One-Eyed Baz Read online

  I broke into the Asian shops when I was eight or nine years old, stealing anything I could. I broke into warehouses with a couple of mates. Later, when I was about 12 or 13, we used to rob the punters who went to a rundown old pub round our way where the local prostitutes used to hang around. Whenever you saw the prostitute, you saw her punter, and we used to go and ‘tax’ that same punter to get easy money.

  There was an area of Lozells where we knew the prostitutes would hang out and we’d take money off them. Then we started to get friendly with them and said, ‘Look, we can both make some money if we rob your punter.’ I remember this brass sent us into a house with a client who was loaded. We already had two lads inside when she brought him; we came up behind, this Asian lad bashed him and we took all his money. I also mugged the prostitutes. I did whatever I could to survive.

  Despite all this, I remember having good times at Hockley adventure playground, where I played happily as a kid. ‘Horsemouth’, a black guy, was a friend of mine that I’d been through all the same schools with, so we were pretty tight. But there was this other Asian lad whose parents had a corner shop, so he obviously had a bit of poke (cash) on him. Horsemouth and me thought it was a good idea to hold him up – I can’t remember who had the knife, but we stopped him and took all his biscuit money. Word got around, the headmaster found out and we got suspended from school. Our mothers had to come down: Horsemouth’s mum started going on about how I was a bad influence upon her son and I remember her bashing him silly.

  When I left junior school, I had a good friend named Robert Luca, a white punk rocker. We did a lot of things together and he joined me on my first day at senior school. But in week one Robert got expelled for smacking a teacher in the face. From that day till this, I have never seen him again. I made some lifelong friends in school though – including Anthony Reed, who’s now a pastor and who taught me how to ride a bike at 11. (Late starter, I know.)

  I continued to fight my way through senior school; some memorable times include sports days and athletics days, when we visited other schools. I would take on the hardest boy I could see and try to make a name for myself. It often turned into a big tear-up with loads of people fighting – great fun.

  I was arrested for the first time at 11 years old. There was me and three other guys, and we decided to break into this builder’s yard just to see what we could get. We climbed through the fence and smashed our way into their office with a brick, starting to fumble through the drawers and throwing things all over the place. All of a sudden, after about 15 minutes, a torch shone through. It was the police, shouting, ‘Come out! Come out!’

  I started shitting myself because we’d never done this before. We were debating what we were going to do as the police came into the builder’s yard and grabbed us. I was really scared because we’d never had a confrontation like this, but I was more scared of the beating from my mum.

  They took us all down to Thornhill Road police station. They interviewed us and then my mum came down, very upset. It was serious – we were getting charged with burglary. We later made a couple of appearances before the courts, where I pleaded guilty, but I got a beating off my mum. I got an even worse one when I got found guilty and let off with a fine. I thought, I ain’t going to let this happen again!

  MAL

  We didn’t have much money in those days. I’d bought this bike and I needed five quid and I couldn’t have asked my dad, he’d just have given me a beating and said, ‘Don’t buy things you can’t afford!’ I told Barrington and he said, ‘We’ll get it, we’ll get it!’ He wanted us to rob a chemist’s shop. Barrington was ready to do it, but I bottled it. He said, ‘I do it all the time, that’s why I get arrested!’ I didn’t do that sort of stuff, but it was like second nature to him.

  When I was 12, my mother took us out to a local picture-house called the Grand Palace on Soho Road. This was the first time I had seen a kung fu film and I was immediately mesmerised; I came out of the pictures thinking, I want to be like Bruce Lee. There were two cinemas in our area, the Grand Palace and Elites. Every Friday and Saturday night, they would be screening kung fu films, so me and my cousin would get our chips and sit through the show from 12 o’clock until 4 or 5am in the morning. You’d come out of the picture-house and everyone was making all these noises and doing kung fu moves in the street.

  That started my love affair with martial arts. From that moment I always wanted to do something like that, so I started shotokan karate lessons at a school for a couple of years, but I didn’t like the style. My friends and I continued to go to the pictures every week though, and after the screening we used to mimic Bruce Lee and his fighting techniques. I remember those as very happy times.

