From the Inside: Chopper 1 (3 page)

Every now and again I suffer bouts of bad conscience, a type of guilt left over from my upbringing. I am by no means a religious man, but the teachings of childhood are hard to shake off. It may come as a shock to those who know me but I do feel spooky at times about some of the things that I have done. I justify it all to myself by saying that I’ve never killed or hurt anybody who didn’t have it coming to them in the eyes of God. But sometimes I get spooked as none of us knows what awaits us in the hereafter. Personally, I think I am owed an apology.

Anyone who has killed will confess in private that the faces of his victims come back in his dreams. I have spoken to multiple murderers like Robert Wright and Julian Knight about this. In Knight’s case it is not the faces but the whole Hoddle Street massacre that comes back.

Quite a few fellows who have taken human life have confessed to me in private that I am not the only one who has this happen to them. Every now and again the buggers come back to you in your dreams and talk to you. In my case, it has been quite disturbing over the years.

*

Anyone who has killed and claims the face or the event does not come back to them in a dream, is lying.

It is no secret that mental health and myself have enjoyed a shaky friendship at times, but at the risk of being called a nut case, I will admit that I believe in God. It may sound silly, but I used to pray before going into battle. I used to have a silent prayer, ‘Lord, if you are with me, no man can stand against me.’

Having escaped death so many times has only strengthened my belief. I believed that The Lord saw my enemies as foul sinners and me as his messenger sent to punish them. I no longer believe that. But if there is no God then I am the luckiest man to have survived all the battles. It is something I often think about.

Perhaps I am alive because as bad as I am, The Lord saw me as the lesser of two warring evils and allowed my enemies to die or be defeated.

Who knows what is the truth? I have lived through too many attempts to kill me for it to be simply good fortune or my own quick thinking.

At my murder trial, I prayed to God to make the jury find me not guilty. You figure it out. I can’t.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and I have stood at the edge of the grave for most of my life. It is hard for me not to wonder, at times, why I am still alive. How have I continued to escape death in every life and death situation?

I don’t ever talk about this stuff inside jail. People in here think I am mad enough already without adding to it. But I can’t help thinking, if God was not with me, why am I alive? No-one has that much luck on his own.

Chapter 2

From orphanage to Pentridge

‘Don’t ask for mercy from a man who has been shown no mercy.’

THE name ‘Read’ is an old Irish name. I’ve been told that ‘Reid’ is English and ‘Reed’ is Scottish. The name Brandon, my middle name, comes from Brandon Head, a small fishing village on the south west coast of Ireland in the county of Kerry.

I was born in Carlton on November 17, 1954. I spent the first 18 months of my life in the Methodist Babies Home in Melbourne, in which time my sister Debbie was born.

My Mum’s name is Valerie, and Dad’s is Keith. Mum was an ultra-strict Seventh Day Adventist. Dad became a Seventh Day Adventist to marry Mum.

To be honest my Mum and I were never close. The church ruled her life. It came before family, before everything. Mum told Dad to get out when I was 16 years old. They divorced when I was 19.

I hated the Seventh Day Adventist Church. I had a violent childhood, and I was sort of ‘brainwashed’. I didn’t feel loved as a kid and I grew up praying to God that He would kill my mother. I loved my Dad, although he belted hell out of me as a child right up until I fought him back at the age of 15. Every time my Dad belted me it was at my Mum’s orders.

I ran away from home six times between the age of 10 and 15. It was not a happy time for me, but I don’t blame the past for what I am.

My grandfather, Mum’s father, was a Seventh Day Adventist minister. Pastor George Weslake. I hated the church and I hated my home life, and it gives me no joy to remember it. But I do love my old Dad. He left the church when I was 15 or 16, after I stopped going to church.

I don’t remember ever liking my sister Debbie. To this day she is a devout Christian. She left the Seventh Day Adventists to become a born-again Christian. She sends me letters telling me to change my evil ways — or else burn in the fires of Hell.

As a cook my Mum would have made a great steam cleaner. Everything I ate was either steamed or boiled. By the time I left home at 15 to go cane cutting up north I was practically steamed and boiled.

There is a saying: ‘Don’t ask for mercy from a man who has been shown no mercy’. As a kid I was shown no mercy, so I’d rather not go into much detail about my childhood. My best and happiest days have been on the streets of Melbourne. If I had happy times at all it would be when my Dad moved us to Mornington for a couple of years. They were carefree days. There was still violence in the home but I loved Mornington. The seaside was wonderful. When I settle down for good I’d love to live by the seaside.

One of the few things about my childhood that was completely normal was that, like most kids, I had a dog, which I loved. One day there was a blow-up at home. Dad walked out, and naturally I followed. When things were patched up Cindy was nowhere to be found. She had been put to sleep. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

I was put into Melbourne mental hospitals a few times when I was about 15, but my Dad got me out. I was put into assorted mental institutions up until I was 19, but Dad kept getting me out. I was given several treatments of deep-sleep therapy. My Mother thought I was dyslexic and autistic. The fact was all I was really guilty of was leaving the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

I was treated for all manner of mental disorders. Some in my family were convinced that my rejecting the Seventh Day Adventist Church showed that I had a severe mental disorder and that it had to be treated. Of course my treatment back in the mental hospitals in those days was not kind.

