Powder Wars

PAUL: After they brought in containerisation and made the docks like a fortress, we thought, ‘Why the fuck bother? Why not wait for it to leave the docks and go into the holding depots and factories and that outside the port?’ Hardly fucking Meyer Lansky, I know. Just a bit of common sense, to be fair. But it paid off. The first one we did was a warehouse on the East Lancs Road. It was like a huge distribution depot where freshly imported commodities would be loaded onto wagons. There was so much going on that there were half-loaded wagons all over the place, waiting for the next shipment to come in, so that they could be filled up and fucked off to wherever they were going. It was chaos. I didn’t even bother bringing one of my own wagons. I thought, ‘I’ll just drive one of theirs away.’

I was pretty good at starting them without the keys, being by then a haulage contractor myself. Easy peasy. So we just walked on there in broad daylight with overalls and donkey jackets on and that, as though we were warehousemen, and went from wagon to wagon looking for the best loads to have off.

Coffee was always a banker. High-value, low-weight and the fences could liquidise into readies within hours. A pure cash converter, it was. It’s the same today with the smackheads, robbing it from the Kwickie and Netto and that. Smaller scale, I know, but same principle. That and razor blades. The horrible cunts.

So we comes across this huge heavy-goods half-full of top grade Columbian coffee. The wagon next to it had thousands of tins of corned beef in it. Being logistically efficient and that, it pained us to leave with a half-load so we thought, ‘Have the Fray Bentos as well.’ The market-stall folk love all that, by the way, robbed tins and that. Hand-baled that into the coffee wagon and got off. Dick the Stick did the lock on the gate and we were off. I drove it about eight miles down the East Lancs to a pub called the Oak.

We always set up the fence beforehand on jobs like this. This time it was a feller called Bobby McGorrigan who was handling it. Bobby was a sound feller. Allday, he was. Trust him with anything. He could get rid of anything and he’d pay you out cash there and then if you wanted. Not that we was short, or nothing, but he wasn’t like some of these fences who were worse payers than ICI, knowmean? Ninety days and all that corporate carry on. Fuck that. Bobby was staunch. He was basically a straight-goer who had gone to jail on some small-time charge. He used to be a cab driver and he’d use his cab to ferry shoplifters around town, but in jail he’d met a little family firm called the Hughes. Post-jug he started investing their money into nightclubs and car showrooms and that. He was a money man. A washer. Made them good dough, he did. Then he went from strength to strength, rising up the criminal ladder until he ended up being a top fence. I got to know him because if the Hughes got into any trouble they’d come and see me. I was their bit of weight, if you will.

Bobby, who was a big fat bastard who we called Bob the Dog, later ripped his brother off on a big deal to enable him to buy his own garage. This same brother, Bobby’s brother, was waiting at this pub to drive the wagon full of coffee and tinned ham from there. Got my five grand and got off. End of story. Remember it was the late ’60s and that was a lot of dough for a young fellow.

A few days later we hit another warehouse just outside Wigan. Again it was coffee and whatever else was in there. This was a two-wagon job. A card-marker had told us that the firm left two or so wagons there in the depot overnight, so we planned just to load them up and get off. Is right, logistically and that. We were extra looking forward to these pre-Chrimbo touches because the wages were straight into our Xmas backbins, knowmean? Kiddies’ presents, Chrimbo bevvies and all of that. Even yours truly was feeling the pinch. I mean, the lads need an extra bit of tank at that time of year, don’t they, no matter who they are? So Ritchie, as philanthropic and family-friendly as he was, was lining up tasty work, back to back, to take care of us.

We got there about eight o’clock at night and set up an OP in a field opposite, waiting for the workers to clock off and that. It was snowing and I was freezing just lying in the snow waiting for them to leave. After we seen the last feller go, we went over the fence. We were going to put a hole in the wall to gain entry, but we found a wall made out of tin, corrugated sheets and that, so we just took them off. Bonus. Got two of the forklifts going and loaded one wagon up with coffee and the second with meatballs.

Two of us were drivers. My forklift had no brakes on, so it took longer than expected and we had to graft all night to fill these lorries up. Sweating like mules and that, even though the air was icy cold. I had the meatballs. My drop off was on the M62 motorway under a bridge. It was only half built at the time. It was officially opened by the Queen in 1971. It would have been a whole lot earlier if it wasn’t for YT, but that is defo another story. McGorry’s brother was there. Handed over the keys, usual script. I got in a waiting car and got off. Got indoors and straight to the land of nod, dreaming of the eight bags of sand, which I’d figured were coming to me from that little caper, easy.

