SID THE KNIFE
Sid the Knife … just the name conjures up all kinds of things you’d rather not think about.
We went to meet him at a service station on the M25 on a wet, horrible, rainy Tuesday night and were just having a cup of coffee when in walked two policemen, then another two, and they sat at a table behind us.
This wouldn’t do. There was no way that Sid would talk with four Old Bill sitting immediately behind him; he’d feel decidedly uncomfortable. Then in came another two and joined the others and now there were six.
I moved tables – and just in time, for in walked Sid – a 6ft-something black man with long dreadlocks and, I have to admit, a shifty look on his face.
He said quietly he’d left his tools in the car – he felt naked without them. It was the first time he’d gone in anywhere without a tool for years. I was slightly uneasy – all I knew about him was his name.
But he turned out to be not what I expected at all. He was so polite, so respectful, a pleasure to talk to. What impressed me was that he seemed so aware of how people could look at him and get the wrong idea – i.e. feel a bit scared. He said that when he walked down the road, he always crossed to the other side if there was a woman walking ahead – he didn’t want to alarm her.
He honestly respects women and he talked a lot about his mother. He said it was a privilege to talk to me – which was nice – and he talked about the respect he had for Ron because he had set standards for the underworld which were based on respect. Sid is a very moral man, a deep thinker – and, as he liked to put it, without morals ‘it’s a dog-eat-dog world’.
He didn’t like criticising people without knowing them – he likes to make his own mind up about people. He doesn’t like gossip or hearsay. If someone says someone is a wrong ’un, he’ll decide for himself whether it’s true. He won’t be told – make a friend of Sid and you’ve got a friend for life.
He had a lovely sense of humour. He said, ‘I suppose you want to photograph me with a big knife!’
‘Yes, please,’ I grinned.
In fact, I was surprised he agreed to be in this book at all, but he laughed and said, ‘You’re nobody unless you’re in somebody’s book these days!’
Oh.
The more we talked, the more I puzzled about his nickname – Sid the Knife. He just didn’t look or sound like a mad knifeman to me.
‘I used to like a bit of Charlie in the past,’ he confessed. ‘I used to snort it off a knife, a small knife, so I’d carry that knife with me. Then, as the lines got bigger, so did the knives! That’s how it started, so I’m Sid the Knife …’
Well, that’s a relief … I think!
BACKGROUND
I was born in south-east London then moved to the East End when I was about seven. I’ve got four brothers and two sisters. One brother and a sister are in the Caribbean, the others are here. My parents went back to the Caribbean for a while when I was growing up and then I lived with a white foster family and their kids became my brothers as well. Because we were split up at times, I met my real brothers and sisters at different ages. I met one sister when I was 11, met another brother when I was 13 and another when I was 15.
I had a normal kind of upbringing; you know, going to school, doing sports, athletics and things. I always wanted to be a body-builder – even though I was 6ft 4in I wanted to be big! I remember seeing a geezer walking down the road when I was about 15 and as he was getting closer to me he was getting bigger and bigger. He had this little bag in his hand and I looked at him, at this huge geezer, and I thought, I want to look like that. So from the age of 15 I started training. As a child, I knew hardship; we didn’t have holidays, no new shoes, that kind of thing, but it was a good life and I never begrudged my mum for not giving things to me because I could see, watching her struggle, that that’s how life goes sometimes.
I used to have fights at school but I was respected as well. There weren’t many black kids at school and you get problems in the third, fourth and fifth years. I suppose race and colour had something to do with it, but because I went to school with my white foster brothers we all dealt with it ourselves. I always tried to be friends with everyone. I was always friends with the girls!
At home, I’ve never believed in all that effing and blinding in front of your parents. If I had done that, my mum would have given me a clip round the ear! She’d still give me a clip round the earhole now! When you go in your mum and dad’s house you’ve got to behave; when you walk in that door you’ve got to behave like a son. Whatever you do, you don’t bring it home.
I left school young. My first job was working on a building site and I used to give my mum my wages every week. I always looked after my mum, that was my first priority. As a teenager, I was never one for going to football matches. From the age of 14, I was going to clubs locally and up the West End. I started working the door at 17.
