Against All Odds: The Most Amazing True Life Story You'll Ever Read (8 page)

I had seen slightly older boys leave the home and flounder straight away, completely unable to cope with reality or even attempt to negotiate the ups and downs of life without someone telling them what to do every step of the way. A lot of them went almost straight to borstal after getting in trouble for mugging old ladies or generally making a nuisance of themselves. From borstal it was a short trip to prison where they quickly learned a few tricks of the trade from the older criminals, and began a career that would see them in prison more often than they were out. For many of these lads, borstal and prison were where they felt most comfortable, and there was certainly a big element of actively wanting to get caught, because life on the outside was just too difficult to deal with. If it wasn’t borstal, it was the Army, which is another traditional career move for boys who have grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, have a weak educational background and poor self-esteem; anywhere you didn’t have to think for yourself and meals appeared on a metal tray at regular intervals.

In general, many if not most of the kids who leave care don’t have a fucking clue. They have never had to take care of themselves in any way and nobody has ever tried to teach them how to negotiate the maze of life or even basic things such as good manners or how to cross the road safely or a skill that they can sell in the workplace. A lot of them end up back in an institution one way or another very quickly, by which I mean they generally do something stupid and end up behind bars. Many of these angry, bitter unloved young men with no skills and no way of getting on in life tend to commit crimes so idiotic that the police pick them up almost straight away; often before they have even had a chance to enjoy their ill-gotten gains.

One of the kids from my generation at St Leonard’s outdid himself by holding up a bookies with a gun and then using the local taxi service as a getaway car. He had called the taxi company beforehand, so, when he came out with his money, the cab was already there, waiting for him. Obviously he was caught almost straight away. It is hard not to assume that he probably wanted to continue being a ward of state for the simple reason that he did not know how to do anything else.

After the first few trips to borstal, that is more or less it for boys like him; they have become confirmed petty criminals who will never be employable and whose lives will never amount to anything. At that point, the very best you can hope for them is that somehow their chaotic sexual encounters don’t result in children, because they are probably too sad and too damaged to be proper fathers. This was pretty much the fate that awaited at least one of my older brothers.

When we were kids, we were told by the care workers over and over again that we were institutionalised. This is the term that any analyst looking at this boy’s case would surely use about him. It occurred to me recently that, if this was true of the kids at St Leonard’s, it was also true of the staff who lived and worked in the children’s home. Those who left childcare often went straight into work in another institution, as if no other type of work existed. They had grown so used to being able to boss everyone around and count on a regular pay package from the government that they did not know anything else.

When I was about sixteen, I started working on my tattoo collection. In those days, the skinheads had just started and the first big tattoo I got was of a skinhead with the characteristic shaved head, braces and rolled-up jeans and wearing a skin-tight Union Jack T-shirt. I have often been asked, ‘What’s all that about? Are you racist?’ But what people don’t know is that in the very early days, when I got my tattoo, the skinheads were not racist at all. They were fans of ‘Oi’ music, which was a type of reggae, and the skinheads represented a sort of street movement that originally had both white and black adherents. Later, the whole thing got taken over by British National Party thugs, the way the Hindu Swastika was taken over by the Nazis, and I was left with my tattoo! I often have to explain it to people and it is a frequent source of embarrassment.

Most of my tattoos feature Union Jacks in a variety of settings. One says ‘100% British Made’. Now, I knew very well that both my parents were as Irish as could be. They had rejected me and handed me over to the tender mercies of the British state. I felt that they must surely have hated me, even though I had only been a tiny baby. I wanted to erase them completely and getting Union Jacks inscribed indelibly all over my body seemed to help a bit. Today, while I don’t necessarily remain fond of my many tattoos, I don’t feel inclined to have them removed, as this would entail deleting part of my life. Like it or not, they are very much part of who and what I am – they inscribe my history – and I don’t feel that I should be ashamed of them.

