Читать книгу One-Eyed Baz - The Story of Barrington 'Zulu' Patterson, One of Britain's Deadliest Men - Barrington Patterson & Cass Pennant - Страница 12

Todd: When we were 17, we used to mess about in the Pallasades shopping centre, sometimes we used to do the security’s heads in. There was one security guard called ‘Shotgun Tommy’ and we used to take the piss out of him all the time, even though he was a really nice guy; we used to call him Urko because he was built like the gorilla from Planet of the Apes, I’m telling you. Solid! One day he just says to Barrington, ‘If you think you’re tough let’s go round the back for a straightener!’ and I’m telling you, that was a fight and a half. He looked at us after and looked at Barrington and said, ‘Him tough!’ I know Barrington thought, Well, this man’s tough himself, but Barrington was only 17.

Rupert: I remember when they used to have the cameras there and there was this one security guy we used to call ‘Shitty Batty’. He must have told us to move on or something; it was late at night because the shops were closed. Someone must have started arguing the case, saying, ‘There’s no one around, so what are you moving us on for?’ So they’ve got into a bit of a set-to and Barrington and him have decided to sort it out. Barrington’s moved the camera so that it’s facing the other way. Then he fucking mullahed him!

Todd: ‘The Bear’ was this lad who used to knock around within the firm but he was a lot older than us – he was the biggest by far. A few lads in the firm kind of feared him because he was a bit of a bully at times to some of the weaker crew members, but he came in very handy at times when we had problems with rival firms. Some of them stayed away from him and some of them let him buy drinks for them to try to buy their friendship that way, but he always ended up turning. Probably the last day he ever turned on anyone was when we were walking back to the station and he started picking on Rupert a bit. Everyone was getting a bit concerned; you had to be careful because if you picked on certain members of the firm then the other lads were going to feel like, ‘You’re picking on me as well.’ Some members of the firm carried a bit more clout and they weren’t meant to be bullied. Rupert was one of them.

I think that day Barrington had no other option but to fight him. They had a fight and a half. There was this place called Wade’s, they used to sell carpets and they had a balcony there. Barrington chucked him over the balcony then went down and carried on. The Bear bit out a chunk of Barrington’s arm and they had a serious fight that day, but in Barrington’s head it’s never ever been over. He always says to me, ‘See what I’ll do – if I ever see him again I’ll batter the head off him!’ Me and Barrington were working together later in security; I actually brought him back to Birmingham to work. There was a problem in my mate’s shop with some of the young gang members; the gaffer was having trouble with them so we came back to Birmingham to try to solve the situation. That’s when The Bear stopped coming to town – when he found out Barrington was back in Birmingham.

Rupert: It was because he had that fight with Thomas first, do you remember?

Todd: Thomas Coley was Barrington’s partner from when he first came to Birmingham. I think at the time Thomas was actually tougher than Barrington, he was a nasty piece of work – but he became a very good friend of mine and still is! When you saw him coming and you saw Barrington behind him, you thought, Thomas Coley was Barrington’s partner from when he first came to Birmingham. I think at the time Thomas was actually tougher than Barrington, he was a nasty piece of work – but he became a very good friend of mine and still is! When you saw him coming and you saw Barrington behind him, you thought, Shit!

Rupert: They were in the same class at school and they both got expelled.

Then we got to know some of these skinhead guys and we started talking. Before you knew it, the fashion changed so quickly that by the next football season you would notice all these dressers come into town wearing Tacchini, Fila, Ellesse and all that. Then the London club guys would come in with their Pringle and Armani and Lacoste and we’d think, We can’t afford all those fucking things! But they were on our manor so we taxed ’em.

At most of the matches we’d go to, we’d have a little earner. Sometimes we would send the lads to have a fight so that they could distract the police; we would leave them and go to the pub, wreck it and break open any fruit or fag machines. The same if it was a shop – we would go in to steam it, grabbing whatever we wanted.

It was around this time that there was a major problem within the black community. We were treated like shit, the police had no respect for us, and all the black and Asian families were dumped into the ghettoes of Birmingham. I guess it had happened in other places as well, like Toxteth and Brixton, but we were acutely aware of the underlying issues as we experienced them day after day and we were involved in the Handsworth riots. We had the idea that, if we created enough chaos, we could make some money – as all the shopkeepers would abandon their shops. That was our way of life. We came about 20-handed and all we were interested in was breaking into shops and taking what we could.

Sometimes you just wanted to destroy things; other times you’d run into a shop and come out with things you didn’t even need, running straight home, putting it away in the house and running back out again. You would have maybe one room full up with stolen goods, including quite a few things you’d never had before. Then your house would get raided.

That first night of the riots, we all arranged to meet up at the top of Handsworth and plan what we were going to do. The police had the SPG (Special Patrol Group) at the time and they were just bastards. All they wanted was to beat people with their long truncheons, and you knew that when the SPG were coming you had to run.

Everything was directed against the police. We just wanted to tell people what they were like and what they were doing, but nobody wanted to take it onboard. It was like a cry for help – people knocked Handsworth, Toxteth and Brixton, but all they remember about those areas is the riots. If they hadn’t actually lived there, then they didn’t know what they were like. Handsworth had as nice a community as anybody else’s area.

It was a nice feeling too – people were trying to put their point across because the government were not interested. Everyone was trying to get the aggression out of themselves, because in those days a black lad could be walking down the street and he would get stopped for no apparent reason. Or he would be told to get out of his car; the black guy would turn round and say, ‘Why? I ain’t done nothing,’ and the police would hold up a bag of weed and say they found it in the car. They were well known for planting drugs on people and saying it was theirs.

Most of the towns that rioted back in 1981 did so for a reason – not like the recent riots around the UK in August 2011, after the police shot and killed Mark Duggan. People just wanted to be heard as they were putting up with a lot of shit in those days. But for us it was just about money, money, money. We weren’t into that aspect – we were into the looting.

Riots are riots at the end of the day, but they’re not like they used to be years ago. Some of the guys go over the top with the rioting – setting fire to people’s houses and things like that. When we were rioting we were just grabbing things, we weren’t setting light to the premises; we were just providing things for our families – or for ourselves, or whatever. Fuck burning down a big store when there are people living on top of the fucking building!

While the riots were on, we made a lot of money. We looted shops of their stock, including food, fags, booze, furniture, TVs, anything that we could. But one of the sad things that came out of the riots was that my good friend, Thomas Coley, got jumped on by the SPG and beaten very badly. Thomas had a promising career ahead of him as a boxer and was due to represent England; his beating changed that and he’s never been right again. He was one of the guys I used to look up to, coming from Handsworth. He was a wicked fighter, but when the SPG got him in the riots they fucking hammered him.