I was sent to a mental hospital in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne where I underwent deep-sleep therapy. I was completely off my head when I got out of one of the mental hospitals. I was put in assorted institutions four times as a teenager.

It took about ten years for me to get over the so-called treatments I got. I was completely psychopathic when I got out of there once. They put me on all sorts of weird and wonderful drugs and shock treatment. With the shock treatment they put the big bit in your mouth and hold you down and give you a big charge of the soup. I used to have a saying, ‘EST won’t get me’.

It was terrifying as a teenager to be placed in a ward with grown men strapped to their beds. The noise was unbelievable.

I know it’s popular these days to talk about all the abuse you got as a child. Personally I’d rather keep the worst parts to myself. That’s my business. But some of it would make strong men vomit, if I told all. I’ll leave it at that. I suppose it could have been worse. Mum could have taken me on a day trip to Ayers Rock. Ha ha.

My childhood and schooldays were nothing to talk about, except that all I ever learnt as a child and teenager was violence and hatred for would-be tough guys.

In my schooldays in the 1960s I was the victim of schoolyard bullies five days a week. There were fights in the schoolyard day in, day out, and Adventists tend to get picked on. I must have been the most punished kid at any school I went to. Six of the best on each hand.

I grew up to hate bullies. I guess that’s why I take such delight in belting the hell out of the so-called ‘tough guys’. I’m violent, but I’m not a bully. Everyone I’ve ever moved against has been a bully boy, a two-bob tough guy. Most of the truly violent men I’ve known in my life have been the victims of school bullies and violence in the home.

I took a twisted pride in the fact I was the most strapped kid at school. I remember once I was kicked so bad in the head by bullies at Lalor High School that my parents didn’t recognise me at first when I got home. But I always came back for more. Every time I got knocked down, I got up — for more, and more, and more, again and again.

As I said, through the 60s I ran away from home six times. One adventure was going into the city on the train when I was a 10-year-old to see the Beatles. I never did get to see the Beatles, but I had a great time getting lost in the crowds.

Another time I ran off to see LBJ, the American president, with other kids in front of the town hall. After kicking my way through the crowd to try to shake hands with him, I got to see the paint splashed over one of the cars. It was a great adventure.

I used to love to go in and watch the anti-war marches. The other kids and me would stand on the footpath and spit and yell abuse at the anti-war protesters. The whole city seemed to be closed and empty. Everyone was either marching or yelling abuse at the marchers. It was all high adventure for a young teenager.

I remember in 1969 going to see a then little-known lady in the city at some shopping centre place. She kissed me on the cheek and got lipstick all over me . . . it was Edna Everage, now Dame Edna Everage. Silly old drag queen.

The 60s was a great time for kids to grow up. When Harold Holt died I remember there were big posters all over Melbourne — photos of Holt with the words ‘A Great Australian’ written underneath. A lot of Australian history happened in the 60s. It was a good time.

*

When I was growing up Australia was still influenced by the White Australia policy. We hated all ‘wogs’. . . yet my girlfriend Margaret, the greatest chick I’ve ever known, is Maltese. We hated all ‘Abos’, yet I’ve been shown great kindness by Aborigines. We hated all Asians yet — and I’ve never told anyone this — my Dad is quarter caste Chinese. Their family name was Shan Han, but later they changed it to Shanhan to give it a more Irish sound.

Looking at my Dad it is very hard to pick that he is quarter Chinese. He hates the Japs. Everyone I’ve ever met born in this country — regardless of their race of family nationality — is racist towards some other race or nationality or culture.

Whites in Australia either hate the blacks or the ‘slopes’ — or, if not, they don’t mind a sly giggle at their expense. In years to come the Asians in Australia — talking with Aussie accents and drinking beer in the pubs and going to the footy — will be putting shit on the ‘wogs’ and ‘coons’, as the ‘wogs’ and blacks are already putting shit on the ‘chows’ and ‘slopes’.

I don’t think it is really blood-hatred racism but more a part of the ‘rough as guts’ Australian sense of humour, part of the Aussie culture and attitude.

Anyway, I’m racist — and my great granny was a chow, bless her heart.

*

My Mum’s father fought in the First World War in the cavalry, but I don’t know much about him. My Dad’s father, Alfred Read, was nicknamed ‘The Bull’ because of his great physical strength. He could bend a penny in half between his thumb and forefinger. He fought bare knuckles as a heavyweight prize fighter and worked as a shearer, wool presser and horseman. He was once photographed at Dalgety’s wool stores with a bale of wool weighing 900 pounds resting on his shoulders as it was being rolled from platform to truck.

