Hellbent: Ces Waters & Me

by Margaret Wentworth

  I did not always get the expected remorseful reaction:

  ‘I was actually glad I’d hit Joan. I didn’t feel sorry for myself or what I had done. I was hoping the train would come along. I was so explosive within myself at the time.’

  I inserted these into the book. His initial coldness towards the sufferings of his victims left unease.

  22 Showbiz

  I knew that with a mouth like mine, I just hadda be a star or something.

  Barbara Streisand

  Showbusiness attracted me. A friend told me that I should start off by being an extra and work my way up. It was daunting to find out that there were about 10000 extras registered in Central Casting Agency. I began knocking on doors.

  Butchers Film Studio in West London was looking for an actor who could grab the lead actor, Conrad’ Phillips, in a ju-jitsu hold, throw him in a car and kidnap him. I told them I was the very person. I demonstrated a few arm locks and impressed them. I got the part of Jules, a gang member. They must have thought I looked a bit of a villain.

  The film Impact was shot in Borham Wood. Conrad Phillips was playing a newspaper reporter who eventually falls for the leading lady, Anita West. A popular support actor, George Pastel, was the gang boss who gave me my orders. The plot hinged on my gang robbing a train in order to frame the reporter.

  I was sent to make-up. While a lady dabbed my face with a pan stick, I stared at my reflection in a glamorous oval mirror surrounded by lighted bulbs. Exhilaration! Star quality!

  The wall I was to hide behind was too low—my back was visible—and a crew dug a hole for me. ‘Action!’ I jumped up and fell straight to the ground—my trousers were too long and I’d stood on the cuffs. ‘Cut!’ Wardrobe put that right. ‘Action!’ I jumped and grabbed Phillips, but he let out an unscripted complaint about pain. `Cut!’

  Take 3 worked fine, and I bundled Phillips into the Jaguar that was supposed to take him off at high speed, but the driver was in second gear. ‘Cut!’ The extra’s restaurant was closed at lunch. Phillips came towards me with a man in sunglasses and a woman with her coat collar screening her face against the falling snow. George asked me to join them for a pub lunch. The couple removed their winter cladding: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, shooting The VIPs at the same studio. Nothing of substance was said but it was a nice lunch and a pleasure to be in such esteemed company.

  I got speaking parts for three more films at Butchers Studio. I played an assassin in an MI5 thriller, Shadow of Fear, a jailbird speaking through glass during visiting in The Hijackers, and an attacker with a big stick in Night of the Big Heat where I ended up on the cutting-room floor. I played a taxi driver and a hotel lounge patron in the TV series The Saint with Roger Moore, an unpretentious likeable fellow.

  After doing bit parts in various shows, I was promised more work in The Man of the World series if I did a good job of driving up, stopping, getting out, speaking to hero Craig Peterson and driving off. On the day of the shoot a fourth assistant came round with bits of script for the bit players. The 1960s were flamboyant but this fellow had gone over the top. ‘Here you are, darling.’ My flesh prickled and I lowered my head and sized him up menacingly, ‘Who are you calling “darling”?“0h, what’s to do, ducky?’ I saw red. I grabbed his hideous yellow tie and shook the tripe out of him. Not surprisingly, the studio phoned and told me not to bother getting out of bed next morning.

  I declined the offer of an audition for 007’s Goldfinger, filmed abroad. Strong fatherly instincts prevailed. Gloria could’ve handled things while I travelled but I wanted to be a constant protecting and guiding force in my children’s lives. I left showbiz for good.

  I was jogging in Finsbury Park when a man wearing a black overcoat and trilby put his hand out in greeting. Freddy Mizner, fellow gardener at Dartmoor, owned a Seven Sisters Road club nearby. He was having trouble with the notorious Kray brothers, who aimed to monopolise the London club circuit. They succeeded and Freddy ended up in the gutter.

  Noel Flannigan, a barrow boy on Seven Sisters, became a good friend and introduced me to a lot of underworld characters. Noel and his twin brother were close to the twins Reg and Ronnie Kray, and we’d go to the club Freddy used to own, a popular underworld haunt. Noel was interested in acting, so I advised him and he appeared in a couple of films.

  I didn’t actively seek the company of actors—they seemed pretentious and shallow—but my streetwise instincts hadn’t left me unreceptive to profit. Therefore I was delighted an actor friend Dennis

  Shaw arranged my membership of the exclusive Fifty Club, where a lot of actors, queers, politicians and male fringe dwellers hung out, drinking heavily and exchanging stories. Many of them had wealthy associates and I went to make contacts.

