Once Upon a Crime (3 page)

I
continued to do well at school and was still able to pass any exams without too much effort, but my overall behaviour was giving cause for concern as I continued to be a pain in the arse to the teachers. The coming year of 1964/65 would be crucial as it would determine which school I would be selected for.

But early in 1965 half a dozen of my pals and me appeared at Glasgow sheriff court charged with a variety of offences that included theft, breaking into premises and criminal damage. We had been caught after breaking into a scrap yard and were in the process of trying to open the safe when the police arrested us. This time there was no chance to give a pep talk in the back of the van as the cops made sure they separated us. This paid dividends for them because one of the boys talked and also told of some other matters that the cops were delighted to hear of. I, along with most of the boys, refused to say a word but it made little difference as we were all charged and bailed.

The hardest part was facing my wee ma, as I knew how disappointed she would be. What I did not appreciate was just how much of a worry it was. Ma didn’t give me too much of a hard time after the initial tongue-thrashing but I could see a kind of sadness in her eyes.

Our day in court arrived and it was all over very quickly. I was the only one to receive a custodial sentence: 14 days detention at Larch Grove remand and detention centre alongside the Edinburgh road on the fringes of my beloved east end. I later found out that the thinking behind this was to try and shock me into changing my ways. Well, if that was the case it did not work. I was transported to the Grove in the company of some of Glasgow’s finest tearaways in the back of a black Maria with a brief stop at Barlinnie to drop off a couple of the older guys. This was my first experience of the infamous Bar-L. It was an imposing and intimidating place, but I have to confess that I was quite excited by the experience.

On arriving at the Grove I knew immediately that this would be no picnic, but again I wasn’t unduly concerned as I had always been able to cope well in difficult circumstances. We were greeted on arrival in the reception area by two middle-aged men in civilian clothes. One of the men shouted at us in his best parade-ground voice, ‘Right, you thieving little bastards, stand to attention!’

The other man walked slowly behind us and without warning punched a boy standing next to me. The boy fell to the floor in a heap with this endorsement ringing in his ears: ‘You will jump when we say jump or this is what you will get and you will keep getting it, ya fuckin’ wee bastards. Now fuckin’ strip off and keep yer mouths shut.’

‘You fuckin’ dirty bully-boy bastards,’ I said to myself. This sort of treatment has never frightened me and it fostered in me
a determination never to give in. The term for my attitude was ‘dumb insolence’. When I first heard it in connection with myself I kind of liked it, as I knew it really infuriated those in charge and anyway, I really didn’t give a fuck what these sick bastards thought of me.

The regime in this place was based mostly on PT – physical training. Mornings and afternoons were spent in the gym and consisted of non-stop exercises while being screamed at by a couple of deranged ‘instructors’. The 14 days passed quickly enough and I was soon back home with Ma and my two wee brothers, who were all glad to see me again. But it would not be long before I was back to my old ways. Then something happened that changed me and my whole lifestyle, and for a while it began to look as if I would have a really positive future.

As this was my last year at primary school before moving on to a school where education was at a much higher and intense level, it was crucial that I be selected for the right school. For Catholic boys the school to aim for was St Mungo’s Academy. I had done really well in the final exams but ability was not the only deciding factor. Also taken into account were your behaviour and relationship with the teachers at your current school, as well as within the community. I was on very thin ice in both departments.

Ma went to the school and pleaded my case to the headmaster, but I do not think he was very impressed. It looked like I was headed to St Mark’s in the east end, which had a bit of a reputation as a dumping ground for lost causes. But at the last minute I got a reprieve thanks to a teacher called Mrs Watters, who stepped up to the plate on my behalf and convinced the headmaster that I was worthy of selection. I find it hard to put into words the love and gratitude I feel
for this truly remarkable lady who had such faith in me and who always encouraged me and guided me. I’ll never forget you, Mrs Watters.

