Immediate Action Part 1

Immediate Action.

By Andy McNab.

September 1996

The windows and doors of the building were boarded up and bristled with barbed wire, but that wasn't going to keep us out.

An old sheet of corrugated iron naled over the frame of a small door on the side was loose. jamming a length of wood into the gap, I heaved with all my weight. The nails gave. Several pairs of hands gripped the corner of the sheet and pulled. The metal folded on itself sufficiently to create a hole that we could crawl through.

Murky light spilled down from a run of six or seven skylights in the flat roof thirty feet above our heads. In the gloom I could see lumps of metal here and there on the bare concrete floor, but apart from that the place seemed empty. There was a dank smell of mold and rotten wood and plaster. It was totally, eerily silent; had we made the slightest noise it would have echoed around the vast s.p.a.ce.

Probably n.o.body on the outside would hear it and raise the alarm, but I didn't want to take the chance. I looked at the others and nodded in the direction of the stair-well at the far end. As I took a pace forward, my foot connected with a tin can. It went skidding across the floor and clattered into a lump of metal.

From over my shoulder came a whispered curse.

I could see that the stairwell would take us up to the offices on the half floor, then up again to a hatch that was open to the sky.

Once we were on the roof, that was when the fun and games would start.

It felt colder thirty feet up than it had at ground level.

I exhaled hard and watched my breath form into a cloud. I started to s.h.i.+ver. I walked to the edge of the flat roof and looked down at the tops of the lampposts and their pools of light. The street was deserted. There was no one around to see us.

Or to hear the crash of breaking gla.s.s.

I spun around and looked at the three figures standing near one of the skylights. There should have been four.

A split second later there was a m.u.f.fled thud from deep inside the building.

"John!" somebody called in a loud, anxious whisper.

"John!"

I knew even before I looked through the jagged hole that he would be dead. We all did. We exchanged glances, then ran back toward the roof hatch.

John was lying very still; no sound came from his body. He was facedown on the concrete, a dark pool oozing from the area of his mouth. It looked s.h.i.+ny in the twilight.

"Let's get out of here," somebody said, and as one we scarpered for the door. I just wanted to get home and get my head under the covers, thinking that then n.o.body would ever find out-as you do, when you're just eight years old.

The next afternoon there were police swarming all around the flats. We got in league to make sure we had the same story because basically we thought we were murderers.

I'd never felt so scared. It was the first time I'd ever seen anybody dead, but it wasn't the sight of the body that disturbed me; I was far more concerned about what would happen if I got nicked. I'd seen Z Cars; I had visions of spending the rest of my life in prison."thought I'd rather die than have that happen to me.

I'd had a very ordinary childhood up until then."wasn't abused; I wasn't beaten, I wasn't mistreated. it I, was Just a norma run-of-the-mill childhood. I had an older brother, who was adopted, but he'd left home and was in the army. My parents, like everybody else on our estate in Bermondsey, spent lots of time unemployed and were always skint.

My mum's latest job was in a chocolate factory during the week, and then at the weekend she'd be in the launderette doing the service washes. The old man did minicabbing at night and anything he could get hold of during the day. He would help mend other people's cars and always had a fifteen-year-old Ford Prefect or Hillman Imp out the front that he'd be doing things to.

We moved a lot, always chasing work. I'd lived at a total of nine different addresses and gone to seven schools.

My mum and dad moved down to Heme Bay when I was little. It didn't work out, and then they had to try to get back on the council.

My mother got pregnant and had a baby boy, and I had to live with my aunty Nell for a year. This was no hards.h.i.+p at all. Aunty Nell's was great. She lived in Catford, and the school was just around the corner.

Best of all, she used to give me a hot milk drink at night-and, an unheard-of luxury, biscuits.

From there we went on the council and lived quite a few years on the housing estates in Bermondsey. Aunty Nell's husband, George, died and left my mum a little bit of money, and she decided to buy a corner cafe.

