Bouncers and Bodyguards (10 page)

Later, we found out that the night before the showdown the three youngsters had got a little mouthy with the doormen of Options, a club in Kingston upon Thames. Options’ door team had given them a slap for their troubles. The three bruised youngsters had then met up with their friends who had earlier got a slapping from me and my team and decided that we were the ones who should be blamed. Upon returning home, they said that my people, including a black guy, had set upon them. Understandably, the chief got angry and wanted his pound of flesh. After his son finally admitted who the real culprits were, the tooled-up team of travellers drove into Kingston and set the record straight by annihilating the door crew of Options. This show of force gave the fear back to the travellers, and the need to save face with me was resolved.

I often think back to that night and hold that fella in the highest regard because of his display of leadership on the doorstep of Pals. He showed a level of class that I have only witnessed a handful of times in my life, and it was partly because of that display that I started to change my ways and approach to working the doors.

I did eventually get the opportunity to meet the head traveller and his wife and to have them as my guests in the restaurant, with all the trimmings on the house, and I never had any trouble from that particular group again. A lesson learned from a man who could have easily taken my life rather than giving me a new lease on it. If by some chance you are reading this . . . I thank you.

By 1994, I was a bit of a recognised character within the circles of Scorpion Security. Not only had I got a reputation for being quick tempered, psychotic and, in some people’s eyes, suicidal, I had also become known as being a ‘poster boy’ for door supervisors.

In 1994, the regional door supervisors’ licence was introduced for all those working in the borough of Westminster. Everyone in the trade back then will remember that it was the kiss of death for the industry. All the big, respected and well-known names in the game were faced with being ousted because of the fact that anyone with a criminal record – especially for ABH, GBH, aggravated assault, affray and the like – was a no-no under the new guidelines. No licence; no working the doors – it was that simple. But it was these people that set the standard, kept the trouble controlled and added status to the clubs in question.

To get around the problem and still have their ‘deterrents’ on the door, venue managers would make up new titles for the high-profile guys who couldn’t get a licence – front of house liaison officer, security consultant, meet and greet specialist, and so on. In fact, any title that would give them a reason to be there without calling them doormen, bouncers, door supervisors or face punchers, which would be breaking the rules. Even my friend and co-worker Lenny McLean fell under this banner, even more so because at that time he had only recently been released from prison after being jailed for an incident that took place at The Hippodrome, Leicester Square, with a naked punter.

This was the government’s way of regulating the world of nightclub security and forcing out all those who were a real deterrent – those that could handle 20 drunken punters ready to take on the world. The government wanted to make way for the smaller, easy on the eye, ‘I’m only doing this part time because I’m a student’ type of security guard. Again, it was a kiss of death for the industry.

Now, I was a breed of doorman all on my own, and I had very strict East End values on life. I was a known face in my neighbourhood, and, to be honest, I was a villain. I was still living dangerously, taking far too many risks and ready to stare down Armageddon if the situation called for it. As I’ve already said, I was a big fella, and I can also humbly say that I was a fairly good-looking guy (old age is setting in now) with a personality and most importantly a functioning brain that allowed me to hold an intelligent conversation with patrons and clients alike. Yes, I was the doorman who could walk, talk and chew gum at the same time. What can I say? I had it all. Oh and did I mention I was also modest?

Hopefully by now you are getting the idea that I was a cheeky chap who was a tad arrogant and very confident. I had an old-school mentality and new-school looks, hence why I was classed as a poster boy. And just what is it you do with a poster boy when the world is saying that all doormen are thugs? You parade them to the public to dismiss such claims and present to the world a new and supposedly improved model to demonstrate that the industry is complying with the new guidelines. What a load of bollocks!

With this in mind, it came as no surprise that whenever a TV documentary, talk show or reality programme was being made about bouncers and Scorpion was asked to provide the people, I would be involved somewhere along the line. So, when Scorpion got the call to supply three of their staff for a stint on the
Kilroy
show – the programme was doing a piece on the changing face of dangerous professions – yours truly was called along with my brother Vaughan, who had my back at The Mean Fiddler the previous year, and the talented Mr Ben Perry, a very good friend of mine.

