A brief life of crime
All big cities have one or more organised crime families hard at work running various rackets, and Birmingham is no exception. The successful criminals strive to keep a low profile, keep the police ‘on message’, make a shedload of money and launder it into various legitimate businesses to multiply their wealth. The clever ones get out while they’re on top and retire as millionaires, buying a football team or something like that. The mugs (usually from London) court publicity, search for photo opportunities with show business celebrities and boxers, get greedy then end up getting nicked and spending years rotting in a prison cell while their former criminal partners gleefully steal all their money.
There was this well-known character in Birmingham, we shall call him Jeff Charters. Jeff had a plethora of legitimate business interests, but it was accepted as common knowledge that he also had a number of illegitimate ones as well. I got involved with his enterprises via the father of a friend, a man who owned a materials reclamation business. Jeff used to handle substantial amounts of stolen goods which, as far as I’m aware, largely came from hijackings and large-scale organised shoplifting gangs. Somehow, as a teenager, I found myself involved at the end of the supply chain, which operated something like this:
1. The thieves would either hijack a truck or, in the case of the shoplifters ‘steam’ a store in London, shoplifting in numbers and making it well-nigh impossible for the store detectives to take any meaningful action.
2. Jeff’s transportation people would buy the illicit goods and whisk them away.
3. Mr Reclamation Man would stash the goods in some of the hundreds of empty containers stored in his yard.
4. A rabble of young layabouts like myself would sell the goods to the general public, people who were generally happy to pick up a bargain and not ask questions about the provenance.
How it Worked
In general, the takings would be split four ways between the involved parties. Knowing that everyone in his supply chain was taking a risk, Jeff was perfectly happy to share the ill-gotten gains around equally, even with a little scrote like me.
Most of the stuff I shifted for Jeff was clothing, usually ladies’ leather and suede coats and smelly Afghan coats (this was the ‘70s, don’t forget). At the age of seventeen, I rapidly became expert at quickly assessing whether my potential customer was a size ten, twelve, fourteen, whatever. The coats would typically cost £12 - £20, depending on what kind of deal I could get. My 25% of a sale would be somewhere between £3 and £5. Bear in mind that I was working as an apprentice in a car components factory at the time, earning about £12 a week, so shifting two or three coats at the weekend could easily double my income. It was useful beer money. Looking back, I find it hard to comprehend how I so casually drifted into this way of life, selling stolen goods. I’m not at all interested in being a ‘character’, or a ‘face’, just an ordinary little chap leading a quiet life, going to work every day, football at the weekend, a few pints in the evening, a game of darts, the odd rock gig. I suppose all I can say in mitigation, m’lud, was that this was Small Heath, Birmingham, later to become internationally famous as the home territory of the Peaky Blinders crime gang from the TV series. Lots of people I knew were involved in some or other low-grade criminal activity, so getting involved in my own little scam just seemed the normal thing to do. Certainly, none of my friends or neighbours gave a second thought to buying something that was ‘hot’. I know that exactly the same ethos applied in the East End of London or the Liverpool Docks area, where I’m told your evenings would usually be disturbed by a stream of dodgy characters knocking on your door, looking to sell you something illicit. In Small Heath, that dodgy character would be the seventeen-year-old me!
The beauty of Jeff’s modus operandi was that, unlike your typical criminal, he was never a greedy man. To a sensible businessman like Jeff, 25% of a lot is worth more than 90% of a little; it was a numbers game, high volume, low margin, shared risk/reward. His fair and equitable approach ensured a very strong degree of loyalty from his ‘team’, loyalty which always paid off in the event of ‘the shit hitting the fan’, as it were. In short, Jeff was trustworthy and consistent. To further strengthen his hand, he kept a very good law firm on a paid retainer, so there was always a barrister or solicitor on standby to sort out any legal messes that may crop up when someone in the network overstepped the mark. I heard plenty of stories of people escaping serious assault charges, or even murder raps, in fact I know from personal experience of one grievous bodily harm charge that mysteriously got dropped when all the witnesses unanimously decided it would be a good idea to retract their statements. Jeff’s tame barrister eventually received a suspended prison sentence for embezzling money from his law firm’s client accounts in order to support his gambling addiction.
