As I reached puberty and turned into a bolshy teenager, my previously understanding, loving grandparents started to find me more difficult, and they responded by becoming a lot stricter than they had been before; a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted if ever there was one.
I had become reconciled to the idea that I was stupid at school, but there was no way I wanted to be a social failure too, so my main interest at this time was impressing my friends and acquaintances on the street with how tough I was and how I wasn’t scared of anybody or anything. Nan and Grandad had given me the best start possible with the resources they had, but they were getting older now and they weren’t really equipped to deal with an adolescent, let alone a teenager with major learning difficulties and a big chip on his shoulder. Whereas before I had known that they were always there for me, it seemed to me now that they had changed. And although I know now that they still loved me as much as always, at the time I felt very insecure about their feelings towards me, especially because I understood a bit more about what a normal family was supposed to be like, and how different my situation was. I felt that I was a nuisance and that no doubt my poor performance at school was a bitter disappointment to them.
Grandad, in particular, became much harder on me than he had been before – he became intolerant of me and often came across as aggressive and threatening. Looking back, I am sure that he was doing the best he could. He had already seen one of his sons grow up and go off the rails, and probably thought that a little discipline would help to straighten me out and put me on the right path, before it was too late for me. People might see things differently today, but my grandfather was a man of his generation. As a disabled, older man, my grandfather might also have been a little intimidated at the thought of sharing quarters with an angry adolescent whose behaviour was increasingly unpredictable. Perhaps he felt that he needed to be firm and make a stand before I tried anything on.
I hated the feeling of being restrained and restricted when I tried to do things, and I kicked back whenever and however I could. I felt that my grandparents were very unfair to me. I was never allowed to bring my friends home to play, like other kids were. The other kids were allowed to stay out playing in the street until half past eight at night, but Grandad said I had to be home at seven. That meant that if I came home at eight o’clock – which was still earlier than anyone else – I was in for it. Grandad would be waiting at the door for me to come home and I knew I would either get a good hiding or a real telling-off. Then he would stop me going out the next day to punish me.
Because it was important for me to impress my peers, I often ignored the rules and got into trouble for coming home late. Grandad would shout at me and I would shout back. Over time, the arguments escalated until we were threatening each other, filling the small house with loud, angry voices. Coming home to this after a long day at work was extremely upsetting for my grandmother, but there was very little that she could do about it.
As I continued to go through adolescence, I began to get to know sides of my grandfather that I had never seen before, and to realise that this was probably the sort of treatment my father had had when he was growing up. This was probably why he had become so violent and difficult to deal with. And presumably Grandad had also seen this sort of violence when he was a boy. In later years I would learn a lot about how violence begets violence and how unhealthy cycles of behaviour can be transmitted through the generations until something happens to break the pattern.
At this point, my grandparents moved from London to Carshalton in the suburbs, some distance away. This was a time when the state was redeveloping a lot of the more run-down areas of London, such as Lambeth. They were tearing down old, ramshackle buildings and putting in new ones, and council residents were being offered the chance to move to a new area. There were a lot of ambitious ideas around, about regenerating communities, but in practice, while a lot of people moved, the rougher elements just took their villainy with them. People from our area were offered new homes in Brixton and Carshalton, and Nan and Grandad opted for the latter. This meant a new house, a new school and a new set of friends for me, which was just as well, considering how I had managed at the previous school.
For the first time in my life I had my own bedroom, which felt really good. I could sleep on my own and not have to listen to Nan and Grandad snoring and turning over in bed or – horror of horrors – see their pale, elderly legs swinging over the side of the bed in the morning.
I was worried about starting at a new school, Wellbeck Secondary Modern. It had taken me a lot of effort to build up a reputation as a bruiser in primary school, and I was afraid that once again I would be singled out and bullied, that the other kids would find my weak points and use them to hurt me. Because of this, I decided that I would use the first opportunity I got to establish myself as one of the tough ones and, as soon as I had a chance, that I would take on one of the kingpins and beat him.
