Wild Thing (13 page)

David Reader, who was acquitted of assisting in the disposal of the bodies, added, ‘It’s all been an ordeal. The allegations against myself, my brother Ronnie and David Maxwell are totally without foundation. Ronnie Reader was in Spain at the time of the other two men’s arrest.’

Ronnie told
The Sun
newspaper in an exclusive interview, ‘I shall return home after Maxwell and my brother have faced their trial. I’m taking a terrible chance. If I am found guilty, it means life imprisonment.’

After his acquittal a senior detective in the case told reporters, ‘We are not looking for anyone else.’

Elmore and Waddington’s severed heads turned up ten months after David Maxwell and the Reader brothers were acquitted. They were thrown at the door of Harold Hill police station in Essex.

After the heads were found, Jimmy Waddington’s mother, Winifred, told the
Daily Express
, ‘I felt desolation at not knowing where his last resting place might be or what exactly had happened to him. I wanted to have him found in one piece.’

I know how Mrs Waddington felt, albeit for different reasons. I’d like to have found Paul Smith in one piece, although it’s unlikely that he would have been in the same condition when I left him.

A week before the children were due to return home, an official-looking letter addressed to me dropped through Ray’s letter box. I knew it could only be bad news because hardly anybody knew where I was staying in London. I tore the envelope open and began to read the contents of the letter in total disbelief. ‘Dear Mr Martindale,’ it said. ‘Due to the continued absence of yourself from the family home, your children have been placed in the care of the local authority.’ I couldn’t read any more. I sat on the stairs and screamed like a wounded animal. Jean had custody of the children for 14 days, and they had only been gone a week. There had to have been some sort of administrative error and the letter had been sent by mistake. My children, who were only just coming to terms with the break-up of our family, couldn’t be in care. I ran down the road to the telephone box and dialled the number on the letterhead.

‘I’ve received a letter that says my children are in care,’ I said to the social worker who answered. ‘That can’t be right. My children are on holiday with their mother in Surrey.’

I was asked to hold the line, and a few minutes later a stern-sounding lady informed me that the contents of the letter were true. ‘Your mother-in-law went to your house with the children, Mr Martindale. After knocking on your door repeatedly, there was no reply, so she and her husband took them to the council offices in Rawtestall and left them there. Somebody from this office attended your home address. You were not in, so the children were taken into care.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘My wife had custody of the children for 14 days. They are not due back yet.’

The lady wasn’t even listening to me. ‘It’s a matter for the courts now, Mr Martindale. I am sorry. I cannot help you further.’

‘They are my children!’ I shouted. ‘I am coming to get them, and if you or anybody else tries to stop me, I’ll kill you or them.’

Probably not the most eloquent phrase I have ever used, but that’s how I felt at that moment. Unsurprisingly the line went dead. I rang the office again and again until finally I found somebody who was prepared to listen to me. I was informed that my children were ‘in safe custody’ at a place called Rawtestall. I was also told that they had been separated and the youngest was very distressed. I begged the lady on the phone to give me a number so I could talk to the children, and eventually she agreed. Glynn and Joanne understood the situation and were in no doubt that I was going to get them out of there so that they could be with me. Billy, on the other hand, was too young to understand the situation and cried his heart out. I promised him repeatedly that I wouldn’t leave him in there and we would all be back together soon. Eventually he stopped crying, and I was able to put the phone down. There was nothing I could do to help the children that night, but I could make preparations for when they were returned to me.

I turned to Neville Sheen once more for assistance. ‘I desperately need a motor,’ I said. ‘The problem is I can’t pay for it up front.’

Neville, who dabbled in second-hand motors, pointed to a Wolseley 6/110 on his drive and said, ‘Take that, Lew, and pay me for it out of your wages.’ The car was valued at £250. I earned £15 a night at Cinderella’s plus a bit of fiddle money, so it wouldn’t take long to pay it off. I thanked Neville, jumped in the car and was back in Lancashire within hours. My solicitor had spoken to social services by the time I had arrived, and a degree of common sense had come into being. The letter requesting access to the children for 14 days so that they could go on holiday and my reply agreeing to it had been produced.