Another good thing about getting older was that there was much less to fear from Uncle Bill. He tended not to beat up the older children, because there was a risk that they would hit back. He was getting older too, and perhaps all those years of lashing out had given him tennis elbow. Sometimes he did get hit back; I remember my brother Declan lashing out at him and running away. By the time I was sixteen, Uncle Bill would not have dared to come near me. He knew how fit and strong I was, and he must also have had some idea of the anger that was continuously simmering inside me. I was like the stray dog that has been beaten one time too many, always ready and poised to attack. And he knew it. I had shown my potential for violence when Alan Prescott had tried it on with me a few years earlier. Uncle Bill tried again to enlist me to help keep the younger children in line, but, although I had some seriously nasty tendencies, I drew the line there. I had enough self-respect for that. And I certainly was not going to do anything to curry favour with Uncle Bill.

But I wasn’t scared of getting into violent situations with kids my own age or older. I was about fifteen the first time I was stabbed. One of the kids at St Leonard’s was a black kid who had loads of friends on the outside. A whole bunch of his East End pals had come down to visit one evening and they were outside in the drive making loads of noise and keeping the little ones awake. I went outside to tell them to shut up. I pretty much felt like the little ones’ big brother, so that was where I was coming from. I wasn’t particularly looking to get into trouble, but I was prepared to do whatever it took to make the East End boys go away. Uncle Bill and Coral were cowering inside, too scared to go out. Like most bullies, they couldn’t cope when there was a risk that they themselves might be confronted.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ I roared. ‘Do yourselves a favour and fuck off home.’

‘Says who?’ It was a tall black boy, swaggering about with an air of bravado.

‘Says me. Fuck off.’

‘Are you going to make me?’

‘Yeah, I fucking am.’

We squared up against each other for what I assumed was going to be a fist fight. I wasn’t afraid of being hit; I was a boxer, after all. The kid struck me a blow and I retaliated by punching him in the head and knocking him to the ground. He fell quickly with a heavy thud. I looked down at him on the floor. He didn’t look as though he was going anywhere soon. He groaned and rolled his eyes. I poked him with my foot, but he didn’t react.

That’s you sorted then, I thought. Good night! I turned and started to walk away. Then, I felt a sensation of warmth spreading across my belly. I looked down. A huge red stain was extending across my midriff. I had thought that I had received a light blow to the stomach, but I had been sliced with a Stanley knife. It wasn’t a deep cut, but any stomach wound tends to bleed profusely and this one was no exception. An ambulance was called, and I had to go to hospital to get five or six stitches. Fortunately, the wielder of the Stanley knife had slashed rather than stabbed, so I had not suffered any internal damage. Of course, I went to the hospital on my own as I had on various occasions in the past, clutching a rolled-up towel to my midriff to absorb the blood.

While I waited to be treated in A&E, the police came to take a statement. They acted tough and mean: ‘We’re not letting a doctor see you until you tell us who it was.’

‘I’m not fucking telling you. None of your fucking business. I’m not making any complaints, so why do you need to know?’

‘Fine then. You’re a tough guy, are you? Then you can just stand there and bleed until you are ready to tell us.’

‘Fine.’

I was full of bravado, but I was still bleeding heavily and I was starting to feel woozy. I stood my ground and tried to look as defiant as possible.

Just then, Lindsey’s dad, Sergeant White, walked in. Sergeant White was an officer at Barkingside nick in North East London and senior to the policemen who were hassling me. He was outraged by what he saw. Even if I had done something wrong, there was no excuse for not letting me get medical treatment – and in this particular case I hadn’t done anything wrong.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ he roared. ‘This boy is the victim in this situation. Leave him alone. Let him see the doctor. You’re a disgrace to the uniform!’

I got stitched up and Sergeant White took me back to his house to spend the night. He could not have been kinder, but shortly afterwards Lindsey broke up with me by means of a ‘Dear John’ on her dad’s advice. Even then, I didn’t blame him, although my heart was broken and it would take me a very long time to recover. I knew that Lindsey was a sweet girl who didn’t deserve to be with a thug like me.

