Hateland

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  The officer then asked Disco for his details. The request provoked a nervous crisis. Despite superhuman efforts, Disco couldn't squeeze out an answer. He gulped, stuttered, spat and blinked for so long that in the end the policeman said, 'It's all right, mate. Forget it. Off you go.'

  I suppose I adopted Disco Dave as a sort of club mascot. I knew he had no money, so I used to let him in free. I could see this made him feel important. One day, I told him that in the future he should ignore the long queues, march straight to the front, walk past the doorstaff, cashier and those searching and, if ANYBODY said ANYTHING, he had to say, 'My name's Disco Dave. I don't pay. And I don't give a fuck.'

  Nothing more. Nothing less.

  One evening, the company directors and other VIPs visited the club. They were all standing around the reception area when Disco walked in wearing trainers, which the management had banned in an unsuccessful attempt to filter out the riff-raff. One of the directors looked at Disco, stared at his forbidden footwear, glanced at me and stood waiting for me to say something. I just shrugged my shoulders.

  The director decided to intervene. He said to Disco, 'I'm afraid you can't come in wearing trainers, Sir.'

  Disco looked straight at him, gulped and, with the pride and arrogance of a bullfighter, stuttered out the words, 'My name's Disco Dave. I don't pay. And I don't give a fuck.'

  He then marched past the director and all the doorstaff and disappeared upstairs. The director said, 'Who on earth is that?'

  'Don't ask,' I said. 'He's a fucking nightmare.'

  When we went upstairs later, we watched Disco dancing on a raised podium with his shirt off. He looked in need of urgent psychiatric assistance.

  Indirectly, he'd helped us rebuff the charge that we'd become too violent to customers. Indeed, the director thought we ought to impose our authority a bit more firmly. He hadn't liked our completely hands-off approach to a stuttering and skeletal representative of the undead who'd pushed his way into the club without paying.

  One day, the manager told me he had a friend due for release from prison. Would I be able to employ him on the door? The man's name was Maurice and he came from Bristol. He'd broken a man's arm with a baseball bat during a road-rage incident.

  The manager said, 'But he's not a violent man, Bernie. Honest.'

  I said half-jokingly, 'If he ain't violent, he's no use to me.'

  One Friday night, I watched as a big black car pulled up outside the club. The driver's door opened and a big black man got out. Decorated generously with gold jewellery, he strolled majestically towards the club, avoiding undue exertion of his muscular frame. I thought, 'Pimp.' Lamentable racial stereotyping, I know. In fact, Maurice had just arrived. I shook his hand, gave him a hundred pounds (as cash is usually what you need most when you walk out of prison) and showed him round the club.

  To be honest, his skin colour didn't present a problem for me. But I feared it might for many of the customers. Basildon isn't known for its commitment to multiculturalism. Not many blacks live there. The few that do often end up being driven out. Many of the white residents have their roots in the East End. They'll tell anyone willing to listen that they only left their beloved Bow Bells to escape the blacks and Asians. Some Nazis even dreamt of setting up in Essex an Aryan 'homeland' - a whites-only separatist state.

  I liked Maurice. Although quiet and reserved, he feared no one and would fight all-comers. After working with him for a while, I mentioned that I needed a tenant for my flat in south-east London. He confided that he had a few West Country women working for him in the capital as prostitutes. I suppose this made him a lamentable racial stereotype after all. I agreed to let some of his working girls rent the flat. Since the road-rage incident, he'd also been banned from driving. I let him use my licence. Without really realising, I'd become good friends with a black man.

  Despite spending my nights beating manners into the locals, then sleeping till mid-morning, I still managed to go to the odd Millwall game on a Saturday afternoon, but not usually as a Bushwhacker. I even took my infant son Vinney along to a few.

  My friends seemed to be growing up a bit, too. I spoke more on the phone with Adolf than with the others, who'd all become a bit resistant to his nutty Nazi ways. I was probably the only one of our circle still willing to listen to his political rants for more than three minutes.

