A Cockney's Journey

by Eddie Allen

  “Wait for me, Eddie!” she cried. She staggered towards me, hobbling on one shoe and looking completely wrecked and bedraggled. Now this is where I should have legged it but, being a soft touch, I never. She put her arm around my neck as we strolled down the street. She was hanging on to me, limping and trying to straighten her hair with her free hand.

  “How far do you live? I’ll walk you home,” I said to her quietly.

  “Not far, just around the next corner,” she said, sighing. For some insane reason, I started to feel sorry for her. She had completely calmed down and was behaving like the girl I had met a few hours ago. We arrived outside her front door. There weren’t any lights on and there were no signs of anyone being at home. She took her arm from around my neck, fumbling in her handbag. I assumed she was looking for the keys to the door. Jill opened the gate and limped up to the door. Putting the key in the lock, she turned round and looked at me with a frightening smile. Her eyes looked wild and menacing but I knew why. My old man had the same look when he was angry and completely intoxicated. Or so I mistakenly thought. That error in judgement would prove costly later.

  “Fancy a coffee, Eddie?” she asked, in a slurring voice. I should have said no but the truth was that I felt slightly drunk too. Her wild look also really excited me. There was something very horny about her at the time. She hung her head down, shaking her hair and quickly flicking it backwards in a vain attempt to straighten it out.

  “Well, yes or no?” she said, licking her lips as if trying to entice me.

  “Yeah, OK,” I said, accepting the offer of coffee as I entered the house. Following Jill into the kitchen, I sat down on a long wooden bench by the side of the kitchen table. She filled the kettle with water, plonking it on the gas ring. She leant against the sink giving me this funny look. Her eyes were all glassy. She licked her lips again, running her tongue along her front teeth. Now, I didn’t know the signs of lust, being a virgin at the time, so forgive me for not jumping up and giving her one over the sink. Standing in front of the sink, Jill put her hands on both hips, slightly parting her thighs. She stared impatiently at me. My mind was doing overtime. What should I do? Stay put, get up or what? I decided to stand up. Well, I tried but I was rooted to the bloody chair. She walked over, pulling me up from the chair. I felt my heart jump on the way up, like I was on a rollercoaster at the funfair. My body tingled from head to toe; the sensation I felt was indescribable. Sheer excitement was followed by nervous anticipation, all that before I even touch her. Fuck me! I thought as she dragged me violently down onto the floor. I didn’t know it at the time but I was just going to be raped. What followed next was one of the most bizarre sexual experiences I have ever encountered. She attacked me like a wild animal, ripping my clothes off and scratching, biting, licking and sucking every part of my body. I cursed myself for ignoring the warning signs and not listening to my inner voice. She attacked my throat like a ravaging vampire drawing blood on the first bite. It was such an onslaught that at one stage I thought she was going to kill me. This went on for hours until she decided when to stop. She got up and left the kitchen. I laid there in agony. My throat was bleeding and every part of my body ached. I struggled to stand up. My head was spinning and I felt physically sick and weak. Jill opened the front door, looking out into the street. It was obvious she wanted me out the house. Trying to compose myself, I walked towards the front door in shock. I walked out the house to the gate and, turning round, I looked at her with hatred in my eyes.

  “What’s that for, boy? Didn’t you enjoy it, because I bloody did,” she laughed, like a women possessed. “Next time, don’t tell porkies about your age, sonny,” she said, sniggering.

  My judgement on a person’s age was a bit crap in those days. I actually thought she looked seventeen instead of being in her late twenties. I started walking home thinking that my back was still very sore. She must have cut my flesh with her long fingernails. I hastily made my way down Lyndhurst Way towards my turning. I decided never to tell anyone about that night and I’ve kept that secret till now.

  I stood outside the back gate. My mind was in turmoil. What am I going to do now!! It’s four o’clock in the bloody morning. Everyone’s asleep and I can’t get in the house. Somehow I’ve got to get in so I can get changed for work. The thought of breaking in filled me with terror. If he catches me, I’m finished. I leant on the back wall, puffing my last fag, contemplating my next move. In any case, if he sees the state I’m in he’ll dig me out for sure. I stink of booze, my clothes are ripped and I look as if I’ve been in a fight. That in itself will condemn me to a hiding and, believe me, I’ve had enough for one night let alone the last five years. I had completely and utterly had enough, period. I glanced up at the house, looking at the bathroom window. It’s the only way in, I thought and the feeling of dread and fear came over my body. I stood staring at the window, thinking. I can’t, I really can’t, I’ll get caught, I bloody know I will. I took a deep breath. I opened the back gate, knowing somewhere in my mixed up head I was making a big mistake.

