Читать книгу On the Doors - Working as Britain's Hardest Bouncer, I Was Hit, Stabbed and Faced Guns - But I've Never Been Beaten - Stellakis Stylianou - Страница 10

NO MAN HAS FEAR … UNTIL FEAR COMES TO HIM

STILKS

T HE FIRST ONE HIT ME JACKET. DON HAD ASKED IF I HAD A WHITE SHIRT AND BLACK TROUSERS. WELL, I HAD, BUT THEY WERE GOING A BIT GREEN NOW. SPLAT! ANOTHER ONE HITS. THEY WAS SPITTIN’, POGO-IN’, ATTEMPTING TO STAGE BOMB, AND I HAD ONLY ONE SET OF ORDERS – IF THEY TRY TO RUSH THE STAGE, STAMP ON THEIR FINGERS AS HARD AS YOU CAN. I WAS READY … I WAS READY TO PROTECT SID VICIOUS!

The Music Machine, or the Camden Palace as it’s been named a few times, is a huge 1930s building opposite Mornington Crescent at the bottom of Camden High Street in North London. It had originally been a theatre and was opened by Ellen Terry. It was fucking massive and lit up. I was impressed.

Inside, it was like a bloody rabbit warren. I was introduced to John Madden who was then head doorman and he showed me round. It was just corridors everywhere you went. We ended up at the VIP bar, got introduced to the guy who ran the place, Mick Parker, and then I was shown where to stand on the stage. I had the best spot in the house, but when Sid came on it looked like the whole bleedin’ place was about to go off. They went bloody mad. Jumping in the air, spittin’, Sid lurchin’ around the stage, music deafenin’. It was complete bedlam and then the first of the fans tried to get on the stage. I spotted him, straight over, ground his fingers into the floor and he dropped back. Everybody was gobbing and it looked like I was in the front line of attack. But if I thought I was having it bad, I only had to look at Sid. What a bloody sight! He looked as if he was about to keel over at any minute.

I can’t remember how long the appearance was, but it wasn’t very long, and then Sid lurched off. The crowd was milling around, stampin’, shoutin’, pissed out of their heads, and we had to herd ’em out into the street. I pitied the poor pedestrians. Of course, I managed to get lost in all them bloody corridors and the next thing I know I’m somewhere near backstage where this bloke who I’d met earlier told me to guard this door and not let anyone in.

‘It’s Sid’s dressing room,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t let a soul in, passes or no bloody passes.’

So I’m religiously guarding this door. ‘Sorry, mate, can’t go in there, private … I don’t care what you say … No fucking entrance … now go back from where you came.’

Most of ’em didn’t bother to argue, except for this small half-stooped sort of guy. ‘I’m Sid’s mate.’

‘Yeah, and I’m Johnny Rotten’s fucking half-brother. Now ’op it,’ I says.

‘No, this is genuine, I’ve got summat for him.’

‘I won’t tell ya again. ’Op it.’

‘Just tell him Eric’s ’ere.’

‘Mr Vicious doesn’t wanna be disturbed.’

It went on like this for a while and I thought will I have to drop him. John Madden hadn’t told me what to do in cases like this. But eventually the geezer scarpered, threatening to be back in a few minutes with someone who’d vouch for him.

‘Take as long as you like, mate,’ I said, ‘’cos you ain’t going to get in here anyway.’

Then suddenly the door opened behind me and there was Sid, completely wiped out of his head, rolling his head, starin’, tryin’ to speak but not making it. And then he suddenly shouts, ‘Anybody seen my fucking dealer? Where’s the fucking dealer? Eric … Eric …! Fucking bastard’s let me down again. I’m getting outta here.’

To this day, I’d like to think that by refusing the bloke entrance backstage, I’d saved Sid from coming to any harm. But I hadn’t – he was dead in a couple of years.

At the end of the night, John came over and asked me if I’d enjoyed the show and would I like to do it again the next night because Toyah would be playing? I said, of course I would. Remember, I was still only bleeding 18 years old. And then John handed me £15. I was amazed. I thought just being there was payment enough. But no, I was on to a little earner.

The crowd for Toyah were nowhere near as fucking out of it as they had been for Sid, so I don’t think I trod on any fingers that night. But it still turned out to be fucking weird. There were all these fans in strange black clothes and spiky hair.