S
t Mungo’s Academy in the Townhead area of the city was a huge Victorian building and very different to any previous schools I had attended. The emphasis was on achieving as high an academic standard as possible and fully developing your potential, and I took to it like a duck to water. The teachers all wore the long black gowns that I had only previously seen in the movies and they only taught the subjects in which they specialised to each class, so it was quite intense but a wonderful way to learn. Your day at school was very structured and disciplined, and there was always lots of homework that had to be completed and handed in the following day. Consequently I found that I had very little time on my hands to get up to my old tricks, and if truth be told, I never missed them.

It was now 1965 and the day after my 12th birthday my ma gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Carolyn. She was a big baby with a mop of curly blonde hair and big blue eyes and I fell in love with her straight away. My extended
family was growing – Sheena now had girls Angela and Jaqualine while Olive had Tony and Shona. When they all gathered at Ma’s it was a full house and I loved it.

That first year passed by quickly at school and I continued to do well in my studies, but fate has a way of stepping in and turning your world upside down. It was towards the end of July 1966 when Ma informed me that we would be moving to live in England. I asked, ‘When?’

‘Next week,’ came the reply. My da Hughie was going to work on the construction of the new M4 and it had been decided that it would be better if we moved south on a permanent basis. At least that was the story I was told at the time. In reality this was the last throw of the dice by Ma and Hughie to try to salvage their disintegrating relationship. Looking back, it is hard to understand why Ma ever thought this was going to go well, but it is easy to say that in hindsight and I do not attach any blame to her for the way things turned out. She always tried to do her best for us and I can only imagine the torment she must have gone through. All I know is that she was fiercely protective of us and showered each of us with love and warmth and I was a very lucky boy to have her as my wee mammy.

We arrived at a huge caravan park at Dedworth, an outlying area of Windsor in Berkshire. This was where my ma’s brother – my uncle Willie – lived, sharing it with my auntie Greta and their two sons Archie and Ronnie, 17 and 14 respectively. How we all managed to squeeze into that caravan is beyond me but somehow we managed and this was to be our base for the next two weeks or so, before we settled in a holiday caravan park at Hayling Island on the south coast.

Hughie was starting work and would visit us when work would allow. As we were now into August this was an extended
school holiday for me and I was loving it. I can remember us all walking along the beach together in the early evenings and then going back to the caravan and we could all stay up late as there was no school to go to. I did not know it then but these were probably the happiest days of my life, and probably the last time I felt so happy, free and untroubled.

As that idyllic summer drew to a close Hughie returned and told us he had found our new home. It was in rural Berkshire, about eight miles from the racecourse town of Newbury and it was yet another caravan park. I hated it on sight and felt it was at the end of the earth. I said to Ma, ‘Does this mean that we are gypsies?’

‘No, son,’ she said, ‘it’s only temporary.’ But we spent the best part of the next three years there and I do not recall any time that I was ever really happy. It was way out in the back of beyond, there were no amenities on site save for a little shop, and the bus service was very infrequent. Here I was, an inner-city kid born and bred, stuck in the back of beyond with all these fucking yokels who spoke a foreign language to me, surrounded by trees and fields. Loch Lomond it wasn’t. There wasn’t even anything to steal.

At least my sister Olive and her family had also left Glasgow and for a time lived on the outskirts of Windsor. She and her two weans, along with her man, James, moved onto the caravan park at Crookham Common in deepest Berkshire to be our neighbours. It was great for my two wee brothers and sister, who now had the company of Tony and Shona to play with, but I was the odd one out as I was a good bit older.

The nearest school for me was Kennet secondary modern, a four-mile journey away by bus to the town of Thatcham. This was the local equivalent of St Mark’s in Glasgow’s east end and I was qualified to go to the much more prestigious
Reading grammar school. I can only surmise that Ma was not aware of this and she probably felt that it was important to get me back to school as quickly as possible.

For the first few days at this new school I was an object of great curiosity, being teased in a nice way by the girls who seemed to view me as some kind of a catch. I mean, to them I was somehow exotic coming from the big, bad Glasgow town! The local boys, however, viewed me in an altogether different way. They seemed to see me as a threat and it was only a matter of time before the gauntlet was thrown down and I was faced with the challenge the whole school wanted to see.