  Adolf kept me informed of developments in the world of the far-right. He continued to invite me to meetings and to send me Nazi magazines. So I knew that, by 1990, the National Front (new and old) had almost expired, devoured by the usual splits and in-fighting. The BNP had become the Great White Hope, though not for Adolf, who regarded them as left-wing Tories. He often sounded disillusioned and gave the impression he was biding his time till the emergence of a new Messiah who'd lead us to the Aryan promised land.

  In early 1991, at a BNP election rally, a new security team was formed to protect the party leadership. I assumed leader John Tyndall wanted to avoid being strangled in public by strangers. The team was composed mainly of football hooligans from the London clubs Tottenham Hotspur, Millwall, Charlton and West Ham. They called themselves the 'East End Barmy Army', which was a bit puzzling because Tottenham's in north London, Millwall's in south London and no one knows where Charlton is. Only West Ham is east. They were meant to be purely for defence, but before long they went on the offensive, attacking red marches and meetings. The East End Barmy Army formed the nucleus of what later became the most feared and dangerous British Nazi grouping of recent times, Combat 18.

  In August 1991, 'Mad Bomber' Tony Lecomber asked Adolf to bring his 'mates' to a BNP demonstration being held in Bermondsey in London's Docklands. The demonstration's target was a planned march through the area by the National Black Caucus, a group campaigning for the rights of blacks. For around two years, I'd avoided taking Adolf up on his political invitations, but it just so happened that, on that day, Millwall were playing at home. I planned to go to the match with Benny, Ray and Tony.

  Bermondsey is only a stone's (or bottle's) throw from Millwall, so we told Adolf we'd combine the two events for a day out. We used to call our outings 'jolly ups' and this promised to be a double serving of jolly. We made our way to the Rotherhithe Road in Bermondsey to await the marchers. I hadn't been in such a hyped-up atmosphere since the first Millwall versus West Ham match I'd attended years earlier.

  Now members of those rival sets of hooligans had joined together in the East End Barmy Army They stood there poised for attack, along with members of the BNP and NF. Many of the area's white residents had also joined the throng. This 'black' march in a 'white' area was regarded by many of them as 'anti-white' and 'provocative'. A mob of about 400 of us stood waiting.

  The trouble started before the marchers arrived. Millwall's Bushwhackers started hurling bricks, bottles and coins at the line of police standing behind barriers. Then the marchers appeared. A cry of rage went up and everyone surged forward, smashing down the barriers. We were chanting 'Kill! Kill! Kill!' and pelting the rapidly retreating police with missiles. The marchers stopped moving as the police surrounded them. We all headed for a nearby park in the hope of attacking from behind. A police riot van tried to block our route. Missiles rained down on the van. The driver slammed the vehicle into reverse and drove almost blind down the street to escape.

  Once inside the park, we armed ourselves with whatever we could find - bottles, lumps of wood, stones, the metal inserts of bins. Then we charged the terrified marchers again. Police reinforcements swamped the area. Suddenly, a policeman announced through a loudhailer that the march had been cancelled and that we should all disperse. The BNP organisers didn't want the day to end just yet. They also took to their megaphones and whipped the mob up once again for a final effort. We regrouped and charged at the marchers, who turned and began running up the street. Later, one of the marchers said to journalists, 'We were lucky to get out alive - that was our only success.'

  Exhilarated by our victory,
we turned on the police. A group of Met motorcyclists were punched, kicked and pelted with missiles before they sped away. An Asian photographer was singled out from a group of journalists to be kicked and beaten. A car containing two black people was turned over onto its roof. In a small shopping centre, an Asian shopkeeper was beaten up and another had his shop looted.

  For about ten minutes, the police seemed to have disappeared. And a marauding mob can do a lot of damage in ten minutes if no one's there to stop them. Eventually, the police returned and began hunting us down. They arrested some stragglers at the rear. Everybody else dispersed into the maze of back alleys.

  Publicly, the BNP condemned the disorder. Adolf sent me their paper,British Nationalist.The editorial read:

  The BNP continues to advocate that lawful political action is the correct method for opposing the evils of the multi-racial society that the rulers of Britain have created, but as long as those rulers do not respond to the people's wishes by bringing their hideous experiment to an end, the kind of street warfare we saw in Bermondsey is inevitable.