Ben is as big in personality as he is in stature. He stood at six feet eight inches and weighed in at three hundred and ten pounds. When he was once asked by an irate punter, ‘Just who the hell do you think you are?’ big Ben simply replied, ‘God . . . because I have the power to separate your head from your shoulders with one smiting blow.’ Yes, Ben Perry’s haymaker was an equaliser.

I’ll never forget the first time I worked with Ben. We were positioned in a fast-food outlet in Leicester Square, stopping non-customers from using the upstairs toilets. I know that must seem both petty and a waste of our time, but despite the jokes and insults it was one of the roughest gigs going. When Scorpion Security first got involved, the toilets were being abused by drug dealers, prostitutes, transients and kiddie fiddlers. At that time, it was a family restaurant that was
not
a safe place for families to be. And the ‘rent-a-cops’ who were in there before us didn’t tackle the problem properly. Why would they? They were getting £4.85 an hour. We, on the other hand, were getting three times that and were up for a rumble, so after months of fighting, death threats, stabbings and major displays of dominance, Scorpion made an example of the transgressors and marked their territory with the scent of blood.

Of course, once you have it how you want it, it needs to be maintained, hence the heavy artillery being deployed to keep those who were not paying customers out of the comfy, upstairs bathroom area. Anyone who has ever walked through Leicester Square on an evening can testify that there is a huge amount of trouble with drunk and drugged revellers, and Triads and thugs (who can’t enjoy a night out without either mugging someone or getting into a tear-up). They too needed to be stopped at the door, and that is why we were there.

I remember that I had to stand on the first step just to come to eye level with Ben. At that time, I was the new guy with Scorpion, whilst Ben was an established and respected body, but we clicked straight off the bat. Although an intimidating sight, with his skinhead and devil beard, he was more ‘Gentle Ben’ than anything else, and as any punters who used to visit the goth and punk nightclub Slimelights during the late 1990s would be able to tell you, he was also a good laugh.

It was hard for me to take my old partner in crime seriously after witnessing him curl his huge, bulky frame under a small oval floor rug to show the world that he was really a turtle whilst E-ing out of his face. He would stretch his neck from his shell (the small oval floor rug), while making a turtle face, and try to eat imaginary lettuce. It was all very surreal, but not as bad as when he and a small group of friends tried to re-enact
The Wizard of Oz
whilst tripping on LSD. Watching a grown man tuck a chequered tea towel down his pants while sporting a twine mop on his head, acting like he is stuck in a tornado and screaming ‘Where’s Toto?’ is an image not easily forgotten!

When he wasn’t living life to the fullest in his time off, Ben was a non-stop working machine. Because of his size, he was a very popular advertisement for nightclubs and would find himself working five days and seven nights a week. (With that work schedule you might be able to understand the extreme methods my friend went to blow off some steam on those rare occasions he wasn’t earning a living.) Because he worked so much, he would always have a host of stories to tell you whenever you bumped into him. My favourite was the time he was working on his own at a pub in Carnaby Street, London. I think the pub’s name was The Blue Trumpet, but don’t hold me to that – like I said before, old age is setting in! It was a Saturday afternoon and a big game was taking place on the home ground of a London team against some other big team not from London – I don’t want to start getting into the whole football rivalry thing, so that will have to do. The landlord of the pub told Ben that in no circumstances were any football hooligans or groups of people sporting team colours allowed in. There is nothing more satisfying than having a job that sets you such compromising challenges: keep out football hooligans and people wearing team colours on a Saturday afternoon in the West End of London when a cup game is on hosted by a local team. I can only assume Ben must have felt special knowing that the landlord was aware of what was coming but still insisted on having just
one
doorman on duty – nice to know that you’re appreciated.

