by Linda Calvey
I have now been home 10 years. My children have been asking me for years to tell my side of the story, as so many tales have been told about me in books, magazines, newspapers and TV documentaries. After all this time, I felt it was time to put the record straight.
I have not received any money for writing my story.
I now live a very quiet life in a little chocolate-box 400-year-old cottage, bought for me by George. The only time I see any of the old villains – Freddie Foreman, Billy Blundell and the rest – is when we are asked to attend charity functions. Our criminal paths are behind us, and now we are wheeled out for these events, as people are curious to see the famous East End faces they have read about. Our notoriety is now put to worthy causes, raising money for various charities. Sometimes I feel like the bearded lady from Victorian times, being publicly exhibited as a curiosity from a bygone era.
Every year, there are fewer and fewer of us left. Once, we struck fear into people with our gun-wielding raids. Now, we are the dinosaurs of our time, fossils from an era that will never come again. The blaggers, the hard men and the protection rackets are things of the past now.
Sometimes I cannot believe my path has crossed those lives I’ve listed. Me, a girl born in Ilford and brought up in Stepney, daughter of an ironworker and a market trader. I must’ve had strange stars orbiting my heavens the day I was born. I hope I will live a quiet life now, spending time with my grandchildren and good friends.
My last words go to my first and only true love, Mickey Calvey. Never a day goes by that I don’t think of him. He was a convicted armed robber, a blagger, a thief, and the man of my heart. It was his death that made me who I am today: the notorious Black Widow. A woman who was intent on fulfilling the destiny that was ripped from her more than 40 years ago. A woman with a burning hatred for authority, and love for the finer things in life. A bad combination, my mother might’ve said, but since when did I ever listen?
I was mad for Mickey. Handsome, charming, always impeccably dressed, and a crook, I was smitten. It was love at first sight for him too. I still can’t believe he’s dead, that all the vitality, the humour, wit and charm disappeared the day he was killed in broad daylight – a failed robbery leading to an ended life. The officer who fired that fatal shot left me a widow with two young children and a molten rage that burned deep within me, driving me to carry on Mickey’s work, to provide for our kids the only way I knew how: by picking up a sawn-off shotgun and going on the pavement to do the robberies myself.
Mickey was a good teacher. I listened and learnt as he plotted around my kitchen table with hardened crooks, violent and dangerous men for who I poured tea and cut ham sandwiches, all the time taking in what they were saying, the tricks they used, the targets they went for, never knowing if one day I’d need to use that information. That day came. When he left us, dying on a cold hard street, the seed was planted within me. The die was cast in the moment he took his last breath.
I am the Black Widow still. Mickey will always be in my heart. What happens next is down to me, though, and me alone. This time, God willing, I will walk an honourable path into my future.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Ajda Vucicevic at Mirror Books, without whom this book would never have happened, and to George Robarts, for his tireless work in bringing my story to life.
Thank you to Cathryn Kemp for her patience and hard work in helping me tell my story.
Thank you to Andy Jones for your friendship and support over the years.
Thank you to Julian Hardy, my solicitor, who promised he would get me free. I promised I would get him into the Masons. We both kept our promises.
This book is dedicated to my children, and to the memory of my wonderful parents, Charlie and Eileen Welford, my beautiful sister Maxine and, last but not least, my husband George. They were always there for me.
