Hateland (15 page)

    I grew to like Lecomber. He was intelligent and well spoken, full of energy and ideas. You wouldn't have thought him violent, but he firmly supported 'direct action'. He wanted trouble. He wanted to cause the reds grief. So we got on well with him. Adolf, in particular, seemed to have found a soulmate.

    Lecomber was always handing out leaflets and papers for us to distribute at football matches and pubs. One time, drunk, I agreed to take 200 newspapers off him. He wanted me to distribute them to football fans at a Brentford v. Wolves game. I threw them over a hedge on the way to the match. Lecomber also encouraged us to attend more fascist meetings. The major political drama taking place in the background at this time was the Miners' Strike. It had started in March 1984 and lasted just over a year. We didn't sympathise with the miners. They might have been white working class, but they struck us as whinging northerners led by a loathsome red bastard called Arthur Scargill, who wanted to hold the country to ransom in the name of Marxism.

    All of us lived with job insecurity, so we didn't see why the miners should be the only people guaranteed a job for life. We found especially laughable the idea that the mining industry should be preserved so that the workers' children could themselves later descend into the pit. Adolf ranted regularly on this theme, describing the miners as 'typical backward northern bastards'. He'd often say, 'What sort of sick fucks want to send their kids down a mine, anyway?'

    On visits from London to my mother in Codsall, I'd met and started going out with a girl called Sarah Milner (known to me as 'Millie'). It was a case of opposites attracting, because she was quiet, caring and extremely well mannered. We got on very well, and when I was with her I found myself beginning to feel like a 'normal' human being. In Millie, I'd found a real soulmate. We did all the normal things that normal people do. Indeed, it was the 'normality' I really enjoyed. We just did everyday stuff together and she never mentioned my 'reputation'. She even used to laugh at me for getting excited about doing the most mundane things.

    However, in a place like Codsall, you can never escape your past. The village gossips soon started 'warning' her parents about me. Naturally, her parents became concerned. I met them a few times. They were good, decent people and I liked them. At first, they accepted me and tried to ignore the gossips, but then the rumours became more venomous and bizarre.

    People claimed Millie had had two abortions. The innocent truth was that, although we'd been together more than a year, we'd never even slept together. But, as the old saying goes, a lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.

    Despite my assurances that I'd treat their daughter with the utmost respect, Millie's parents made it obvious they wanted her to stop seeing me. Both of us felt deeply hurt by the desire of some locals to destroy any chance we had of a future together, but we both knew the gossip-mongers had won.

    Millie's parents had no reason to fear for their daughter's well-being on account of me. Indeed, by that stage, the evidence showed that my mother should have feared for my well-being on account of Millie. In the mid-point of our relationship, I'd visited her at her parents' house. We'd been fooling around by the kitchen sink as she did the washing up. At the same time as I stepped towards her, she turned towards me with a steak knife in her hand. The blade penetrated my left chest, pushing through my ribs and puncturing my lung. I pulled the knife out and, without waiting for an ambulance, got a lift to hospital.

    Millie stood over me as I lay gasping for breath on a trolley. I said, 'Fucking hell, Millie. I might die here.' Her demeanour became agitated with what I thought might be anguish caused by my plight. Then she slapped me hard across the face. 'Don't you dare swear in front of me,' she said. I don't think she ever did grasp the gravity of the situation.

    On Christmas Eve 1984, Millie's father arrived at my mother's house and gave me back the present I'd bought for his daughter. He told me not to contact her again. It really hurt me. I felt devastated. More than anything else, Millie and I were good friends who understood one another. The girlfriend-boyfriend thing was secondary. I wouldn't have dreamt of asking her to fall out with her parents over me, so our demise as a couple just had to be.

    I went out that night with a heart full of hate for my fellow man. Given my mood, I decided to avoid The Crown after the last violent incident during the season of goodwill two years earlier. I went instead with my friends to The Wheel Inn. There, I bumped into a female 'friend' of Millie. This person's mother had been one of the gossips passing on vile rumours to Millie's parents. When this 'friend' tried talking to me, I told her to fuck off. Her boyfriend objected. At that moment, all the resentment I felt for the good people of Codsall erupted. I picked up a bottle from a nearby table and smashed it over his forehead. It wasn't personal. It was just a release for my anger and frustration.