Social services accepted that they might not be acting in the children’s best interests by keeping them from me and it was agreed that I could take them home. It was an extremely emotional reunion for us all. Billy clung to me like a limpet; I could feel his nails embedded in my neck. He made it crystal clear that I wasn’t going away from home without him again. That night we all slept together in the same bed. The following morning I put the TV on the back seat of the car, filled the boot with the children’s clothing and tied their bunk beds to the roof with rope. Glynn sat in the back, Joanne in the front passenger seat and Billy on the driver’s seat armrest. I tried to get him to sit with Glynn, but he wouldn’t have it; he just clung to my arm and cried relentlessly. I drove away from the house we had once called home and didn’t even bother looking back. I wanted to forget it, Jean and all of the happy memories that had since become too painful to recall.

Before heading back down to London, I needed to say goodbye to my old trainer and good friend Eric Wilson. ‘I’m leaving, Eric,’ I said when I arrived at his gym in Burnley. ‘I’m going to take the children to live in London.’

Eric got very emotional and to my surprise he began to cry. ‘Don’t do it, Lew,’ he said. ‘I will sign over half of this gym to you if it will make you stay.’

I told Eric that I had to go. ‘There are too many memories here for me,’ I said. ‘I am going to miss you, mate.’

Eric embraced me, wished me well and, with a firm handshake, said, ‘Good luck to you and the children, Lew. I am going to miss you all.’

Men like Eric are hard to find. He was like a father to me and my children. He died of heart failure three months after we said goodbye. Boxing and Burnley lost a great man. I felt very emotional as I pulled onto the motorway, but Billy, who still hadn’t stopped wailing, wasn’t going to give me time for sentimental thoughts. I tried to console him by saying that his pet ferret Sniffer was waiting for him in London, but he wasn’t having any of it.

Billy howled in my ear and clung to my arm for the entire journey. Despite the noise, a paralysed arm and the left-hand side of my face being covered in dribble, I didn’t care. We were together again and going home as a family.

 

AS SOON AS WE ARRIVED IN LONDON, BILLY DEMANDED TO SEE SNIFFER.
I think Billy associated the ferret with home, because when he sat next to Sniffer’s cage, he immediately calmed down and stopped crying. I changed my dribble-soaked shirt, unloaded the car, made the beds and then took the children over to Peter Koster’s home. His wife Jan knew the kids had been through a difficult time and so did her best to cheer them up. It didn’t take them long to get back to their old selves. Billy was running around the garden taunting Peter’s dogs and ended up falling into the fish-pond. When we all ran to his rescue, he stood up with a blue woollen mitten on each hand, told us they were boxing gloves and warned us to stay back. I’m not sure if we were all laughing at Billy or laughing because we were all so happy.

An 18-year-old girl named Theresa O’Brien lived in the same road as Ray, and she offered to babysit for me while I worked. I must admit, I was very apprehensive about leaving the children with a stranger after the trauma they had suffered, but the grim reality of my situation was that I had to earn money to clothe and feed them and keep a roof over our heads. Ray knew Theresa and her family well and assured me that they were good, decent, trustworthy people, so I accepted Theresa’s offer. The first night that I was due to go back into work, I attempted to leave home as late as possible so that the children would be asleep when I walked out of the door and still sleeping when I returned in the early hours of the morning. Billy sensed something was going on and refused to go to bed. Eventually it got so late that I had to say my goodbyes regardless and head for the door. Every shriek and scream from little Billy tore through me. ‘Don’t leave me, Daddy! Please don’t go!’ he yelled after me. The further I walked from home, the more distressed and louder he became.

When I reached the end of the road, I turned and walked back to console him. I phoned Peter later to explain my absence. ‘I can’t come to work,’ I told him. ‘The kids are in the phone box with me now. They refuse to let me out of their sight.’

Peter said that he understood and told me not to be concerned. ‘Don’t worry about work, Lew. Take care of them kids and call me tomorrow.’

The following night Peter agreed to let me come into work late. Even Billy had succumbed to his need for sleep by the time I was due to leave. When I returned the following morning, the children and Theresa were still in bed. When they eventually did wake up, I explained to the children that I had been to work while they had been asleep. ‘But you’re back now,’ they said, ‘so we don’t mind.’ I was pleased that the children were showing the first signs of settling down.

