.”
It seems unimaginable now, but those were some of the happiest days of our lives. We lived in a tight-knit community, and the streets were the perfect playground for us. When our friends came round to knock on the door and ask after us, Mum would chuckle and say, “Oh, they’re round the bombed houses.”
My brother Terry was three years older, and after me came Tony and Vivienne. Then, when I was five, we all moved from Ilford to Stepney, in the heart of the East End. Dad had been offered a four-bed maisonette by the council in Welton House on Stepney Way, and he’d leapt at the chance. It brought us closer to his work near Limehouse Docks, and Billingsgate and Smithfield markets. The Blind Beggar Pub, where Ronnie Kray later shot George Cornell dead, was a few streets away. So was Vallance Road in Bethnal Green, where the Kray twins had grown up. On the south side of the river were the Richardsons. Even though organised crime and gang warfare was rife by the time I became a young woman, I knew nothing about it.
We thought we’d landed in the lap of luxury in Stepney. The tower blocks were newly built in that familiar boxy shape with flat frontage, arranged in a long straight line opposite a row of bombed houses. Even though it was on a busy main road, dotted with occasional trees and the sound of passing traffic, we loved it.
“We’ve got stairs!” I shouted at Terry and Tony as we scampered inside. Both my brothers were handsome, both adored by me. Terry was tall and slim with light brown hair, Tony had a stockier build with dark brown hair. The street door to our new home, brand new and painted blue, opened into a passage. The toilet was on the left, the kitchen on the right, and at the end of the corridor was the lounge looking over the small back garden. It felt like paradise. Coming from a poky flat in Ilford, this seemed like a mansion.
“And there’s a new bomb site across the road for you boys to run wild in, no doubt,” said Mum, peering into her new kitchen, a smile on her lovely face.
I ran up the stairs with glee, Terry and Tony on my heels. We were like puppies let off the leash. It took me hours to arrange my dolls on my little bed inside my room painted pastel blue.
The place had been built to house those whose homes were destroyed in the war. It needed a good scrub, especially the kitchen, which had an oven, a small window looking out to some trees at the back, and cabinets that looked like they hadn’t seen a clean in a while. But to us, it was perfect. I shared with my next eldest sister, Vivienne, while the boys slept in the freezing room over the archway. Soon enough, we had more siblings appearing: after Terry, me, Tony and Vivienne came Shelley, Maxine, Hazel, Ricky and Karen. The five of them made do in the third bedroom. Goodness knows how we all squeezed in, but it never felt cramped.
I was sent to the local primary school in Senrab Street with my brothers, and our life as Eastenders began. Both my parents, contrary to first impressions of Dad, were honest, hardworking people who always had enough food on the table to keep us fed, and a new set of clothes every Easter – quite an achievement, with 11 mouths to feed. At the time, it wasn’t unusual to see groups of men huddled together, looking for casual work on Commercial Road, the busy thoroughfare close by that linked Whitechapel to Shoreditch. The new road had been built by bulldozing through the stinking slums, the alleys where the Ripper found his victims. It was meant to modernise and “improve” the area.
Gone were the overcrowded Dickensian rookeries inhabited by thieves, prostitutes and the poor, packed together in hastily built housing with no sanitation or clean air, yet the area was still poor. No-one looking at the street market traders gathered around each winter, coats held together with string tied round their waists, burning veg boxes for warmth, would think there was really any real difference. And yet I loved the hustle and bustle of my manor, the boutiques selling mini dresses, the pie and mash shop windows I would squash my nose up against to see through the condensation and breathe in the smell of the meat pies cooking. We didn’t have much, but we ate like kings. Dad would often ask for payment from blacksmith work done at the food markets, in a prime cut of beef instead of cash, or a batch of the freshest scallops. It wasn’t unusual to come home from school and be served Dover sole for dinner, or a leg of lamb, when I knew most of my classmates would be greeted by mutton stew or the cheapest cuts of meat with stodgy dumplings.
Looking back, I could laugh at how a family living in a tiny council flat in an estate in London’s poverty-stricken East End could be eating as well as our Queen in Buckingham Palace. That was normal life for us. We got by. We lived well compared to many of our peers, and we shared what we had. It was a badge of honour that Mum
would never let any visitor leave without a full tummy. She’d take food off our plates if there wasn’t enough and create an extra place for whoever was commanded to squeeze round our table. By the time all my siblings were born, we couldn’t all fit round it, let alone accommodate guests, but somehow, there was always room. We’d sit on the sofa or stand leaning against the Formica kitchen cabinets to eat. If we were hungry later, she’d make us cheese on toast. We never went to bed without a full tummy. Yet, I always knew I wanted more. My home life was safe, relatively comfortable for the time, and loving, but I wanted excitement like a moth to the flame.
Chapter 2
Looking at the Stars
1960-68
“Dad, slow down!” I said, as I clung to the cushion propping me up on the seat of Dad’s beaten-up old van. I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Health and Safety hadn’t yet been invented in 1960.
“Alright, alright, keep yer hair on…” He laughed as we swayed round a bend, heading along Stepney Way, surrounded on both sides by ugly post-war blocks of flats that had been hurriedly built back in the 50s after the bombings.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and everywhere young couples were out courting, walking together hand-in-hand, or young mums wearing scarves covering their hair, tied under their chins, were pushing prams and gossiping as they walked. Kids weaved in and out of the people, boys with their hair combed to the side, with shorts that looked too large for their spindly legs and woollen tank tops, running in groups, getting the occasional swipe for misdemeanours, while old men sat on benches at the roadside, smoking pipes and passing the time.
We were heading for Mile End, past Stepney Green Park, travelling over to an aunt’s house for the afternoon. I was 12 years old, squeezed in the front in-between my parents. We didn’t go visiting often, but Mum and Dad were going over for the afternoon and I’d asked specially to come with them. Our world was a small one, encompassing the myriad streets around Stepney and little else, and chances to go further afield were rare. Family was the cornerstone of our lives. It was everything – and it still is.