One day, when I was training, I met Carlton Leech and we got talking. He said, ‘Come on, I’ll look after you, son.’ He taught me bits and pieces and I got introduced to loads of people. We’re like family now – he’s helped me through thick and thin. He’s been there when things haven’t worked out for me. He’s met my mum and dad. They took him in and called him ‘son’ so, as far as I’m concerned, he’s my brother. If my parents have given him that kind of recognition, that’s good enough for me.
If there’s anything I want to do – like this interview with you – I ask his permission. If there’s anything I’ve got to do, like debt-collecting or personal minding or working the door, I talk to him first. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got my own views and he asks my opinion for certain things, too. But I feel it’s a duty; if you’re that close to someone, you can’t simply go out doing your own thing … respect. That’s what it’s all about. If you’ve not got that, then you have nothing.
LIFE OF CRIME
I’ve been arrested by the police but I’ve never been in court, never been nicked. I try to be as straight as possible because I’ve got no time to mess people about. I look at it this way: if you’re in trouble and you need help, I won’t turn my back on you, I’ll help you out if I think it’s right even if someone else says, ‘Don’t, they’re no good.’ If you ask me for help my loyalty goes right down to the end. People can say I’ll die for you and all that, people can talk it and people can do it. I do it.
IS PRISON A DETERRENT?
It’s a deterrent for the everyday, nine-to-five working person. It does deter those people. But, for people like us, it’s like in the back of our minds. Whatever we do, we try and keep one step ahead of the Old Bill. That’s the name of the game in our own community.
For a lot of people, prison is no deterrent at all, people like rapists and paedophiles. Prison doesn’t deter them because they seem to be lost in their own world. I can’t tolerate men who abuse women and children. I can’t stand the fact that there are people out there doing things to these children. If a child molester lived round the corner, I’d knock at his house and I’d knock him out. Because, at the end of the day, that kid is my kid, even if I haven’t got kids.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?
Yeah. People say taking the law into your own hands is wrong, but what if it were a member of your own family? You’d want revenge. Then there are people like rapists, stalkers, people who hurt children. You have to have a line somewhere.
WHAT WOULD HAVE DETERRED YOU FROM A LIFE OF CRIME?
I’ve never had a life of crime as such. Crime has been around me and I’ve witnessed certain situations. But what is crime? It’s easier to do something bad than to do something good. I mean, if there was a tenner on the floor, would you pick it up and hand it in? But how many people do that? It’s easier to put it in your pocket. People say, ‘I found it so it’s mine,’ but it ain’t yours.
But to do something good like hand it in to the police station isn’t easy and, if you do, people say you’re mad! So what could have deterred me from doing that?
My life is what it is. It’s got nothing to do with my family upbringing. Maybe if I’d had the opportunity to educate myself a lot more it would have been different, if I’d had the education to get a proper job, to establish myself on the ladder and go up in society. Maybe then I wouldn’t be here now. I’d be out there earning loads of dough, living in a nice house, enjoying nice this, nice that and the other.
But these days, everyone seems to be going down the ladder towards crime. Everyone is thinking, I can earn a monkey tomorrow if I do that and who’s going to know?
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN STABBED/SHOT?
Er … yes, come to think of it, I have been stabbed, many, many years ago. Does that count? I’ve been shot at as well.
SCARIEST MOMENT?
Scary moments are when you’re trapped in a corner and you know there’s only one way out. Or getting the phone call which says, ‘You’ve got to go now.’ That’s the scariest moment. No matter how people say, ‘Yeah, I’m up for it, I’m up for it,’ it’s scary.
You’re sitting indoors, watching the telly and all of a sudden you get the phone call and someone says that whoever has been shot. Whatever you’re doing, you think, Right, what have we got to do? All your emotions are suddenly tight. You might be feeling confident with ten people around you but this only involves you, you as an individual and that’s what’s scary.
The scariest person is yourself because when you look in that mirror, there’s only one person you see. When you open that door, who goes through that door? Only you go through that door, no one else. Whether you are asking for help, or going to give help, you are the only one who has to deal with problems at the end of the day.