  * * *

  I never saw my dad again until I was 14. I remember one day my mum had a letter that she was reading in the kitchen, but, when I walked in, she threw it in the bin.

  I got it out of the bin. It was a letter from the courts in London, regarding access and maintenance. It had a court date on it, so me and my mate jumped the train to London with not a penny in our pockets. We bunked the train and stayed in the toilets (as you did in those days).

  All I had was an old picture of my dad that my grandmother had given me, but we made it to the courthouse and I found my dad’s name on the door of the courtroom. When we walked in, I saw a black guy and a woman sitting outside and I knew instantly it was my dad. He later said that, as soon as he saw me, he knew it was his son, Barrington.

  After the court case, we went back to my dad’s flat. His wife, Colleen, gave us a good feed and put us on the train back home.

  From that day, I started to build a relationship with my dad. We kept in contact, and I always used to visit during the school holidays. Colleen treated us well and I looked forward to those visits as a kid.

  I was going out to get money myself and I’d ring my dad sometimes to say I was coming to London. At the time, my dad was working as a presser in a laundry, while Colleen used to work emptying fruit machines; so I used to go down sometimes at a weekend and do some work with Colleen, then come back and spend some time with my dad. He’d take me round the area of London where they were living, telling me stories about how he used to be a rude boy in the area. I’d keep going up there but my brother and sisters weren’t really interested in my dad at all; I was the only one who kept going backwards and forwards. I was just doing my own thing anyway. But even before my dad died they weren’t really bothered, they wouldn’t go down and see him.

  Still, to this day, I have a close relationship with my step-mum. She will always be a big part of my life and she says it’s strange how I’m so much like my dad, considering I grew up without him.

  He was a bodybuilder and he was into martial arts – it must be in the blood.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I started getting braver and venturing out of Handsworth into the big city of Birmingham with my good pal Thomas Coley. We were part of a gang called the Handsworth Wanderers who used to go to the Bull Ring in Birmingham and hang around the ramp and fountain, at the entrance to New Street train station where all travellers into Birmingham had to come. (This is where I would base myself in my Zulu days, later in my life.)

  At the Bull Ring, we were fighting, robbing and taxing whoever we could. Our numbers swelled and there were now over 50 of us. My reputation was growing too; I wasn’t aware of it, as I was a follower not a leader, but people were scared of me and did what I said. I used to have dreadlocks, little picky locks, as was the style if you came from Handsworth. Our gang had some terrifying people – whether we were Rasta, Asian or white guys, we feared no one. We just loved to fight and make money. We would attack every football fan that came into the centre, no matter where they were from. People used to hate coming into Birmingham because they knew the risk of getting taxed, or of a knife being pulled and them getting slashed by us.

  I can’t play football to save my life. It had never really interested me and it might have stayed t
hat way. But football came to me when I was a rude boy, hanging uptown on a Saturday night during the early eighties. My pal Horsemouth ran with the rude boys; we would wear the two-tone gear and pork-pie hats, short trousers and brogues, so we were a kind of mixture of mods and skins – but we didn’t really get on with the mods or the skinheads, with their long Parka coats or big Doc Marten boots with coloured braces. We were into ska music, the Coventry band The Specials, The Selecter and all that. We’d go to gigs in town to see bands like The Beat; we’d steam the clothes shops for our gear and be wearing it the same night. One lad would walk in the shop and steal a rack of clothes; nobody would chase him because he’d have five lads behind him to stop anyone when he walked out. We were the rude boys, we did what we had to do to make a bit of poke for ourselves and to enjoy ourselves.

  There used to be about five of us from Handsworth and we’d meet up with other lads to go out on the town on a Friday and Saturday night, or fight with the skinheads and mods on a Saturday afternoon. Town was our base and that was where we used to hang out and earn our money.