The next day Ritchie met us to divvy up the dough. But he had a pure face on him, la. Says that McGorry wouldn’t take the meatballs. Pure knocked them back. Apologies sent and that, but pure could not get rid for the life of him. That was the riff anyways. Fussy twat, I was thinking, those meatballs are fucking gorgeous as well. Heinz they were. Fucking lovely on toast and all, too. Was half plotting whether it was worth it to get them back and punt them round the markets myself before Chrimbo. But, in all fairness, I had a lot on my plate already.

Ritchie hands us over two grand. Bad one, la. Two bags – a pure waste of, knowmean? But the thing with Ritchie was you couldn’t trust the cunt. Sometimes if we got ten grand a piece for a bit of work, he’d say he’d only be weighed in two grand each and he’d make up a little fairytale like this to cover the difference. Even to his own brother Ronnie. No one trusted Ritchie. But that was the nature of the criminally minded, la. So there was no point in getting a cob on about it. We just sent Ronnie back to the drop off point to check that Ritchie wasn’t telling lies, and that he hadn’t shaded them off to another fence, knowmean? Ronnie reported back stating that the meatballs were still there, sitting at the side of the M62. We could have got them back. But who cares? We just went onto the next caper. Onwards and upwards, la. That was our motto. That kind of thing happened quite a bit, but in every industry there is always wastage and spillage to be accounted for and ours was no different, knowmean?

We learned our lesson from that. From now on it was gonna be market-led targeting. The fences were screaming out for coffee. So that’s what we gave them. For instance, one time we got into a distribution depot and there was a fleet of wagons partly loaded up to be taken out the next day. Some had coffee in them. Others were half-loaded with hi-fi equipment in them, which was new out at the time and very expensive. There was no argument about what to take. The coffee. End of. We took all the hi-fi equipment out using a pallet-loader and filled the wagons with coffee. That’s what the fence ordered. That’s what he got. I remember that I personally got between £2K and £3K for each consignment on that one and there was a fair few.

Then we found out about this new factory unit, which manufactured branded coffee, all bagged and tinned. Allday or what? I borrowed this huge, fuck-off furniture van off’ve a mate of mine so that we’d get maximum volume, knowmean? But was this place a no-gooder or what? Swear the place was cursed. To get into it we had to break into the warehouse next door, which was a steelmongers, which made wrought iron gates and all that. Then we put a hole in an adjoining wall which got us into the coffee place.

The first time we hit it, we were rumbled by a guard, so we had to dust double quick. In fairness, it was the size of the van, which had brought it ontop, attracted a little too much attention and we had to leave it behind. Pure fucking downer, that was, because I had to weigh the feller in who’d lent the van to us.

Few weeks later, went in again. Dick the Stick opens the main door, but there’s an inner security wall inside. No probs. Put a hole in the wall. But it’s like the Bank of England, la. Pure fucking castle walls, knowmean? A foot thick and all of that. So we’re twatting fuck out of this wall with our tools and one of the lads smashes his hand with a hammer. Farcical or what? But it’s near hanging off. The poor lad was in bulk, in all fairness. He was no mummy’s boy by any stretch and soon he’s in bits. You could tell the pain was bad, but we’re like that: ‘Stop moaning will you. You’re going to bring it ontop for all of us.’ But in fairness the wound is bad. Half thought he might need an amputation. So we had to take a view and abandon ship once again and take him home.

A couple of weeks later we went back again. It was getting personal, this coffee place, now. Got in. Loaded the wagons up. Thank fuck for that. But still no joy – we couldn’t drive them out because the big warehouse doors had these special locks on the inside. Huge Chubbs, they were, which even Dick the Stick was having trouble with. Had to bring the engineering gear in, the burners and that, to cut them off. We were doing all this in the dark, by the way. But after a couple of hours the locks were off and we were in business.

There were several lorry loads. Pure Italian job, it was. But even then we couldn’t fit all the coffee in. One of lads noticed that there was a BMC van tucked away in this warehouse, obviously owned by this firm, with its livery on the side and that. So we put the last five tons of coffee in there and whatever else we could lash in. Then we decided that we would drive our lorries to the drop-off point and that I would come back for this last van with the five tons in it. Dick the Stick had already lined up the fence. So we were under pressure to make the meet and hand over the bulk of what we had.

The fence, by the way, was a very rich businessman called Arthur who owned a string of butchers and supermarkets all over the country. He was legit so he’d be getting very jumpy if we were late with the drop off. He was looking forward to this robbed coffee keeping his shelves stocked up for a long time to come.