  Sneaking around the garden searching for the ladder, I tripped over my little brother’s bike and fell flat on my face. Fucking hell, I don’t believe this. I lay there in total darkness not making a sound, fearing the worst. Suddenly, half the garden lit up. I started to tremble. After a few minutes, it went dark again. Someone had used the toilet. Thank God. Then the garden lit up again. Bloody hell, they’re in the kitchen now! I heard the faint sound of the kitchen radio, followed by the whistle-blowing of the kettle. He must be on the early shift today. I crawled along the floor on my elbows like an army sniper, through the wet grass, and made it unseen to the garden wall. Jumping over the wall, I fell to the pavement, sighing with relief. I hid behind a parked car, soaking wet, waiting for him to leave. He eventually emerged from the house, unlocking his moped from the front railings. I watched in amusement while he tried several times to kick-start his pathetic mode of transport. Vroom-Vroom went his tin can as he sped past me, turning left down Lyndhurst Way. I gave him a few minutes before I jumped up, rushing through the back gate. It took me a matter of minutes to find and erect the ladder up to the bathroom window. Once in the bathroom, I quietly rushed down to the kitchen feeling pretty smug with myself. I dropped the ladder, putting it back and made my way up to the bathroom. Locking the door, I turned on the taps, filling the bath with welcoming warm water. I stripped off and looked in the mirror. Fucking hell. My throat was in a right state. It looked like it was bruised and my neck was red-raw, purple and black. I spun round and, glancing over my shoulder, I could see that my back was slashed to bits with claw marks running the whole length of my upper body. My penis was sore and covered in friction burns down both sides. I slipped into the bath, feeling pissed off. I quickly jumped up, nearly hitting the ceiling; every part of my body was stinging. I tried again, slowly submerging my aching and stinging body into the water while gritting my teeth. I lay soaking in the bath for half an hour, topping the bath up every so often with delicious hot water, trying to wash away the night’s sick events. After I finished in the bathroom, I made my way up to the bedroom to get dressed for the market. I left the house quietly, hastily rushing to work, not wanting to be late.

  I returned home after a hard day’s graft feeling pretty shitty. I sweated all day in my roll neck jumper just so no one saw my throat. I was totally cream crackered and very tired. He was waiting for me as I entered the kitchen looking really mad and ready to spit feathers.

  “What have you got to say for yourself this time?” he said, trying to keep his temper under control but looking at me with malice in his eyes.

  He must know about last night, I thought. I was racking my brain for the reason why. I didn’t break anything or wake anyone up.

  “About what?” I asked, shrugging my shoulders like I didn’t know what he was talking about. He stood up and advanced in my direction. My mother sat in the living room, not wanting to get involved, as she always did.


  “Where you been today? And don’t fucking lie to me,” he shouted in my face.

  “Why? What’s all this about?” I enquired, thinking that this is nothing to do with last night and something else must have happened. My leg started to twitch and I had this terrible feeling he was going to hit me again. He raised his hand. I flinched my head backwards to avoid contact with his fist.

  “Fucking coward,” he laughed, dropping his fist. His action gave me a false sense of security. With the speed of a greyhound, he head-butted me across the bridge of my nose. I cupped my hands around my face in agony. The blood was spurting everywhere, through my fingers and dripping onto the floor. As I hung over the sink, I felt a searing pain shoot up to my temple.

  “What was that for?” I cried, choking on the blood as it ran down the back of my throat.

  “You broke the spare room window kicking a ball about. I want you to pack your fucking clothes and get the hell out of my house. Do you understand? If you ever come back, I’ll kill you!” he screamed, shaking with anger. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and marched me out of the door. “In fact, you can piss off now. I’ll throw your shit out the fucking window, you little wanker!” he yelled, pushing me into the street. I stood at the front of the house, trying to stem the blood-flow from my nose. After a few minutes, the bleeding stopped, but my hands and face were smothered in blood. I heard my bedroom window open. Looking up, I saw the contents of my wardrobe being flung down into the street.

