The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) (44 page)

“Strategic thinking is the art of outdoing an adversary, knowing that the adversary is trying to do the same to you,” state authors Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff in
Thinking Strategically.
Nineteenth-century German field marshal Helmuth von Moltke noted that “an attacker has a plain goal before him, and selects himself the best way to reach it. A defender must guess at the
intentions
of his opponent, and consider the best way to meet them.” Peter Bernstein asserts that “game theory brings a new meaning to uncertainty … Game theory says that
the true source of uncertainty
 
lies in the intentions of others.”
The trick, he concludes, lies not in trying to guess the intentions of the opponent so much as in not revealing your own intentions.

While protecting Missouri’s governors, members of my detail often found themselves standing outside the doorway of a
legislator’s
office on the third floor of the Capitol while the governor met with the legislator inside. Almost without fail, a member of the press corps would walk up and say, “I always know when the governor is working the third floor, because one of you guys is standing outside someone’s office!” This caused us to change our tactics. We began waiting inside the legislator’s reception room, or using two officers to cover each end of the hallway the governor was working. It made our presence less noticeable, and made the boss a little less predictable. What we wanted to avoid at all costs was the governor saying, “The press knows I’m up there when they see you guys, so I’m going up there alone!”

Richard Marcinko, the former US Navy Seal, suggests:

He concludes, “To the extent that you must make assumptions, you should devise alternative plans to put into action if your
assumptions
prove to be false. You should always have a fallback position, a Plan B.”

N
OEL “
R
AZOR”
S
MITH
was born in south London in 1960 and has spent a large portion of the last thirty years in various prisons for armed robbery, possession of firearms with intent, prison escape and grievous bodily harm. He is currently serving eight life sentences, plus eighty years in concurrent sentences. He was undoubtedly one of Britain’s toughest criminals, but over the last few years has turned away from violence, taught himself to read and write and gained an A-level in law and an honours diploma in journalism. He has recently received several awards for his writing and has contributed a number of articles to the UK’s
Independent
and
Guardian
newspapers,
Punch, Big Issue, New Statesman
and the
New Law Journal
, among many others.

Smith started his life of violence when he was just fifteen years old. He was among many south London kids keen to stamp their mark on the world and find an identity and a sense of belonging. Rock ’n’ roll music of the 1950s had gripped his imagination and, adopting the dress, hairstyle and dance moves, a Teddy boy was born. Many of his peers followed suit and soon the Balham Wildkatz gang was formed; mob-handed, arrogant, aggressive and spoiling for a fight at every opportunity.

Life for the Balham Wildkatz was all about flying your colours, cultivating both a personal and gang reputation, claiming new turf and protecting your own patch against the enemy: the other teen subcultures based around the music scene – mods, rockers, soul boys, punks, skinheads, smoothies, rockabillies – that formed a volatile melting pot of juvenile angst waiting to explode. Clubbing, drinking, thieving and fighting became the norm and a wave of increasingly reckless and violent behaviour ensued, resulting
ultimately
in internecine warfare.

Smith was a veteran of that scene and former gang leader of the Wildkatz. This chapter, taken from his book
Warrior Kings, The South London Gang Wars 1976–1982
, looks at the early influence music had on Smith and his early days as a Teddy boy.

The Edwardian Club was a large function room situated up a wide flight of stairs at the rear of a pub called the Loughborough Hotel, at Loughborough Junction in Brixton. With its large stage and horseshoe-shaped bar it could comfortably hold around 150 people, but on Friday nights it sometimes packed in more like 250. On summer nights it got so crowded that condensation would roll down the walls like mini-rivers and pool under the tables. The Edwardian was a Teddy boy club and the creation of one of south London’s most well-known original Teds, Tommy Hogan. Tommy had been a Ted since 1953 and had been at the Trocadero cinema at the Elephant and Castle on that fateful evening in 1954 when the Teds had made their name in an orgy of seat-slashing and riot. Tommy was married to an original Teddy girl named Lynne and they had five kids, all brought up to worship and respect the golden age and its idols. The oldest son, Tony, known as Bopper, was a year younger than me and well known on the Teddy boy scene. Then there was Tommy Jr, Tina, Mandy and Jimmy, who was no more than a toddler at this time. The family were rock ’n’ roll through and through.

