Читать книгу Ultimate Hard Bastards - The Truth About the Toughest Men in the World - Kate Kray - Страница 9

Respect – An attitude of deference, admiration, regard, the state of being honoured.

Reputation – A high opinion generally held about a person.

Row – A person who fights and has determination. A battle, struggle, physical combat or punch-up.

The three Rs were the only criteria needed to be included in this book. I interviewed hundreds of men. Some made the grades and some didn’t – some I liked and some I didn’t. But whether I liked them or not wasn’t important. Whether they liked each other or not wasn’t important either. The only thing that mattered was that aggression was paramount and part and parcel of their everyday life. They eat it, sleep it and breath it. Violence is their life. This book includes murder, armed robbery and lots of gratuitous violence. I’m not glorifying it or trying to justify the violence, I’m just trying to understand the reasons why some men are prepared to go all the way. If we can understand them perhaps we don’t have to fear them.

Everyone in this book is extraordinary in their own way and they all have a tale or two. Some of the things they say are horrifying. They don’t try to make excuses for their actions or justify what they’ve done. It’s said and done, and that’s it! They are from right across the board: SAS, murderers, gangsters, terrorists, strongmen and street fighters – you name it, they’re all included. I’ve interviewed hundreds of men and you quickly get to grips with who matters and who doesn’t, who has respect and reputation and who hasn’t.

Most of these men are aggressive in one way or another, many violent. Some will cut you and laugh while you’re bleeding. All inhabit a world, a kind of parallel world, which ordinary people would find totally alien – they catch glimpses of it only occasionally on TV. But that’s sugar coated. It’s not the real thing. This is.

My only rule was that if the tough guy was a bully, there was no way they’d be in my book – full stop. If they were loud, brash or giving it the ‘big ’un’ – ‘I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do that,’ then I left them out. Every man in this book has said, ‘I’m not a hard bastard, I’m not a tough guy, I’m not ’orrible – I’m a nice bloke.’ I found that more chilling than a man trying to convince me that he’s this and he’s that.

One man who needs hardly any intoduction is Roy ‘Pretty Boy’ Shaw. He’s a man among men. A ‘Bon de Ver’ – a man of substance. He’s a boxer, a fighter, a walking-talking mean machine. Roy is a self-confessed ruthless bastard and if you’re unfortunate enough to have Roy come after you, beware, because hell comes with him!

Take Johnny Adair or ‘Mad Dog’ – the political animal, a man alleged to have killed 30 or 40 people. He didn’t need to convince me that he was a force to be reckoned with, he just is. I could sense the danger oozing from every pore in his body. I could feel it, almost taste it.

While interviewing Johnny Adair, I can honestly say that anything could have happened. A hired hitman could have had him in his sights or a strategically placed bomb could have had Johnny’s name on it. Who knows? There have been ten attempts to kill him and he’s only 37. Maybe Lady Luck is looking down on Johnny Adair, or he’s got a guardian angel, or perhaps he’s too much of a handful for just one man, because if you attack Johnny Adair you’d better hope and pray that you kill him, because if you don’t, you’ll be the one pushing up daisies.

Big John Daniels. The sheer size of the man, the way he holds himself, his very demeanour is enough to intimidate most people. Everything about him spells violence. His dark shades shield his black, crushed velvet eyes that stare into a secret, hostile world into which no one dares enter. He was the only man hard enough to be trusted with guarding Ronnie Kray’s body before the funeral.

Errol Francis is the World Kick-Boxing Champion and Steven Spielberg’s minder. He works with all the stars in Britain and America, not only as their bodyguard but also as their personal trainer. He mixes and mingles in the highest of circles. He’s a whopping mountain of a man – touch him and he feels like rock. But Errol has got his feet firmly on the ground. When you meet him, he makes you feel like you’re special. He smiles all the time and his laugh is infectious.

There’s Carlton Leech, football hooligan, member of the notorious Inter-City Firm (ICF) and now minder, whose closest friend was blasted to death with a shotgun.

Charlie Seiga, from Liverpool, whom the police codenamed Killer.

Gangsters like the late Tony Lambrianou who stood with Ronnie in the dock.

Danny Reece, an armed robber, who is married to Linda Calvey, the woman they call the Black Widow after the spider who kills her mate after sex. Both Danny and Linda are now serving life for murder.

There are heroes here – and, of course, villains.

After talking to so many of them, I can’t help but notice how, despite the fact they are all so very different and such very sharp individuals, they have so much in common.

These are all hard men. Those on the right side of the law seem to have done OK for themselves and some – like Kevin Chan, the kung fu supremo, and Kiane Sabet, the hunky no-holds-barred fighter – are, I’m sure, destined for fame.

Those who have, shall we say, strayed across the line haven’t always been so lucky.

Many of these men have had really difficult childhoods. Many learned to fight when they were young because they had to – from very early on the name of the game was survival. Many witnessed violence, either within their family or around them when they were youngsters. The education they received was poor and some of them didn’t stand much of a chance. Most turned to crime to get money, pure and simple.

Many of the men included in the book dislike each other with a passion. There is one man in particular, whose name I won’t mention, shoved a gun up a ‘rival’s’ nose. That rival is also included in the book. After seeing his photograph, the man I was interviewing decided to pull out. I explained to him that he didn’t have to like the man or associate himself with him in any way, shape or form. The fact of the matter is that they are both hard bastards and I wanted them both in the book. He is not a fool and rose above his hatred. He shrugged, ‘Yeah, fuck him!’