    As before, I was arrested, charged with wounding with intent, put in front of a special court and remanded in custody to Birmingham's Winson Green Prison. This time, I didn't even get a Jaffa Cake.

    I spent two weeks in prison before being bailed. In the mean time, someone confronted one of the witnesses with a hammer. Then the injured party began to wonder if he'd actually imagined the incident. He said at my committal hearing he didn't have a clue who'd hit him. The prosecution didn't appreciate this divergence from his original written statement. They deemed him a 'hostile witness', which meant his verbal evidence could effectively be disregarded in favour of his written statement. I was committed to stand trial at Stoke Crown Court.

    I returned to London to await my trial. I knew I'd be sent to prison again, but this thought didn't have much effect in turning me into a better citizen. I'd had enough of 'decent citizens'. I felt I was damned if I did right and damned if I did wrong. I decided to stop giving a damn altogether.

     Larry 'The Slash' had been a Millwall fan all his life. He'd often told me about the violence he'd witnessed at their games. Millwall's hooligans were the hooligans' hooligans. Organised and determined, they feared no one. As far back as 1920, Millwall's ground had been closed for two weeks after hooligans beat up the opposing goalkeeper. The future England manager and Knight of the Realm, Bobby Robson, had once said flame-throwers ought to be turned on them. The BBC publicised, and inadvertently glorified, their violent reputation with a Panorama documentary in 1977.

    As a teenager, I could remember Millwall's visit to Wolverhampton when the local paper had described the streets after the game as 'running with blood'. I fancied joining them. My birthday was coming up and Millwall had drawn Luton Town in an FA Cup quarter-final tie at Luton. The ground stood just down the road from where I'd been born.

    All the talk in hooligan circles around Deptford and New Cross was of the Luton match. People who hadn't been to a Millwall game for years said they were 'coming out of retirement' to attend. Everyone knew there'd be trouble.

     Larry, Benny, Tony, Ray, myself and a few others hired a Transit van, filled it with beer and headed off to Luton. We arrived around lunch-time in a town that had already been occupied by invading Millwall troops. We went into the first pub we found. Inside, Millwall fans sang loudly and chanted ' Sieg Heil! ' at any Asians foolish enough to pass by on the street. As the pub filled, fans became more boisterous. They knocked over tables and hurled chairs and glasses across the room. The landlord phoned the police, who moved us on to the next pub, where fans wreaked similar havoc, until the police moved them on again. While making our way from pub to pub, I watched shop windows being smashed and Asian drivers at a taxi rank being attacked and beaten up.

    Everyone seemed pretty drunk by the time we reached the ground. Then we found ourselves being crammed like cattle into a small enclosure. Just before the game started, the Millwall fans surged forward. Fans at the front feared a crush, so they spilled onto the pitch, delaying the kick-off for 25 minutes.

    Throughout the game, I watched fights breaking out in different parts of the ground. With 10 minutes to go, Luton led 1-0. Hundreds of Millwall fans poured onto the touchline to try to get the game abandoned. The police struggled to hold them back. The match ended. Millwall had lost. Everyone surged forward and most found themselves on the pitch. Nobody knew quite what to do. I couldn't see Ray and the others, so I just followed the mob.

    We ran towards the seating enclosure. Everyone started ripping out the plastic seats and hurling them at the police, who scattered, but then regrouped and baton-charged us. Total chaos reigned. I looked up into the night sky and could see only plastic seats flying through the air, their trajectory captured in the powerful floodlights.

    Outside the ground, the rampaging mob damaged houses, shops and cars before wrecking a train in the station. The day's events had left 47 people injured, 31 of them police. It was front-page news.

    The next day, UEFA awarded the Euro '88 competition to Germany. The British Football Association attributed their decision to the rioting at Luton. Even Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher, fresh from winning the Miners' Strike, condemned the Millwall hooligans. Her words became a source of great pride and encouragement to us all.

