Wild Thing (20 page)

Several of the customers had been badly injured, and the police were making themselves busy trying to arrest anybody who may have been involved in the trouble. Dave Young had come to by this time and, after seeing Neville being arrested, slipped away into the night. I knew they would eventually seek me out, so I asked the landlord to lock me in a room upstairs. Two hours later, when everybody had left, I telephoned a taxi and asked the driver to take me to Stratford, in east London. From there I would walk home. I knew that if I had asked him to take me to my house, he may have passed on my address to the police. During the journey the driver said, ‘That was some battle in there tonight. It’s been on the local radio. A few of the lads said the bouncers who used to work there came back to attack the new ones. Big Lurch went down to sort it out first, but they bashed him up.’ I asked the driver who Big Lurch was. ‘He runs everything around here,’ he replied. ‘He’s about 6 ft 8 in., a real good friend of the train robber Charlie Wilson.’ I couldn’t answer as I was trying not to laugh. It’s surprising that Charlie and I ever got on, as it seemed every friend he ever had I either upset or bashed. I guess Charlie never kept good company.

In April 1990 Charlie Wilson’s choice of company got him murdered. Charlie was shot dead beside his swimming pool in Marbella. He had been hosing down the path around the pool when his wife, Patricia, answered their front door. A man with a cockney accent asked if Charlie was home. Patricia called Charlie to the door, and the two men walked back out to the pool. At her husband’s inquest Patricia said, ‘I heard the man say, “I am a friend of Eamonn’s.” I had a feeling there were two people there, although I couldn’t say why. I heard two very loud bangs and at first I thought it was from the building site next door, but then I heard the dog screaming.

‘Charlie was lying at the side of the pool face down. The man had gone and the gate was open. I saw blood coming from his mouth, and Charlie did a sort of press-up and gestured in the direction the man had gone.’

Nobody has ever been charged in relation to Charlie’s murder, and from what I hear, nobody ever will be. Charlie had become immersed in the drug world with Mickey Green. After a botched drug importation into the UK, Charlie’s friend James Rose stood trial at Chelmsford Crown Court. He received a reduced prison sentence after pointing the finger at a man named Roy Adkins as the kingpin in the importation – a move that had been endorsed by Charlie. Charlie clearly had no fear of Adkins and thought nothing of using him to help his friend Rose. Not surprisingly Adkins wasn’t happy. He knew all about Charlie’s reputation and the company he kept, but he refused to take their betrayal on the chin. Instead Adkins paid to have Charlie executed. Five months later Roy Adkins was himself gunned down in the bar of the American Hotel in Amsterdam. It wasn’t Charlie’s friends that had pulled the trigger. Adkins had taken liberties with two Colombians who had been involved with him in the sale of several stolen parcels of emeralds. It doesn’t matter who you think you are or who you know; if you front people up and try to take a liberty, there will always be somebody bigger and better to put you in your place.

I didn’t return to the hotel in Greenford. The thought of featuring in another court case so soon after the Harry Boyd fiasco was undoubtedly a major factor in my decision to seek employment elsewhere. I decided to leave the Middlesex and Herts Country Club too. I felt that I should make a clean break from that part of London and head for pastures new, preferably nearer my home.

 

WHEN THE WORLD-FAMOUS NIGHTCLUB STRINGFELLOWS FIRST OPENED IN
London – as a disco, rather than the table-dancing club it would later become – Elton John’s former minder John Smith was appointed head doorman. I knew John; he had worked for me at Boobs nightclub in Croydon, where I ran the door for a while. He claimed to be some sort of judo expert, but I never witnessed him displaying any sort of expertise in anything. One evening he was manning the front door at Boobs when he got into a confrontation with three men who had been ejected earlier that evening. They were demanding to be let back in, and I had already said that they shouldn’t be readmitted under any circumstances. I had always had personal doubts about John’s ability as a doorman, so, rather than intervene, I watched to see how he would handle the situation. The men became more vocal, and one tried to push past him. Turning towards me, his face filled with terror, John pleaded, ‘Can you help me, Lew?’

I grabbed John by the scruff of the neck and flung him out of the way. I punched the biggest man of the trio, knocking him to the floor. I then hit his two friends, who joined him face down on the pavement. Turning to John, I said, ‘Get your coat and fuck off home. You’re useless!’

