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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781844543588 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bonnier Books UK |
| Publication date: | 09/28/2007 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 513,946 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.89(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Guv'nor Tapes
Lenny McLean's Unpublished Stories, as Told by the Man Himself
By Lenny McLean, Peter Gerrard
John Blake Publishing Ltd
Copyright © 2007 Lenny McLean / Peter GerrardAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84454-358-8
CHAPTER 1
The Guv'Nor Tapes
Is that tape thing on, Pete?
Yes, Len.
So how do you wanna do it, son?
Well, you talk, I'll tape it and keep nudging you with a few questions, and then, once we've got it all down, we'll put it all together in book form. You know, tidy it up, put things in and take things out.
That's the stuff; good boy.
Val! Val! Peter said he's too dry to ask me any questions.
Sorry, Pete, we gotta have a drink before we start. OK, we'll just have a little chat and sort of get warmed up. Bit like going into a fight, if you don't loosen up you're all tense and it don't work. But if you do a few exercises beforehand everything works smooth, your head's clear and you feel nice and relaxed. Does that make sense?
Perfect sense, Len.
So Reggie sent you along to see me; did he tell you he thinks I'm a fucking ravin' lunatic?
No he didn't say that, he said you were old school and he's got a lot of respect for you.
Did he? Well, I've got a lot of respect for him and that ain't nothing to do with him being a so-called gangster and that he's topped a few people. What it is, that man has suffered over the years but he's kept his dignity, all his marbles and stayed strong – that's why I've got all the time in the world for him and Ronnie.
I think they should let Reggie home now, p'raps not Ron 'cos he's a different case altogether, though whenever I see him he's as good as gold, polite, immaculate and saner than half the people walking the streets. But Reg, for fuck's sake, what harm can he do? Where in the sixties he was number one, today he wouldn't be in the first 300 because he's an old man now, and they should let him home because he's not a threat to society. There's more slags out there shoving drugs up their nose, putting drugs in their fucking veins, mugging, and you read in the papers all the time about seventy-, eighty-, ninety-year-old women all been raped. In the sixties, when the Twins was working, there was violence and all sorts but here in the nineties it's much, much worse. Sometimes I think the terrible things that go on today makes what they got up to look like fuck all. Something else I think is the twins don't help themselves and what I mean is they should forget all about writing books, making films and keeping their names in front of the public day and night. OK, it coins a few quid but, if they kept their heads down, kept a low profile and played the political game while they're behind the door, no doubt about it the authorities would let them out; well, certainly let Reg out then he could make serious dough. When you get the punter in the street or in the pub talking about them constantly, all they're doing is winding up the government and making them dig their heels in about going a bit easy on the boys. I should imagine 70 per cent, maybe 80 per cent of the population in this country would say yes, let the Krays out.
What about the Twins when you were a young man, did you want to be like them?
Can't say I did, Pete, 'cos really the first time I heard of the Krays I think was when I was 18 or 19. I didn't take a lot of notice because at that age you didn't give a fuck for anybody, 'specially if they was older geezers, and you have to remember, like, I'm 44 now and the Twins must be well in their sixties so really we're generations apart. Back then, we was young and tough and the Krays and the geezers on the Firm were working towards pipe and slippers. I know now that wasn't true and really those men were in their prime, doing the business and dangerous men, but when you're a kid you're full of yourself. I never knew them personally while they was on the outside and it was only later on in life that I heard about the Krays and the things they got up to. I never actually met them until they were inside and had been banged up for years and it was only when I was into the bare- knuckle game and my reputation spread that they asked to meet me.
How was that, Pete, good start?
Good, Len, good. I love it when the person I'm working with just lets it roll off their tongue without too much thought. Trouble is when the person thinks too hard before they speak because it slows things down and isn't natural.
So I'll be all right then?
Absolutely.
Now I've done this sort of interviewing stuff loads of times, you know bits and pieces in magazines and stuff, but I ain't never thought about spilling my whole life before. I've got a feeling that you and me working together is gonna work out a treat, what with you coming from the Firm and all that. Reggie can be a fucking nuisance sometimes, but when it comes to judging a character he's pretty shrewd. I'm pretty shrewd myself and not too much gets past me, so, weighing it all up, I think you and me are gonna knock 'em dead with this book. I'm telling you now, it's gonna be a best-seller. Whad'ya say, son?
Well, I know it'll be great read and a good seller, but no guarantees on being a best-seller.
That ain't the way to think! Think big! Every time I had a fight I told myself I was gonna win. And know what? I won every time. So don't sit there thinking we'll settle for being 'alfway good; aim to be the best, OK?
