I snarled, ‘If you ever come near me again, I’ll beat the shit out of you and I’ll put you in hospital.’
He was crying like a baby and bleeding all over the place. Anyway, I went to school and I was nervous after I’d beat him up. It was the first time I’d done real violence.
Jimmy was in our class and didn’t show up for school that day. The headmaster said that he’d been assaulted. The police asked Jimmy who did it and he said it was a couple of big Greek blokes. He didn’t grass, and we became friends at once because of that loyalty and respect.
This was really when I discovered that violence pays. I saw other terrified kids wondering if they were going to receive beatings, and I thought to myself that I would sooner take a hiding than have that fear: I couldn’t live every day being scared. I built up my inner strength to instil fear in bullies. When I saw that fear in the bully, there would be a rush of power inside my head.
Violence was a method of communication. I suppose I enjoyed it in some ways, because it sorted out problems quickly and gave me satisfaction. When you are giving someone a real beating, and you once feared them, then there is a massive rush of power and nothing quite like it.
It didn’t take long before all the parents and kids knew about the savage attack on Jimmy. When I arrived home, my mum said, ‘It’s terrible. These streets are getting unsafe to walk down these days, with all these foreigners lurking about. You’ll have to be careful when you’re out and about. These Greeks carry knives.’
The Greeks I knew were diamonds. Their country was in ruins after the German invasion and their own civil war in the 1940s, with millions of people fleeing all over the world. Those conflicts and other periods of strife meant that we were well populated with Greeks, Turks, Cypriots and a whole lot more from that part of the world. Many remained my friends for life. I didn’t know too much about their backgrounds – it was all Greek to me.
As teenagers, we went to the same boxing clubs. At the age of fourteen I was Islington schoolboys’ boxing champion for three years – I never lost a fight. I was brutal in the ring; I was like a predator going for the kill.
My trainer, Mickey Graham, told Dad: ‘Bobby’s not going to be a boxer. He doesn’t go into the ring to fight people. He goes into the ring to hurt people; he goes into the ring to do damage.’
All of that was true, and it went back to my scrap with Jimmy the bully. I let him have it, and anyone else who crossed me or got in my way met the same fate. When Jimmy beat me up, it had awakened a rage inside me. When I looked at the other boxer, I thought, ‘I’m going to take you down. No matter what punishment you give me in this ring, I will demolish you.’
For the prizes, there was no ‘purse’ as such: we received china tea services instead of money for winning. I won so many china tea services that my mum gave them away to our neighbours. Dad came to watch me boxing, but my mum never did as she couldn’t stand the violence.
I almost lost an eye because of boxing. They used to put sawdust in the ring to mop up blood, and a chip went into my eye. I had lots of hospital treatment and had to wear an eye patch for years.
Our class at the secondary school was called 4D and no one wanted to teach thugs like us. It was a joke at the time that the ‘D’ stood for ‘Destruction’. One of the teachers was a Jewish woman who knew exactly what we were like. When we arrived for class, she would hold out a wastepaper bin and say: ‘OK, boys, throw the weapons in here, please, and you can have them back after the class.’
An Italian guy, Phillip, was the first in our school to get VD, and he was really proud of it. His dad was a pimp. When we were about fourteen, we fantasised about sex, as all boys do. Phillip went with a prostitute and caught VD, then took us into the toilets so that he could show us his discharge. After that, four other kids wanted to go with him to see the prostitute so they could catch VD as well. They thought it was like a badge of honour, but they all ended up at the special clinic.
One of the guys in my class, called Peter, used to nick lorries and drive them to school. What a sight it was seeing this little kid parking a truck, putting on his schoolbag and walking into the playground as if nothing had happened. Like all of us, he was struggling for survival and looking for a way out.