It happened during a game of football one lunchtime on the hard court pitches. There was a large crowd of pupils watching and I knew something wasn’t quite right. For one thing there were lots of girls in attendance. By this age, I was an accomplished wee football player and I was running rings around the local yokels to the point where I was almost taking the piss out of them and this no doubt added fuel to the flames. There was one boy who just followed me during the game and aimed kicks at my ankles and shins. I tried to discourage him with some of Glasgow’s best putdowns but nobody could understand my broad accent.

Finally, I had had enough and, turning to face him, said as slowly and as clearly as I could, ‘Right, listen, ya fuckin’ halfwit. Kick me one more time and I will fuckin’ leather you, OK?’

He said, ‘Fuck you, you Scottish bastard. I’ll fight you right now.’

This was right up my street. I never said another word, I kicked him right in the balls and followed up with a right uppercut and the fight was over. I had learned well from my encounter with Nicandro a few years earlier. But one of the ankle-snapper’s pals said, ‘I would like to see you do that to
me.’ He was like a big farm boy and carrying too much fat around the middle, an easy target. I did not even reply but nutted him and threw a few punches at his abundant gut. Both fights were over in a matter of seconds apart from a bit of name calling: ‘You’re a dirty fighter’ etc.

I was never challenged again and I certainly was not often kicked during a game. In a sense, football was to be my saving grace. The fact that I was a good wee player not only allowed me to win a place in the school’s senior football team but was the factor in my becoming accepted by the other pupils. But it would take me a long time to settle into this whole new environment, with the result being that my school work suffered and my behaviour became more disruptive.

I got myself on a week’s football coaching course and had trials for both Arsenal and Chelsea, having been selected from hundreds of schoolboys throughout Berkshire. I did well enough but did not respond at all well to the discipline required to make the grade in professional football and another opportunity was wasted. The emptiness I had always felt inside but had managed to hold at bay, came back to haunt me with a vengeance. Looking back it seems obvious to me that what I was looking for was someone to guide me, someone to advise me, someone to show me the way. In other words, a father figure. But I was about to be told some news that would make this a bridge too far.

I
n September 1967 I arrived home from school one day to find my da in the caravan. He had managed to get a few days off and I was so glad to see him as it had been quite a few weeks since his last visit. But he and Ma were soon at loggerheads and the arguing developed into a full-scale shouting match.

‘Away back up the road to yer old Maw and gie us peace,’ Ma told him. ‘You’re not wanted here and we don’t need you.’

Hughie said, ‘Look, Sadie. I just cannae settle here with all these yokels.’

‘You mean you cannae settle anywhere where there isnae enough drink,’ replied Ma. So Hughie left, and this time it was for good. He would never be a part of the family again. As much as I missed him, it was the first time in years that our home was not a battleground and it became a much happier place.

Happier I may have been but content I was not and the
feeling of emptiness continued to grow inside me like a malignant tumour. Ma was truly wonderful during these years and she held us all together, but whatever it was I was looking for, unfortunately Ma wasn’t able to provide it. Perhaps nobody would have been able to. I tried to help Ma as much as I could but there was a part of me that just did not care what happened. For lengthy periods all would be well and then I would press the self-destruct button. This would become the pattern in the years to come. Many people were hurt by my behaviour and that is something that I truly regret.

It was around this time that I lost my virginity. I was 14 years old and on the day that the dog was finally freed from the trap I had been down to the school youth club and I was chatting to a girl from school called Susan. We took a walk out onto the school playing fields and as it was just starting to get dark, we lay down together and events took on a life of their own. Almost before we knew it the deed was done and it was over. I can remember thinking, ‘What’s the big deal?’ and no doubt Susan thought the same. There was never a repeat performance but I will always remember Susan with fondness; she was very gentle with me.