The kingpin I chose was Steve, who was very much the local hard nut and a source of great fear to most of the other teenagers at the school. We started fighting on one occasion and I am pleased to say that I beat the crap out of him. The other kids and the teachers soon realised that they had a hard case on their hands. From there on, my reputation seemed to precede me wherever I went. I was deemed to be unruly and uncontrollable. Even the older, bigger school prefects feared me and kept out of my way. This was a situation that suited me very well indeed.
Nan had stopped working by now. Cleaning the buses and trains was hard physical work that was really too much for a woman of her age. She did the odd job here and there, but now Nan and Grandad were living off their pensions, with a little help in the form of the child benefit. While there was always enough to eat, it was a pretty modest existence, and every little extra helped.
By the time I reached the age of thirteen, I realised that it was time that I started to contribute. I was a strong lad and not afraid to break a sweat, so I picked up some work labouring for a building firm, Woodcock Brothers of Wimbledon, in the summer holidays. I was proud to pick up my wage packet and hand it over to my grandmother at the end of the week. I liked the work. It was tough and I didn’t have to use my brain too much, which meant that it didn’t get tied up in knots the way it did at school. I remember Mr Woodcock saying to me, “You’re a good lad, Steve, and I’ll have a job for you when you finish school.” Was I proud!
At fourteen, I got friendly with an older boy, Brian. Brian lived nearby, and was about three years older than me, so he was practically a grown man in my eyes. We shared a great interest in motorbikes and, being that much older, Brian actually had a bike of his own. I started going round to his place to admire it and to talk about mechanics. We soon became firm friends.
Brian’s bike was a gorgeous Royal Enfield, glittering with chrome. I thought it was the happiest day of my life when Brian offered to teach me how to ride it. Although he was from a rather chaotic family too, Brian was quite sensible and worried about me when I got into trouble, something that was happening with increasing frequency. Brian lived with his mum and his brother. I never found out where his dad was – dead, in prison or just disappeared. It was unstated but clear that it just wasn’t right to ask. As someone whose dad wasn’t on the scene either, I understood the niceties of the situation straight away and never even wondered about him. I had always hated it when people asked where my parents were and I was sensitive enough to realise that Brian was in a similar situation.
Like any teenager, I loved music and wanted to be on top of what was cool at any given moment. It was a hugely exciting day when I got my first record player – a present from Nan and Grandad. It was in what looked like a suitcase; I could open it up, plug it in and play one single at a time. Having a record player made it possible for me to invite mates like Brian round to my place. Adopting a nonchalant air, I’d say, “Alright, mate, want to come round and listen to some music later?” They’d come over and we’d go and sit on my bed and listen to the hits of the day.
The Beatles were big at the time, and Jimi Hendrix. I remember discussing how they got a lot of their ideas from taking drugs and realising that the music and the lyrics were out of this world. As I had never taken drugs, the psychedelic content of the songs didn’t mean that much to me. I just knew that this music was much better than the old-fashioned things that Nan and Grandad loved and listened to on the radio and on their own precious gramophone: Bill Haley and Frank Sinatra. I daydreamed about learning how to play the guitar, or maybe the drums, but I never got around to it.
Although I was failing dismally academically, I was good at sports. I could swim very well and even got onto the school diving team. I was good at cricket, too, and held my own at football and basketball. We had great PE instructors in the school, who really pushed us to be as good as we could, and I loved the fact that at least this was one area where I was better than most of the other students.
I think that, if I’d had more help in primary school, I might have done alright, because at Wellbeck I belatedly discovered that I loved history, even if I was not able to read the books or hand in essays, and that I was quite good at maths and woodwork. Interpreting numbers did not seem to cause me the same difficulties as reading did. But I had fallen so far behind that it was too late for me to catch up, and Nan and Grandad were frequently called in to have a word with the headmaster.
In the end, I did as badly at Wellbeck Secondary Modern as I had done before. I regularly got into scraps with the other students, and one day things escalated more than ever before. Involved in a fight in the cloakroom with my classmate, Bob, I completely lost control. I pulled out a lighter that my father had given me and started waving it about. I had started smoking at fourteen or so, to Nan’s dismay, but Dad didn’t mind. He even encouraged it; it was something that we now had in common. I didn’t like the cigarettes at first, but saw them as something that would make me look cool, big and grown-up. They also gave me something to do with my hands when I was feeling awkward. After a while, the taste grew on me, and I became a regular smoker.