It was the way of life for millions of Londoners down through the ages. Max Bygraves grew up in a two-bedroom council flat with his five siblings, parents and a grandparent in south-east London. His father was a professional flyweight boxer known as Battling Tom Smith. Max’s catchphrase, ‘I wanna tell you a story,’ helped to elevate him from those days of total poverty, and he was awarded an OBE in 1982.
A few miles up the road from me, Roger Daltrey was battling to escape from his poor working-class surroundings. He was born in Hammersmith and grew up in Acton. Daltrey made his first guitar from plywood, and went to school with Pete Townshend and John Entwistle. Roger’s magnificent career with The Who propelled him to the CBE in 2006.
It was the same all over the country. Jack Bruce, bass player with the 1960s supergroup Cream, grew up in poverty in a council flat in Glasgow. His mother scrubbed floors in the local hospital. Like me, Jack collected empty bottles to take to the shops for a few pennies. He struck it rich with Cream and bought a Scottish island.
At the same time, the Krays and the Richardsons, all much older than me, were dominating the London crime scene. In the early 1960s I heard rumours that Charlie Richardson and his gang were ruling their manor in South London; I heard that the Kray twins were using more brawn than brains in the East End. I was starting from humble beginnings in the north of the capital.
I was growing up fast. Very fast.
CHAPTER TWO
RAZOR ON THE GROUND
I HAD HEARD all about guns, read all about guns and wanted one of my own. I could see into the future and knew that firearms would give me complete control.
My first gun gave me such a power rush. I was only fourteen, still running around in those early gangs, when I heard that a geezer had a Luger pistol for sale. I gave him £20 for it. Even at that age I was nicking things, wheeling and dealing and running little businesses, so £20 was no problem for me.
The gun was so well made with the German engineering and all that. There was a slide that you pulled back to load it, and I could almost smell the stench of death oozing from its barrel. What a thrill to take it to pieces and put it all together again. Big problem: we couldn’t get hold of any bullets. I have to say that, had bullets been available, I would have treasured that weapon all my life; I would have used it on every bit of work because I loved the gun so much.
My teenage pals, including Tony the Greek and Andy the Greek, just stared and stared at it. Chrissy, another Greek in our gang, checked out every tiny detail but avoided touching the gun. They were all overawed.
I used to sit in my bedroom, holding the Luger, playing with the trigger and feeling like a god. I looked and looked at the pistol, realising that it had probably been used in the war and shot people. I was fascinated. We gave up trying to get bullets and sold it to a guy up the road who collected gun memorabilia. I asked for £40 and he paid up straight away. I always doubled up my dough.
My fascination with guns grew by the day – I particularly wanted to fire a shotgun. I was just coming up to fifteen when I heard that people were being paid five bob for shooting squirrels. The squirrels were seen as vermin, and the landowner wanted to get rid of as many as possible.
I was a good shot and I loved the feel of the shotgun, and the gunpowder smell. What a sense of power as it kicked against my shoulder! I was in total control, feeling almost as tall as Tony the Greek – all six feet four inches of him – when I saw the squirrels blasted out of the trees.
I left school at sixteen with no qualifications. I was well known as a bad boy and lessons never interested me. I remember our secondary school headmaster went round to see my dad and told him, ‘Bobby is highly intelligent, but he’s bored. When he reads out his English essays, he stands
there and captivates the audience. People swarm around him. But he’s just not interested in getting his head down and doing written work. And I know he’s running rackets in the school to make money when he should really be studying.’
My dad turned to me and asked, ‘Do you want to go to upper school? Do you want to study for your exams or not?’
‘No,’ I told him firmly. ‘I want to get out there and do business. I want to make money.’
And that was that.
I was proud to have my first job as a shipping clerk, just after leaving school, but then I fell foul of the law – big time. One day, I saw police lecturing a group of kids, because a starting pistol had been fired in the local park. I went over and I could see none of them had a pistol; I reckoned that someone else must have fired it. The coppers were in plain clothes. I didn’t know who they were, just that they looked aggressive. I told them they were dealing with under-age kids, and they should be talking to the parents or a responsible adult.
