By this time, I was past them and walking away. The girls just stared at me, then looked at one another. Then one of them said, ‘Quick! Run and tell Mr Graham.’
One of them turned and began running towards the shop next door. I broke into a trot and disappeared round the corner before breaking into a sprint towards the next turning where my van was parked. I got into the van and was reversing towards the far corner when the girls, led by a man in a white coat, came running into sight. I actually read her lips as one of the girls mouthed the van’s registration number.
I turned the corner out of their sight and pounded the steering wheel in anger. Fuck it! What was I going to do now? The van would be traced to me and I would get done. Fuck it! I was really angry and could hardly think straight. I drove in the direction of Springburn wondering what the hell to do. Both girls had seen me, spoken to me! My mind was in turmoil. Everything was going wrong. I would have been well away if I had used my bike.
I began to think a little more clearly. It was imperative to dump the van – it was bright green and the police were probably looking out for it right now. What was I to do? I didn’t want to dump it just anywhere. It might sit for days and even get vandalised. And I didn’t want to lose such a valuable asset. I had to find a place to park it where it would be safe. Luckily my bike was in the back of the van – I had intended using it to ride up to whatever job I picked out, but because I had been so late and the place was so close I hadn’t bothered. There was only one place I could think of that was close and safe: Maryhill police station. It was even on my route home. So that’s what I did. I parked my van in Maryhill Road, just outside the nick and pedalled away on my bike.
Twenty minutes later I turned into Palermo Street and the first thing I saw was a police jeep parked at the top end facing downwards towards my close. Jesus Christ, I thought, that was quick. I kept pedalling and turned into Ayr Street then back up Flemington Street to Springburn Road again.
I was in a state and didn’t know what to do. Finally I went into the dry cleaner’s where Jim’s girlfriend worked. She knew straight away that something was wrong and I explained what had happened. One of my pals, Ronnie, was passing by and spotted me through the window and came inside just in time to hear the story too.
‘You better come round to my house,’ he said. ‘Have a cup of tea and straighten yourself out a bit.’
I was able to relax over a cup of tea and began to think a bit straighter. I got Ronnie to walk round to Palermo Street and check on what was happening with the jeep. He was back in about ten minutes and much to my surprise he had my brother Tommy with him. The jeep was still sitting there, apparently waiting for the green van to turn up.
‘What’s going on?’ my brother wanted to know.
I explained about Jim and the bail money and what I had done up till then. I ended up by telling him that I would have to get away back to London. It was lucky for me that Ronnie had bumped into him because Tommy went up to the house, packed all my things and brought them back to me. I divided up the money – I forget how much it was, but it was enough to pay Jim’s bail and get me back to London with a good few quid left over.
The only thing bothering me now was the van. I wanted that returned to Tommy and William as soon as possible and there was only one way I could think round it. William would have to become involved. At that particular time he was working in a department store fitting new railings on the stairways and I knew he would be in there until eight o’clock that night. I got hold of him at work and explained what had happened. He was a bit upset at first, but when he realised he was being left with the van (a prized possession), the shop and all the tools, he soon cheered up again. I told him that when he finished his work at eight o’clock that evening he was to go straight to police headquarters in St Andrew’s Square and report that the van had been stolen from where he had parked it that morning. He was to explain that he had been at work all day in the department store and hadn’t returned to the van until he was ready to go home at eight o’clock. It must have been stolen while he was at work. If they asked him anything about me, he was to say I was in my bed when he left for work, but I had said goodbye to him last night because I was catching the ten o’clock train to London in the morning.
That was the story. Nothing fancy. No big tale. Tommy had already been briefed to say that I had left the house in the morning with my bags to catch the train to London and that was the last time he had seen me. Satisfied that I had done my best, I went round to the station and finally bought myself a ticket for London.
Things had been recovered from what had seemed a disastrous situation. Jim would be out on bail, Tommy had a few quid and two good bikes (temporarily, I hoped) and William had a van and a fitted-out workshop. I was back where I started and not really sorry to be heading back to London.
Chapter Twelve
Pay Days
I had telephoned Ted before leaving Glasgow, so my appearance the following morning wasn’t totally unexpected. Later that day, I telephoned Tommy at the snooker hall and he told me that the police jeep had been in Palermo Street until half past five before being driven away.
Half an hour after it had gone, the CID arrived at my parents’ house wanting to know where I was. Tommy told me he had explained my absence as we had agreed and the CID had left the house in a very dissatisfied state. Then William had turned up at Central Police HQ to report the van stolen and had gone through everything again with them. Tommy and William stuck by their stories and everything just fitted right, or so the cops appeared to think. They didn’t like it at all, but without me to put on an ID parade there wasn’t a lot they could do, especially as no one could furnish them with my address in London. Apparently the cops weren’t happy about it all and their final words had been, ‘Tell that fucking brother of yours that he better stay well clear of Glasgow.’
I had also, Tommy told me, made the front page of the Evening Times: CHEEKY BURGLAR STRIKES. I thought that I would take heed of the detective’s advice and decided that it would not be wise of me to return to Glasgow in the near future. So now it was back to work in London and Jack soon filled me in on what was going on in our circles.