I started to make the weekly journey by bus into Newbury on a Saturday afternoon to go rollerskating and to have a look around the shops. This was a market town, very different to Glasgow, and I very quickly spotted that it had rich pickings and was ripe for plunder. I was soon back to my old ways and my excursions were very lucrative. I was shoplifting on an almost professional scale, stealing everything from clothing and electrical goods to food.

There were two main cafes that I would visit to sell my wares and as time went on people got to know me and it
became that much easier. Before very long I was stealing to order. On a good day I could make as much as
£
20, which was more than the average weekly wage. The secret to this kind of thieving was confidence and boldness. Once my target had been sighted I would act quickly but never in a rush. It was important to look and feel natural and it was always an advantage to be of good appearance, clean and tidy. If you enter a store dressed in a well-cut suit then people naturally assume that you are respectable. There were lots or other tricks I learned over the next few years that enabled me to steal thousands of pounds worth of goods in a single day.

I always took this type of work very seriously and was constantly striving to be as professional as I could be. But it is important to stress that there were other factors in play here. Firstly, I liked my ‘work’. In fact, it was more than liked – I loved it! Secondly, there was the element known in the trade as the ‘buzz’. Though I probably wouldn’t have been able to articulate it as such in those early days of becoming a career criminal, I was certainly aware of the warm glow I felt whenever I was successful. The term used these days is ‘adrenaline junkie’ and that is very appropriate, as I was well and truly hooked.

I was now into my final year at school and I elected to stay on until the following Easter, in 1969. The reason for this had nothing to do with exams or furthering my education but everything to do with winning my football colours. This very prestigious and much sought-after award was given at the end of the school term to the player who had not only been the most valuable to the team but who had led by example. I had an outstanding season in the senior football team, finishing top scorer and being voted Player of the Year, and it had the perfect ending with me winning my colours. The
award ceremony was conducted in the assembly hall of the school, where I was called onto the stage and presented with my colours for ‘outstanding contribution and achievement’. This is something that I remain very proud of to this day.

I left school on that very day and my formal education was over. It was now time for me to join the big, bad world. I was curious to see what it had to offer me in an official capacity. I was soon to learn the answer: not much.

Before I had left school an interview had been arranged with the careers officer that consisted of him giving me the addresses of two local factories and being told to apply for a job there. I chose the nearest one to home. It was repetitive work, but there was a good group of young guys there. I would give my ma
£
4 a week from my wages, which left me
£
3. That was more than enough for me as I would supplement my income with my Saturday thieving sprees. I also took orders for goods in advance and would deliver them to the customers at work. This meant that my thieving stepped up a notch and there were times when I would travel to towns like Reading, Slough and Windsor.

The job lasted for about six months until I had an argument with a foreman and sabotaged one of the production sheds. Being out of work did not affect me in any financial way. It was quite the opposite, as it allowed me to go full time with the thieving and I also indulged in breaking and entering. I’m sure Ma knew what I was up to as she would occasionally say to me, ‘You better watch yourself or you’re gonnae get yourself in bother.’ On the one hand I wanted to help Ma as much as I could but I knew that if I gave her too much money she would only worry about me all the more.

One thing I would like to make clear is that Ma never ever
asked me for anything. Yes, maybe she turned a blind eye to what I was up to, but she never encouraged me to get anything. It should be remembered that she was on her own and still had my siblings at home who were growing fast. While she always did her best for all of us and put us first, there must have been times when it was very difficult. I would sometimes come home with clothes, saying I had got a good deal from a guy at the market.

The youth club was still on and one Friday evening in March 1970 my eyes fell on one of the most attractive females I had ever seen. Don’t ask me how, but I knew that I was going to marry this girl. She was about 5ft 5in and very slim with a cute little bum, shoulder-length, light-brown hair and huge sparkling hazel eyes. There was also something about her that was almost indefinable: call it charisma, call it presence, I don’t know what it was.

I walked over to her and introduced myself. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen you here before. My name is Jim, what’s yours?’

‘Christine,’ she answered, ‘and this is my pal Shirley.’