It’s a pity I couldn’t say the same thing about some of the childish delinquents that we had to endure at the Room at the Top club. Terry the Whale was 6 ft 1 in., weighed 28 st. and had more bellies than a herd of pigs. All I ever heard him say when he waddled in the club was, ‘Hit me, hit me. You won’t be able to hurt me.’ Some equally stupid punter would then shape up and jab what resembled a waterbed on legs, but which was in fact Terry the Whale. When the club had closed one evening, a few people had stayed behind for a drink and Terry the Whale was performing his one and only party trick. ‘Harder, harder!’ he shouted as some fool pounded his bloated torso. The Whale noticed me watching and called over, ‘Do you want a go, mate? I’ve heard you’re quite tasty.’

I walked over feeling like a kid at Christmas. ‘If you really think you can take it, I’ll do my best to oblige,’ I replied.

Terry the Whale stood with his legs apart, stuck his gut out and dared me to give it my best shot. A devastating right hook sent him sprawling across the floor, but it didn’t stop him boasting. ‘Not bad, not bad,’ he mumbled through clenched teeth. ‘Not bad at all.’

‘Do you reckon you could take one on the button [head] then, Terry?’ I asked.

‘No, no, it’s OK, mate. I have to go,’ he replied as he headed for the door. Terry the Whale collapsed outside the club and spent the next five days in hospital pissing blood. He never did ask anybody to try to hurt him again.

When I initially returned to work at the Room at the Top, I was doing two or three shifts per week, but before too long I had paid Neville for the car, left Cinderella’s and was working six. Theresa, who had done a fantastic job babysitting the children, said that she didn’t mind doing a few nights per week but six was too much. Theresa was a teenager and wanted to go out with her friends now and again, so I fully understood her predicament. ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘If you tell me what nights you are able to babysit, I can book the other nights off.’

‘I could always ask my sister Margaret to help out,’ Theresa replied. ‘She would do the nights when I am not available.’

The following day Theresa introduced me to Margaret. I thought she was very mature for her age and very sensible. I was more than happy to let Margaret babysit. The children took an instant shine to her, as they had done with Theresa. I was pleased that the degree of stability Theresa had allowed to come into our lives was going to continue. The children still asked after their mother, and naturally there were occasional tears from us all, but I knew that time would heal those wounds.

I hadn’t been out socially since Jean had left, so when Neville invited me to a party at his house I jumped at the chance. Ray had recently moved out of the flat we lived in and handed the tenancy over to me. I now had my first real home with the children, so I thought it was a good excuse to go out and celebrate. When I arrived at Neville’s party, the place was packed. I said hello to a few people and went upstairs to use the toilet. Two girls were sitting on the stairs talking, and as I went to pass them, one grabbed my arm. ‘It’s Lew, isn’t it?’ the girl said. ‘I’m a friend of Neville’s girlfriend, Mary, and I know all about you.’

‘I hope she hasn’t told you anything bad,’ I replied. The girl laughed and said Mary had only told her that I worked with Neville and that I was single but had three children. ‘Nice meeting you,’ I said and continued up the stairs. The girl was extremely attractive, about 25 years old and Irish. I didn’t think for one moment that she would be interested in me.

When I started back down the stairs, the girl stood up and said, ‘I know your name. Don’t you want to know mine?’

This has got to be the lads winding me up, I thought. This pretty girl can’t want to know me. ‘Tell me your name, then,’ I replied, ‘and the name of the guy who put you up to this.’

‘I’m Pat Docherty [not her real name],’ she said, staring straight at me, ‘and nobody put me up for anything.’

Pat walked down the stairs, turned at the bottom and beckoned me to follow her into the lounge. We sat on the settee all night laughing and joking about nothing in particular, and when it was time to leave she gave me her telephone number. I met her several times over the next few weeks until eventually we began seeing each other as a couple. In time I introduced her to the children, and they warmed to one another – so much so that Pat said she would like to babysit for me while I was working. This arrangement resulted in Pat moving in and me having to let Theresa and Margaret go.