By the time I got back to the warehouse to pick up the last van it was about five in the morning. There’s no cunt on the roads still, but I’m thinking that it won’t be long before working fellers will be on their way and that. I’m regretting not taking the van there and then last night, in fairness, instead of leaving it. But I start her up and get off, and in no time I’m bombing down the East Lancs making good progress thinking this is allday. But suddenly this car goes past with a couple of workies in it.

I have to stop at the lights and next minute, in my rear-view mirror, I noticed that one of these pikies is running towards me, gesticulating and all that. Instinctively, I know that obviously these fellers work in this coffee firm and they’ve clocked that I’ve had their van off. They’re obviously double alert after so many attempted break-ins of recent and they’re on my case. The only thing was to jump out. There’s no way I’m chancing a Streets of San Francisco-style car chase through the suburbs with these have-a-go types, especially loaded down with five tons of Mellow Birds or whatever. So I say’s fuck it. Cuts my losses. Jumped out and got on my toes over the fields. It was about five-to-eight-grand load lost, but it would give the others a chance to get clean away.

It was all in a night’s work, as far as I was concerned. There were plenty more successes than no-gooders. For a good couple of years I was doing pure wages – week in, week out – often more than five to ten grand a week. You’ve got to remember that the average weekly wage was about £30 a week then, so it was happy days.

Sometimes we’d just drive a wagon through a wall like a battering ram. One time we did this at a warehouse storing tens of thousands of pounds worth of salmon. We used the work’s wagon we’d found on the premises. But during the get-away the brakes totally went when I was doing about 70 mph. Bottle went, to be truthful, but there was no way I was going to let go this little fortune I was carrying. So I stuck with it all the way to the drop-off point. Round roundabouts, through red lights. The full fucking sitcom skenario. It was touch and go and that, but I managed to deliver the load and get the money for it.

At that time I was getting very into being a young businessman. Was making maximum use of my assets in my haulage business. Very proud of it I was, and all, too. In the day they were doing legit deliveries for proper firms all over the place and of a night and at weekends they were commandeered for hole in the walling. No logistician in the business was as efficient as my good self. Pure Sir John Harvey Jones, I was, know where I’m going? It was busy. I was having to get more drivers and lads in to work for me. Sometimes, it was that chocca, it was touch and go whether I’d have a wagon available for doing a warehouse. I’d got our Snowball working for me. He was one of the family. But he was a pure black sheep, knowmean? Even in a family of black sheep, the cunt could not be trusted. At all.

A few days before we were going to do the women’s clothes job I was getting calls from my legitimate customers saying that stuff was not getting delivered or it was constantly late. I didn’t mind anyone having their own sidelines and that, but he was taking the piss. When he got back to yard I told him to sort hisself out otherwise I’d fuck him off.

Comes Friday, he’s not back. I makes a few calls and the lads tell me that he’s been hanging around with this South End villain called Dave Dicko. Dave – or Dick the Trick as we called him – dabbled a bit with the warehouses and that. He had his own wagons, but it was obvious that he was paying Snowball to use mine in robberies and that. I knew that because they’d pinched some of my burning gear, so it was obvious they were breaking into warehouses and that.

Like me he had his own haulage firm and an engineering business. He went on to become a very big gangster, in all fairness in the end. Snowball had been card-marking Dave Dicko on warehouse jobs that he should have been ringing-in to us. Only fair and that. So it was triple fucking betrayal in my book. They were using my wagons and my burning gear to rob places which my good self should have been robbing. Liberty or what? Not only that but his non-appearance with the lorry fucked up the bit of work re. the tarts’ clothes. Could not get hold of another wagon for the life of me. Am £5,000 down and Richie is going spare, la. Calling me all the cunts, he is.

Fuming, I gets in the jalopy and goes out looking for Dave Dicko. I found out that the cunt still lived with his mum and dad in a tenement block off’ve Scotland Road. Gets there, knocks on the door, he answers, I drags him onto the piss-smelling landing and batters him there and then. Am kicking fuck out of his head and ramming my boot into his bollocks. Cunt is writhing around in agony. Picks him up by the hair, drags him over to the metal railings and starts twatting his head and teeth on the metal crossbar. Blood everywhere, in all fairness. Not only that but I’m half thinking his ma is watching all this from their kitchen window.

I’d already battered Dicko once before, a few years earlier. Was how we met in fact. So I’m still booting fuck out of him when Snowball comes running out of Dicko’s ma’s kennel. But I’m thinking there’s no way Snowball is going to jog in. He’s a shithouse, knowmean? But while my back is turned he gets me right on the crown with his fist, the sneaky cunt, and I go down. Stars and all that. I’m half conscious.