At the Edwardian Club Tommy Sr was the DJ, Lynne took the money on the door and Bopper showed his dancing talent on the dance-floor. Other people helped out as well, but it was basically a family business. Tommy’s sound system was called “Edwardian Dreams” and if there was a rock ’n’ roll record that he didn’t have then it was one that had never been recorded. The bands who were booked were mainly the Ted bands of the day, solid four-piece rockers who could recreate the records with little deviation. The Teds didn’t hold with deviations in their music, and trying to play “Tutti Frutti”, for example, as a mid-tempo country tune would get them bottled off the stage. On Friday nights the club was packed and rocking and the place to be if you were a hip young retro, or an ageing Teddy boy.

It was my first real outing to a rock ’n’ roll club, or any club come to that, and I was as excited as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I had greased the back and sides of my hair and teased the front forward into a reasonable quiff in front of the mirror at home. My James Dean cut was growing out and starting to look like Elvis circa 1956, especially with the amount of Brylcreem I had slapped on it. I dressed in my black suit with a plain white, small-collared shirt and a dark blue slim-jim tie, which I had purchased for 10p ($0.15) at the St Bede’s jumble sale, and my dad’s black army shoes polished like mirrors. I finished the job with a more than liberal splash of Brut aftershave lotion. I was ready to rock at the Johnny Kidd Memorial Night.

Johnny Kidd, or plain old Frederick Heath as he had been
christened
, had been the lead singer with British rock ’n’ roll band Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. The band had had a number 1 hit in 1960 with a song called “Shakin’ All Over” and had a few more top 20 entries before the lead singer was killed in a car crash in 1963. Johnny Kidd held a special place in the hearts and memories of the original Teds because he had been one of the few home-grown exponents of rock ’n’ roll music who had not “sold out” to “the establishment”.

The first of the British rock ’n’ rollers had been Tommy Steele who, as early as 1956, had made a clutch of recordings that could easily stand comparison with the American imports. “Rock with the Caveman”, “Elevator Rock”, “Build Up” and “Singing the Blues”, to name but a few, were real British rock ’n’ roll recordings and were guaranteed to get the Teddy boys bopping and jiving. But by 1957 Tommy Steele had ruined his rebel reputation by becoming an all-round family entertainer, going on to star in many films and variety performances and recording such songs as the “Children’s Hour” favourite “Little White Bull”. The Teds had a wild and dangerous reputation to uphold and Tommy Steele’s comedy
caperings
and nicey-nice recordings just did not fit in. By the mid 1950s the Teds wouldn’t even spit on Tommy Steele.

Next to take the crown as the king of British rock ’n’ roll was a hip young dude named Cliff Richard. With his band, the Shadows, he burst on to the scene in early 1959 with a menacing record called “Move It”, and became the Teds’ new favourite. In the early days of his career Cliff made some fantastically wild rock ’n’ roll recordings, some of which were still filling the dance-floors of Teddy boy clubs twenty years later. “High Class Baby”, “My Feet Hit the Ground”, “Livin’, Lovin’ Doll”, “Mean Streak” and “Apron Strings” proved that Cliff and the Shadows were worthy of the Teddy boys’ acclamation. But then, like a repeat of the Tommy Steele experience, Cliff too became an all-round entertainer, abandoning the guitar-jangling, foot-stomping brand of Teddy boy rock ’n’ roll for more middle-of-the-road recordings like “Living Doll” and “Summer Holiday”. The Teds hung their heads in sorrow.

Billy Fury was the next strong contender for the British rock ’n’ roll crown. He had the looks and the attitude and his first album, the mainly self-penned ten-inch,
Sound of Fury
, contained some outstanding rock ’n’ roll that was bordering on a rockabilly sound. Billy Fury could easily have taken the crown had he not been so predisposed towards ballad singing. As far as the Teds were concerned, ballads were okay for a slow dance with your bird at the end of the evening, but you couldn’t bop or jive to them. Two Billy Fury recordings that did make the grade and live into the 1970s were “Turn My Back On You” and “Type a Letter”, a pair of
blistering
boppers that were
de rigueur
at any Teds’ do.