The Obligatory Kray Reference
As mentioned, one of the Principals at the law firm had a serious gambling habit and would while away the hours at the Rainbow Casino on the Hagley Road. I’ve never been much of a gambler, I find it boring but went along to the Rainbow on a couple of occasions. One of Jeff’s team had been a minor player in the Kray Twins’ firm and had left London for Birmingham when the Kray empire collapsed. This guy once introduced me to Tony Lambrianou at the Rainbow, who seemed OK, but understandably wary of someone like me who he didn’t know whether or not he could trust.
Tony Lambrianou © Mirror Newspapers
The other Kray Twins link I encountered was a guy called Patsy Manning. Patsy had double-crossed the Krays and stolen some money from them, so they sent Tony and Chris Lambrianou to sort him out. Later on, though, he buried the hatchet with the Twins and became very friendly with Reggie Kray when they were in prison together. I met Patsy when he was an old man in his 80s. He was in the same Erdington nursing home as my aunty who I used to visit. My aunt would often be asleep while I was visiting, so I’d have a cup of tea and a chat with Patsy. He was a proper character, with a tremendous back catalogue of stories to tell.
Legitimate Business
Jeff was quite a high-profile character in his legitimate life, a very busy man, a real grafter, he worked damned hard for long hours and big rewards. He did a lot for Charity and made sure that he maintained friendly relations with the police. People at my level rarely got to speak with him, my usual contact would be through Reclamation Man and his family. I did get to meet Jeff a couple of times briefly, at parties held in various people’s houses where my impression of him was that he was a very likeable fellow, but not someone you’d ever want to cross. People knew he was good with his fists, I think he’d once been a boxer, and it was generally accepted that he’d use a gun if he had to. He was certainly not a violent man by any stretch of the imagination, but when in put a corner or a situation not of his own making, he wouldn’t contemplate backing down or taking a backward step, he’d been known to steam in alone and lay out several men at a time in a fist fight. He came from a big family with several brothers, I got to meet the other brothers more than I met him, they weren’t as energetic as Jeff and to some extent, I always got the feeling they were hitching a ride on his reputation. I had a couple of verbal run-ins with one of the brothers, Kev, who I found to be a pretty unpleasant character. He always seemed to have a sneer on his face and would try to provoke an argument. Like Jeff, he was genuinely a hard case and not someone you’d ever get into a fight with, but Kev seemed to feel that he always had to demonstrate his toughness, whereas with Jeff it was just implied, understated and understood, he’d used a gun or a cosh when he’d had to, but he always gave the impression that he regarded violence as a last resort, generally only to be used in retaliation.
The End
For me, it was all going along quite smoothly until one day there was a knock at our front door and a policeman standing there. I had about six stolen Hoover Junior vacuum cleaners stashed away under Mom's stairs. For a while, the policeman just looked at me and I at him. I was terrified, but tried not to show it, I quite literally had sweat running down my sides from my armpits. Eventually, after what seemed like an age, he spoke:
“Is this your car outside, sir?”
“No, it’s nothing to do with me – it’s been there for a few days now. I don’t know who it belongs to”
“We have reason to believe it’s stolen. Did you happen to see anyone around it at all”
“No, I’m sorry. In fact, I don’t even have a driving license”
“OK sir, sorry to trouble you. I’ll keep asking around”
I realised at this point that I just didn’t have the chutzpah to be a criminal; I just can’t tell convincing lies. If he’d have asked me about Hoover vacuum cleaners I’d have crumbled pitifully. I sold the vacuum cleaners (Mom kept one) and then gave up on this little sideline.
Meanwhile, Jeff continued with his business interests, never got caught for anything, and enjoyed a quiet, happy and successful retirement as a multimillionaire with a mansion and a string of race horses.
Now buy me a coffee, or else I’ll set Jeff’s heavies onto you! 😊