  “I’ve been at work all day since six o’clock this morning I never broke nothing,” I pleaded. My pleading fell on deaf ears. He hated me so much he only needed a minute excuse, regardless if I was innocent or not.

  “Your brothers and sisters reckoned it was you. That’s good enough for me,” he shouted through the window.

  I panicked. “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Don’t give a fuck. Just piss off and never show your face around here ever again,” he said shutting the window. I gathered all my belongings, rolling them up in my Crombie, and sat on the kerb using one of my tee shirts to clean the blood from my hands and face. Alone again and no one to help me, that’s been the story of my life.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next few weeks were interesting, to say the least. I was sleeping in the back of a dumped Cortina car around the back of the garages on the estate. My only consolation was the fact it wasn’t winter and there were no more beatings from him. After a while, I lost my job at the toy factory through bad time-keeping. I just couldn’t get my body clock working properly while sleeping in that car. This was one of many low points in my life and, in fact, worse was still to come! I used all my resources to survive the situation I found myself in; getting baths from Rose, Brian, Tony and my aunt who lived in Camberwell. My Saturday job enabled me to feed myself. Even though I was homeless, the fear, stress and unhappiness that had engulfed my life had gone. I felt relieved and an overwhelming sense of freedom!

  During the early part of summer, I started hanging around with my cousin Allan, or Al for short, as everyone called him. Knowing I had nobody to answer to, I unfortunately lost the plot; going down the wrong path and getting mixed up with all the local villains. I was a regular drinker in all the local boozers. Fortunately, this phase only lasted four years, or so. It was during this time that I met Sue. She was walking her pet poodle in the park. We chatted for ages and then I asked her out. She accepted and, for many years, we were an item. I’ll go into that in more detail later.

  Al was well-known in the manor and well respected by all. He was renowned for his violent streak! I mean, this bloke could have a row. Nobody took Al on or crossed him; if they did, then God help them. In my defence I was easily led. Knowing I had Al as back-up gave me delusions of grandeur. However, there was one local villain, who hated Al; Slasher Barnes, and as his name suggests, he was a real hard case and very dangerous. This part of my book is difficult; I’ve now got to use fictitious names, as certain individuals, some of them rather infamous, might get really pissed off. I spent a lot of time in the company of notorious criminals, big and small. Most of them came from Peckham, Old Kent Road, Bermondsey, Deptford and East London. You must remember that these villains were young, in their early twenties, branching out into the criminal fraternity. I was a six foot three, fifteen-year-old who looked and acted a lot older. Although I grew older and I walked away, they never did. Some of them became publicly well-known for their notorious acts.

  I was having a light ale in a boozer in Bermondsey with Al and a couple of guys that I didn’t really know that well. They were talking about Slasher Barnes and how he was beginning to piss them off, and that someone called Mack was due for a slap.

  “He’s taking the piss, fucking big time,” the blonde guy reckoned.

  “Leave him to me. I’ll sort the mug out,” Al said, winking to the blonde guy. Apparently, this guy Mack was a mate of Slasher’s. He’d been putting it about, acting the big-un, slagging off Al and a few others. There are a few things you don’t do. One is grassing up fellow villains; the other is not to bad mouth anyone or intrude on their patch. Unfortunately for Mack, he broke one of the codes and was going to suffer the consequences very soon. On the other hand, Slasher was a different kettle of fish and his demise would have to be plotted carefully, so I heard from various sources. During the course of the evening Al was accompanied by other members of his clan and some of them looked really nasty. I just sat there drinking my light ale, listening to their aggressive conversations, most of which were directed at Mack and Slasher. Al got up and, moving slowly, he sat down with another group of guys who were drinking in the corner of the snug. They sat chatting for at least half an hour. There were a lot of hand expressions going on and they were obviously discussing something important.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but the main guy Al was talking to was one of the biggest villains in South London. He would, much later on in his life, get put down for many years. The old Bill took nearly twenty years to nab him! I spent nearly every weekend drinking with these guys in various pubs in South London, but I’m not going to name them because two and two makes four and, believe me, it would be obvious who I was chatting about. There were a couple of other guys involved with local villains that I met during my drinking sessions with Al. Today they are very wealthy and very much in the public eye! I know I am being elusive, but it’s for my own protection and the protection of others. There’s one thing I’ve learnt in my life and that’s never shoot your mouth off. I’ve witnessed much bigger men than me pay a terrible price for their big gobs and I have no intention of being one of them. I won’t even give any clues as to who they are or what they are doing today.