The rest of the British rock ’n’ roll contingent, such as Marty Wilde, Vince Eager, Duffy Power et al. were considered to be too “soft” for the hard-core tastes of the real Teds. But Johnny Kidd was different gravy. Johnny Kidd and the Pirates were all breathless menacing vocals and nerve-jangling guitar riffs over explosive drum sounds. You could bop to Johnny Kidd records and still look as hard as nails. For a lot of Teds Johnny Kidd was the true king of British rock ’n’ roll and as such he deserved to be honoured. Hence the memorial night at the Edwardian Club.

Personally I could take or leave Johnny Kidd. I thought his music was okay but I was no big fan. Of all the British rock ’n’ rollers Billy Fury was my favourite, ballads and all. But the Johnny Kidd night was to be my debut on the rock ’n’ roll club scene, so I was listening to his
20 Greatest Hits
LP on my Dansette as I was getting ready. I ran the steel comb through my hair for the final time and winked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I looked cool.

The intense heat of the day was gone but it had left the evening comfortably warm as I headed down the three flights of stairs from our flat to meet up with the lads on the porch of Ingle House. The Edwardian Club had an eighteen-and-over rule, but though none of us was over seventeen we knew we would have no trouble getting in. Bopper had promised to take care of it and his dad was running the club. There was me, Big Nose Eamon, Dave Wall, Peter Mayne and Lee and John Carey, all dressed in our 1950s finery, combing our already immaculate hair every five minutes and smoking like James Dean, with the fag permanently hanging from the corner of the mouth. It was around 7.00 p.m. but it wouldn’t even start to get dark until after 9.00, and there was a good and excited feeling amongst us as we gathered around the porch chatting and
practising
our dance moves. Someone passed around a bottle of cider mixed with cheap gin and I took a good drink from it. The 1970s kids were hanging around the opposite porch and they started shouting over to us and a bit of banter developed. They now had a cassette player over there and the sound of Abba or the Brotherhood of Man drifted on the summer air. I dogged out my butt and slapped my hands together. “Fuck this shit! That music is giving me the creeps. Let’s split.” Peter drained the cider bottle and launched it into the bin chute and we moved out as a group.

Getting down to Loughborough Junction involved a bit of a journey for us. We caught the 137 bus just outside the estate, getting off at Streatham Hill station, and then caught a 159 bus down to the White Horse pub on Brixton Road. Then it was a walk down to the junction. Big Nose Eamon kept us amused on the journey with his outrageous patter. As the 159 pulled up outside the bowling alley on Streatham High Street we spotted three skinheads. They were around our age and wearing the uniform of half-mast jeans, braces and boots and were standing in a group smoking. We were upstairs on the smoking deck and we all piled on to the side of the bus where we could see them and shout abuse through the windows. The skins started shouting their own abuse and giving us the wanker sign as the bus pulled away. We were all fired up and excited over it. This was the first time we had come across another teen subculture outside the estate and the instant animosity was to set the tone for all future contact.

Moving around in a group that had a distinctive look gave me a good feeling of belonging. This was my gang. We were into the 1950s and were declaring it loud and clear with our hairstyles and clothing, and if you didn’t like it, well fuck you! And if you belonged to a distinctly different subculture you were an instant enemy even though I did not know you. It was strange how we all just seemed to arrive at that point at the same time; not just us, but the skinheads, soul boys and smoothies as well. Perhaps it had always been this way for teenagers, and you could certainly see the same attitude in mods and rockers of the early 1960s, but in 1976 I think the lines were being drawn more clearly. If you were not with us then you were definitely against us and that seemed to be our creed.