After that I quickly learned to be diplomatic, and careful who I told was included. Each man would sneer and say the same thing, ‘I’d do ’im any day – he’s not a hard bastard.’ So I decided not to show any of them the photographs or to tell them who was in the book. Not because I was bothered about upsetting them, but because I didn’t want them to decide to pull out.

Ronnie Kray had a little black address book full to bursting with telephone numbers of all the conmen, murderers and tough guys from all over the country. After we married, I kept a copy of the book in case it was lost or stolen in Broadmoor. I automatically assumed that everybody in the book knew each other, but they didn’t, they all knew Ron. He was the kingpin in the middle – the ‘colonel’.

Occasionally, I had to telephone these men for various ‘bits of work’. They were villains from as far afield as Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the USA. I got to know them all. Some of them were crazy and unhinged, but they became my friends and, from them, I made more friends. Now I’ve got a Thomson local directory – the Who’s Who in the criminal fraternity! The more I got to know them, the more they intrigued me.

I started asking them questions – not about how many people they’d killed or whose body had been buried in which motorway foundations. I wanted to know what made a hard man. What makes a man dangerous? Size? Heart? Love? Money? Passion? Loyalty? Or was it all of these things rolled into one? Is there a link between them? Are there similarities? What makes a man kill? What makes him different? What drives a man to go all the way? Is it in his background? Was he bullied as a child? Is it situation or circumstance? I wanted to interview men who have fire in their bellies and passion in their souls. Those who’ve got something going on beneath their tough exterior. I wanted to know what makes them tick. Do they have to learn to kill or is it just natural? The questions were endless.

Not all the men I interviewed are from the underworld; there are also law-abiding, straight-up tough guys. Some of the men found it difficult talking about themselves. Some were shy and awkward. But after a couple of visits, they relaxed and started to open up. They’d protected themselves for so long and never let anyone close enough to see them vulnerable or exposed.

Although they were tough men on the street – they can have a row, and can kill – the one thing they were really nervous about was being interviewed and the thing they hated most was the tape recorder. Then it dawned on me that when someone is nicked, the first thing the Old Bill say is, ‘You are not obliged to say anything but if you do, it may be taken down and used in evidence against you, blah … blah … blah … ’ Every single one of the men was suspicious of the tape recorder. They kept looking at it. It made them uncomfortable and they became ‘legal’ experts, as if defending themselves. Their voices changed and they started trying to talk in a ‘solicitor’-type voice – ‘Oh no, I proceeded down the road in an orderly fashion. Those nasty handcuffs are chafing me!’ At that point I’d stop the interview, turn the tape recorder off and just get them to relax for a bit.

What’s missing from this book, because words don’t do them justice, were the men’s many gestures. On numerous occasions during our conversations, they’d leap up from their seats and demonstrate with clenched fists exactly how they’d whacked someone, or emphasise the venomous thrust when stabbing a victim. But they never did it to brag or show off; it was simply so that I could get it exactly right. It was then that I saw these men come alive – when they reenacted their many murderous attacks.

The question I’m asked continually – and usually it’s more of an accusation than a question – is: ‘Aren’t you glamorising crime by writing about these people?

‘Aren’t you glamorising crime by writing about these men, by letting them tell their stories, by giving them airtime?’

The answer to that is: ‘No, I’m not.’

No, no, no!

I don’t write my books in a tongue-in-cheek way. I am fully aware that some of the things that some of these men have done is unacceptable.

Films like Snatch and Lock, Stock … do much more to glamorise crime than I do. Those films are definitely tongue-in-cheek – they describe horrific crimes but put a joke or two in so that makes it OK. And everyone thinks it’s OK. I tell it how it is, how it really is. I don’t sugar-coat it. Because this isn’t a glamorous world to be in. I think that often it’s an extremely unpleasant world to be in. But people have always been fascinated by it, since the days of Robin Hood or Dick Turpin, and they always will be.

This is how it is.

So many of the men I have met have ended up spending the best part of their lives in prison – what a waste! As a result many of them have have lost their wives, their children, their homes. They end up with virtually nothing … and no one.

I can count on the fingers of one hand how many people in this world have come out with a fortune – most haven’t got anything but diddly-squat.

I don’t glamorise crime. Ron and Reg were big time but, in the end, even if you are big time, one of three things are going to happen to you – either you will go to prison for a very, very long time, and like Ron you’ll end up dying in prison; or, like Reg, they’ll let you out just in time to die.

Or you’ll end up being popped in a country lane.

I know many people in this parallel world and some of them are in their sixties, even their seventies, and they’re still ‘at it’. They still need the money. They’re always looking for The Big One, the one that will set them up for life so they don’t have to do it any more. That’s the problem.

I like to call them the ‘weekend millionaires’. You can always tell if they’ve been up to something because, come the weekend, they’ve got the Rolexes on, they’ve got the Armani suits on, they’re being Charlie Big Bollocks in the pubs buying everyone a drink.

But if they can’t keep up that lifestyle, then they have to go on to do another blag, or whatever it is they do. In fact, far from being glamorous, it’s a very stressful world to live in. I think through writing these books and interviewing all these people, the thing that comes out of it most is that there’s really nothing like a straight pound note.

So no, I don’t think I’m glamorising them. Those who have stumbled on to the wrong side of the law, well, not one of them says it’s a good world to be in because it’s not.

But this is the truth. This isn’t Lock, Stock and Smoking Bollocks. This is real. I tell it how it is. I tell it from the hip. And these men have been included in this book because they’re going to tell you how it is.

There were two questions that came up time and time again while I was writing Hard Bastards. Everybody I spoke to wanted to know which one is the toughest and why? I know who’s the toughest. I hope that you can read between the lines and draw your own conclusion as to who is the ultimate hard bastard in Great Britain.