  The well-groomed osteopath Stephen Ward, who seemed a down-to-earth honest sensitive man, and I often talked while he drank. Sometimes he’d bring Christine Keeler, an attractive quiet smiling girl, as a guest for a meal. No-one would have thought him a pimp or her a call-girl. Dr Ward was always discreet, but a Swiss artist mutual friend told me, while we relaxed in a Turkish steam bath, that Ward introduced her not only to politicians, aristocrats and businessmen he invited to his country estate—now history—but dirty old men Ward picked up in Piccadilly and Kings Cross and paid to do certain things to her because he enjoyed having her afterwards. I thought back to Brunswick Street brothel days: no matter how respectable a man might appear, he’s an animal behind closed doors. I’d stopped frequenting the club when the story broke, Christine brought down a government, fear that secrets of nuclear warheads may have passed to the Soviets in pillow talk gripped debate, and the names Ward, Keeler, Profumo and Ivanov were familiar all over the world.

  Dennis Shaw introduced me to a member from Naval Intelligence, who told of secret weapons of the day: pen guns with poisoned pellets, poison-tipped umbrellas and packets with one cigarette laced with cyanide. If that sounds like a James Bond fantasy, why did MI5 and MI6 run round like bloodhounds when the man was found bound, gagged and strangled to death in a cupboard later?

  I needed a steadier income than acting to support my family. I applied for a job as a driving instructor for the British School of Motoring with references from Aubrey Weiner telling of my many years of loyal, honest industrious service at his Wimpy Bar. I hit a hurdle over the course of a day being examined by six instructors: they didn’t know how I survived on the road for 15 years, my driving was so bad, which was news to me until I remembered the Christmas turkey in the middle of the road to Manchester. No matter: a 14-day course with 10 others would put me right. Ten passed, I failed and had to repeat the course. I was mortified at the time, but years later, I was still going strong and the other 10 had quit.

  After a couple of months instructing for BSoM I persuaded a few clients to take cut-rate lessons after hours for extra cash. This showed real potential so I bought dual controls for my Hillman Minx. When I’d pinched enough BSoM customers, I replaced the car with a Singer Gazelle, leased offices that were cheap because they were too dilapidated for housing, tarted them up a bit and hung an impressive illuminated sign:

  LANCASHIRE ROSE SCHOOL OF MOTORING

  I was succeeding at last, and proud.

  Gloria had an inferiority complex and refused to learn to drive, despite my sticks and carrots. But I taught her, my most reluctant pupil, virtually at gunpoint and she got her licence eventually. Step 2 followed: I taught her how to instruct pupils.

  Many times Gloria was late coming back from a lesson, often an hour or more. I’d question her where she’d been. She’d gone to the late-night garage to fill up. She’d popped over to see her sister. I had my suspicions she was probably knocking off West Indian pupils in the back of the car. When she didn’t offer any answers, I’d nod wisely. Bronco, a West Indian friend, filled me in. He’d drop hints regarding Gloria: she was a good driving instructor and ‘a good conversationalist’. I thought the latter a rather odd thing to say about Gloria. Eventually Bronco
described an occasion when Gloria gave one of his male friends a lesson, drove him home, went inside, had a cup of coffee and ‘a good conversation’. So I put two and two together. I didn’t like Gloria being devious like that—it annoyed me.

  Gloria and I had a silent understanding about each other’s flings. A West Indian friend of mine had sex with her and I didn’t mind when she told me. I found her descriptions of her sexual encounters a turn-on. I found her secrecy threatening.

  Noel Flannigan was an early pupil and we also went out to socialise and chat up women. He introduced me to the impeccable Saville-Row-suited Ronnie Kray, who I told about my villainous past and driving school. A new type of pupil started turning up. I noticed a large bulge in one’s pocket and asked him not to bring his Roscoe in future because I had a record and guns in my car could be years for me. ‘No problem, Ces, it’ll be sweet.’ I got him through his test and he told me to let him know if I ever needed a favour. I knew his meaning, but never took him up on it, wisely.