Toyah’s sister introduces herself to me and asks if I’m enjoying it and would I like to go ‘back’ to meet Toyah after the show? I says, ‘Yeah,’ and when it’s all over we head backstage. Blow me if it ain’t the same dressing room that Sid was using. I thought, Here we fucking go again.

The dressing room looked like your usual pigsty with plastic cups, half-eaten sandwiches and general litter everywhere. But there was no sign of Toyah and I suppose I must have looked a little disappointed ’cos her sister says, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I thought we was goin’ to meet your sister. Where is she?’

‘She’s over there,’ says Sis, pointing.

‘Where?’

‘There, look.’ And bugger me, she was pointing at this open coffin in the corner. And inside was Toyah! My stomach went funny. I thought, Oh my God, what on earth’s going on.

Her sister says, ‘Don’t worry, she ain’t dead. She just likes resting in coffins, she feels very relaxed. She sleeps in them sometimes.’

And I thought Sid was weird! It was a fucking ‘mithtery’!

This was turning out to be a right apprenticeship. But after the first few shows, John said I was ready to work on the door. There were about half-a-dozen of us, including an ex-heavyweight British boxer, but John still wouldn’t let me get into any bother because of me age. Even if I went to the toilet, one of the other blokes would come with me to make sure I wasn’t picked on. Maybe if I had had it ‘hard’ early on, I wouldn’t have ended up doing 25 years on the doors. I might have got me head kicked in or got stabbed. These guys were old-time bouncers; they were showing me the way to get into the job. Nowadays, you can do a course and get a certificate saying you’re a doorman, but that’s no substitute for going through an old-fashioned apprenticeship. I didn’t go into the bigger scraps with blood and stabbings for quite some time. But there had been a couple of murders at the place before. Lenny McLean, the Guv’nor, had been working there at the time. In fact, I was asked to work there because Lenny had moved on. I was his replacement, although he was at the top of his career and I was just learning.

We used to move all the people out of the Music Machine in layers. First the dance floor crowd, then the first floor, and so on. But one night there’s this fucking bloke in the bar who refuses to move. I’d asked him three times and then didn’t know what to do next. So I ask this other doorman, and he just says, ‘Do what you think’s right.’

I says, ‘Do I hit him?’

‘If you feel that’s what you have to do, then hit him.’

But I was still worried about whether I was a bully. I had never hit anyone for no reason. But I thought, OK. I’d told him three times, and he was still moaning on about not moving ’til he had finished his drink. So I just went bang! into the stomach, just the one with me right, and he hit the wall and slid down.

I looked at the other doorman. ‘Did I do right?’ I asked.

‘If you think so.’

That was the first time I ever hit someone professionally.

* * *

While I was starting to learn me trade, Mum and Dad were moving up the property ladder.

The house in Wickham Lane was up for grabs at £11,000 and we moved into a £19,000 home in Cumberland Avenue in Welling. It was a better area, a better house. It was still a terraced house with three bedrooms, but it was a lot more modern – it had a bathroom.

I was still going down to St Peter’s Youth Club. I didn’t drink or smoke because I was more into looking after me body. I had dreams of being a champion, even a fucking wrestling champion. I could see meself as Mr Universe. I was pumping weights, curling, pressing, all the time getting bigger and fitter.

We didn’t have much money when we were down the Youth Club and we needed ‘pennies’. So there were three or four of us who would do these fucking petrol stations. Sometimes it was the same three, sometimes others. And ’cos none of us drove, we’d walk out the youth club to the end of the road and jump on the first bus that came, it didn’t matter which direction. We didn’t care what bloody number it was or where it was going. It was the first bus that turned up. We’d sit on the bus for 20 or 30 minutes and then we’d get off and go through this ritual. First everyone had to empty their bleedin’ pockets.

‘C’mon, let’s have all your money,’ I’d say. ‘The lot.’ The guys would hand over all their cash. It wasn’t a lot. And I’d add mine and then I’d throw the bloody lot over the fence. Then none of us had any money. So we couldn’t get home by cab or by bus. That meant we had to do the job. We had to look for the nearest petrol station.

In those days, they weren’t alarmed and there were no cameras. We never used guns and we never used iron bars or anything like that. It was our physical size we used or the fact there were a few of us. Garages were usually manned by only one person.