We moved to Peckham, but the business fell through. My mum and dad were not business people, and everything went wrong; even the accountant ripped them off.

We went onto private housing, renting half a house.

My uncle Bert lived upstairs. Mum and Dad were paying the rent collector, but it wasn't going to the landlord, so eventually we got evicted and landed up going into emergency council housing.

Money was always tight. We lived on what my mum called teddy bear's porridge-milk, bread, and sugar, heated up. The gas was cut off once, and the only heat source in the flat was a three-bar electric fire. Mum laid it on its back in the front room and told us we were camping. Then she balanced a saucepan on top and cooked that night's supper, teddy bear's porridge. I thought it was great.

I joined my first gang. The leader looked like the lead singer of the Rubettes. Another boy's dad had a used-car lot in Balham; we thought they were filthy rich because they went to Spain on a holiday once. The third character had got his eyes damaged in an accident and had to wear gla.s.ses all the time, so he was good for taking the p.i.s.s out of. Such were my role models, the three main players on the estate. I wanted to be part of them, wanted to be one of the lads.

We played on what we called bomb sites, which was where the old buildings had been knocked down to make way for new housing estates.

Sometimes we mucked around in derelict buildings; the one on Long Lane was called Maxwell's Laundry. We used to sing the Beatles song "Bang, Bang, Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and muck about inside it, throwing stones and smas.h.i.+ng the gla.s.s. There were all the signs up, NO Y, and all the corrugated iron, boards, and barbed wire, but that just made it more important that we got inside. We'd get up. on the roof and use the skylights as stepping-stones in games of dare. It was fun until the kid fell and died.

I changed gangs. For the initiation ceremony I had to have a match put to my arm until the skin smoked and there was a burn mark. I was dead chuffed with myself, but my mum came home from her s.h.i.+ft at the launderette, saw the state of my arm, and went Apes.h.i.+t. I couldn't understand it.

She dragged me off to the house of the Rubettes' lead singer to moan at his old girl. The two mums had a big shouting thing on the landing, while we just stood there giggling. As far as I was concerned, I was in the gang; let them argue as much as they like.

As I mixed more with the other kids, I started to notice that I didn't have as much stuff as they did. The skinhead era started and everybody had to have Docker Green trousers and Cherry Red boots. I said I didn't want any.

We'd go to the swimming pool once a week, and the routine afterward was to go and buy a Love Heart ice cream or Arrowroot biscuits out of a jar.

I never had the money for either and had to try to ponce half a biscuit off somebody. I never tasted a Love Heart, but one day I scrounged enough money from somewhere and made a special trip to buy one-only to find that it had been discontinued. I bought an Aztec bar instead and felt very grown up. Unfortunately there was n.o.body to show it off to because I was on my own.

I tried the Cubs once but never got as far as having a uniform.

We had to pay subs each week, but I managed to lie my way out of paying the first few times. Then, on Tuesday nights, we had to have plimsolls to play five-aside. I didn't have any, so I nicked somebody else's. I got caught and had the big lecture: "Thieving's bad." That was the end of Cubs.

I knew that older boys got money by earning it, so I got chatting to the milkman and persuaded him to let me help with his Sunday round on the estate. He'd give me half a crown, which I used to buy a copy of Whizzer & Chips, a bottle of c.o.ke, and a Mars bar. That left me with just sixpence, but it was worth it. It was all very important to me, buying the c.o.ke and the Mars- bar, because it was grown-up stuff, even if it was only one day a week.

One of the gang wore "wet look" leather shoes, which were all the rage.

His hair, too, was always s.h.i.+ny, like he'd just stepped out of a bath.

At our house we had a bath only on Sundays.

He had one every night, which I thought was very sophisticated.