  A Jamaican pupil wouldn’t ease off the accelerator approaching crossroads or take account of danger to people who might emerge from the mass of parked cars on his left. ‘I got the quick reflexes, mun,’ he’d insist, never taking me seriously. I got a mate to push a realistic cardboard cut-out of a woman in front of the school car and Jamaica, as predicted, ‘ran her down’. I’d scripted a ‘Look out!’ warning; ‘You’ve killed her’ sad guess; ‘Don’t look, don’t look’ on inspection; and ‘I think she’s dead’ regretful conclusion. When I showed him the crushed cardboard and ended the ruse he started laughing louder and louder, became convulsive and went into shock. My lessons stuck.

  A woman of 68 came to me from BSoM after many failures that had left her feeling foolish, and I found she couldn’t cope with so many things to do at once, clutch and gear stick. An automatic solved everything. In those days eyesight tests were ad-hoc. Examiners took pupils to the street and asked which car was theirs so they couldn’t recite their own plate number, and would then ask the examinee to read another. One old duck said, ‘Would you mind reading it? My eyes aren’t so good.’ Once I asked a pupil to pull over and we gave an ex-con I knew a lift, but the glow of the Samaritan cooled when I discovered the pupil’s handbag had gone with him.

  Teaching learner drivers, the close non-confrontational seating, is like hairdressing—it encourages confidence and intimacy, revelations from personal life, unloading of problems. Opportunities arise for sexual encounters and I installed a bed in the office in readiness.

  The prim and proper matron of a psychiatric hospital shed her starched uniform for me regularly at the end of the day. Mrs Mary Nidu Baccus, a strikingly beautiful Indian, and I recognised the magic chemistry, not tricks or persuasion, that made sex inevitable. Mary had charm, an elegant fragility, and I revered her, my Hindu goddess. When she became pregnant with my child, her husband and Gloria weren’t impressed. I wanted to keep the baby but Gloria wouldn’t have it. Mary Elizabeth was adopted out. I never saw her or her mother again. I told an African woman she didn’t understand my point and she accused me of racial prejudice—`You think, because I’m not white, I am barmy or stupid?’ Then she went barmy and I drove her home, where she got her hulking husband to abuse me. It was hard going but I said Mrs Okai was ‘one of the most intelligent women’ I’d ever taught. She—not me—wanted to continue lessons, and I bedded her too. I had an affair with a 16 year old, Kim, a hairdresser everyone called `Pip’—she got on people’s nerves. Lovely, well mannered and intelligent but a bit vague, she too had a baby by me, a little girl I heard. She was living with another man who loved her and they raised the child.

  Ces was reluctant to talk about the Great Train Robbery in interviews. After much nagging he hinted he was the short man among the three undetected robbers. Certainly, he implied he could still go to jail for it, though what ‘it’ was exactly he avoided. He’d tell me ‘things never published’ and, pressed for how he knew, quote ‘the grapevine’. The robbery was 35 years ago and I’ll outline it here. The Royal Mail train from Glasgow with 120 big bags of banknotes on their way to the London mint for pulping was stopped by 16 masked men in Buckinghamshire, the driver cruelly coshed and the co-driver overpowered. The train was unhitched and driven to a bridge where the haul was unloaded and taken to Leatherslade Farm, and £2.6 million divvied up. The farm was to have been torched but wasn’t. By 1964 all but three had been apprehended and sentenced to terms ranging from 15 to 30 years in the case of Ronald Biggs.

  I knew three of the robbers: Biggs I met on remand, Whisby and Hussey through connections. All three went to West End clubs I frequented. No-one’s published the strong rumour that a robber was killed by another train as he crossed the tracks before the Royal Mail train came. After the robbery his body was buried in a trench.

  Two days after the robbery police came to a garage I rented, looked for oxy-acetylene gear and left. A lot of villains were turned over like this at the time. Then I got a phone call from police, saying my office had been broken into. The door was busted, police were turning the place inside out but nothing was missing. Perhaps they didn’t have sufficient evidence to get a warrant and faked the B & E?

  A Scotland Yard detective asked £70,000 of one robber to drop charges. A solicitor was entrusted with two robbers’ proceeds and he promptly disappeared. And when Bill Tucker was released from Wandsworth we had a chat at Weiner’s Wimpy Bar. He told me the barbells I fashioned and a painting of me doing a comedy sketch were on display in the prison museum—my legacy! He discussed the train robbers. Bill knew Charles Wilson well and liked him. Wilson escaped not long after. Wax impressions of keys to Wilson’s cell and gate pass keys were bought from a bent screw. Bill and four others scaled the wall, unlocked gate and cell, and escorted Wilson back over the wall. He was on the run for over three years, and I got interrogated.