So we’d walk in and pretend our car was broken down and then ask if they had a petrol can we could borrow. While he was looking for the can, we’d be looking round to see who’s here and what’s happenin’. It gave us time to suss the place out quickly. If there was no one there, we’d ‘ping’ the cash register and that’d be open. If he was comin’ back, one of the others would stop him and push him into the back room and stay there with him. We’d put all the money in a bag and that’d be it. But on one of the jobs, a car pulled up …

‘Don’t panic, leave this to me,’ I said to the other guys. ‘You keep him quiet in the back room,’ I pointed to me mate, ‘and you two lay down under the counter.’

The geezer enters and comes to the counter.

‘That’ll be £5 please,’ I say, fairly shitting meself. But he paid up and we all breathed a big sigh of relief. Fuckin’ hell.

‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ I shouted at the others. And I told the bloke in the back room, ‘You move out of there in less than five fucking minutes, and I’ll be waiting outside to hit you on the head. And you won’t like it.’

Then we’d leg it to the nearest bus stop, jump on whatever bus came next, and then we’d get off at a train station. We’d take the first train to London and then we’d wait to get a train back home. The best number we ever pulled was £2,000 and, remember, that was more than 20 years ago. It was a fucking lot of money.

One of the lads who used to go down the youth club, Rob Wireless – I’ll never forget that name – knew that petrol stations were our thing. He said he’d got this job at a petrol garage, and we thought, Lovely.

He said, ‘I’ll be working there on Thursday and what I want you to do is, you come up, rob me and I’ll make sure there’s money in the till.’

With the big garages, Esso or Shell or whatever they were, they used to have these chutes which would send the money underground to protect it, and there would only ever be a few hundred at the most in the till. He was gonna keep as much money as possible back for us to take and then we’d make sure there was a good drink in it for him afterwards.

So at about six o’clock in the evening on that Thursday we got the little team together at St Peter’s Youth Club. We got to the garage and walked up to Rob. ‘Hi boss, give us the money.’

He said, ‘I haven’t got enough in here yet.’

So I walked round a bit, had a look at a few sunglasses, picked them up, then out the door and down the road. Ten or fifteen minutes later, we went back and asked him for the fucking money. Again he said, ‘There ain’t enough here yet.’

I thought, That’s strange. But we walked out again, waited, went back in and then I shouted,’You gonna give us the money, Rob, or not?’

He looked a bit nervous and then said, ‘Yeah, but not today, not today.’

So we walked out. I thought, All right, fuck you.

Then I hear ‘Aaaarghhh!’, and I see this guy running towards us screaming and wielding a pick-axe handle. I thought, Fucking hell! and we started running the opposite way. But there were three other bloody blokes running towards us! I’m thinking, They’ve found out we were doing the circuit, the garages, and that fucker Rob has put a local firm on us. This is what’s goin’ through me head. He’s grassed us up to the company that own the petrol stations and because we’ve taken a bit from quite a few of ’em, they’ve put a firm on to us. So I said to the boys to turn round and go for the bloke with the pick-axe handle first and take him out. So we’re running in the other direction now, and this black cab pulls up. And over the top comes a gun.

‘STOP! STOP!’

The guys that are chasing us arrive. They smash right into the legs first, then the chest and we’re knocked to the floor. I’m rolling around a bit trying to find something, any fucking thing, to hit back at ’em. But they’ve got us pinned down, and then they grabbed us and threw us all into separate cars. I went into the black cab with the guy with the gun and I’m thinking, Fuckin’ hell, where the fuck are they taking us?

‘Hey, what the fuck’s goin’ on?’ I say.

‘Shut up.’

‘Where you takin’ us?’

‘Shut up.’

I thought, Right, they are goin’ to do us over. What are the odds here? I’ve got one on each side and there’s the driver. The odds weren’t very good at all. So you can imagine, the biggest relief of my life was when we drove into Eltham Police Station. They weren’t a firm after all – they were the Old Bill.

They hadn’t said a bleedin’ word to us yet and we were thrown into separate cells.

I was in there two days. There was no food and I didn’t know if it was day or night. No one had spoken to me, not a word. Forget all that bollocks about being able to phone a solicitor or your mum or your fucking auntie. There ain’t no bacon, egg, sausage and beans and a cup of bloody tea like you see on The Bill. There’s nothing.

Anyway, this CID bloke’s come down and he tells me all me mates have confessed that I’m the ringleader. Now you got to remember, we ain’t got no money ’cos we didn’t rob the garage, and all our other cash had gone over the fucking fence as usual. We didn’t have any guns or iron bars but they had hit us with pick-axe handles and pulled a shooter on us. So I don’t know who was the most scared, us or them! I knew one of the other guys in the gang really well, we grew up together, and I knew he wouldn’t grass me up and call me the ringleader.

