Bouncers and Bodyguards

by Robin Barratt

  I have personally suffered numerous concussions, broken fingers, broken ribs, 14 or more broken noses, several scars thanks to glasses, ashtrays or bottles being raked across me, attempted stabbings, one successful stabbing and teeth smashed out thanks to several boots to the head. But if I bloody someone’s nose in self-defence, suddenly I’m an out-of-control monster and a thug who thrives on bloodshed and bullying – or at least that’s how I’ll be portrayed in the newspapers, which will invariably carry the story in big letters on their front page the next day.

  My views on the state of today’s drinking culture and my complete disdain for the weekend whisky warriors aside (and before I go completely off topic), I mentioned the elation you feel after surviving a battle in your venue. The feeling you get as you sit down with your team after your shift knowing that you’ve all had your shit on the line and you’ve survived is one of the best bonding experiences you can have. That’s a reason why I love the job and all the crap that goes with it. You have to trust that the guy beside you in the black tie can hold his shit together when the proverbial hits the fan. When he does, it builds a trust between you and your teammate that is, in my humble opinion, rarely found in any other line of work. These are men and women you are counting on to save your ass when you’re up the creek without a paddle, the very same people who through their actions demonstrate that they are to be trusted and in doing so become some of your closest friends.

  I have made friends through this job that I would go to the grave for, people whom I would trust with my life – if it came to the crunch, friends I would do anything for. I’ve travelled the length and breadth of the country to help these people out. I’ve kicked down doors with my big, black Magnum boots to stop people threatening and intimidating those close to me, and I’ve lent a shoulder to those friends whose lives have crumbled and fallen around them. And never have I doubted that they would do exactly the same for me or that they would go out of their way to support and protect me. That’s what doing the doors means to me: building friendships so intense that people become family. And throughout my years of bouncing, I’ve built up a massive family.

  However, on the flipside, the job also brings you into contact with people who will become your mortal enemy, the weekend whisky warriors who take you throwing their drunken ass out of a club as a personal insult and will hold that grudge against you for a very long time. In the past, I’ve had to change my mobile phone number more times than I can remember to avoid the prank calls and death threats from those I’ve thrown out of bars, sometimes for something as simple as them being too drunk to stand. These people, who take being asked to leave as a slight on their holier-than-thou character, will go out of their way to hound and harass you. Most of the time, a quiet word in their ‘shell like’ normally stops the harassment quick sharp, but at other times it goes well past the point of annoying phone calls.

  I remember one time I came home to the flat I shared with a former girlfriend to find my front door loose on its hinges when I put my key in the lock and opened it. My girlfriend, who’d been home alone, came running to me and dove into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably into my chest. After a while of reassuring her, she managed to tell me that she had been lying in bed at about 1 a.m. when she had heard someone pounding at the door, shouting my name. She kept the lights off and looked out into the hallway toward the front door. Back then, most flats in the area had strengthened, frosted-glass doors, and she could see that there were at least three people outside, pounding on the door. Luckily, she had more sense than to go and answer it; instead, she sat down in the hall and watched in terror as the three figures continued shouting my name and booting at the door.

  For about 15 minutes, they continued to pound on the glass, trying desperately to break their way in – all the while my ex sat on the floor, hugging her knees and sobbing quietly, terrified that they might make it into the flat and too scared to move toward the phone in case the three figures, which she guessed to be all male, noticed the movement through the frosted glass and intensified their attack on the door.

  Finally, they gave up after realising that they weren’t going to get through or that there really was nobody home. It was about 15 minutes after they left until my ex finally felt that it was safe to move. She got to her feet, double checked the locks on the door were still secure and then ran to the bedroom, where she fell to the floor beside the bed and sobbed uncontrollably until I came home little over an hour later.

  Initially, I was furious that someone would attack my home, although I had no idea who had done this or why. I banged on my neighbour’s door until they answered and demanded to know why they hadn’t seen fit to call the police when they could hear the commotion outside. All I got was apology after apology as the young lady I was speaking to stood crying at her door asking if my partner was OK. Sadly, this was an area of the city where incidents like that happened all the time, and the residents who weren’t drug dealers, prostitutes or junkies were too scared to report any crime in case the criminals found out it was them and targeted them next.

  I was furious. Almost blind with rage, I stormed out into the street, my ex-partner pleading for me not to leave her in the flat alone. I stood in the road furious, yelling out for whoever it was that attacked my home to come and get me, but apart from curtains being twitched all along the road by concerned neighbours, nobody responded to my call. There was nothing else I could do that night except go back into the flat and reassure my partner. Over the next few days, I put out feelers all round the city trying to find out who the lads were, and it wasn’t until the following weekend that the information I wanted came my way.

  One of my good friends who worked at another venue had found out that the three lads had come looking for me to give me a beating. It seemed that I had thrown one of them out of the club I worked in because he was drunk, and in doing so I had embarrassed him in front of the lady he was with. In an attempt to save face, he had orchestrated the attack on my home when he knew that I would be at work so that the two friends he’d roped in to help him out would think that he was some kind of hard bastard when they beat up on my door.