  Being homeless and living out the back of a car was becoming intolerable. My relationship with Sue was becoming very serious. She knew the type of guys I was knocking around with and it didn’t seem to bother her at all. But you must remember, we were both young and very impressionable. It wasn’t long before I moved into her parents’ home and Sue fell pregnant with my first son. For the first time in my life, I had a bit of stability. We were soon married, at the tender age of sixteen.

  Even though I was in the company of all the local villains, not once did I participate in any of their activities. Al, to his credit, kept me in the background, which I am grateful for. A couple of weeks went by and then I started hearing rumours on the street that Mack had been kneecapped so badly that he would never walk again. The shooting of Slasher Barnes shortly followed the news about Mack. I knew who the culprits were and why they did it. So it wasn’t long before the old Bill had me in for questioning for two days, apparently acting on information from a local scumbag. My experience at being banged up for twenty-four hours stood me in good stead for a tad later on. As I have always said, keep fucking schtum. Upon my release, I was inundated with handshakes and nods of approval. That evening I was treated to a slap-up meal and all I could drink at the local Greek restaurant. After twelve, the owner pulled
down the blinds and dimmed the lights. The restaurant was chocker, with local revellers mixing it with big-time villains. All the years I ate there, the local police never intervened! Mind you, I’m not surprised. You’d have to be a bit dense to fuck with that lot. I’m not saying that the place was never watched, because it was; always. I suppose, in the old Bill’s eyes, if they were there, then nothing was going down elsewhere. I was sitting with Al and eight other guys who were discreetly discussing a certain job they had lined up for next week. I listened intently to their plans, not saying a word. I only spoke when I was spoken to. Big Ron reckoned it would be easy to stop the payroll van with the two Sherpa vans he had in his yard. He also informed the others that he had ringed two sets of wheels, one being a Jag the other a Princess Van de Plat. After a while, the talking stopped and the drinking got serious. They raised their glasses, toasting their success so far and to their future enterprises. I tried to keep up with the flow of booze and ended up totally blotto.

  The following week, I was having a quiet drink with Sue, Tony, Brian and a few mates in my local when I heard that my cousin was on the run and had gone into hiding. Apparently, the payroll job had gone pear-shaped. Well, I say pear-shaped. They actually got away with the dough, but three of them got caught. The driver of the payroll van was in intensive care, fighting for his life. It was down to the van driver that they were caught; during their escape, he flung himself in front of the Jag causing it to crash, nearly killing himself in the process. This enabled the Filth to apprehend half the gang. Al decided to lay low, just in case any of them grassed. However, none of them did so yet again he got away with it. Mind you, Al’s luck would soon run out. It was during the summer of ’71, June if I remember rightly, that Al got put down for GBH. He battered one of the local villains outside a boozer down the Old Kent Road. He spent the next twelve months in Pentonville Prison. With Al out the frame, every little toe-rag in the manor that had any grievances against him but never had the bottle to do anything about it, hunted me out. Seeing as I was his cousin, they tried to hurt me to get at him. The next twelve months were a fucking nightmare, what with having to avoid certain pubs, being vigilant where I went, and careful who I spoke to for fear of getting a pasting. I decided to keep a low profile, avoiding all my local haunts. I mentioned earlier that Sue fell pregnant when she was four months away from her sixteenth birthday. I was three months. We ended up getting married on the 22nd April, 1972. Sue was five months pregnant and, believe me, it showed. She was such a small, delicate girl that it looked like she had a football up her smock. We had just turned sixteen, and had to get written permission from our parents to get married. My old man shouted at me, “you made your fucking bed, you wanker, now fucking lie in it.” I would hasten to add that he signed the consent form gladly. I’ll never forget his words nor his past violence towards me and the fact I could never turn to either of them in times of trouble or hardship. From the age of eleven, it was me against the world. “You’re big enough and ugly enough to look after yourself,” echoes through my mind. Consequently, that’s how I lived my life, sticking my fingers up at authority and sorting my own problems out, right or wrong. I did it to survive and for the survival of my new family. Unfortunately, my actions were ultimately used against me to take away two of the three loves of my life. That pain I will take to my grave.