Right then, Peter, away you go and ask me some questions.
What about your roots – you know, where you grew up. Was it around here in the East End?
Not too far from here. As a little kid I spent my first years in a place called Hoxton. Have you heard of Hoxton Market?
Yes I have, very famous place.
Thought you might've. People come from all over to go there. I mean, I wasn't aware of it back then, but in previous years it was one of the roughest, toughest places you could find in the East End; turned out more villains per square inch than any other place. They say the people who lived there were ten times worse than them that lived in Bethnal Green – and that's saying something.
Gimme a second while I roll a fag.
You're the clever one, Pete. If you wanna chuck in a bit of history about the place – you know, facts and figures – you do it, because I'm relying on you to fill in the gaps.
To me, though, as a nipper, it was a lovely, lovely place; a very friendly place. Now what have we got? High-rise blocks of flats, dirty looking, riddled with crime and gangs out for trouble. No one talks to no one because everybody's frightened of getting mugged or raped. But back then – how can I say it? – just after the war it was like all the old houses had railings along the front, window boxes with geraniums in them, all painted up, because people took pride in their homes even though none of them owned them. Kids could play out until it got dark and their mothers never gave it a thought because they knew the neighbours in their street, and the next and the next, would be keeping an eye on 'em. That's what I remember most, kids everywhere on the street playing football, playing cricket, kids running up and down and in and out of houses that weren't even their own.
Looking back, it seemed people had time for each other. There would be men standing out on the steps talking and having a smoke, old girls sitting outside their front doors shelling peas and putting them in buckets and everyone talking about everyone. It was a community. Everybody knew everybody and everyone's house was open for each other. You could go in this house, that house, and no one worried about if the street doors were left open all day or even all night. There was just a friendly atmosphere in every turning.
It was hard in them days and everyone was 'at it' in some sort of way in that area, and I suppose every other area in the East End. Everyone was hungry, everyone was trying to get a living, but it was hard; very hard. So to get a living in them days, you had to do some sort of villainy. Mainly thieving from firms and the docks and warehouses – because you didn't thieve off your own, though there was probably no point anyway, because your neighbours didn't have a pot to piss in either. So I suppose the police were the enemy then because there weren't so much money about; it was only when society started to rely on the police, in years to come, when people started getting money, when people started worrying about their own property and their own individual selves, then the police become their friends. But we know the police are no fucking good.
Who was the guv'nor in that area back then?
That's it, you ask me questions, son. Well, the guv'nor in Hoxton was my uncle Jimmy – Jimmy Spinks. He was my nan's brother, so he'd be my great-uncle. 'Course, I didn't know nothing about being the guv'nor then – to me, he was just a great big, lovely man. Yeah, he was the guv'nor in them days; he was a very, very hard man, a proper tearaway. He was in the race gangs and used to mind the bookmakers. I think the number- one bookmaker around that area at the time was a guy called Jack Spot and Jimmy looked after him.
His name was Comer – Jack Comer.
Who's that?
Jack Spot – Spot was his nickname. He reckoned it was because he was always on the spot for a bit of trouble, but I've heard he had a big spot on his face as a young man.
See, that's how we can graft together on this book. I put my bit in and you come up with the stuff I forget or don't know.
So you get the idea that Jimmy was a force to be reckoned with in Hoxton, and I suppose I looked up to him when I was a young man as well as young boy. I looked up to him because he was a man's man and a proper hero, but being a kid I loved seeing him, because he always gave me money. In them days, no one ever gave you money, because there was none about. But, because he was into a bit of this and that and all sorts, Jim always had money. And I mean real money. I've seen him pull out a bundle of them big old-fashioned five-pound notes that could've choked a donkey. You didn't pick up that sort of folding working on a milk round.
What was he like?
Jim? He was a big man, 21 stone and about five foot nine. He had scars like tramlines all over his face, grey pushed-back hair; a very, very powerful man – a menacing man – but a diamond towards his family. In those days, men in his position had to look the business because they were figureheads, if you like. He always wore a very smart black Crombie overcoat, the big hat and a pinstriped suit – you know the kind with the wide lapels. In fact, you could say he dressed up like a typical Al Capone gangster.
Did you know that villains and gangsters didn't dress up in all that gear until that look was in films?
No, I didn't know that, but I did know Ronnie liked to get kitted out in all that mafia style, and I suppose he only got that from films.