  Adolf resented the 'criticism'. He said angrily on the phone, 'Typical Tory bollocks from Tyndall.' He thought the BNP leaders were taking liberties in rousing the rabble, then condemning them for what they'd been roused to do.

  Around this time, I'd developed a sideline involving 'jobs' set up for me by an intermediary known as 'Fatman'. He weighed about 22 st. Hence the nickname. These jobs involved destroying property, threatening people and beating them up. The victims had usually fallen out with business associates, friends, partners or neighbours over business, money, love or the position of the garden fence. Whatever the reason, someone was willing to pay good money to have his (or, quite often, her) revenge.

  Despite my 'new start', I needed a decent income, so I was prepared to accommodate a degree of lawlessness to suit my needs. A cynic might say that, with each of my 'new starts', I didn't become a better person as such, I merely found new outlets for my badness. I wouldn't agree entirely with such a cynical assessment, but, at the same time, I wouldn't squirt the cynical assessor with ammonia for saying it.

  Customers would arrange the job with Fatman. They never knew who I was or how to contact me. This protected me from being grassed up if the police became involved, as they sometimes did. If customers unwisely gave them Fatman's name, he'd say he'd sold the debt on. We did work all over the country - and even once in Switzerland.

  Our clients ranged from solicitors to drug dealers, with all sorts in between - market traders in Manchester, property developers in Bristol, Smithfield Meat Market people in London. On busy days, I'd have up to 20 jobs to do, and I did this work three to four days a week in addition to my nightclub shifts. Yet my main job remained my position as head of security at Raquels.

  By September 1993, I felt that to bolster my position I needed to form an alliance with a strong 'firm'. That was how I ended up going into a partnership that would have a profound effect on my life. The person I shook hands with was Tony Tucker, who ran a large and well-respected door firm. He used his control of security at clubs to give dealers, at a price, exclusive rights to sell drugs on the premises.

  Tucker started sending me men from south and east London. Sometimes, he'd need to find work for doormen whom the management at other clubs no longer wanted: perhaps they'd bashed someone half to death; maybe they'd forgotten to wear a bow tie. Other times, Tucker just liked to act as a one-man employment agency for bodybuilders. Nine times out of ten, I'd tell him to send them along. Then next day a Mr Universe would stick his head round the door and say, 'Bernie? Hi, my name's . . .'

  The first two men to come to see me this way were two East Enders, Ian and Greg. Both were black. Now three of my eight doormen were black. It was the first time in my life I'd been forced into such a close working relationship with black people. And at first I didn't feel that comfortable.

  Perhaps my years steeped in racism caused my discomfort. Or maybe three was a crowd. Perhaps, in the back of my mind, I feared they might try to take over. Whatever the reason, I remained wary of them for some time. I even bashed Ian once, because I thought he was laughing at me. But gradually I grew to like and trust them (as far as anyone trusts anyone in that world). In times of danger, they proved their reliability and loyalty.

  In late 1993, I got a call from a doorman who said his mate Gavin needed work. Apparently, Gavin had been sacked from a club in Ilford after sending a customer to hospital. The doorman said he'd already rung Tucker on Gavin's behalf, but had been told there was no work. This struck me as odd, because I'd already mentioned to Tucker that I needed an extra doorman. I suspected he had another reason for saying no. Doorman politics is worthy of academic study. The microcosm of the door is a catty little world built on bubbling jealousies, stifled resentments and long-borne grudges. People won't speak to each other for years for quite petty reasons. Perhaps someone sweated on their towel in the gym - or tipped over their nail varnish.

  Indeed, many bodybuilders are better manicured than Barbie. If you could calculate which groups spend the most on sunbeds, leg-waxing and hairdos, you'd find a toss-up between call girls, bodybuilders and bored housewives with rich husbands. I rang Tucker and asked him about employing Gavin. He said he didn't really like the guy, although he couldn't, or wouldn't, give a reason. In the end, he said, 'It's up to you, Bernie. If you need someone, then take him on.'

