The Robbers

 There’s a nervous excitement when one is involved in a robbery that almost brings back a sense of childhood like you were just about to chap a door then run away.

A light rain fell on dusty old Leyton and he was well aware that Francis Road police station was only a matter of a hundred yards away.

“It’s easy to get in round the back, just jemmy the door and yer away”.

This was John Mooney who’d been a petty thief and in and out of prison since his early teens growing up in the southside of Glasgow. This was his ‘wee job’ out of which would come funds for drug and drink revelry.

O’Hara was keeping ‘the edgy’ while Mooney and one of the McCulloch brothers did the deed.

“Telly’s and that, electrical stuff, easy to punt round the pubs”. Mooney was the Artful Dodger, aye up for a scam like it was an addiction. A cold chill in the late Autumn city air kept O’Hara alert. Where were they? They’d been gone a good ten minutes and the afternoon was turning dark and commuters were emerging from the nearby tube station.

O’Hara thought often about his friendship with these reprobates. It was mainly based on the consumption of alcohol, he had very little in common with them other than that. Mooney, for instance, was far from the sharpest tack in the box. This would be around the time of the Falkland’s nonsense and Mooney got all patriotic about it although it’s anyone’s guess if he had the slightest clue what was going on as he proved one night in The Crown when he’d forced us to discuss the matter.

“Fuckin’ not on, thae fucken Argies. Whit we should dae is fly ower there at night when they’re no’ expectin’ it and bomb the fuck out ae Rio de Janeiro!!”

No geography master, wee John.

Mind you, it wisnae long ago that his auld maw had come down from Glasgow to visit him and got us aw barred out the North Star with her antics.

 

Scots tended to flock together in this here London. “You fae up the road?” and next thing you knew you’d be stoatin’ home together the best o’ mates.

It wis like that with the younger McCulloch. A night out on the bevvy and then back to his wee bedsit with a kerry-oot. There to greet the drunken couplet was the rosy-cheeked Theresa. Well used to her man’s ways – Davy wisnae rough with the drink, it was when she wouldn’t release funds for it he got a bit iffy – she is courteous to the stranger but mibbe didn’t expect to be sharing a bed with him on first introduction.

“I’ll kip on the floor”

“Don’t be daft. Get yersel under the sheets”

Somehow this seemed the natural thing to do and no funny business even implied in jest. Just three working-class individuals ensconced snugly in the one bed. Davy even sought to give his beloved ‘one’ while I pretended to sleep being lulled gently to the real thing by their gentle rocking.

Such is drink and friendship.

And then brother Jack came doon fae up the road. Sober Jack was as nice as pie, affable and friendly, Pished Jack was a different kettle of pickles. And speaking of kettles! Jack and the younger brother, Davy had fights now and again which Davy always won. Davy fought like a bare-assed banditti, a flame-haired Jacobite with bad teeth and a love of war. Once, he headered Jack all the way down the stairs and it’s lucky that drunk men are made of rubber. But Jack just would not give up until finally beaten to near-unconsciousness – one time with the whistling kettle that ended up a mangled mess in the morning and useless for boiling any damn thing.

Used to be that young Scots would visit London and proceed to live up to every stereotype they could. Drinking heavily, fighting and generally carousing before the often-startled eyes of indigenous folk. Jack was a living nightmare when he was bevvied.

“Play yon Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat again,” he’d roar at five in the morning when the rest of the household just wanted to sleep but couldn’t because of this diminutive, carousing Scot still wearing his long black coat like a rider on some ancient Caledonian storm. The more whisky he drank the more he would wake up.

O’Hara and he had blown his week's wages once up the West End and Jack had ended up being questioned by the police as a terrorist suspect while wearing a dentist’s tunic. Neither had the slightest clue where that niche apparel had come from.

In the growing gloaming the two would-be robbers finally returned – empty handed!

“Whit happened,” asks the puzzled a disappointed O’Hara. The one looked at the other until Mooney answered sheepishly.

“Fucken TV repair shoap. Nuthin’ but broken tellies everywhere”

He then produces from his pocket a tiny transistor radio. A ‘trannie’ in the parlance of the times.

“We might get a couple of quid for this!”

O’Hara laughed all the way back to Leytonstone.