Between the hours of 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., there was obviously just the usual traffic in and out of the pub. The landlord was all smiles and kept teasing Ben because he had been worried about the day’s events. Ben, however, was on the verge of decking the muppet landlord – it wasn’t game time that worried him; it was what was coming.

Just after 5 p.m., a group of nine pissed off supporters whose team had lost were making their way towards the big double-door entrance of The Blue Trumpet with only Ben there to stop them. ‘Sorry, gents. The doors are closed to sports clothing – dress code, I’m afraid.’

They answered with the typical response that every doorman hears at least a hundred times per shift: ‘You’re having a laugh, ain’t ya?’

‘No, geezer, I’m not. Those are the house rules. You can’t come in.’

Using a dress-code policy as a reason to keep undesirables out of a place is common practice; using a dress-code policy when you are at a pub in Carnaby Street is not so easy to pull off due to the area’s varied clientele – goths, punks, trendsetters and students all hang around this famous street in the heart of the West End. The group of supporters would have had a valid point of discussion on their side had they wanted to debate on the matter, but instead another member of the group opened up the talks with a truly well-established line: ‘Fuck off, we’re coming in . . . Who’s gonna stop us? You?’ And with bravado on their side, the group edged forward towards the doors.

Ben held out his arm, more to judge his punching distance than to act as a halt sign. ‘There’s no need for trouble, fella,’ he said. ‘It’s not my policy. I’m on your side in all of this, but the rules are the rules.’

As the group responded, none of them seemed to notice that whilst talking to them Ben had closed one of the doors, bolting it shut, and had proceeded to pull his weighted gloves out of his jacket pockets and put them on. He had already got them at arm’s length, surmised who was most up for it in the group and positioned himself in the remaining open doorway with a good, solid stance. They had allowed him this leeway without even realising it. Ben had set himself up in a position that he felt more comfortable in handling, no matter which way it now went.

He then changed his tune: ‘Right then, you fucking muppets. There’s only one way you can get in this place, and that’s through this doorway. I’m six feet eight and weigh twenty-two stone, and I’m standing in between you and the bolted door. Your best bet is to rush me in single file and get through one by one. But I tell ya now: that’s exactly how I’m gonna fucking knock you out – one by one. Who’s first?’

By the look in their eyes, it was a chance some of them were willing to take, but common sense slowly kicked in, and those in the group not really wanting to put Ben’s theory to the test started to take steps backwards. This left three out of the nine standing strong, although all were unaware that the rest of their group were not behind them as they thought. Like the scene from
Shrek
in which Shrek asks the commanding officer, ‘Really, you and what army?’ only for the commanding officer to turn and realise his loyal army has run off, these three turned to see that they were alone and ran off towards Oxford Street station. Crisis averted.

When Ben told me this story, he was not afraid to point out that he had been scared. Had all nine stuck together, he would not have stood a chance and would have wound up on the wrong end of a nasty kicking. However, when you put someone in a fight-or-flight situation, eight times out of ten they will take the flight option. Taking part in an actual physical confrontation is not something people want to do, despite how it initially seems. Fighting is still mainly left to the experienced, the drunk and the crazy – which is a very small percentage of people in the grand scheme of things.

That was Ben: a chancer, a rogue and one of the funniest people I have had the pleasure of knowing. A true gent and a diamond geezer.

Now back to the story . . .

The
Kilroy
show was live, starting at 10 a.m. and running for about 25 minutes. There was no room for second takes or do-overs – you had to be on your game, quick on your feet and ready to roll as soon as the camera crew gave the signal that filming had begun. This meant that all the guests had to be in the studio by 8.30 a.m., which for us meant being picked up from our homes at around 6 a.m. This was after we had all worked the night before. I had got in after my shift at 5 a.m., showered, changed clothes, grabbed a cuppa and was about to tuck in to some delicious warm buttered toast when the chauffeur rang my doorbell. The studio had sent executive cars to those involved to ensure that key guests would turn up, although I could not understand why they sent us a car each, as we had to drive past where Vaughan and Ben lived on the way to the studio.