On another occasion, I was hanging about in the street with a bunch of kids while one of the black boys started teasing a couple of geezers at the bus stop. This was in Hornchurch, where the only black kids to be seen were from the home, and everyone knew it.

One of the men turned to me with a grimace. ‘You’re a nice white kid,’ he said. ‘What are you doing hanging around with these black bastards?’

I didn’t stop to think. I just went up to the guy and knocked him out cold with one right hook. Those kids were my brothers, and brothers stand up for each other! I wasn’t going to just stand there and listen to this arsehole be racist. Later, I felt guilty about having hurt an older man, but I still did not understand why he called them ‘black bastards’ and singled them out for particular abuse. I just didn’t get it. Racism didn’t make any sense to me then and it still doesn’t.

T
HE
D
AY
I D
IED

A
lthough I was still not old enough to leave the home, my life was increasingly autonomous. Because Starling knew that the older kids – some of whom were as old as twenty – were generally rather violent characters, he tended to withdraw from them for fear that they would start hitting back. We were responsible for things like doing our own ironing and generally looking after ourselves, and Uncle Bill and the other carers, including Auntie Coral, had as little to do with us as possible. We even bought our own food and cooked it ourselves in the cottage kitchen. When Uncle Bill and other carers did have to interact with us, they generally treated us reasonably well now; at any rate, they didn’t want to risk provoking us. After the childhoods that we had experienced, we were all ticking time bombs and it didn’t take much to set us off. But, as we all approached the magical age of eighteen, our eyes were fixed on the future, and we didn’t want any aggro either. We just wanted to get out like any adolescent kid who doesn’t get on with his or her parents.

Auntie Coral did have one very lucky escape from me. One day, I had come home from work and I was cooking something for myself in the kitchen. Coral started to moan at me about something or other and then she started in on her usual litany of complaints: ‘You’re just a thug; you’re one of those stupid, awful Connollys. You’ll never amount to anything. You’ll be behind bars soon. You’ll be in prison all right; you’ve got absolutely nothing going for you, have you? Big, stupid lout like you.’

‘What did you say?’

‘You heard me.’

‘What did you say?’

Heat rose up through my body until I felt as though I was going to explode. I had been listening to the exact same words from this woman for almost as long as I could remember. I never knew quite why she hated me so much, and I still don’t understand it. Auntie Coral wasn’t nice to any of the kids, don’t get me wrong, but she seemed to reserve special ire for me. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I had an outside interest in boxing and I wouldn’t let her destroy me completely, although she wreaked havoc with my self-esteem, telling me every day that I was a worthless piece of shit who deserved all the crap that the world threw at me.

‘You heard me. You’re a lout, no more and no …’

But this time she didn’t get to finish her rant. This time, I was ready to fight back. Finally, I couldn’t take it any more. I got so hot and angry I could practically feel the steam coming from my ears. My hands tightened on the table until my knuckles were white and the veins were standing out on my arms. My muscles were so tense that they almost hurt. It was a big, heavy kitchen table but I didn’t feel its weight in my hands as I picked it up and threw it over with tea and coffee and laden plates on it. I wanted to see Coral squashed underneath it like the wicked witch beneath the house in
The Wizard of Oz
.

The table landed just in front of Coral and she opened her greasy mouth and started to scream. I ran towards her and put my face in front of hers and shouted, ‘You fucking slag. I’ll rip your fucking head off, see if I don’t.’

Auntie Coral did not say anything. She just stood there shaking with her mouth open and her eyes wide. I really wanted to hurt her. I wanted to make her bleed. But, for some reason, I didn’t lay a finger on her fat body.

I’ve got to get out of here, I thought, or I’m going to kill the bitch. I left.

The police were called, as they always were whenever there was a violent incident of any kind at the cottage, because Starling couldn’t deal with the situation that he had helped to create. They all agreed that I had to leave, even though I was still only seventeen and officially a minor. The consensus was that I was too violent and dangerous to be allowed to stay in St Leonard’s.