  Ron Biggs’ escape from Wandsworth was sensational. A truck-van bought at a motor auction was parked close to the 6-metre high wall of Wandsworth with a platform that could be raised another 1.5 metres. From there a rope ladder was thrown over the wall to the yard where Biggs was waiting. Biggs, an invitee called Flowers and two gate-crashers raced up it, and jumped from the top of the wall to mattresses inside the van, which drove off to a getaway car which took them to a hideout. After plastic surgery in Paris, Biggs began a new life in Australia. The usual police visits followed. As I frequented motor auctions and ‘did up’ vans I was asked questions.

  Bill settled down driving for Lebus Furniture again. Returning from a long journey, his truck struck a bridge and Bill was crushed to death. It was assumed he fell asleep at the wheel. I looked into Bill’s coffin. Someone had placed a red rose between his fingers. Another person I cared for had gone. I put the Bible the Salvation Army lass had given me in the coffin. She said that if I was to give it away, it should be to a good friend, and Bill was the best.

  My relationship with Gloria was not an exciting or particularly fulfilling one, but for the first time in my life, I was knuckling down to my responsibilities. I took pride in doing this well. Gloria and I shared domestic duties. Although I’d avoid cleaning or tidying, I liked cooking and was good at it. I also enjoyed bathing the children and taking them to the park. I made a special point of doing this because my father never took me on outings. I knew what it felt like to be unloved, and I didn’t want my children to experience such deprivation.

  I felt Gloria didn’t really understand the responsibilities of motherhood. She’d often put off menial duties because she felt that she’d be in a far better mood or have more time the following day. Gloria was a great procrastinater.

  One night I came home from a driving lesson to find Gloria sprawled on top of the bed, fast asleep, still fully dressed, even wearing her shoes. I could tell by the empty bottle beside her she’d been drinking heavily. She had a lit cigarette in her hand which was resting against the mattress of the bed. The mattress was smouldering. The children were lying asleep on the b
ed with her! I roughly grabbed Gloria and flung her off the bed. The children woke up with a start, confused and frightened. When I’d removed them, I doused the mattress.

  As I looked at Gloria slumped groggily against the wall, I became livid thinking of what could have happened. I saw red. I whacked her several times. I don’t think she felt much, considering the state she was in. Her only reaction was a half-surprised half-disgusted look. I just couldn’t tolerate such sloppy irresponsible behaviour. For days afterwards Gloria gave me the cold shoulder. I expressed my remorse and showed her kindness at every opportunity. The incident was never forgotten but in time our relationship returned to normal.

  I was very protective towards my children, a clucky hen. If my children strayed from under my wing, I’d say, ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going, you’ll get bitten out there!’ I was a very strict disciplinarian and set very high standards’ to live by. This presented difficulties because of our poverty and circumstances but I felt inspired by authoritarian figures like Sergeant Towie and Major Fairburn. Despite my youthful rebelliousness towards them, in my older wiser years I realised that if I wanted myself and my children to rise above the masses, I’d have to show enormous strength and personal resolve.

  When Dean was about four he wanted to come into the room with me. As I needed my privacy, I told him to stay outside with his mother. In anger he opened his mouth and went `Aaaaah’ and worked himself up into a terrible frenzy. When it was time for him to breathe back in again, he couldn’t. Dean had thrown temper tantrums before but never with such a dramatic consequence. He collapsed. Gloria didn’t know what to do and called for me. I was aghast when I couldn’t revive Dean and saw the colour draining from his face. I raced down the stairs and banged on the door of a room where a nurse and her teenage son lived. She massaged Dean until he began to breathe slightly. Then, with the help of her son, we carried Dean to the car and raced to a hospital in Holloway Road. The car headlights were blazing and my sweaty hand was poised on the car horn. Every few moments I’d glance across to Dean who was still only breathing shallowly. The medical staff immediately gave him oxygen. I asked if there would be any brain damage. ‘I can’t say at the moment. One thing is for sure, there’s been a significant duration of time when he didn’t breathe.’ (They could determine this from the colour of his skin and the lack of blood supply to his eyes.) For a couple of hours Dean was kept under observation, then transferred to Bartholomew’s where I spent the night with him. After Dean was well enough to leave, I had to make several trips back for check-ups. There’d been no ill effects.