I was very nervous about entering the Edwardian Club for the first time and didn’t know what to expect. As we walked down Loughborough Road we were passed by a big 1957 Ford Zephyr in two-tone pink and black, which seemed to be packed out with Teddy boys all hanging out of the open windows. As they passed us they sounded the horn, which played the first few bars of “Dixie”, and waved to us. We didn’t know them and they didn’t know us, but we were fellow travellers close to the same destination so we waved back. The Loughborough Hotel was on the corner of a side street with the front of the pub facing out on to Loughborough Road. To get to the Edwardian Club we had to turn down the side street and go to the rear of the pub. When we turned the corner I was overtaken with delighted excitement. On that warm summer’s evening that backstreet in Brixton looked to me exactly how I imagined it did in the 1950s. There were classic cars parked on each side of the street – Ford Zodiacs, Zephyrs and Consuls, Vauxhall F-Type Victors and Crestas, Humber Super-Snipes and Hawks – mostly in bright two-tone paint jobs and all polished and gleaming in the evening sunlight. There was a row of about eight motorbikes, Triumph and BSA being the favoured marques, parked next to each other like horses outside a Wild West saloon. And groups of bequiffed Teddy boys and leather-jacketed rockers were standing around as though they owned the street. As we stood there, taking it all in like a bunch of yokels seeing the big city for the first time, a bright pink Ford Anglia pulled up and four of the most gorgeous girls I had ever seen got out. They were dressed up in circle skirts with petticoats, black stockings and stiletto shoes that clicked loudly on the pavement. I whistled softly and looked at Dave as the girls made their way across the pavement to the club entrance. Dave straightened his slim-jim tie and swallowed. “Wow!” he exclaimed. And I felt the same way.

To get into the Edwardian Club you had to go up a wide concrete staircase and on to a narrow landing. From the bottom of the stairs we could hear the music, loud but distorted in the cavernous
stairwell
, as though it was coming from under water. Outside the doors that led into the interior of the club was a table at which sat Lynne Hogan and a couple of burly Teddy boys with hard faces. Lynne was tall and blonde and looked very 1950s in her leopard-print blouse and bird-wing glasses. She reminded me of one of the Vernons Girls, the backing singers on that old 1950s TV programme “Oh Boy!”, and she had a real cockney barrow-girl charm about her. “Hello boys,” she greeted us cheerily. “Good night tonight. We’ve got a decent band and plenty of Johnny Kidd on the disco. £1 each, lads.” We paid our entrance fee and walked through into the club.

The interior was dimly lit and packed with people. The bar was right next to the entrance and we made that our first stop. As I waited to be served in the throng around the bar, I looked around and took it all in. The ceiling was high and domed and there were light sconces around the walls at regular intervals above head height but they didn’t seem to give off much light. The tables and chairs were situated around a large hardwood dance-floor with a
good-sized
stage area towards the back of the room. I got my pint of light and bitter and made my way through the crowds to the edge of the dance-floor. I wanted to see everything. Tommy Hogan himself was spinning the records from a set of decks in one corner of the stage and I spotted Bopper up there behind him going through a record box. The rest of the stage was set up for a band, with instruments, amplifiers and microphones all ready, though no sign of the band. The dance-floor was packed with jiving couples and bopping singles. I watched, utterly fascinated, as the jiving girls were spun around at high speed, exposing their knickers and stocking tops for a split second. I didn’t yet know how to jive but I was looking forward to learning. We all did a version of the bop that we had mainly picked up from watching 1950s impersonation band Showaddywaddy on “Top of the Pops”, but it was nothing like the dance I was seeing here. It looked as though my practised dance moves would need a drastic revamp if I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

Big Nose Eamon sidled up to me, pint in hand and eyes glowing in the dimness. “This is fucking great!” he shouted in my ear above the music. I smiled and nodded. It was just what we had been looking for and expecting. The record that was playing approached its end and the dancers slowed down before it segued smoothly into another song and they renewed their efforts. Bopper must have spotted me from his vantage point on the stage and came down to see me. He looked immaculate, as usual, in a blue three-piece drape suit and blue creepers. He took me up on stage to meet his dad. Tommy Sr was as immaculately dressed and coiffured as his offspring and shook hands warmly with me. I liked Tommy
straightaway
and was impressed with the way he could work the complicated-looking decks whilst shouting encouragement to the dancers through the microphone and carrying on a conversation with me. He asked me if I had any requests I wanted playing and on the spur of the moment I asked him to play “Rave On” by Buddy Holly and to dedicate it to the Sinclair Mob. The band came on stage at 9.30 but just before they did Tommy played my request. I was made up and so were the rest of the lads. It felt as though we had finally arrived on the rock ’n’ roll scene.