The Underworld Captain: From Gangland Goodfella To Army Officer Read online

  About this time I spent Christmas with one of my friend’s families. I was the odd one out because I received no presents, but then that was nothing new to me. I had never known what it was like to be given a gift on a birthday or at Christmas. What you have never had, you cannot miss.

  In 1975, the Shannons were on the move once more when the tenements in which we lived were demolished. We were to be housed temporarily, until alternative and permanent accommodation could be found for us, in a ward set aside for the homeless at Forresthall Hospital in Springburn. I can still recall the long wards with high walls and no roof. All we kids were sent to bed early, so the adults could watch television. There were about ten families waiting in our ward to be rehoused and frankly we couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. It was a cold, unhealthy, miserable place.

  I was delighted when I discovered we were moving back to my old stomping ground: Springburn. And it was while I was living there that I met someone who would change my life.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I was over the moon about our move from the hospital ward. Anywhere would have done, but the council sent us to Galloway Street in Springburn and it almost felt like going back home. Not quite, though. The majority of Galloway Street consisted of new maisonettes and the prospect of us ever having a new house was a pipe dream. I suppose, in a way, we looked upon the occupants as snobs, though I can honestly say we didn’t begrudge them their luck.

  For us, it was what was known as the ‘old end’ of Galloway Street. It was great being there, but all my mates were down at the old part of Springburn itself, near Memel Street. Since I now stayed in Galloway Street, it meant that they and I lived in different parts of Springburn, which may not sound important, but it was. Just about everybody joined the gang that ran your home territory, so I was recruited into the Springburn Peg, while most of my pals were members of Memel Toi.

  There were literally hundreds of gangs in Glasgow at this time. Over the years, some have faded away, as boys and teenagers have become more interested in watching television or joining sports clubs and the like, but many still survive. There were some brilliant names, like the Baby Tongs in Calton, the Antique Mob from Shettleston, the Derry Boys in Bridgeton, the Shamrock Young Team at Garngad and the Blackhill Coby. There were even a few girl gangs around, such as Lady Sham in Garngad and the Queen Bees, who ran about the Gorbals. Some of the gangs took their status and territorial rights very seriously, but while the younger kids might have got themselves involved in the odd skirmish, it was relatively harmless stuff. As you grew older, however, things became more serious.

  I have often wondered whether it was being a gang member that first piqued my interest in the army. In a way, gangs and army regiments have certain similarities, in that members tend to stick together and look after each other. Discipline is, of course, an entirely different matter, but at the age of eight it’s something you tend not to worry too much about. You join a gang because your pals are members and you want to have fun with them. As time went on, a couple of things would happen which definitely planted in my young mind a desire to become a soldier.

  Our house move resulted in my mates and me going to different schools. Despite the fact that I was a Roman Catholic, I was sent to Albert primary, a Protestant school, while the McGoverns were still at St Aloysius, a newer school next to the Carron Scheme flats. Sometimes kids from St Aloysius would sing through our gates, ‘Proddy dogs eat the frogs.’

  Just as gangs fought with one another, so did our schools, and the result of that was years of petty conflicts, squabbles and fights with people I’d always looked on as friends.

  The house itself was great. There were three bedrooms, so no longer was there a need for all of the children to share a single bed; however, more rooms and more beds were to cause more problems than you can imagine.

  In those days, the mid-1970s, there was no such thing as a duvet, and even if there had been it wasn’t something we were likely to have heard of. So, for bed coverings, we simply threw our jackets over us while we slept. Sometimes going to bed could be miserable, especially when the nights were cold. To make things worse, we could not afford to buy coal the majority of the time and, as a result, the living-room fire was rarely on. That, in turn, meant the house was frequently freezing; the fact there were no carpets on the floors for insulation made it worse. The fire had a back burner, so if it wasn’t on, there was no hot water.

  Nor could we afford a new television. On the rare occasion when Mum had a few pounds to spare, we’d get an old second- or third-hand black-and-white set from the Glasgow Saltmarket, the Briggate, keeping it until it packed in completely then getting another old replacement. We’d watch programmes like Basil Brush, Dastardly and Muttley and Captain Pugwash. Times were hard, right enough. Pawny once spotted a TV set on offer for £1 in a jumble sale at his school and beat the teachers down to 50p. I remember him proudly bringing it home.

  As children, we saw our move to Galloway Street as an adventure. The second-hand stalls at the Briggate became a regular hunting ground for us. As soon as we began settling in, we went about trying to furnish our new house to make it more comfortable and give it the appearance of being a home. First we got odds and ends of furniture, then Mum took us to buy us clothes. She wanted us to go to school looking smart and tidy, but next day we turned up for lessons in a selection of mismatched and ill-fitting gear. We didn’t complain because we knew she was doing her best for us. Mum would say, ‘It doesn’t matter what the clothes look like, so long as they are clean. You can wear them every day, as long as you wash and dry them each night.’

  This didn’t go down too well with us. We wore our clothes to bed to try and keep out the cold, but some of us had a habit of wetting the bed, so the stench of urine at school was bad. Needless to say, it didn’t go unnoticed by the nurse.