He had been knocking about with Chick and Johnny Thompson from Paddington and a chap called Eddie Hearn, one of my old mate Bert’s friends from Fulham. Three of them, Jack, Eddie and Chick, had recently had an earner on an easy little blag in Church Street, just off the Edgware Road, when the guy carrying a wages box on to a building site showed good sense and dropped the box as Chick and Eddie, both hard faced and holding coshes, confronted him.
In the early sixties you couldn’t pick up a newspaper on a Thursday or Friday evening without reading about at least two or three big wage snatches that had gone off in London and these were only the blags big enough to make the national press. Every local paper regularly reported its own crop of smaller robberies in the district it covered. It didn’t seem to matter how often it happened or how many times the police warned companies about their wage-collecting methods; no one seemed to learn.
In the course of the next four months, we did three different jobs stuck up by employees of the firms we robbed. It would surprise you how many ‘loyal’ workers were only too happy to pass on information about how their company handled the weekly wage collection from the bank. We usually found that this information came to us second hand. A worker with a slightly crooked bent would pass on the word to some close pal whom he knew consorted with more serious villains. The close pal would make an initial approach, usually in a bar over a friendly drink and vaguely touch upon the job. If the work sounded interesting, a more serious discussion would develop and the close pal would be instructed to obtain more precise details. This suited us because it kept us away from the inside man and we didn’t have to worry about being identified by him. If everything still sounded sweet, the job would be properly cased, just to check out the veracity and accuracy of the information. Once we were satisfied that the j
ob was a ‘good ‘un’, we would swing into action.
The routine was always the same: steal a car a couple of days before and change its number plates, then tuck it away somewhere safe. The rest of the gear we would need – overalls, masks and coshes – were always at hand and presented no problem. On the morning of the job (funnily enough, now I think about it, I’ve never been on a blag in the afternoon), we would park our straight car fairly close to the robbery site, then make our way over to where Jack would be waiting with the ‘ringer’. All the gear would be with Jack and we would change into our overalls and prepare ourselves as we drove back towards the bank or the place selected for our ambush. The only time I worried about anything was when I was in the ringer driving to the job, all geared up and ready to go. At that time, we were definitely on offer for a charge of conspiracy and possessing offensive weapons at the very least. And there was always the possibility that if the robbery squad spotted us, they would follow on and let us commit ourselves to the job. This was so they could call up reinforcements and get us bang to rights for the more serious offence of assault and robbery. That way they would make themselves look good and we would get the maximum jail sentence. We couldn’t afford to hang around for very long, so our timing had to be cut rather fine.
The job itself would only take ten to fifteen seconds on the pavement, then we would be into the car and away. Two or three turnings later we would start to drop off and once out of the ringer we would be safe to go our separate ways. It was Jack’s responsibility to dump the ringer and fetch the money back and if everything was sweet he would even bring the bagged-up kit for future use.
Most of the time, everything went very smoothly for us and we were successful blaggers. We never got into any of the big blags, like the Roote’s Group payroll robbery near Ladbroke Grove, nor were we as active as the Robin Hood gang, so called because they wore green-felt hats with little feathers in their hatbands when they were performing. We seemed to be stuck around the smallish two- or three-grand jobs. This wasn’t a reflection on our ability or bottle, it was just that unless you were lucky, or a well-known face, you never received information on any of the big jobs. Every week we would scan the newspapers and read enviously about the latest big payroll robbery. We were just itching to get put on to a big one.
One of the problems in our business was getting bad information and the two things I used to ask myself when someone was explaining the details of some proposed snatch were: (a) is this guy in a position to know this information and (b) does the story make sense? If the answer to both these questions was yes, then the job was worth looking at.
Even then, when everything sounded sensible and looked good, mistakes were made and serious risks taken for nothing. One of the three jobs we had been put on to was a contract-cleaning company in Fulham. We were told by an employee that the company worked out of premises in a side street off Fulham Road and employed about 130 cleaners and other staff in various schools and office buildings throughout West London. The total payroll was about two-and-a-half to three grand and pay day was Thursday morning when the staff could call into the offices to pick up their wages any time after eleven. The story was that the manager took the ledgers and pay envelopes home with him on the Wednesday night and made up the wages in his house.
The guy who gave us the information worked in the place and swore blind he’d seen the boss putting the books and the pay packets into his briefcase plenty of times. Well, he was in a position to know this and at the time we thought it made sense for the manager to make up the wages at home so they would be ready for handing out in the morning. I suppose a lot of these sorts of tales sound genuine because you want them to.
We decided to go ahead with it and, as only one man carried the cash, there would be just three of us on the job. This suited everybody: Eddie didn’t fancy working on his own doorstep and Johnny was busy at the time with his small plumbing business. It was arranged that Jack would be driving, with Chick and myself on the pavement to take the bag. The manager always parked in a private bay to one side of the office building, leaving him a walk of about twenty-five yards to the entrance. We would have plenty of time to move in and take the briefcase.