I hadn’t really noticed her friend but quickly remembered my manners. I never left Christine’s side that evening. She was witty, intelligent, interesting and had an inner strength that I had never seen before. She was also older than me by nine months, which was a big deal at that age. Some of my pals who were there that night asked who she was, as no one had ever seen her or her pal before. When I told them she was going to be my new girlfriend they all said, ‘You’ve no chance, Jimmy-boy. She’s way out of your league.’

Christine was from Newbury but worked as an apprentice hairdresser at a salon in Thatcham and had been invited to the youth club disco by a local girl who knew her from the
salon. We agreed to go out together the next day and from that moment on we spent all our free time together.

Christine lived with her grandmother who was a lovely lady and made me welcome right from the start. I took her to visit Ma and they hit it off straight away. I was honest with Christine and told her how I earned my living. While she didn’t exactly approve, I think she understood that this was who I was and that even though it wasn’t ideal, I was basically a very straight guy in that I would always be loyal and considerate. I fell for Christine in a big way and for the first time in my life I knew what it was like to be in love and to be loved. She was a very strong, independent girl and in so many ways much more mature than me.

At this time I was still very unworldly in the art of lovemaking. Christine took me in hand, quite literally, and guided and taught me in the most beautiful way. She really made me aware of the beauty and pleasure to be found not only in the female body but also my own. We would spend days making love but she was also good for me in so many other ways, not least of which was that the feeling of emptiness inside me was reduced to the point that I was almost unaware of it. The summer of 1970 was glorious. I was earning good money. I was out at it almost every day and at the age when you think things will last forever. Well, I was just about to have a very rude awakening.

I was sitting in Central Cafe one Monday afternoon waiting to meet Christine when the door opened and in walked four men. I knew immediately that they were CID and that I was their quarry and I wasn’t wrong. They came right over to me and blocked any avenue of escape. The head honcho, who turned out to be Scottish and whose name was Davidson, said, ‘Are you Jamie Cryans?’

I replied, ‘Well, some people do call me Jamie but, yes, I am Jim Cryans. What do you want?’

‘We are arresting you and you will be taken to the police station to be questioned on some matters relating to theft and burglary which we believe you to have been involved in.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘but I have got absolutely nothing to say to you.’

Once we were at the police station it very quickly became clear that this was no fishing expedition but that many of the allegations were spot on. There had been talk and not just by one person – the cops knew too many details. I refused to answer any of their questions. But they had obviously done their homework on me because they not only knew Ma’s address but also everything about Christine, her place of work and also her home address. They informed me that they had search warrants for all these properties, so why didn’t I just do myself a favour and co-operate with them?

I said again, ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you people.’

Searches were carried out and after a couple of hours I was confronted with various pieces of evidence, the most damning of which was some bank passbooks that had been found in Christine’s bedroom. This threw an altogether much more serious light on things, as I had presented myself in various banks posing as account holders and forged signatures to relieve the banks of a few grand. Fraud, forgery and deception were serious charges. Christine was also under arrest and was being questioned next door.

I looked at Mr Davidson and said, ‘Here’s the deal. This has got absolutely fuck all to do with Christine. She doesn’t even know about the bank books or all the clothing and jewellery from her place that you have. I told her I bought them. So you let her go and I will make a full admission.’

I knew that they had a very strong hand to play against me
but I also knew I was offering them a very tempting deal. It would not only save them a lot of time and effort but would also go on the books as crime solved and a big feather in their cap. So the deal was agreed. It was the right thing for me to do. You may recall something I said earlier about certain rules I try to live by, one of which is that when it goes pear-shaped you take it on the chin. You never, ever name anyone else.

I appeared in court and was granted bail thanks to a good lawyer, but I had accepted the fact that I would be going away and it kind of took the pressure off. I continued to go about my business – now that much more choosey about who I did business with. I reassured both Christine and Ma that I would be OK whatever the outcome, but there is no doubt that both of them were extremely worried.

Christine assured me she would wait for as long as it took, and it is to her great credit that she stuck by me all the way. It goes without saying that my wee ma did exactly the same. When I think back now to the love, loyalty and support I received from these two exceptional women I am truly humbled.