We used to go into his bedroom messing around; one day I noticed that he had a ten-s.h.i.+lling note in his moneybox. As far as I was concerned, he was loaded and wouldn't miss it. I nicked it, and nothing was ever said."started nicking more and more. My mum used to have a load of stuff on the slate in the CoOp. When she sent me for milk and other bits and pieces, I'd take some extras and put them on tick. I knew she wouldn't check the bill; she'd just pay it when she had money.

I'd never lived with my older brother. All I could remember was him coming home from the army with presents. I didn't really know him, and he didn't really know me. One time when he was home on leave, though, he noticed that my reading was c.r.a.p and he started teaching me.

I must have been about eight or nine, and I still didn't know my alphabet. He sat me down and made me go through it. It made me feel special that he was spending time with me. However, the short lesson wasn't enough to change me. When I got to secondary school, I had a rearing age of seven.

I came into school late one day and was walking down the corridor.

The housemaster collared me and said, "Where are you going?"

"To my cla.s.sroom."

"Where are your shoes?"

I looked down at my plimsolls. I didn't understand what he meant.

Then it dawned on me.

"I haven't had any shoes this year."

I had to go and get a form for my parents to sign for grants. I was on a free bus pa.s.s, free school dinners. I even had to stand in a special "free dinners" queue in the school canteen. It wasn't just me; the main catchment areas were Brixton and Peckham, so a lot of kids were in the same boat. But all the same, it was one particular gang I wanted out of.

The thieving got stupid. We started by nicking pens from Woolworth's for our own use, and soon we were stealing stuff for selling. We walked past a secondhand furniture shop with a few new bits and pieces among the display on the pavement. A small, round wine table caught my eye; we ran past and picked it up, then went down to another secondhand place and sold it for ten bob. We spent it straightaway in Ross's car on cheese rolls and frothy coffees.

I stole money one day off my aunty Nell's neighbor. I took the pound note to the sweet shop, and my aunty Nell was behind me without me knowing. She didn't say anything at the time but phoned up the school.

The headmistress summoned me to her office and said, "What were you doing with all that money?"

"I found this old mirror," I said. "I got some varnish, done it up, sold it, and got two quid for it."

I got away with it. I thought I was so clever; everybody else was a mug for letting me steal from them.

Because my mum and dad were working hard, I had a lot of freedom.

I repaid them by being a complete s.h.i.+t.

My mum had broken her leg and was sitting in the front room one night watching Peyton Place. She said, "Don't eat the last orange, Andy, I'm going to have it for my dinner later on."

I knew she couldn't get up and hit me, so I picked it up and started peeling it, throwing the peel out of the window. My mum went Apes.h.i.+t, but I ate the orange in front of her, then ran out of the house when my father appeared. I slipped on the orange peel and broke my wrist.

After school, and sometimes instead of school, we used to go thieving in places like Dulwich Village and Penge, areas that we reckoned deserved to be robbed.

We'd saunter past people sitting on park benches, grab their handbags, and do a runner. Or they'd be leaving their cars unattended for a minute or two while they bought their children an ice cream; we'd lean through the window and help ourselves to their belongings. If a p car was hired or had a foreign plate, we'd always know there was stuff in the boot. And as we learned, they were easy enough to break into.

In school lunch breaks we often used to take our school blazers off and hide them in holdalls so no one could identify us when we stole. We thought we were dead clever. The fact that ours was the only comprehensive school in the whole area didn't really occur to us.

Then we'd go around looking for things to steal. We got into a car one day, took a load of letters, and discovered that they contained checks.

We were convinced that we'd cracked it. None of us had the intelligence to realize that we couldn't do anything with them.

We broke into a camping shop one night in Forest Hill. There were three of us, and we got in through the flat roof. Again, we didn't really know what we wanted.

It was one of the places where you could go and buy swimming ribbons to put on your trunks. So the priority was to get a few of those and all become gold-medal swimmers. After that we didn't know what to do, so one of us took a s.h.i.+t in the frying pan in the little camping mock-up that they had as a window display.