  The lad had taken the simple act of me throwing him out of a bar as such an insult to his manhood that he attacked my home and terrified the woman I lived with. My good friend supplied me with the young man’s address, and he and I enjoyed a good talk over tea and biscuits. Well, that’s maybe a slight simplification of what happened, but I’ll leave you to do the colouring in.

  This was one of the few times that nearly killed my love for the door and almost wiped out any fondness I had for my profession and nearly poisoned me against ever stepping foot on the door again. I can deal with a lot in my life and have a very long fuse when it comes to people attacking me either verbally or physically on the door, but when it arrives at your home it’s a different matter entirely. Luckily, with the support of those around me, I put my anger behind me and got back to doing what I love.

  However, like any love, it’s constantly tested. Time can pick holes in it and start to blur the parts that encouraged your affection. Time erodes things that in the past seemed new and vibrant, and outside influences spread a cancer in the thing you love that force it to die in front of your eyes. I’ve tried looking through rose-tinted glasses as the job evolves around me, with promises from those in power that things are changing for the better and that what will emerge out the other side will be a more controlled, regulated, professional and better industry than we have presently. However, all the signs so far look like the industry is heading for an iceberg and we should man the lifeboats as soon as possible.

  Since the implementation of the SIA in the UK, good stewards who’ve done the door for years have been told that under the new regime they will no longer be able to work, as they picked up an assault charge, for example, a couple of years previously. Hell, one lad I know had his application for a licence turned down and put to appeal because he was detained for a weekend by the polic
e because of a breach of the peace after having an argument with his former girlfriend in their home. I’ve watched as lads who’ve done the door for years hang up their boots and call it a day rather than throwing nearly £400 at the SIA to get a little badge that says they’re fit to do the same job they’ve done for the last 20 years.

  These are the very same men and women who put me through my apprenticeship when I started on the doors. If you can show me in black and white how certificates earned over a few days sitting in a classroom make you more proficient on the door compared to a rookie working with a team of experienced, professional doormen who over time can show him exactly how to spot trouble and deal with it proficiently and swiftly, then I’ll wear my SIA badge on my chest with the pride and justification it deserves. Until then, I’ll continue to piss and moan to anyone who will listen about how the SIA are killing the doorman community and making it near impossible for us to do our jobs.

  I’ve sat back and watched as young students are brought on board by security agencies, put through their courses and then paid a damn near minimum wage for putting their safety on the line week in, week out while the agency rubs its hands at the increased profit margins. These are the very same agencies that filter out the more experienced lads because the profit margin is too low and then fill the gaps with young boys and girls who are thrust clean into the firing line. I’ve sat back and watched the SIA put the control of the UK’s pubs and clubs back into the hands of the weekend whisky warriors, and it hurts me to see the industry I love dying on its arse.

  Modern stewards are now concerned about getting involved in separating troublemakers in case one of the parties reports their badge number and makes a false claim against them. Hearing the words, ‘What’s your fucking badge number?’ from some pissed-up asshole you’ve just thrown out for groping one of the barmaids is guaranteed to make you think twice. And now that these half-pint heroes know they’ve got control over you, there’s no respect for the stewards in a venue any more. Effectively, the SIA have tied our hands in political correctness. All we can do now is sit back and watch the show while the monkeys take control of the circus.

  I still work on the doors and still suffer weekly abuse from those whisky warriors who plague the city. I sit here twiddling my thumbs waiting for the SIA to send me a badge in Scotland, saying that I’m a fit and capable human being to stand on a cold, wet doorway of an evening!

  My love affair with the job is still there – for the time being. However, as time goes by and the job becomes more and more tied up by the politically correct brigade and the wonderful SIA, I may have to cut ties with the old lady of my life and move on to pastures new and find another job to love. When the industry does die, would the last member of the SIA please put the lights out after them?

  BIOGRAPHY OF SCOTT TAYLOR

  As well as working the doors, Scott works for a large entertainment company based in Aberdeen as the security manager for their venues. In 2004, as a side project while he taught himself web and graphic design, he built a door-steward-related website called Door Network, which has over 1,000 registered members and is getting more and more popular by the week. Scott uses his spare time training to compete in strongman events, writing stories about his time on the doors and spending far more time than is feasibly healthy on the Internet.

  At the time of writing, Scotland had followed England and just implemented new rules regarding security-industry licensing. Scott is still waiting for his licence to arrive, four months after attending yet another SIA accredited course.