One of the CID officers came over to me and snarled, ‘You seem to know it all. You’re a bit flash, ain’t ya? We’ll be back.’
I was still chatting to the other kids when, a short while afterwards, both coppers returned and one of them pointed to a gleaming object on the ground.
‘You just threw that out of your trouser pocket,’ one of them said, accusingly, as he pointed to a cut-throat razor.
I gaped in astonishment. ‘You’re havin’ a laugh, ain’t ya?’
‘You’re nicked, son,’ he muttered and carted me off to the nick.
I admit to everything I’ve done in my life – but not that.
Of course, no one believed me. Dad said the police would never plant evidence, Mum was in tears and the pressure to plead guilty grew every day. Dad believed all policemen were like characters from the old TV series, Dixon of Dock Green. He offered to pay the fine, so everything would be forgotten.
The guilty plea changed everything. I went to court and Dad paid the fine of ten bob, or half of an old-fashioned £1. That was a lot of money for us then.
When I returned to work I had to declare my criminal record and was sacked on the spot. Customs and Excise in the port of London, and all other employers, turned their backs on me.
My reaction: ‘If they want me to be bad, I’ll show them how bad I can be.’
Back shooting more squirrels, and bristling with fury over the razor incident, I thought about my future over and over again.
‘Tony, come here a minute,’ I shouted to my pal, who was watching me cause mayhem in the trees. ‘Why don’t we go on an armed robbery?’
Tony the Greek’s enormous nose twitched. He blinked several times, glanced around nervously and shook his head. Tony was so tall that I almost had to crane my neck to check out his expression.
‘Come on, Tony.’ I grimaced as the recoil from the shotgun kicked into my shoulder. ‘You want to make a few bob, don’t ya?’
‘You’ll get caught. You’ll get caught,’ Tony repeated in his usual style, shaking his head at the same time. ‘Ba-a-a-a-a-d idea. Ba-a-a-a-a-a-d idea.’
As it happened, my first job didn’t involve the regular members of my gang, who were to become loyal and trusted people in my firm.
I used to go to a club called the Penny Club. It was a teenage venue run by a vicar and you paid a penny to get in. Well, we were in there one night and we saw a group of older guys, about eighteen or nineteen years old.
One of the girls there told me they drove a delivery van ‘with loads of money in it’.
‘They what?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I think they collect money from butchers’ shops at the end of the day and store it all in money pouches.’
Stan, a Penny Club regular, put his mouth against my ear. ‘She said there was loads of money, Bobby. Sounds like an easy job.’
‘Let’s have it,’ I said. ‘Let’s do it. We need to go off and do some planning.’
We went round to a Greek café in Hercules Street and discussed this bit of work. Stan said he knew that the guys in the club had collected money that day and the robbery would be a piece of cake.
‘I’m not convinced,’ I told them. ‘They’re not going to just hand over the money.’
‘We’ve got a shotgun,’ Stan whispered, with his pals Mick and John nodding furiously, as if to back up his point.
‘Leave all that to me,’ I answered. ‘You can’t mess with guns. I’ve been out shooting squirrels, so I know how to handle guns. Let’s do it.’
We went round to Stan’s house. Luckily, his mum and dad were out at the pictures, allowing us to get cracking.
Stan’s dad owned a double-barrelled 12-bore shotgun. What we didn’t know was that this was quite a rare weapon, worth hundreds and hundreds of pounds. I looked it up and down. We couldn’t walk along the street with a full-length shotgun.
‘Get a hacksaw,’ I ordered. ‘We need to cut it down a bit.’
I had no qualms about anything I did. There I was, bang in the firing line, and not giving a fuck. I was the main man, always in control, and had no fears about the consequences of my actions. I really, honestly, had no fear at all. I just followed my instinct, did what I thought was the right thing at the time, and followed it through with the passion of a dedicated criminal mind.