  We were now part of a larger gang with more clout, called the Townies, and we used this as cover for ‘draipsing’ (taking designer clothes and jewellery off the rich kids). This led to us running the town; it was our manor and no one could trouble us. We were about 20-to-30-strong, with people like Rupert, a really good friend who’s been like a second brother to me, plus Todd, Rupert’s cousin who lives in Tamworth, Louis, Skan, Sharkey and Curly. As Birmingham was our domain, we used to rob football supporters – sometimes even the Apex, who were Birmingham City supporters. We had no morals.

  I used to notice all these skinheads coming into town and wonder where the heck they were all coming from. We soon learned they were Apex and as rude boys we just said, ‘Fuck ’em, skinheads are racists,’ but we’d see this black skinhead with them from time to time and say: ‘Hey, what’s that nigger doing with them skinheads?’ We’d chase him as well and, to be honest, he would get a worse kicking for being black. So, after every match on a Saturday, when all the skinheads used to come through town, we’d have it off with them – even some of the Apex. We used to have it with their lot all the time – that’s how we got into the football. Then we started attacking all the away fans that were coming to town.

  At that time we weren’t really interested in football. We were Townies and only interested in making some fucking poke and having fun! The Bull Ring shopping centre was the place where we hung out, fought and earned our money before and during the match, which was why more police were brought into the Bull Ring, as on most Saturdays while everyone was out shopping, you would have people running and screaming.

  RUPERT & TODD

  Rupert: We liked The Specials

  Todd: It was the Two Tone ska, the old blue beat music, and it was kind of like a switchover where white and black music met together.

  Rupert: From the Midlands you had The Beat, The Selecter.

  Todd: I think at the time we were quite heavily into that. But Barrington, because he was from the ghetto, it was only natural to put a beret on his head and a pair of short trousers on and be a Rasta. Barrington was the only Rasta I knew who ate pork – LOL! – and I think that’s what made us kind of know that he was from round there but he was more like us! It didn’t take him long to become like us, I can remember when Barrington joined the firm.

  Rupert: It didn’t take him a long time at all.

  Todd: I think this punk lad who disappeared, called ‘Luke’ (Robert Luca), was Barrington’s friend. I saw Luke’s mate Lamb the other week and he told me that Luke had died from a drug overdose. When we were rude boys in town it was because of Luke and Lamb that we could interact with the punks and the skinheads.

  Todd: I know that Luke was very influential with the punks; he was one of the main punk lads. I used to go down there all the time, because at the time you had all the rude girls and the half-skinhead girls, but when you wanted to interact with the punk girls, who you never saw much of because they were with the skinheads, you could go and talk with Luke who was mates with them all. There was one black guy who was a skinhead; when the skinheads and the punks and rude boys started to mingle then the blacks came in.

  Rupert: If the Birmingham skinheads would fight with anybody they’d fight with us, and we’d fight the mods.

  Todd: It was massive! Down by the library we used to have running battles; there were probably about 300 on each side and the rockers were getting it too. I can remember times when we all used to go down there: me, Rupert, Barrington and a few more of them; there was a guy called Terry, who used to think he was ‘the face’ of the mods, and he used to come up and try to mix with us and find out what we were doing but, depending on what mood we were in, he’d probably end up getting a slap! Nine times out of 10 it would be Barrington who gave him a slap.

  Rupert: He was older than us, he was twice our age.

  Todd: It was a really crazy time! I can remember once I took his Parka and we all went down to Bingley Hall. All the rude boys stayed hidden and I walked up towards the mods, dressed in his Parka, saying, ‘The rude boys are coming!’ As soon as the mods got near, the rude boys jumped out and we had a running battle with the mods.

  Rupert: That was just up the road from the police station. They used to have all the Vespas and Lambrettas parked there and we used to kick their bikes over!

  On a Saturday you used to get loads of lads coming into the town, so we thought it was a good way to earn a bit of poke. We used to tax them; we’d take them to one side and take their money off them – if they had nice clothes on, we’d take them too. Then we’d give them a little slap and send them on their way.