I heard that an old friend of mine named David Smith (who is no relation to John) had started work at Stringfellows, and, as I wasn’t working, I popped into the club to see him. When I walked in, John Smith, whom I hadn’t seen since making him redundant in Croydon, asked if he could have a word with me. When we were out of earshot of the other door staff, John said, ‘It’s got nothing to do with me, Lew, but Peter Stringfellow and his general manager Roger don’t want you in here. They say that bodybuilders and big men intimidate the customers.’ I asked John where Stringfellow was because I wanted to talk to him. ‘He’s locked himself in the office with Roger,’ John replied. ‘They won’t come out while you are here.’ I don’t know if Stringfellow or Roger even knew I was on the premises or if John was just saying that to get rid of me, but, out of respect for my friend David Smith, I decided to leave rather than cause a scene. I made my reasons clear to the judo expert before departing, because I didn’t want him to start thinking that he had been the reason I’d chosen to walk out.

Several weeks later John Smith and the other members of the door team walked out of the club following a dispute. Only David Smith remained. He telephoned me and asked if I could get a couple of guys to go to the club to help him out. I contacted Dave Armstrong, a reliable, no-nonsense doorman. Neither of us were working at that time, so he agreed to join me and we drove up to Stringfellows together.

When Dave and I walked in, Roger approached us and introduced himself. ‘Lew Yates?’ he said. ‘I think I recognise you.’ I could see that he was embarrassed. On my last visit he and his boss were supposed to have objected to my presence, but now that the shit had hit the fan, they were welcoming me with open arms. Dave Smith was standing behind Roger pulling faces, smirking and obviously enjoying hearing him squirm.

To save Roger any further embarrassment, I quickly changed the subject. ‘If you show us around the club, we can familiarise ourselves with the layout and get on with the job,’ I said.

Roger smiled and gave us a guided tour of the premises before letting us get on with what we knew best. We worked at Stringfellows for almost a year until eventually our friend Neville Sheen was given control of the door. It was a really enjoyable place to work. The club was packed every night with celebrities and well-behaved revellers out to enjoy themselves rather than cause trouble.

After leaving Stringfellows, Dave Armstrong and his business partner got involved with a gang who made their money importing cocaine. There was some sort of falling out, and threats were exchanged. Dave’s business partner went missing shortly afterwards but eventually turned up dead in Scotland with half of his head missing. He had been badly beaten and had suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

Two weeks later Dave was visiting his former wife’s home on the Isle of Dogs in east London. After saying goodbye to her, he got in his car, closed the door and leant forward to put the key in the ignition. There was a loud bang, then blood began to pour out of his nose, ears and mouth. Dave heard a second loud bang and then the sound of footsteps, as his assailant made his escape. When Dave tried to open the car door, he realised he couldn’t move. He had been shot twice. The first bullet had entered the back of his head behind the ear. It had destroyed his eardrum, smashed the upper palate of his mouth and continued to travel down, breaking gums and teeth. The second bullet had entered the top of his neck and lodged in his spine. When the police examined the scene, they discovered the front tyre of his car had been deflated. Fortunately Dave had not noticed this. Had he done so, he would have been bending down changing the wheel when the gunman struck. This would have allowed the assassin to empty the gun into Dave’s head with ease. Despite his appalling injuries, Dave is fortunate that he is able to continue living a reasonably normal life. He does, however, carry a constant reminder of the day he nearly died. The bullet that lodged in his spine is still there, because surgeons fear he may be permanently paralysed if they try to remove it. I and many others are pleased that Dave survived this cowardly attack. He has always been there for me when I have needed him; he’s a true friend.

Big Freddie Botham contacted me and asked if I would look after the clubhouse door of an amateur football club in Essex. No disrespect to this particular football club, but I wasn’t aware they were having problems with crowds of people at their games. As far as I knew, they had never attracted a large crowd, never mind had trouble. Essex isn’t what I would call a football-mad county, Colchester United and Southend United being the only two league teams. Freddie explained that the offer of work related to the social club, rather than policing the matches. ‘It’s fucking rough, Lew,’ he warned. ‘These boys aren’t like the lads you’ve been bouncing around that Country Club.’