After the First World War ‘Bull’ Read bought and sold remount horses — travelling with them to India, where he would do the deal. He walked out on my Dad and his young brother and my grandmother when Dad was a small boy. My grandma died in Dad’s arms when he was about 14. Dad worked as a stockman then joined the army at 16 to find that his father ‘Alf the Bull’ had also joined up for the Second World War.

Dad did a bit of boxing in the army. That’s where he first met his good friend Eddy Miller. Later, I used to call Eddy Miller ‘Uncle Eddy’. He was a great old chap. When my Dad took us to live in Mornington in the 60s for two years Uncle Eddy had a taxi cab business down there. It was down there that Eddy and Dad taught me to box when I was a kid.

As a teenager I was always interested in joining the army. I did try to enlist once but got knocked back because I failed the psychiatric test . . . the female captain psychiatrist said I had a personality given to violence.

Using that as an excuse to stop someone joining the army — well, I thought it was quite amusing. I admit, I also had flat feet, but I didn’t get as far as the medical.

*

In 1977 when I got out of prison, with my Dad’s help and on his advice, I applied to join the Rhodesian Security Forces. I wrote away to the head of the forces — a Major General Kurt something or other. As I expected, I was accepted, and the necessary application forms plus assorted other paper work and travel instructions arrived. I filled out the application form and sent it back. A letter returned to say I had to fly to South Africa and then take a bus up to Salisbury, Rhodesia, as you couldn’t fly from Australia to Rhodesia direct.

I told the Parole Board via my parole officer that I was leaving. ‘No you aren’t’ said the parole officer. ‘You’re on parole; you’re going nowhere’.

Had I been allowed to leave we wouldn’t be bothering with all this now, and the Victorian Government would have saved a fortune in jail and courts, police and legal costs.

Some men dream of dying in a hail of bullets, and in 1977 I was one of those men. But my dream was not to be. You could die of old age and boredom in Melbourne if you were hoping to die in a hail of gunfire in face to face combat in the streets. Let’s face it, the Australian crim isn’t a great one for any form of gun-in-hand face to face shoot-it-out combat. If they ever get me, it will be in the back.

*

When I ran away to Queensland when I was a teenager I worked for a while on the cane fields in Mossman, 40 miles north of Cairns in Queensland. One day I caught a skinny black snake about two feet long. I had no idea what it was, and still don’t — I’m no snake expert. But it was handy.

I was having some bother with some Abo cane cutters, so I held the snake around my neck and said ‘Come on’. They backed away, so it must have been a nice, evil type of snake.

I emptied the hut real quick the night I brought ‘Speedy’ back from the cane field. I fed him live mice. He would eat two a week. He didn’t seem to drink, and he would cough his mouse bones and muck up the day after he’d eaten. I lasted a month on the cane fields — cane toads, snakes, 100 degree heat, dirt and sweat — chopping cane by hand for $35 a bloody week. It was twice as much as a 15-year-old was paid in 1970, but I didn’t like sleeping in a hut with farting, snoring, drunken cane cutters.

I brought my snake back to Melbourne and swapped him for a carpet snake and a python. Boy, did I have fun with them. I would push the face of the carpet snake into the faces of my enemies while my friends Dave the Jew and Cowboy Harris held them. The carpet snake would bite down. You could pick my enemies around Prahran — we moved from Thomastown to Prahran in 1970 — as a fair few of them had badly swollen and festering faces from the bite of the carpet snake.

The carpet snake and the python were called Reggie and Ronnie after the Kray brothers in London. The Krays had been my boyhood heroes, and I’d read that they, too, had kept pet snakes.

My teenage gang was made up of Terry the Tank, Dave the Jew and Cowboy Johnny Harris. We were the Surrey Road gang. We hung around at the Try Boys youth club with Lee and Wade Dix — Billy Dix’s boys. I did Greco-Roman wrestling, swimming, and weightlifting and I boxed at Ambrose Palmer’s gym in West Melbourne. I used to wrestle with big Lee Dix. He is now a top nightclub bouncer and still a good mate of mine.

Try Boys youth club was our headquarters. We had a collection of iron bars, knives, sawn-off shotguns and .22 calibre rifles, tomahawks, and meat cleavers. With ‘Ronny and Reggie’ in their carry bag we were a young but violently advanced crew. Dave the Jew owned his own handgun, but refused to part with it, which made me very jealous. We would engage larger gangs in combat with our World War One issue Australian Army bayonets, and we were undefeated.

Terry was bigger than me, and I wasn’t small. Cowboy Johnny was a few years older than me, and a bit punchy. He wasn’t a big thinker, but loyal.

Dave the Jew and I nearly fell out — it could have come to bloodshed and death — after Reggie the carpet snake bit him on the hand and he cut Reggie and Ronny both up with a meat axe.

Dave was sentenced to punishment. He had to eat a full packet of lit smokes one after the other, swallow them down with a bottle of ouzo then receive a sound beating. It was either that or a shot in both legs. Dave ate the cigarettes — all lit — then polished off the ouzo to kill the pain of the coming beating. We broke his face up well. In fact, he lost his front teeth. All was forgiven.