  All the pupils could smell it too, but none of them said a word. They knew better. The Shannons may not have been in Galloway Street long, but already we had a reputation as trouble-making thieves. No matter the size of another family, they knew we were always ready for a fight. We would take on anybody who offended us.

  I have a particular hatred of bullies, so at that time I tended to look out for those who picked on the weak, then I would target them for a bit of payback. I was small and had a terrible temper, which often got me into trouble with the teachers. Despite all this, I loved school.

  As time went on, I became conscious of people laughing behind my back. Maybe it was just because we were poor and wore clothes that had belonged to others. Maybe it was because we never had money. Whatever the reason, here I was thinking myself an adult and deciding I needed to do something about the situation. It was time for me to start back along that old road I knew best: making money so I could dress and feed myself.

  * * *

  Then something happened that was to have a profound effect on me. I was only eight when I first saw Angela Scullion, but even at that young age I felt there was something special about her. I was too young, of course, to think about love and romance – you don’t when there’s a football to be kicked around or a pal who wants you to head off somewhere with him – but before we even spoke I liked Angie. And it turned out we had much in common. We were both from similar backgrounds. Angie’s mum, like mine, had drink problems. We came from big families – I had three brothers and a sister, Angie had two sisters and four brothers. And each of us knew what it was like to go without. From the day I first took notice of her, I took every chance there was to see her and be near her. The only obstacle was that she was 18 months older than me and had friends her own age, but there was no way I was going to give up on her.

  While she kept me at arm’s length, soon I had the feeling she might be warming towards me, despite trying to give the impression it wasn’t me she was interested in. She knew I was a rascal, but she had had her own forays into crime. She used to go to Bishopbriggs with her pals to steal milk and things like that from doorsteps. Then they
’d bring it all back and go knocking on doors selling the milk. With what was left, they would set up a jumble sale in somebody’s garden and sell that. They asked me to be their security guard and make sure that nobody else would steal anything that they had stolen. When they had sold everything, they’d go to the chip shop and use the money to buy food, because they didn’t get much to eat at home. I was about ten then. I suppose you could say it was the first time I did guard duty.

  The army, too, kept coming back to occupy my thoughts. At the beginning of 1975, the dustcart drivers went on strike in Glasgow and elsewhere and soon bags of rubbish began piling up in the streets, encouraging vermin – rats and mice especially – to forage openly amongst the rotting food and decomposing clothing. As the strike dragged on, the situation became intolerable. There were serious health concerns, especially for children used to playing in these same streets and curious about the mountains of foul-smelling refuse. As a result the army was brought in to start clearing up. The soldiers attracted a good deal of criticism, with accusations of strike-breaking and so on, but I was almost transfixed by the sight of men from the Royal Highland Fusiliers driving into the streets and clearing the rubbish. They might only have been acting as bin men, but they looked smart and disciplined – real men.

  The memory of them would often come back to me, especially the white hackle attached to their headdresses. I’d often imagine myself marching about, the hackle proudly standing out.

  At home, despite our efforts to make things more comfortable and welcoming, we found ourselves drifting back to the bad old days, witnessing Mum and her partner fighting and drinking. Of course the cause of the trouble was always money, or rather the lack of it.

  A close friend of my mum’s tried to help us out – or maybe help himself – by robbing a Glasgow branch of the newsagent RS McColl. Actually, it wasn’t so much a robbery as a comedy caper. It has to be one of the most ludicrous crimes ever seen on the streets of Glasgow.

  His head and face encased in a stocking for a mask, he demanded the money, and the frightened staff handed over a bag filled with about £600 in coins. So far so good. Then just as he was about to set off on his getaway, as he began opening his jacket to stuff the booty inside, the zip unfortunately caught the stocking and as he pulled it, it ripped his mask, exposing his face for everyone to see.

  There was worse to come. Panicking, he fled out of the shop and started running towards Balgrayhill, but in his haste he had left the bag open and the coins started spilling out, rolling onto the pavement and road, attracting scores of passers-by, who started picking the money up, most of them getting a good look at the thief. It was inevitable that his name would be passed to the police and he was arrested. However, by the time he went to court, he had discovered God, with the help of Pastor Jack Glass, the well-known Protestant preacher, evangelist and political activist. Pastor Jack, who died in 2004, came from a working-class background in Glasgow and could sympathise with those who got themselves into trouble as a consequence of poverty. He went along to court with the culprit, put in a few good words for him and as a result the decision was a suspended sentence. Everyone felt he was very lucky – it was the intervention of Pastor Jack that saved him from a stretch in prison.

  A side effect of all this was that sadly my mum and her partner split up. The worry had caused her to have another nervous breakdown and she was once again taken to Woodilee Hospital. Now, Roseanne became mother to us all, but the absence of our real mum meant we felt free to pursue activities on which she had frowned when she was at home.

  Tam and me, and a guy called Mairdo, along with a couple of other friends, set up a small team and started breaking into shops and business premises. Within only weeks, we were wearing made-to-measure clothes and had hundreds of pounds in our pockets.