SADDEST MOMENT?
Watching my cousin die of cancer. She was 40. I used to see my aunts and one day they turned up and said my cousin was ill. I went round to see her. My aunt said, ‘When you go in and see her, be prepared.’ I didn’t understand what she meant but when I went in the only thing I recognised was her voice. I hadn’t seen her for about three months. Apparently, she’d been ill for a while and I knew she was losing weight. She went from about ten stone to about six stone.
She smiled and said, ‘How’re you doing?
I said, ‘Oh, all right,’ but I felt like I’d seen a ghost. I felt all shaky inside like when you’ve got to go to court in the morning and you know you’re going to get a ten-stretch or whatever. That shaky feeling before you get the cold sweats. Like after a big night out.
That was one of the worst experiences of my life because, just before she died, she came to me in a dream and asked me to let her go. I went to see her on the Monday, she came to me in the dream on the Tuesday and she died on the Thursday. It took me about a year to accept the fact that she had gone. I felt … hopeless. Just hopeless.
WHAT RATTLES YOUR CAGE?
People who are going to do people wrong. Wrong ’uns. People who hurt children. People who scare people like women just walking down the road and they’re scared of someone coming up behind them.
I remember, when I was 16, there was this old woman walking down the road and I had to cross the road to make her feel comfortable because I was a black man walking down the road behind her. I knew what she was probably thinking. People who make old people think like that – they annoy me.
I always feel uncomfortable walking behind a woman, I feel I know what they’re thinking and I have to make myself aware for them, I have to move that much away from them so they can feel comfortable. I feel it when they’re walking towards me so I say excuse me or I walk in the road so they walk on without worrying. That could be my mother, my girlfriend, my daughter.
HAVE YOU EVER REALLY LOVED ANYONE?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can’t beat love. Whatever people say about love these days, it’s that emotional feeling that comes over you which you can’t explain.
Men can’t express their feelings, women can. But I’ve seen men kill themselves over women. I think love is the biggest emotion, it brings men to their knees. I’ve seen big men top themselves, I’ve seen big men overdose. I’ve had big men ring me up on the phone and say, ‘I can’t handle it no more, I’m going to shoot myself.’
Then I’ve had to go round his house and spend time with him. I’m in love now and I’m happier than I used to be because I’ve learned to understand my stupid ways and learned that my way of dealing with things hasn’t always been right. So I’ve learned to look at other angles and listen to what other people say and look at how I am when I’m in a relationship.
I can see what I used to do and I say to myself, ‘Let’s not do that now, let’s have a good time. Let’s have a laugh and a joke.’ I’ve mellowed – I guess it comes with age!
WHAT FRIGHTENS YOU?
The fact of knowing that I’ve got to look over my shoulder when someone says, ‘I’m going to come and get yer’ – I can’t stand that. I think if you’re going to come and get someone, do it now because I’ve got no time to look over me shoulder. If that’s the case, then I’ll go and do it myself.
I suppose I’m a bit paranoid. Paranoia is paranoia and it does wind you up, but it helps; it helps because it keeps you aware of yourself all the time, keeps you asking questions.
DESCRIBE A HARD BASTARD
A hard person to me is someone who comes up to you and does what he does and then walks away and doesn’t say anything about it. That’s not using anything, whether it’s his hands or fists or whatever. He just comes up to you and gives it to you and that’s it. And that can be anyone; doesn’t have to be the strongest man in the world, it can be the youngest kid.
NAME A HARD BASTARD
My mum. She is a Born-again Christian now, but when I was younger you didn’t wanna mess with her. I would say my mum, then my dad.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS?
Hopefully in the Caribbean, looking after my mum and dad, and settled with my girlfriend. I’ll be looking back on my life and thinking I’ve had a good run.
ANY REGRETS?
No, not really. I wish I’d given a bit more back to my mum. I do regret not getting a better education. I’d like to have learned to read and write a lot better. I should have educated myself a bit more – that’s my regret. But I’ve got my education from people around me.