  I hated all that doorman politics. One week, someone was in favour, the next, he was a grass, a bottler or a wanker. I like to take people as I find them, not as other people describe them or as they're 'generally known'. So I rang my contact back and told him to send Gavin along.

  When I got out of my car outside Raquels that Friday evening, I noticed an Asian-looking bodybuilder locking up his car. I was always very vigilant when entering and leaving the club. I felt that was the point at which a doorman was most vulnerable to attack from people seeking revenge.

  The Asian man walked towards me and said, 'Are you Bernie?' I said I was. He stuck out his hand and said, 'All right, mate. I'm Gavin.' I thought, 'Fucking hell. A shopkeeper. He'll be annihilated.'

  Basildon's the sort of place where Asians travel round in ambulances, Maurice, Greg and Ian were regularly called 'black bastards' when they turned people away; I was called a 'northern bastard'. So it seemed safe to assume that an Asian doorman - a rare breed in any event - would take endless stick.

  During the evening, I asked Gavin why certain people seemed so set against his getting a bit of work. He explained that Tucker had once turned up at a club where he was working and hadn't wanted to queue, pay or show any sort of respect to the doormen. That would have been typical of Tucker. He'd walk to the front of the queue and, when asked for money, look at the doorstaff as if they were mad. Tucker had ended up being bashed. He'd lost a bit of face - an unforgivable outrage in the world of the door. As a result, he didn't want to give work to anyone who'd been part of the door firm that bashed him.

  Despite my initial reservations, I liked Gavin from that first conversation. Quiet and uncomplicated, he meant what he said and said what he meant. His catchphrase with leery customers became, 'What's your problem, mate?' Then he'd usually try reasoning with them. If they remained unreasonable, he had no hesitation in creating new customers for the NHS. He didn't care for reputations - and could certainly fight. Indeed, he turned out to be one of the best doormen I ever employed. In a short time, he became the man I relied on most when war broke out. And, perhaps most remarkably, away from Raquels he became my best friend.

  One evening, two skinheads with tattoos on their heads and necks came to a bar annexed to the club. They arrived with four non-skinhead friends. I could see them looking at Gavin, then making remarks and laughing. They started doing the same to me. One of them stood behind me, aping me. I turned round and grabbed him by the throat, pushing him backwards as I did so. He fell back and hit his head on the corner of a small glass pillar, which shattered - as did his
tattooed head.

  Gavin heard the sound of breaking glass and ran from the other side of the bar with a bottle in his hand. He told me later he thought I'd been attacked with a glass. He saw my 'attacker' on the floor, but couldn't see the gash at the back of his head. Gavin whacked his bottle a few times over the skin's already-skewered skull.

  Then we both pulled him up and dragged him to the doors. His mates seemed too stunned to do anything. We threw him into one of the glass doors, which also smashed, cutting his upper arm. He kept struggling a bit, so we beat him before throwing him down the stairs. His mates followed him meekly out, only shouting abuse when they'd got safely outside.

  About half an hour later, customers near the exit doors began screaming and shouting, 'Fire! Fire!' Gavin and I ran to the stairwell and saw flames leaping up from the bar entrance. I told the manager and staff to deal with the fire. Then Gavin and I ran out through the flames into the street.

  We found the skinhead with the sore head standing there with a red petrol can in his hand. Perhaps the earlier beating had slowed his reflexes because, although he looked surprised to see us, he didn't immediately run - a significant mistake on his part. I held an Irish hurling stick in my hand. I ran across to him. He dropped the petrol can and said, 'It wasn't me. It wasn't me.' He turned to run, but I hit him across the back with the hurling stick. He fell to the ground.

  Gavin began kicking him in the head with his steel boots. The skinhead begged us not to beat him any more. Gavin stamped on his head and I hit him so hard across the back with the hurling stick that the latter broke. He lay there unconscious.

  We picked up the petrol can and doused him with the remaining petrol. The other skinhead, who'd run a short distance away, began screaming, 'Please don't burn him! Please don't burn him!'