In the cloakroom, I flicked the button on the lighter and used the flame to set Bob’s hair on fire. I tried to pat out the flames while all the onlookers screamed and shouted with a mixture of excitement and fear. Fortunately, he managed to extinguish the flames before he came to any harm. I was immediately taken down to the headmaster’s office where I had to explain myself. There was no real explanation to be given, and I couldn’t think of anything to say. Even I knew that there was no excuse for setting fire to a classmate’s hair. The headmaster decided that a caning was the appropriate punishment. I refused to submit to him, tore the cane out of his hand and snapped it in half.
“Fuck off, you,” I told the headmaster. “I’m not letting you anywhere near me.”
“Give me the lighter,” he insisted, holding out his hand. “It’s confiscated, and don’t think that you can come to me to get it back.”
“No, I fucking won’t.”
I loved the lighter because it was one of the few things my father had ever given me, and I considered it a token of his affection. As I walked out of the headmaster’s office, he called after me, “Walker, you’re expelled until further notice!”
When I told Grandad I wasn’t allowed to go back to school until further notice, he went completely mad and started chasing me around the house brandishing a carving knife and shouting, “I’ll kill you, you little bastard! I’ll bloody well teach you to get into trouble. You want trouble? I’ll give you trouble!” I ran as fast as I could to escape him but eventually he caught up with me in the lounge. He was red-faced, breathing hard, and appeared to be completely out of control. I became so frightened that I actually lashed out at Grandad, in fear of my own life, and hit him, just the once. I knocked him over. As he tumbled through a jumble of chairs and onto the ground with his mangled arm flapping uselessly, I ran out of the house, afraid of what he might do if he caught up with me.
It wasn’t until much later that I decided to go home. I was very frightened, but I had nowhere else to go, and no one would have looked after me. When I got home I was sent up to my room and found myself in dire straits with my uncles and aunts, who had gathered in the house for a family conference because of what had happened. I felt abandoned by them because they sided with Grandad, and because some of them did not believe that Grandad would ever use a knife in such a threatening way. They said that I was lying, or at least exaggerating. Aunties who had always been so kind began to look at me askance. Of course, we all knew that Grandad had a temper, but nobody except me had ever seen him do anything more than scream and shout. This was the first time that he had ever reached for a weapon.
After that, Grandad became more and more abusive and angry with me. Nan, who knew about my reputation at school, was concerned that maybe there was something wrong with me that they had not managed to identify, that maybe I was a head case of some sort and in need of medical help.
“Steve,” Nan said. “I’m going to take you to the doctor because if we go on like this it’s going to be the death of me.” She explained that she thought that maybe there was something wrong with my brain and that she hoped the doctor would be able to fix it. Nan, like so many people of her generation, had huge respect for all doctors.
Nan took me to the doctor and told him that she was at her wits’ end, that I was out of control and that she was very worried about what would become of me. She asked him if there was anything he could do for me; anything at all. The doctor, whom I knew from various childhood ailments, looked at me from across his big mahogany desk. I looked back at him.
“Can you give some examples of his behaviour?” he asked Nan.
“It’s just that he’s so difficult to control. We can’t handle him at all, and he’s always in trouble at school. I think there’s got to be something wrong with him; it’s not normal, that’s all.”
The doctor asked her a few more questions and then wrote out a prescription for Valium, which he said should calm me down and help me to keep my temper under control. Nan was so upset and worried by that stage that I imagine she would have agreed to a lobotomy if someone had suggested it. Fortunately, they didn’t – although lobotomies were still being carried out in those days. I don’t remember the doctor asking me anything about why I was feeling the way I did.
I was fourteen years old at the time, going on fifteen, and hopeful that the Valium would help, because the prospect of going into the adult world without anything to support me was a horrifying one.
I took the Valium for the next year or so with no noticeable difference. But when I reached the age of sixteen and starting drinking, I found out that mixing Valium and alcohol could get quite a nice little buzz going, a buzz that took the edge off any anxiety or insecurity that I was experiencing and made me feel confident enough to swagger about with the best of them. Valium and alcohol conspired to create a pleasant, drifty feeling that was like falling into a lovely dream in which nothing mattered very much. Together, they worked much better than separately. I was quite impressed and certainly had no resistance to further prescriptions for Valium from then on. The doctor was kind enough to supply them at regular intervals.