Everything went smoothly. The car appeared on time and Chick and I were on the pavement walking towards the manager as he locked up and turned towards his office. Just as he passed us, Chick spun round and gripped him around the chest, pinning his arms helplessly against his sides. I grabbed the briefcase, striking it really hard to break the ends of the handle because he refused to let it go. Two hard hammer thumps with the edge of my clenched fist snapped both ends of the handle.
While I was doing this, I could hear the manager shouting, ‘Fools! Stupid fools!’ When I heard that and the way he shouted it, I just knew there wasn’t any money in the briefcase. By now, I had the bag and Chick shoved the man away from him just as Jack pulled up alongside us in the car. We were away in seconds, going round the block and crossing over Fulham Road to dump the car.
‘There’s no money in this bag,’ I said as I unbuckled the flap of the old-fashioned briefcase. ‘There’s no fucking money in it! He was too calm, that guy.’ Sure enough, I didn’t find a penny. What I did find was the ledgers and the details of each employee’s wage neatly written in longhand on the front of the pay envelopes, ready to have the appropriate money put inside. Our informant had been nearly right. Because he had seen the office manager putting the envelopes and books into his briefcase, he had assumed that he was making the pay packets up at home. All that risk for nothing!
Something happened one day that sent a charge of excitement surging through me like a bolt of lightning. When I heard the news I said to myself, Yes! That’s the way! No information required and definite knowledge that the cash was there for the taking. I confronted Jack and the others and slapped the paper down. ‘That’s what we should be doing,’ I said. ‘Robbing banks like these guys!’
What had happened was that three men had run into a bank in Cricklewood, just up the road from our manor, fired two shots from a handgun and snatched about four grand in a lightning raid. Five minutes later, they ran into a bank in Salisbury Road, Queen’s Park, right on our own doorstep, fired a shot and grabbed several thousand quid. Ten minutes later, the same three men repeated the performance at a bank in Bayswater, escaping with even more cash; then they had simply disappeared. I was stunned. So fast. So easy. So smooth. And a bank meant money guaranteed.
But none of my mates wanted to know. They just weren’t interested. Guns? No way. The cops would go crazy, they said.
‘C’mon,’ I told them. ‘If nobody knows you did it, how can you get caught?’
My logic didn’t make any difference: guns and banks were out. Besides, Jack told me, he had been put on to a factory payroll job in Ruislip with more than six grand in it. In those days, six grand was a good job; equal to around £40,000 in today’s terms. It was a good turn, but we all ended up being lifted, thanks to an inside tip-off to the police from a new gang member. We were all taken straight to Harrow Road nick and charged with conspiracy to rob person or persons unknown. Three months later we were up for trial at the Old Bailey. It was three-and-a-half years for me. Eddie got a three, Jack a two-and-a-half and Johnny, being a first offender, got away with eighteen months. The meat wagon came to take us off to begin our sentences in Wandsworth.
Chapter Thirteen
Zombie Nation
In December 1961, for the third time in three years, I found myself being processed through reception in Wandsworth Prison. It was like taking part in a recurring nightmare as I sat on the same well-worn, pew-like bench, waiting for my name to be called out by the reception screw. I wouldn’t mind betting it was still the same fat-arsed, red-faced screw who scowled at me from behind his sloping, school teacher’s desk as he inspected my committal papers and began the ritual of reducing me to a number. Then it was the four-inch-deep lukewarm bath, the ill-fitting prison greys and the loose, clatterin
g shoes that seemed to be standard issue in Wandsworth.
After we were processed, I found myself allocated to a cell in B Wing. Eddie went to C Wing and Jack, playing up on his ulcers, was sent straight to the sick bay. Johnny Thompson, as a first offender, had been taken on to Wormwood Scrubs and I wouldn’t see him again.
Wandsworth was different this time. I was no longer considered a trainable prisoner, so it was straight into the mainstream for me. Next morning, after seeing the doctor and being interviewed by the assistant governor in charge of receptions, I was allocated to work in the pouch shop, which in actual fact meant sewing mailbags. Things in the workshops had improved a little since my last visit. The silence rule had been relaxed so that you could talk to the men on either side of you, but not to the men in front or behind. But it was still the hand in the air for a ‘sit down’ or a ‘stand up’, then waiting for the screw on his high throne to nod you off to the toilet. From now on I would make few, if any, decisions for myself. My every movement, bowel or otherwise, would be controlled by the rules of the prison or the order of the screws. I wouldn’t have to think, simply obey.
When I first walked through the centre of the main cell block in Wandsworth Prison, I saw right away why its radiating wings were always likened to the spokes of a wheel. At first I had thought the description apt, but after a few weeks I began to see the spokes more as the tentacles of an octopus gradually sucking and squeezing at the lives within its grip, remorselessly reducing them to an obedient, grey, common sludge with no will of its own. The prisoners’ lives were so controlled and dominated by the strict, unchanging daily routine that they were little more than zombies. And I was becoming one of them.
Armed and Dangerous--This is the True Story of How I Carried Out Scotland's Biggest Bank Robbery Page 13