So I say to this CID bloke, ‘Look, I haven’t done anything. I went in there to buy a box of chocolates for me mum.’

‘So it took three of you to buy a box of chockies, did it?’ he says. And with that he threw me back in the cell. No more questions. Again, nothing to eat, nothing to drink, left us there for another day. Eventually, we were all dragged out of our separate cells and charged with ‘conspiracy to rob’, I think it was. The charge sheet detailed what we had on us, like a set of keys and that, and then at the end … one iron bar.

I say, ‘I ain’t signing that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I didn’t have a fucking iron bar.’

‘Yes you did. We found it in the gutter. You must have dropped it there.’

‘Well, I ain’t signing it.’

So he crossed out the iron bar and I signed the charge sheet as close as I could to the writing so he couldn’t put the bloody iron bar back in later. We all pleaded guilty to conspiracy because we didn’t get a solicitor and didn’t know any better. We were hauled up to the magistrates’ court in Woolwich the next day and I think we got a small fine. You see, while we had been at it for some time, we had never been caught, and this time we hadn’t done nothin’. We were there to rob but didn’t manage it. Rob kept putting us off because he didn’t think the Old Bill had arrived yet. What did he fuckin’ think was gonna happen – bloody police turn up with a great big fucking sign saying ‘HELLO, WE’RE HERE’? That’s why he was dodging it, and kept tellin’ us to come back. But the police were there all the time.

The next day, we went looking for Rob.

‘What’s the idea of fucking setting us up then?

‘I never set you up.’

‘Yes you fucking did and then all this happened.’

‘Well, if you think that then let’s have a straight’ner, let’s have a fight.’

I said, ‘I’ll fucking give you a fight. Let’s go over to the block of flats round the back.’

I told Scotty to stay there with Rob’s mates.

Rob throws a couple of lefts. I’ve got hold of him, and throw him on to the floor with one of me judo throws. Got him in an arm-lock, put it on, and begin to apply pressure.

‘Did you grass us up?’

‘No.’

‘DID YOU GRASS US UP?’ I’m shouting, all the time adding more pressure on to the arm-lock.

He’s screaming now. ‘Yes I did. Stop it, Stilks, stop it. It wasn’t my fault I had to …’

Bash! While I’ve got him in the arm-lock, I smash my fist into his face. I was thinking I’m gonna give him bruises all over his face to let other people know he is a no-good fucking grass. So I’m hitting him with me right and he’s screaming.

I’m shouting, ‘Who’s the fucking king round here?’

‘You are, Stilks, you are.’

So I just left him there lying on the floor in agony.

A few weeks later, I was watching TV and they was doin’ a programme on the Flyin’ Squad. And it was the same team that done us for the petrol station. I thought, Bloody hell, they were taking us seriously. That must have been a big operation. Felt a bit proud about that.

But it put me off crime for ever. Not because of any moral reasons. It was just like everything else, except judo – I was no fucking good at it.

* * *

I was still seeing Sheena at the time and me readin’ and writin’ was improving. But I don’t know how she put up with me ’cos I was more interested in me mates and me judo and training than I was in girls. I was a bit spotty at the time and didn’t have a lot of confidence. I don’t think I ever went out with her on her own. It never crossed me mind to do that. I’d invite her to come to the pictures but all me mates would be with me as well. That’s just the way it was. I was still only 19.

I used to love playing cards with the boys as well. I could play cards for days and I remember one Christmas, must have been 1977, I was meant to meet Sheena at my house, the one in Wickham Lane, ’cos she was bringing the presents. I thought it would be all right, me parents would let her in and she could sit there and wait for me. So I carried on playing cards and at three o’clock in the morning me dad turned up with Sheena.

‘Wassup, Dad?’

‘You’re what’s up, my boy. Sheena here has been sitting on the doorstep with Christmas presents waiting for you since six o’clock last night.’

I had this theory that the less I saw of her, the less we could argue, so the relationship would always go well. Me friends had relationships with girls and they were always breaking up and I thought it was because they was seein’ ’em too often. I would only see Sheena twice a week and, if I took her out, me mates would come, too. I don’t think we spent a day and a night together for the first couple of years we knew each other. And I wasn’t that interested in sex. I was more interested in fucking about. I only went out with one other girl at the time and that didn’t last long ’cos she messed me about once and that was the end of it. You don’t get a lot of second chances with me.