  Mum, meanwhile, had met someone else in Woodilee. His name was Jim Corrigan and when she was discharged, she brought him home to stay with us. To be honest, his presence and her relationship with him didn’t really bother us. We were so absorbed in pulling off some of the best turns in the north of Glasgow – and I had not yet even reached the age of 11.

  Mum had always known her sons were free spirits who wanted to go about their lives in the way they chose. She realised it was no use her ordering us not to steal because at the end of the day if we wanted to do it, then we would go ahead regardless of what she said. There had been times when she had tried keeping us in the house at night, but we simply waited until she was asleep then climbed down the drainpipe and off we went. Mum at least persuaded us to agree that we would never break into people’s houses, arguing that they might be poor like us. We went along with her on this and it became a golden rule for us to avoid residential properties. Usually, we would target premises in Bishopbriggs, in the north of the city.

  Tam used to rip me off for my cut of the money all the time by always making sure our mum’s electricity and household bills were being paid. I didn’t really mind and in hindsight I’m glad he did it because it meant that for the first time we had electricity and hot water. At last the good times seemed to be heading our way.

  While we knew problems were always likely to appear just around the corner, for now we carried on regardless. Two really good turns stick in my mind.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Everyone involved in crime knows success depends on quality information. One day a guy who lived close to us, and knew we were making big money, stopped Tam and me in the street and asked if he could have a word. We told him to go ahead and what he said made us perk up. He began by telling us that what he had in mind would net us in the region of £20,000. It was 1976, so that was a lot of money then. It sounded too good to be true, so before committing ourselves we wanted to know more.

  Our informant agreed to tell us everything so that we could make up our minds about whether to go ahead. Before doing so, however, he wanted a promise from us that if we took the job on, then he would receive a generous cut and, no matter what happened, his name would never be revealed. We had no problem in giving our word on both these reasonable conditions.

  His detailed information interested us immediately. He told us that the monthly wages for staff working in a particular business premises close to where we lived were kept in a safe from the Friday until the Monday so that wage packets could be made up and distributed at the start of the week. This might sound like an unusual arrangement, but it was not unknown for some companies to pay monthly. Within hours we had set about getting organised.

  Our first task was to put together a team we could trust. The job would entail burning our way into the safe, and our informant told us he knew how we could get hold of the necessary equipment. When we asked where, we were astonished to be told, ‘Right there. It’s already in the place you’ll be doing.’ It seemed almost too good to be true.

  We assembled a five-strong team and on the Friday night watched as the workers gradually left, the last pair locking up and checking the building was secure. After waiting an hour, just to make sure nobody had forgotten anything and returned to collect it, we broke in through the roof. The plan was straightforward. Since we didn’t have the combination to open the door of the safe, we would just use a blowtorch to burn the lock out. We knew it was not going to be easy – the safe would be made from toughened steel – but we had the whole weekend to work at it.

  Within minutes we had sparked up the burner and set about making ourselves a fortune. We worked with military precision in shift formation around the clock. While one was burning, another would be assisting, while yet another was keeping a lookout and someone else was going off to buy food. The fifth member would be sleeping. Sometimes we would sleep on the floor, at others sneak back home and go to bed for a few hours, knowing we could get in and out without Mum noticing.

  And so it went on, hour after hour. We were working in the pitch dark and so didn’t realise the dust from all the burning had blackened our faces until we had the appearance of coal miners.

>   We carried on from the Friday night until the early hours of Monday morning, by which time we had burned to a depth of around five inches. Try as we might, though, the lock would not budge. You can imagine our despair when we realised we had to call it a day and clear out before the staff came to open up. With an hour to spare, we packed up our tools, wiped everything down to make sure we had left no fingerprints and left to go home, where we caught up on some well-deserved sleep.

  In later years, I found out it hadn’t been the safe that had foiled us, it was our own lack of knowledge. I took a course aimed at giving me a qualification to become a gas engineer and realised the settings on the gas cylinder and torch had been wrong: we had been burning for the entire weekend with a yellow flame. A simple change in the settings would have given us a much more effective blue flame and we’d have been through the safe in no time! Mind you, the strength of the burner might have incinerated all the money.

  Nevertheless, we woke later that day to stories about a professional gang who were only centimetres away from getting their hands on £20,000. The police stated that if the crooks had stayed just half an hour longer they would have been off with the wages. At the time, the news devastated us – the more we thought about the money, the more we kicked ourselves for giving up when we did. We were really down for a couple of days and the problem was everybody had a good idea we were responsible. Doubtless the informant, who had also lost out big style, was putting it about it was the young mob who were behind the robbery attempt. We were constantly wondering whether the police would come looking for us. Shocked and frankly pissed off, there was the consolation of knowing we were still free. Had we got away with it, what would I have done with the money? The usual. I know for a fact I would have gone off and bought myself all the smartly fitting clothes I could afford. I’d obviously have bought food for home and given my mum a good bung. But at the end of the day, if it had been successful, I’d have been locked up within days. Someone was bound to have told the police about the ten year old going around with pockets packed with money. And in those days, as soon as the police stopped you and found you had more than a pound in your pocket, it was taken from you and never heard of again.