I began to wonder what else I could do, what other things I could take, to create similar feelings and sensations to that offered by the combination of Valium and alcohol. I knew that there were various options available on the street, but I had never really looked into it before. Now, I was definitely intrigued.
I was used to my lack of academic achievements, so I made little effort to learn any more. I was a terrible student, rebellious and difficult to deal with. The lessons were far beyond my capabilities, as I was only just capable of writing my name and picking out a few simple words with great effort. Now that I had found another way to relax, I moved away from my sporting endeavours. We all knew that I was just putting in time until I was old enough to leave school, while the teachers came down hard on me in an effort to keep the classroom calm enough for the others to learn. I could not and would not conform to the expectations of the teachers and was quite obnoxious in all my interactions with them.
Underneath all this rebellion, I was very scared – although I would never have admitted it, not to anyone. I was desperately embarrassed and anxious about the fact that I had nothing whatsoever to show for all my years in school. While I liked to swagger and show off around the other kids, I was always afraid that they would bring up the subject of my academic shortcomings and make fun of me. The adult world was fast approaching and I knew that I was in no way prepared for it. I couldn’t read or write properly, and I knew that nobody would take me on for an apprenticeship because I was not going to pass any exams.
I was very interested in mechanics – I loved cars and motorbikes – and had a dream of working in that area, but unless something changed radically, that was just not going to happen. Who would want a mechanic who couldn’t read? My interest in mechanics had been sparked by Uncle Albie years before, and he continued to foster it now. At this stage, Uncle Albie had a small garage at the back of the Lambeth Mews, just off the Lambeth Walk. He worked there most evenings and weekends on cars or motorbikes, to bring in some extra money. At weekends I was allowed to go and help him.
When I was helping Uncle Albie, I found it a lot easier to stay out of trouble. I had also found something that I was good at. I enjoyed getting my hands dirty and learning about all the different types of engines. I would happily stay there for hours, just watching and learning. It was through Albie that I acquired my first motorbike, an Ariel Colt 200cc, which was rather like a Tiger Cub. It was my pride and joy, and I felt unadulterated happiness when I sat on it.
When I left school, I picked up some work with the firm that had employed me during the summer holidays, Woodcock Brothers in Wimbledon, as well as helping Uncle Albie out whenever I could. It was wonderful to know that my school days were over and that I would not have to put up with the daily torment of sitting uncomprehendingly in a classroom ever again.
Although I was learning some useful skills with my uncle, around this time I started to get involved in petty crime to pay for the booze and the other bits and pieces that I needed, because, as a teenager, I had no way of making as much money as I wanted. Together with some of my mates, I started doing “smash-and-grabs” on local jewellery shops to raise a little cash. This involved breaking the shop window, grabbing a handful of jewellery and legging it down the road before the shop owner had time to realise what was going on.
We knew people on the street who would buy the jewellery, or whatever we had managed to grab, for a fraction of what it was worth, so that they could sell it on and make a decent profit. Sometimes they sold the pieces as they were and sometimes they melted down the gold and silver and sold them as materials. These people were known as “fences”. After a successful raid, we’d ring a fence and tell him that we had some goods for him. Because we wanted to get our hands on the money as quickly as possible, they invariably got a great bargain.
I loved doing the smash-and-grabs. The money was secondary, so far as I was concerned. Stealing the stuff and legging it down the road was a fantastic thrill, not unlike the thrill I’d enjoyed as a little kid, playing Knock Down Ginger. Afterwards, when things had calmed down, I would think about what I had done and rationalise it. I told myself that as the shops were insured, I was really stealing from an insurance company, because the shop would be fine; I wasn’t stealing from ordinary, decent people, but from big faceless corporations that could deal with the occasional loss. The quantity of money that we managed to make wasn’t very impressive, but it was enough to keep us in cheap drinks for a while, and until that old itch and longing for excitement became too big to ignore.