I’d been looking for a fresh challenge nearer home, and Freddie’s offer ticked both boxes. ‘I’ll do it, Freddie,’ I said. ‘When can I start?’

The club resembled most working men’s clubs: there was a long bar and a large function room. The only difference was that this was overrun by drug-dealing and drug-taking delinquents every Sunday night. I’m no saint, and nor do I think I am in a position to look down on others, but this place had been conquered by invading scum. The first night I worked there, I watched more than 100 unwashed yobs bully and intimidate the handful of decent people who had dared to enter the place. Within a month I had beaten every one of the main faces, kicked their hangers-on out and rid the place of drugs. When word got around that the 100 losers who had previously inhabited the club were gone, 500 decent people whose only intention was to have a good time replaced them. I had worked long enough in clubs to know that the drug-dealers wouldn’t just walk away. Their pride had been hurt, their reputations rubbished. They would come back at me in force and with a vengeance.

It started as a scuffle in the middle of the dance floor. At first I thought the two young guys were pretending to wrestle one another. No punches were being thrown. When I went to break it up, I saw that they were doing nothing more than grappling with one another. ‘Leave it out, lads,’ I said. ‘You know the score. Any more bother and you’ll both have to leave.’

As I turned to walk away, they started grappling with each other again, so I grabbed the largest of the two. He was about 26, a fairly big lad with broad shoulders. He began to struggle, and I slipped over in a puddle of beer that had been spilt on the floor. ‘Kill the cunt! Kill the cunt!’ the broad-shouldered lad started shouting. Approximately ten of his friends came out of the crowd and began to attack me. I managed to get to my feet and hit those closest to me. I wanted the lad who had started this, so I pushed, punched and shoved people out of the way until I reached him.

His friends were still hitting me, but I had decided that if I was going to go down, he was going with me. I roared when I finally managed to grab his head, and this seemed to startle some of his friends. During that momentary lapse in the attack on me I managed to get the lad in a headlock and start running. People jumped and were forced out of the way as I charged towards a set of double glass doors that were hidden by a pair of full-length velvet curtains. The sound of splintering wood, breaking glass and screaming filled the air as I continued running, taking the curtain pole, curtains, doors and the offending customer with me. The lad whose head I had used to demolish the doors lay on the floor drenched in his own blood. It seemed pointless punishing him further, so I ran back inside shouting, ‘Who wants it? Who wants it?’ The others who had attacked me were almost clambering over one another in their efforts to get through the front door first. An ambulance was called for the person who had exited via the doors, and once he had been taken away, things returned to normal. I was fairly certain that neither he nor his friends would be returning for a while.

On the way home I called into a club called Mr Jim’s on the Romford Road in Ilford. I was friends with the proprietor. He didn’t employ door staff, but if I was passing at closing time I would always stop by to ensure things were OK. I stayed at Mr Jim’s for approximately an hour, and then I went home. As soon as I walked in and took my jacket off, Margaret said, ‘Oh my God, Lew. What has happened?’ I had no idea what Margaret was talking about until she told me to remove my blood-soaked shirt. I then realised that during the fight I had been stabbed in the back. I genuinely didn’t feel any pain – until the following day, that is. When I awoke, I was barely able to stand and walking was agony. When I went to the hospital, I was told that I had suffered an inch-and-a-half-deep wound that was dangerously close to my spine. It took me more than three weeks to recover, and even then I still suffered occasional discomfort. I never did find out which one of the little bastards stabbed me.

Over the years my relationship with Margaret had gone from strength to strength and we had eventually ended up living as man and wife, but after my painful experience with Jean, the subject of marriage or having children had never been raised. Her father, an old-fashioned Irishman, wasn’t very happy about the fact we were ‘living in sin’, but, apart from the odd comment, he did nothing to prevent us from being together. Everybody could see that Margaret and I adored each other, my children were happy and so it was hard, if not impossible, for people to criticise our union. Girls in the East End were brought up to be homemakers, and Margaret thrived on being the perfect housewife. That may sound derogatory in this day and age, but it’s the way things were back then. A stable, clean, happy home was far more important to many women than a career at the office and coming home to a hubby dressed in a pinafore serving up microwave chips.