At the age of fourteen I was starting to get all hormonal and trying to impress the girls that I was clean and hygienic. You could buy five pairs of socks for a quid in Peckham market, but they were all outrageous colors like yellow and mauve. I made sure that everybody saw I was wearing a different color every day. I also started to have a shower every night down at Goose Green swimming baths. It cost five pence for the shower and a towel, two pence for soap, and two pence for a little sachet of shampoo.

I wore clean socks, I was kissably clean, but I was overweight.

The girls didn't seem to go a bundle on fat gits in orange socks.

Then the Bruce Lee craze swept the country. People would roll out of the pubs and into the late-night movie, then come out thinking they were the Karate Kid. Outside the picture houses, curry houses, and Chinese takeaways of Peckham of a Friday night, there was nothing but characters head-b.u.t.ting lampposts and each other to Bruce Lee sound effects.

I took up karate in a big way and got into training three times a week.

It was great. I was mixing with adults as well as people of my own age, and I started to lose weight. I was also doing a bit of running.

The schooling and all things academic were still bad. I got in with a fellow called Peter, who wore his cuffs and big, round b.u.t.terfly collars outside his blazer. I thought he was smooth as f.u.c.k in his big, baggy trousers. He asked if I wanted to do a couple of weeks' work for his dad, and I jumped at the offer.

His old man owned a haulage firm. Peter and I loaded electrical goods into wagons, then helped deliver them.

We made a fortune, mainly because we nicked radios, speakers, and anything else we could get our hands on when the driver wasn't looking.

I earned more than my old man that month. Even in adult life people would have perceived that as a good job. My att.i.tude was, "Get out of school because it's s.h.i.+t, get a job, earn some money," and that was it.

I didn't realize how much I was limiting my horizons, but there was no guidance from the teachers. They were having to spend too much time just trying to control the kids, let alone educate us. They had no opportunity to show us that there was anything beyond the little world we lived in. I didn't realize there was a choice, and I didn't bother to look.

In the sort of place that we lived, a really good job would be getting on the print or the docks. Next level down would be an underground driver on London Transport. Other than that, you went self-employed.

I landed up working more or less full-time for the haulage contractor, delivering Britvic mixers and lemonade during the summer.

I managed to get extra pallets of drinks put on the wagons, sold them to the pubs, and pocketed the proceeds.

In the wintertime I delivered coal. I thought I was Jack the lad because I could lift the coal into the chutes. I couldn't move for old ladies wanting to make me cups of tea. I thought I knew everything I needed to know. I pitied the poor d.i.c.kheads at school, working for nothing. I was making big dough; I had all the kit that I'd wanted two years ago.

I lost my virginity on a Sunday afternoon when I was fifteen. My mate's sister was about seventeen. She was also willing and available, but very fat. I didn't know who was doing whom a favor. It was all very rumbly, all very quick, and then she made me promise that I wasn't going to tell anybody. I said that I wouldn't, but as soon as I could, like the s.h.i.+t that I was, I did.

The contract work finished, and I started working at McDonald's in Catford, which had just opened. Life there was very fast and furious.

I was sweeping and mopping the floors every fifteen minutes. I could have a coffee break, but I had to buy all my own food. There was no way I could fiddle anything because it was all too well organized.

I hated it. The money was c.r.a.p, too, but marginally better than the dole-and besides, the McDonald's was nearer to home than the dole office.

I started to get into disappearing for a while. A bloke and I did his aunty's gas meter and traveled to France on day pa.s.ses, telling the ferries our parents were at the other end to collect us. On the way back we even stole a life Jacket and tried to sell it to a shop in Dover.

I had no consideration whatsoever for my parents.

Sometimes I'd come back at four in the morning and my mum would be flapping. Sometimes we'd have the police coming around, but there was nothing they could do apart from give me a big fearsome b.o.l.l.o.c.king. I thought I was the bee's knees because there was a police car outside the house.