  The main place we’d hang out would be either by the fountain or the ramp, which was where everyone headed from the train station. We’d have a group of around 20 rude boys and rude girls and there were other gangs scattered around who hung out near the fountain, e.g. the Jazz Funkers (aka the Convicts), the Rat Pack, who hung out in the Night Rider pub, and also the Apex. Sometimes fights could break out between us, but, if outsiders came into town, the Townies and the other gangs formed alliances. This is how the Zulus started to form, from different gangs joining forces against rival football firms coming into our city.

  I was living in Handsworth at the time but I was in town every day. I’d finish at school, get home, change and head straight into town, then I’d catch the last bus home at about 11.30–12. We had to earn money, so it was in town that I had my little earners.

  On Saturday, in came all the football fans who we’d started taxing. Then, all of a sudden, you started getting these skinheads coming into town. We’d wait for ’em to walk through and we’d hammer ’em – bang ’em, bang ’em, bang ’em! But there was this black guy who used to hang around with them. He was a local skinhead and I used to think, Fucking coconut, man!

  RUPERT & TODD

  Todd: Barrington’s always been like a human version of a ‘staff’, a Staffordshire bull terrier. You’ll get a lot of dogs that’ll fight if they’re under pressure, but the staff was bred to fight and with Barrington it’s the same, he’s just always liked fighting. From the age of 16, when I met him, we had a couple of lads in the firm that could have a good old fight but no one was like Barrington. He had no fear, not even of the police, he just didn’t care! We were kids at the time, growing up, sometimes we’d have trouble with girls’ parents and they’d come down. They were big, strapping blokes, but, as soon as they stepped up to Barrington, me and Rupert would look at each other, put our hands over our mouths and say, ‘I don’t think this geezer realises what he’s let himself in for!’ A lot of the time people would come down for Barrington with weapons and he would take the weapon off them and beat them. Don’t get me wrong: he’s a lovely guy and he’s got a big heart and he’s a very good friend to have. But he’s a very, very bad enemy to have. Before Barrington was onside with us in our firm, he came from the ghetto with a predominantly Asian firm
: a few Chinese, a few blacks, including a bloke called Thomas Coley. As soon as him and Thomas came into town all the boys knew that the Handsworth Wanderers were here. I think the only words I can remember Barrington saying at the time were, ‘Do you want a fight?’ LOL! Nothing else! He’d look at you with his eye and say, ‘D’you wanna fight?’

  Rupert: In the early eighties, there was a big black community in Handsworth, but there was a big Indian community as well.

  Todd: You could say that at the time Handsworth was a bit of a criminal community like many areas in Birmingham, but a lot of people would turn around and say, ‘What are you putting Handsworth down for?’ I suppose it comes down to the circles that you move in, not the area you’re from. In Handsworth, there were more blacks than other areas; where I came from it was pretty much 50 per cent black/50 per cent white. Where Barrington came from it was 80 per cent black/20 per cent white, so when you’ve got black around black it makes you more ‘urban’.

  Rupert: I lived in a white area, in Quinton. At that time we were still at school; the first day I went into that playground and said my name, it was like BANG! I remember a day when we went to a Birmingham game; me and Barrington were there and this was before the Zulus and all that lot. That was the day I saw the change in our generation coming through, because all the guys older than us were white guys.

  Todd: And the funny thing about it is that when we came into town, as 15-year-olds, the first thing we did was stamp out the racism that was around in the early eighties and there was a lot of it about. A lot of people had to be put in their places as times were changing and we were helping them change. Barrington was in the ghetto at the time, knocking someone else’s head off – thank God for that! As we got into the mods and rockers scene, that’s when Barrington came along and we used to have some good battles; in those days, there would be a good few hundred of us. There were a few of us who were tight-knit, 10 to 15 of us who were just the firm on our own and that’s when Barrington came into it. We had several names before we got named the Townies – like Rudies, Tiger Posse, Nigger Squad. But when I wasn’t in town people used to say, ‘Watch out for the Townies, if you’re in town you’ll get robbed’ – not realising I was a Townie.