A few seconds later I’m coming round and I feel that they’ve picked me up and are carrying me across the landing. Don’t know where this is going in fairness, but do not have the means to fight back. I can feel myself being manhandled across the iron crossbar at the top of the wall over which is a four- or five-storey drop. Suddenly I can see the ground. I’m half hanging over the edge. I’m dead, no two ways. If they throw me off at this height. Pure pulverised, I am, no two ways.

But I could sense they were struggling. Dave Dicko was a near-dead man walking after his thrashing, wobbling and blabbering all over the show. So I kicks out wildly. Grabs the fucking railing and would not let go for the life of me. Snowball was punching and biting me. Kicking my hands. Doing everything to make me let go, la. Digging his nails in. Pure birds’ stuff. But pure willing he was, to throw me off. After all I’d done for the little cunt, as well. But would I let go? Would I fuck. Don’t know how, but by my own physical strength I edged my way back to safety. Pure contorted my way over the railing, grabbed Snowball who was now realising the balance of power was shifting, and punched him. I battered them both. They were both covered in blood. I gave them one hell of a beating. Snowball never robbed one of my lorries again and Dave Dicko never stepped out of line.

After a few years with the Hole in the Wall gang it started to dry up. So I started to plan my outro. We started losing money. I remember it began after we’d planned to do this tyre warehouse, which had thousands of big wagon wheels inside and all that. These were fetching big money at the time and I had good connections in the haulage industry to fence them through. We did the business and I made about eight grand off my end, which was about a grand-an-hour in my estimation. The lads who we sold them to were screaming out for more. So we lined another tyre warehouse up in St Helens, but when we got there it was too belled up. Alarms were becoming fashionable then and this one was a shocker so we aborted the mission. But by this time the lads were getting greedy. They didn’t want to go home empty handed, cut their losses and that. So Dick the Stick backed the wagon into a warehouse depot on an industrial estate nearby and opened the doors. It was a slaughterhouse with a huge refrigerated storage area. So we cleaned it out of the meat, steaks and all that. It was a quick hit. A chancer, but we got £1,500 each. I was slowly realising that the Hole in the Wall gang had possibly peaked. That kind of tank was no good to me, in all fairness.

The next job was a huge cigarette warehouse in Speke, Liverpool. If it came off, this was big time, worth tens of grands to us, so we had a team of seven men looking at it. We’d done these before and it had always been a military operation. In. Out. Get paid. But the card-marker who’d put it up had got his gen wrong. When we met outside the warehouse they were all arguing, saying: ‘He said it wasn’t alarmed but it fucking is and that.’ Pure scene, knowmean? Amateurs. Bringing it ontop for all and sundry. The next thing a busie car drives past. I clock them in the mirror and was thinking it all looks a bit skewwiff this, know where I’m going? So I turned to Ronnie and said: ‘I’m fucking going.’

A few days later Ronnie rings me up and offers another one. It was a Crown Paints warehouse. It was a simple hole in the wall job. But as soon as Ritchie puts his head through the hole there’s alarms going off everywhere. Even though he’d assured me that it had been disabled. There were busies and guards all over the show. I managed to run down this road, then along a railway line and up an embankment and get back to the van. I realised that Ritchie was getting sloppy. No two ways. After that, I didn’t want to know any more.

When I was 21 I got sent to borstal for robbing a car. It was for something daft, which I couldn’t even remember doing. I done it for a laugh with the lads. I was still only young. The only problem about being inside is that you couldn’t earn. The Hole in the Wall were at their height and making a lot of dough. And here I was in a fucking borstal with a load of fucking vandals and bike robbers and that. Serves me right for being a tit, in all fairness.

On home leave I married Christine. I was half-doing it because I knew getting married might get me out of borstal quicker, go down well with the authorities and all that. It did. I got out. But I didn’t bother going home much. It was straight out onto the street to start earning again.

CHRISTINE: When I first met Paul I didn’t know he was a villain. He had two jobs. He seemed respectable. I noticed that people were frightened of him, but I thought nothing of it. I just thought he was well respected. He had a nickname – he was known as Oscar in the pubs and clubs. So when people would be going on about how bad this Oscar was and being terrified of him I didn’t fully understand. It was as though they were talking about someone else.

He went to borstal for car theft. He just brushed it off as though that was normal. Even then I didn’t know he was a gangster because it seemed such a small thing. I married him when he came back on home leave. My mum went crazy at the time. Mine was a respectable family. We all had normal jobs. It was only after we got married that I realised the price I had paid.

He was a villain. A big villain. He was robbing warehouses and factories all the time. Stealing wagons with Ritchie, his uncle. He was always committing crime. I couldn’t believe it. It was non-stop. Paul would disappear for about ten days at a time and when he returned, if his dinner was not on the table, he’d be off again.