My dad thought I was turning into a right bleedin’ tearaway and so I was desperate to impress him and show him I could do something. That was when I decided to enter this pool contest at the Royal Oak pub in Woolwich with the winner getting £100 – a lot of money. So I thought, Right, take Dad down there and show him how good I am at pool. There was me and a couple of friends entered.

It was an Irish pub, full of Irish, and things started off OK. Win a round, go into the next, win a round. I was getting up to the final bloody stage and I went to take a shot when my mate Baines said, ‘Don’t take that. Do it from the other side then you can come back on the other ball.’ I thought, He’s fucking right.

First thing I hear was from me opponent, ‘That’s cheatin’. You can’t do that. He’s told you what to do.’

‘That ain’t cheatin’, I was gonna do that anyway. I was just takin’ me time and thinkin’.’

‘Nah nah, the game’s void.’ And he went to clear the table.

He was a grown man, so I turned me snooker cue round and hit him across the head with it. Anyway, it all kicked off and I can remember me dad sitting there looking forlorn and shakin’ his ’ead slowly from side to side and sighing. I was fighting like mad, the place was in uproar, and Dad was quietly sitting there in the middle of it all.

Eventually it all stopped and me hand was fucking hurting. This geezer’s got blood pouring down from his head, and the guv’nor, Tom, an Irishman, announces as calmly as you like, ‘We’ll play that one again.’

We did and I won.

Now I was into the final and I was up against me mate Baines. He was a brilliant snooker player and a much better pool player than me. Anyway, we were on the black ball and I remember he left me this hard shot with the cue ball up against the cushion. I couldn’t pot the black directly and, for £100, most people would have played safe. But I thought, Fuck it, so I doubled the white ball off the opposite cush, it hits the black and down it went. The money was mine. A nice little earner, and we still talk about that game today.

* * *

If I was the tearaway, then my sisters seemed to be the opposite. As Greek daughters in an orthodox home they were restricted in what they could do. Dad was really strict. No boyfriends, no goin’ out, nothin’. They were bein’ brought up to be good Greek housewives. Even I took ’em for granted. I remember coming home with Sheena once to introduce her to me sisters. I was obviously showin’ off a little bit and my youngest sister Maria happened to be doing the ironing that day. Being as cheeky as I was, I threw her me underpants and said, ‘Iron them.’

‘I ain’t ironing them.’

‘Yes you are. Dad says you’ve got to learn to iron everything.’

So she calls me over and goes bang! with the iron on me arm and for the next fucking few months I was walking around with bloody sergeant’s stripes. I realised then that my sisters had a rebellious streak in them and all Dad’s strictness was only stokin’ it up.

Sheena and me sister Maria got on really well together. I think it’s ’cos Maria, who was very bloody fiery, knew how to take me down a peg or two and Sheena liked that. They got on so well they even both worked at the same hairdressers in Woolwich once. That’s when Sheena saw how fucking fierce Maria could be. They used to wash these old ladies’ hair, but if our Maria didn’t get a big enough tip, she’d go into one. Once she said to some old dear who never tipped, ‘Would you like a cup of coffee, madam?’ And then she proceeded to pour the coffee over the fucking woman’s head and massage it into the scalp like it was shampoo. That’s how strange Maria was getting.

It was about that time that my Gran, my mother’s mum, came to live with us. She always wore black – head-to-toe black. A typical Greek Cypriot woman, she would sit in the corner in her own world. She knew fuck all about Britain and didn’t want to know.

I remember once I was off to Cyprus and Gran says, ‘Stellakis, can you bring me back a radio from Cyprus?’

‘What the fuck for, Gran? We’ve got radios. Listen to one of them.’

‘No, you don’t understand, Stellakis.’

‘What don’t I understand?’

‘I need one like we had in Nicosia. So I can listen to the Greek programmes. You can’t get them on these radios you’ve got over here.’

And she never changed. She rarely went out and never understood where she was. We used to take her to church and then when we got back, we parked Dad’s little car across the road. Then we left her there for a joke. She was completely bewildered, didn’t have a bleedin’ clue where she was. Just turning around looking this way and that, completely lost. She was right opposite the house but she had never been on the other side of the road before.

We were always playing jokes on Gran, but we loved her, really, and would not let any harm come to her at all.