    A few weeks later, I was summoned to appear at Stoke Crown Court for trial over the bottling incident. I didn't go. I knew I'd be sent to prison and that thought didn't fill me with joy. In order to avoid arrest, I moved out of the house in Deptford and into a squat near Clapham Common. Normally, I disapproved of squatters. Indeed, until the point at which I myself became a squatter, I hadn't considered the possibility that squatters could be anything other than bash-worthy red scum. Del Boy, an electrician by trade, employed me as his labourer for a few weeks, although he didn't really need me. He then invited me to go with him to Holland for a job wiring-up oil-rig platforms. The money was good, so I said yes. I also thought I'd have a better chance abroad of avoiding arrest.

    The only problem was my lack of electrical qualifications. I'd learnt a few things from Del Boy, and I'd changed a few light bulbs and plugs in my life, but I didn't feel qualified to take on a responsible job. Three hours after our arrival in Rotterdam, they sent us to work on a huge oil rig in a dry dock. The foreman handed me a very complicated wiring diagram and told me to get on with it.

    I'd hoped to stick by Del Boy's side, but we'd been split up. A Scottish man called William was my partner. I had no choice but to explain my problem. He did the decent thing and said he'd help me. We worked twelve-hour shifts, from seven to seven, six days a week. Everything I did was guesswork. I suffered more electric shocks and burns in a twelve-hour shift than most electricians suffer in a lifetime.

    A few years later, the Piper Alpha oil rig went up with a bang, killing scores of people. I often wonder if some of the electrics on that platform had been done by someone with similar professional skills to mine.

    The job came to an end. I didn't want to risk returning to England, so I told Del Boy I'd head for Amsterdam. He said he'd go back to England for a month, then join me. Drug addicts, con-men and sleazeballs preyed on the thousands of young tourists in Amsterdam. I saw several street robberies, including one particularly bad stabbing when a German tourist refused to let go of his wallet.

    I slept in the train station until the police moved me on. Then I slept in the park, but I didn't like my roommates. I booked into a hostel run by American Christians. Cheap and clean, its only drawback was the staff, who spent their time trying to lead me to

God. I couldn't sit anywhere without one of them sidling up to say, 'Bernard, are you seeking inner peace?'

    I met someone called Billy He came from Leicestershire and was also on the run from the law, though he never told me why. He'd moved to Holland with his girlfriend Angie, who was about 17, attractive, streetwise and a prostitute. She'd almost been murdered a few weeks after her arrival. A man had taken her for sex to one of the floating hotel boats at the dock behind the central station. In the room, he'd turned nasty, taken out a carving knife and stabbed her seven times. It took her five months to recover. But, as soon as she could, she went back on the game. She'd started taking heroin.

    At first, I got on fairly well with Billy. He invited me to stay at the flat he shared with Angie. She worked nights and slept during the day, so I didn't see that much of her, though every time I did see her I thought she'd slipped another few yards downhill.

    Billy introduced me to two scumbags from Surinam called 'Orlando' and 'Johnny'. They made their living selling drugs and stolen passports. They also pimped, preying on teenage girls, the younger the better, most of them drug addicts. I think Billy hoped to open up some business opportunities for us, but I wanted nothing to do with his mates. I started hanging around with a Dutch giant with a very English name - Henry. He worked as a nightclub doorman. I asked him to try to fix me up with some work. The next day, he invited me to meet a club manager, a little pumpkin of a man, with a bald head and a sleazy manner.

    I expected an offer of work on the door or in the bar. In fact, the pumpkin wanted me for sex. That is, as a performer in a live-sex show. The job entailed going on stage dressed as a gorilla and performing a full repertoire of sex acts with two women and various types of fruit. He showed me my would-be co-performers' photos. Both looked gorgeous, but - on a stage, in front of an audience, brandishing bananas and wearing a gorilla suit - I had to decline. Henry and the pumpkin seemed genuinely surprised by my refusal.

    I rang Del Boy. For one reason or another, he kept postponing his return. I concluded he wouldn't be coming back. I decided I wanted to leave Amsterdam. I'd only been there a few months, but the sleaze had begun to get me down. My money was getting low and I didn't think much of the work opportunities. Billy had also been talking about leaving - without Angie. By now, she was a total wreck, her mind and body ravaged by heroin. I wanted to hitch-hike, to follow the road wherever it might take me.