One of the dynamic trio went off to find a hacksaw, and then I went to work, being careful not to leave any untidy ends. If that happens, splinters go all over the place when the gun is fired.
Stan appeared wearing a large overcoat. He looked like a school kid with a freckly face, a mop of messy brown hair and a polo neck that soaked up his dandruff. He looked on in awe as I inspected every inch of the shotgun, loaded it, then gave to him to put it underneath his coat.
Stan had twitched almost as much as Tony the Greek as I’d checked the gun over. In our language, Stan had stuck up the bit of work, meaning that he offered up the job, but I’d never been involved in any of his escapades before. This was way out of his league, but he came along on the bit of work with Mick and John.
We went back to the Penny Club, hoping to make more than a few pennies.
‘Wait for them to come out of the club, hold them up and get the keys for the van,’ I ordered as we lurked outside.
’Understood,’ the others whispered.
But, as more and more people poured into the club, I could see that problems lay ahead. It was such an amateur job. We weren’t even wearing masks, for fuck’s sake. Looking back, I can hardly believe how poorly prepared we were. Live and learn, eh?
‘Go into the club and pull one of them out,’ I told Mick. ‘Make sure he has the van keys and we can sort it out.’
Mick went off and reappeared with a terrified-looking geezer. We put him up against the wall and pointed the shotgun at him. To our horror, another load of people started to come out of the club and we had to put ten or more of them up against the wall. John started to unload the van, but we couldn’t drive it away or anything with all this going on.
‘Don’t any of you move or I will shoot,’ I warned, full of bravado. I wouldn’t have shot anyone – I hadn’t entered that league yet – but I had to make them believe that I was serious.
Mick collected all the money pouches and fired up his smoky Lambretta scooter. Stan, John and me ordered the scared-looking bloke and the rest of the crowd to lie on the ground, while we scarpered through the back streets and ended up at Stan’s house again.
‘We’ve had a good result here,’ I said, catching my breath as we sneaked in the back door.
We explored the pouches one by one. We were stunned to discover that they were all empty: the guys were due to deliver them to the string of shops in the morning. The theory about collecting cash was a load of bollocks.
‘Look, there’s £6 in here,’ John said, as we fumbled through the pathetic mound of empty bags. He was holding a wallet, which he’d nicked from one of the geezers. He’d taken it out of the guy’s pocket. That wasn’t my scene – I
saw petty stuff like that as crimes committed by lowlife. I had much higher ambitions.
‘This is a load of shit,’ I grunted, feeling disgusted by the failed, hopeless bit of work.
A short time later, as I walked along the street, a police car pulled up. ‘We need to talk to you, Mr Cummines.’
People knew us at the club and we were well-known faces. The lack of masks hadn’t helped our case. At the police station, there were so many witnesses that I knew we were done for.
They gave us all bail and the next day I decided to tell my real friends – the people in our developing firm – what had happened. We arranged to meet in the Greek café in Hercules Road, where the useless raid had been planned.
How I regretted going off on that unplanned mission with the other kids. The crazy thing was that we had already agreed not to work outside the firm. I had decided what we could and couldn’t do. I had broken my own rules. I learned a serious lesson: when you make your own rules, you stick by them.
At that time, I was upgrading from a gang to a proper firm with my pals from my school days. The development from childhood gangs to armed robbers was all about making money. I was in with that crowd so nothing was going to change. We had our own mini-government and ruled ourselves.
We were all at a loose end, really. Everyone was in between jobs; no one could get work because of their criminal records: I had my black mark after the razor incident, and the others had quite a list between them. I just remember thinking: ‘Fuck this. If we are going to be labelled as criminals, let’s be real criminals.’
I sat glumly in the corner. My brother Frankie was the first to appear.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve just heard from my old woman that you’ve been on an armed robbery with a bunch of mugs. What are you doing working with mugs? Why didn’t you come to discuss it with us first?’
I Am Not A Gangster Page 3