I was still working at the Music Machine in Camden but it meant having to cross London to get to work. One day, this bloke came up to me at St Peter’s Youth Club and said, ‘Hey, can you get me 16 doormen?’ The Students’ Union were promoting gigs at the Woolwich Poly and the head doorman had died of a heroin overdose.

I remember Slade played there and some other big names but by now I wasn’t interested in bloody popstars, I was interested in earning money and in any way I could. Popstars meant fuck all to me. As far as I was concerned, I was the most important person there.

I was on the door and thinking how I could get some money. Bainesey was there to help me. As the people came in, I would rip their tickets in half and give ’em half back. Now listen, you could learn somethin’ here. After you’ve got a few half tickets in your hand, you no longer need to rip up a ticket. As it’s handed to you, just fold it in half, palm it into the bottom of your hand and give ’em back half a ticket you’ve ripped earlier from the top. I knew those bloody nights I stayed up playing cards would come in handy!

The organisers were everywhere, so me and Bainesey had to play this one very carefully. There I was ripping and palming tickets until I got quite a few whole tickets in me hand. I wasn’t interested in who was number one on Top of the Pops. I only wanted to know how much I was gonna earn that night. While no one was looking, I’d give Baines all the whole tickets and he’d go off down the road.

‘Have you got tickets for tonight’s show? It’s all sold out. Just a few more left here,’ he’d shout at the punters. ‘Come on, get ’em quick, only a few left.’ He was brilliant at being a tout, and we quickly started making money.

One night, one of the other bouncers at the Woolwich Poly comes up to me and says, ‘Stilks, there’s a bloke trying to get in with a dog.’

I say, ‘Well, you can’t fucking well let him in then, can ya?’

‘I know, Stilks, but he’s blind.’

So I went down there and explained to him, ‘There’s not a lot of room in there, mate, and you’ve come to see the band.’ Then I think, Oh shit. ‘Sorry, mate, I meant you’ve come to hear the band.’

He says, ‘Look, I just want to pay me money and come in. If you want to look after me dog.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, just come in and do whatever you fuckin’ want,’ I said.

Later that night, I was counting me money on the door and realisin’ that at only 19 years old I was a head doorman. But with head doorman comes responsibility and you have to take charge of every situation. You’ve got to lead from the front. If you don’t, someone else will take your fucking position. You have to make sure you’re running the place and be seen running it. When it kicks off, you have to be the first one in and take the ringleaders out first. I told the other bouncers, ‘If it goes off in the street, don’t bother. We’ve got to make sure it’s all calm and quiet in here. Is that understood?’

Obviously it wasn’t, ’cos it kicks off in the street when some idiot bloke hits a girl, and one of me guys goes running out of the Poly into the fucking street where they’re going bloody mad. Then it kicked off. Someone’s down and some other fucker’s stamping on him. Then our bloke’s down and they’re all kicking him. So I’ve said, ‘We’ve got to go out there … we can’t leave him out there.’ My mate’s said, ‘No fucking way.’ So I’ve gone out there, pushed ’em off and grabbed him. ‘You all right?’ I stayed with him; anyone coming to hit him, I’ve gone bang! and they’ve gone down. I’ve looked over there, and another one’s gone down. I’m thinking, Fucking hell, I’m doing well today. Then they all start runnin’ away and I’m thinkin’, Wow, I’m really getting into this. That’s when I turn round and see Nick Nettley, who later became Lenny Mclean’s minder, standing right behind me. He would be about four or five inches taller than me and he was like heavy duty. His huge hands were up in the air and he was moving them around. It was like some giant growling gorilla was standing behind me and I hadn’t noticed. He trained to be London’s strongest man. He turns over cars, pulls lorries, bends iron bars. And here he was behind me, growling at this fucking mob. No wonder they was running in the other direction. And all the time I thought it was me. I thought they was terrified of me, but nah, it was Nick that put the fear of God into ’em.

Blokes was falling over to get away, others were hurt and lying in the street. Some were holding their heads. And then out of the Poly comes this blind guy being led by his dog. The dog was skilfully weaving the blind bloke round the injured on the floor.

‘Enjoy the show did ya?’ I asked him.

‘Very much,’ he said. ‘So happy there was no trouble.’

No fucking trouble! It was like the battle of the bloody Somme. But I’m glad he couldn’t see it.