  He can be contacted at scott@door-network.com

  5

  CHARLIE BRONSON, DOING THE DOORS AND ME

  BY STU CHESHIRE

  I’ve been working the door for some time now, and it was actually the infamous and notorious Charlie Bronson who initially helped me with my SIA licence. It was a few years ago and I was on holiday with my girlfriend in the Gambia, sunning ourselves by the side of the pool. Nearby were a couple whom we had said hello to a couple of times when we occasionally passed each other in the foyer or in the bar. As we all sat quietly baking in the hot African sun, I couldn’t help but overhear them chatting to each other, and from their conversation I quickly understood that they were both prison officers. I also noticed that the man was reading Charlie Bronson’s biography – Charlie’s first best-seller. Being an inquisitive soul, I politely butted in and asked if he was actually guarding Bronson himself. He said that he didn’t work in that prison but that he knew a couple of wardens who did work with Charlie, and he also told me how good the book was. I cheekily asked if I could borrow it after he had finished, and he said, of course.

  Because it was such a great read and he wanted it back before he returned home, it was probably the quickest I have ever read a book – much to my girlfriend’s annoyance. She kept moaning that I was concentrating too much on the book and not enough on her! I was enthralled with Bronson’s story and his mad, crazy life. It was a great book and an unputdownable read, and as soon as I got back to England I decided to write to Charlie and tell him how much I had enjoyed it.

  A couple of days after returning home and settling back into my mundane life, I put pen to paper and wrote Charlie a long letter telling him what I thought about the book and how much I had enjoyed reading it. I never really expected the letter to reach him and thought that it would not get delivered or else be added to the large pile that Charlie must receive each and every day. To be honest, I thought he must have hundreds of people writing to him, and I didn’t expect a reply. Surprisingly, he wrote back to me within just a week of me posting the letter – I was really pleased when a strange-looking envelope appeared through my letter box!

  I replied back to Charlie almost straight away. After reading his book, I felt we actually had quite a bit in common – we both loved boxing, keeping fit and unarmed combat – and over the following 12 to 18 months we became friends, writing backwards and forwards about the stuff that we both liked.

  In one of my letters, I told him that I was working the doors. He was very supportive and wrote back to me with quite a bit of advice – and advice from Bronson is definitely something to take seriously! Although he had spent much of his time behind bars, he did know a lot about life, dealing with violent situations and handling violent people. A life behind bars must also be an extremely violent life.

  I was in the middle of buying a house with my girlfriend, and for a long time we had both saved really hard in order to get just about enough money together for a deposit. Times were tough, and the laws had just changed with regards to SIA licences. Like a great many other people in the same position as me, I had to get a licence in order to carry on working. It was bollocks, as I already had a licence from the local council in which I was operating, but now I had to go on another stupid course for another piece of paper to allow me to do the job I had been doing for years. However, because I was in debt up to my eyeballs with my new house, I just didn’t have the money to attend the training course, let alone pay the money needed for the licence – every single penny I had was in the property. I needed the work desperately, but couldn’t get it because I didn’t have a licence, and without the work I couldn’t afford the licence. The uncaring SIA had made it unfairly difficult for me and many people like me. I was trapped.

  I moaned about all of this to Charlie in one of my letters, telling him how unfair the whole system was. Completely out of the blue, Charlie, via a friend of his on the outside, sent me one of his works of art to auction off. He said that I could use the money to pay for the door supervisors training course and the SIA licence, and anything left over should be sent to a children’s charity in Liverpool he had been supporting for a number of years called Zöe’s Place Baby Hospice. I was completely gobsmacked that someone who I hadn’t even met should decide to help me in this way. I thought it was wonderful that someone had that much trust in a friendship that had only been developed via pen and paper in an occasional letter and card. It w
as great.

  Altogether I raised just over £900, and I was able to send a nice fat cheque to Zöe’s Place as well as getting my SIA licence. Charlie told me in a later letter that a few of the people he had helped had not been so honest – either pocketing all of the money themselves or not being so truthful about the total amount they had raised. He had never heard from those people again. But we were friends and had been writing to each other off and on for quite a while – I wasn’t going to spoil the relationship by being dishonest with him, and to this day I am still his friend. I still write to him and even get up to Wakefield to see him now and then.

  Because of his status in prison, it is very hard to get a permit to visit Charlie Bronson. First, you have to apply and Charlie also has to submit a formal application. CID visit you and ask you lots of awkward questions about why you want to visit him, and they thoroughly check your background. Even after all of that, there is still no guarantee that when you turn up you will be allowed in. I have heard that quite a number of people are turned away and refused access with no reason being given.

  Charlie Bronson is Charlie Bronson, and personally I think he is now inside only because of his name, not because he deserves to be in prison any more – most prisoners have been set free after serving less time for committing crimes a lot worse. Even murderers get less time than Charlie has had, and 30 years’ solitary is completely contrary to any human-rights policy almost anywhere in the world – even third-world countries don’t treat prisoners so badly. Anyone who is now in contact with Charlie says that he is a decent guy who once led a violent life – but that was 33 years and another lifetime ago. I have always found him helpful and kind, and if it wasn’t for Charlie I would not have worked as a bouncer for as long as I have. I am proud to work the doors – it is a great job.