So, going back to Jimmy, he done a stretch of five on the Moor in the days when you did the lot; none of that time off for good behaviour. Hard labour he got for being the ringleader of a battle at Lewes racecourse; hard labour then was like breaking rocks and fuck knows what else. I've heard that some people say, 'Well, he couldn't have been all that, because his face was all scarred like fucking tramlines'; didn't say it in front of me, though. What they don't know was what the other fellas looked like after he'd finished with them. Ten-man job; know what that means, Pete? I'll tell you. He was such a hard man to bring down it took ten men before they'd think of having a go at him; ten men and they still couldn't beat him. One time, he got smashed over the head from behind with a thick iron bar. Know what he did? Took the bar off this bloke, beat him senseless with it and then he walked to the hospital with his head all split open.
They say I'm a ten-man job and that makes me proud that I've taken after him. I ain't giving myself a gee, because I don't have to do that, but I took on 18 men one time; knocked the shit out of nine of 'em and the other nine run off. I'll come back to that, because I'm telling you about Uncle Jimmy. When I was a young man I looked like my father, and that's why that c**t Irwin hated me, but as the years have gone on people say I look like my uncle Jim – yeah, I'm a ringer for him and proud of it. Everyone had respect for Jimmy Spinks; he was a good man,
I remember being told that, when my father died, Uncle Jimmy went round all the pubs and had a collection for my mum. I mean, in 1953 he raised £500 and gave it to my mum. Think about it – you could buy a house back then for a grand. So yeah, he was a well-liked man and a larger-than-life character, and if television had been about then he'd have been even more well known that what he was just in the papers.
I keep jumping all over the place. Is that all right, can you sort it all out?
To be honest, Lenny, it's easier if you just say what comes into your head. Don't try and write the book as you go along, we'll do that later.
OK, but you gotta make allowances and help me out as we go along, because it ain't easy remembering all this stuff.
I just remembered something else about Jimmy Spinks: he was a Blackshirt at one time.
Got to correct you there, Len.
What's that?
Your uncle Jimmy, he wasn't a Blackshirt.
Well, I know he was taking a lot of money off that Mosley geezer, because a lot of people in the family told me.
What it is, they've got things back to front. Jimmy was taking money, but it was from the Jewish shopkeepers; he was protecting them from Mosley's mob because they were fascists – you know, they supported Germany and the Nazis in the war.
Fuck me! You reckon that's right?
I know it is. If you think about what sort of man your uncle was, he wouldn't have beaten up Jews who lived on his manor, especially for someone like Mosley. And from what I understand, he didn't always take money to protect the Jews.
I've gotta make you right, son, only it's just what I was told by family. See, you done it again. You've got education behind you and that's saved me looking a right mug putting Jimmy Spinks was a Blackshirt. Good boy.
I keep trying to go back to them early days then something else crops up.
Doesn't matter.
Yeah, you said. Well, going right back to the beginning, like I told you, we lived in Hoxton, but life sort of changed when we moved over to Bethnal Green. I mean, when you're a kid it don't matter if you live in a shed; as long as Mum and Dad are there and there's plenty of grub, it don't matter one bit. But I remember the proper excitement of moving into a brand-new place. Dad and a couple of mates loaded all the furniture and bits and pieces on to this big old lorry; it was as dirty as fuck, wings hanging off and bald tyres. Expect it was cheap, though. Then us kids were all slung on top and away we went.
Pete, it was fucking beautiful. All painted up, new bricks, white concrete and it all smelled like a new place does when you go on holiday.
Does that sound bollocks?
No, Len, I can imagine just what you're saying.
Good boy. So anyway, we've all jumped off the lorry and we're running about all over the place – that's me, Linda, Barry and Lorraine; she was three. I think Mum might have been pregnant with Raymond – can't be too sure at that age, though, because I didn't take much notice of that sort of thing. In the end, Dad gave us some coppers to go and buy ice lollies because there was a little shop right by us. Kent Road, that was it. Still there, but like everywhere else it ain't nothing like it was the day we moved in. I like that memory, Pete, because everything was sunny and Mum and Dad was happy and us kids was happy. Don't make me sound soft, does it? Because, you know, that's the last thing I am.
Not at all, Len; in fact, it shows you've got a heart. I mean, you say it yourself, but a lot of people think you're a raving lunatic. This book will let them understand there's a lot more to you than just being the toughest guy around.
You think so? You sure this sort of stuff ain't boring?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Guv'nor Tapes by Lenny McLean, Peter Gerrard. Copyright © 2007 Lenny McLean / Peter Gerrard. Excerpted by permission of John Blake Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Dedication,
Foreword,
The Guv'nor Tapes,
Copyright,