* * *

In those teenage days, trouble seemed to follow me wherever I went and I swear I never started it. But Dad didn’t believe me and Mum was exasperated. Only Sheena seemed to keep an open mind when I told her how I’d hurt me hand again or why there was a bruise here or there. Looking back, Sheena was a real treasure and I still don’t know why she put up with me because she didn’t really deserve the way I was treating her.

But trouble was following me around and I literally couldn’t get on the bus to escape it.

When we was bored with St Peter’s Youth Club, we used to go to another one called Harvey’s in Charlton where they had a sort of disco on a Thursday. When it finished, we all got on the bus back. At the time, there used to be this estate in Charlton full of yobbos and one night they decided to get on our bus to cause some aggro. I was upstairs with the lads; they came upstairs and the conductor asked them for their fares.

One of ’em said, ‘Bollocks, we ain’t paying ya nothing, mate.’

So the conductor pulls the cord and says, ‘Right, this bus isn’t moving until you pay.’

The bus is sitting there and I turn to one of the yobbos and say, ‘Look, lads, pay your fare and then we can move on.’

‘Who the fucking hell do you think you are?’

With that, another one shouts, ‘Smash the bus up.’ And they’ve started kicking the windows in. Out goes one of the windows, followed by another. There’s glass everywhere, all the girls are screaming as they get off the bus. All the passengers downstairs thought they were surrounded by fucking nut cases and started climbing out the windows which had been kicked through. Then there was only me and this other fella standing there and he’s gone, ‘C’mon then!’ So I think, Fucking hell, what am I gonna do?

So I ran towards him, grabbed him and dragged him down. With that, his mates came back and began taking the light bulbs out of the bus and smashing them over me head. There’s blood pouring out of me head and I’m thinking, I’m gonna be fucking cut to pieces. They were only tiny nicks but they don’t half bleed a lot.

The police arrived and blocked off the road and started arresting all the yobbos. Of course, they went to arrest me but the bus conductor stepped in and explained that I was the one who told ’em to pay their fare. I just slipped off quietly and managed to get back home only to hear me dad go, ‘Stellakis, have you been fighting again?’ It wasn’t worth explaining that I was only trying to help. By now, I had been in so many skirmishes at the Music Machine and at the Woolwich Poly, who was gonna believe me when I said I never fucking started nothin’?

* * *

I’ve never been sentimental. There was no time for that. The way we’d been brought up, you had to be hard to survive. All right, I’d been in a bit of bother with them petrol stations and stuff but I never carried a weapon and never hit anyone. Anyone that got hurt, got hurt ’cos they fucking well deserved it. But for the first time in me life, I was starting to think that I was being dealt a bad hand every time the cards got shuffled. Dad was ashamed of me, even though as the only son and eldest child I wanted to be a credit to him. Mum, well, she didn’t say much. She was too busy looking after us all and making sure there was enough food on the table. I was still her little Stellakis, the boy with the bad ear. The boy who nearly drowned and almost frightened her to death. Like all mums, she’d stick by her kids no matter what happened. But what the fuck was gonna become of me?

I was sitting outside in our little garden in the Cumberland Avenue house in Welling thinking about all these things, just staring into space, when Sheena comes up to me.

‘Penny for ’em?’ she says.

‘Nah, I’m not thinking of anything.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Stellakis, there’s something worryin’ you, isn’t there?’

‘Nah.’

‘Go on tell me. A trouble shared is a trouble halved.’

‘There ain’t no trouble, I’m telling ya. I was just thinking about me future that’s all and, you know, what’s gonna happen to me. I won’t be a bloody teenager very much longer and Dad’s expecting me to buck me socks up and do something. And I don’t want to let him down.’

‘And what big ideas have you got then?’

‘Well, that’s it, see. I haven’t got many ideas. Either big ’uns or small ’uns. And that’s ’cos I ain’t got no money.’

‘But what if you did have money, Stellakis, what would you do then?’

‘That’s easy, I’d open me own gym. I’d become an Olympic coach training all the other guys at weight-lifting. And I’d compete meself and get honours and bring ’em back for me mum and dad to see that I could make somethin’ of meself. That’s what I’d do. But it’s no use dreaming, I gotta get down the Poly and get on earning some money.’

That’s when Sheena reached out to me and whispered, ‘It’s good to dream. When you’re from the working class, sometimes that’s the only thing you have to keep you going.’ And she kissed me lightly. And for the first time, I felt a surge inside me and I held her tight and we kissed long, passionately and properly for the first time in my life. Whatever my future was going to be, I knew that Sheena would play a part in it, a big fucking part in it.