The Loose Screw (33 page)

"ITS NICE TO BE NICE."

17

EPILOGUE

As I have already mentioned, this book has taken almost six years for me to complete for various reasons. As a result of this, some of the events that have occurred over the last couple of years have not been recorded. The main one in the recent past to have affected me personally is the sad passing away of my grandparents. Due to the rift in my relations with my immediate family, I felt unable to attend the funerals, and this is something that has tormented my conscience ever since. I did, however, manage to send flowers, and my thoughts are always filled with memories of the wonderful contribution they made to my life.

My own life collapsed around me four or five years ago when, after a period of unemployment that left me growing increasingly depressed and introverted, Natasha and I split up. Not for the first time in my life, I once again felt all alone and rejected: Jim against the world. How did I deal with this sudden isolation? Yes, you guessed it, my old nemesis -lager. With nowhere to live and no family to fall back on, I took shelter in my local pub, The Crispin, and began a two-year mission of self-destruction by drinking to block out the reality of my situation. The landlord and landlady, Peter and Alli put me up in the recently converted cellar in a room with no windows and just enough space for a single bed. It was my own prison cell, although smaller than your average cell and with less furniture and no ventilation, and with access via the men's toilets.

It was as if the previous 15 years or so of my life had been eradicated, as once again I found myself alone in my box with nothing more than a small bag of clothes and alcohol-soaked memories of the life I once had with Natasha, Lauren and Morgan. I felt anger and frustration at not being able to deal with my situation, and so I shut out everything that was too painful to deal with. I found it difficult to socialize with anyone unless I had had a drink, after which I felt people accepted me and thought I was hilarious.

Consequently, I drank more and more, and the more I became accepted by my new social circle of 'friends' in the pub, the more I turned my back on Natasha, Lauren and Morgan and Natasha's family. I wasn't eating, sleeping or even bothering too much about personal hygiene. Instead, I was drinking heavily every day and becoming even more bitter and resentful. I now believe I was slipping into a period of mental illness.

Looking back at that period of my life now, I can see some distinct similarities between my own position and that of Charlie and other prisoners within the prison system. I rarely left the pub, apart from when I had to drag myself to work to pay my rent and bar tab. When I could drink no more, or Peter insisted on shutting the bar, I returned to my 'cell' through the men's toilet, where I was locked until the bar opened again. The pub became my prison and the bar my period of association. I was again becoming institutionalized, as I had to a certain extent been in the Army and Prison Service, and in much the same way that the prison system has institutionalized Charlie. I even received the odd 'visit' when Geoff, my father-in-law, came in for a pint. He would try to tell me how I was destroying my life but, of course, I didn't listen, and instead just joined the other 'inmates', i.e. drinkers in the pub, in slagging him off for trying to tell me how to live my life. I was slipping further and further from reality, and I was becoming more and more paranoid, angry, bitter and aggressive.

I soon began to feel I was invincible, and after a few months I started to venture out with one or two of the lads to some of the other pubs in town. It wasn't long before I became accepted in most of them. People would recognize me when I entered, and this gave me a certain feeling of status that I lacked in my sober life. I began to feel like I was becoming quite a 'face' around the town's social scene. It felt like I was being given respect and admiration -something I thought I had never received before. In my mental state I had forgotten all my early lessons in life from Max Bygraves and others like him. I felt like the hardest man in town and had totally turned my back on Natasha and the girls. However, after living this life for a year or so, those early lessons would come back to me rather abruptly and painfully only too soon, on one cold early Sunday evening in November 2000.

I had been drinking all day as usual, and had already visited one or two pubs when I went into a pub with a notorious reputation for violence. I went to the bar to order my second pint, and while I waited for it to be poured one of a group of lads sitting at the bar said to me, "You're that gobby cunt that knocks about with that lot from The Crispin, ain't you?" I looked at him and in typical drunken arrogance replied with a smirk, "No, not me mate. You must have the wrong bloke, you muppet". I collected my pint and returned to my table feeling good about how I had dealt with the wanker at the bar. I finished my pint and left the pub alone to walk back to The Crispin, but as I walked past the pub car park I received a heavy blow to the back of my head, which sent me crashing to the floor in a semi-conscious state. For the next few minutes, I was aware of three or four sets of boots raining shattering blows on my head and body. I tasted blood in my mouth after one or two blows got past my arms, which I had wrapped around my face and head. I felt nauseous as other blows connected with my ribs and abdomen. I could do nothing but adopt a foetal position and hope my attackers would soon get bored or someone would intervene and distract them long enough for me to get up and try to defend myself. Unfortunately this didn't happen, and I lay there for what seemed like an eternity thinking I was going to be kicked to death. I remember an extra vicious blow to the side of my head and then the lights went out. I woke up still lying on the pavement in extreme pain and spitting out blood, with somebody asking me if I was okay. I felt like saying, "Do I look fucking okay?", but remembered how opening my mouth without thinking had got me into this mess, so I replied, "Yes, I think so".

I then staggered back to The Crispin and ordered a pint. However, the look on Peter's face told me I was more seriously injured than I thought. He told me I needed to go to hospital and advised me to go and look at myself in the mirror. What I saw staring back at me nearly made me fall on the floor again. I looked like the Elephant Man: my head had swollen to almost twice its size, my eyes were blood red and my face was covered in bright red marks from the boots and trainers that had connected with it. I could see my left eye and cheekbone were closing up, and my left forearm had swollen to the size of my thigh as this had obviously blocked many of the kicks. "Remember, there is always someone harder than you around the corner", I said in my head as Max Bygraves' words of wisdom came back to me after 15 years.

No one in the pub was obviously going to volunteer to take me to hospital. In fact none of my so-called mates even offered to call me a cab. So, as if the blows to my head had flicked a switch in my memory circuit, I went to a place I knew I could get help: I went home, where Natasha still lived with Morgan. By rights she didn't even have to open the door to me after the way I had treated her and ignored her and Morgan over the past year, let alone take me to hospital, but take me she did. After a few hours of waiting for treatment and X-rays, I was amazed to find that I hadn't suffered any broken bones as the doctor had first suspected, and I was allowed to leave with some painkillers.

This was the wake-up call I needed, albeit it a painful one. I realized that I had to sort myself out and get my life back before I ended up dead in a gutter somewhere. Over the following year, I faced one of the hardest uphill struggles of my life. I began by securing myself a job with a local waste-tanker firm. The money was good, but the hours were very long and sometimes I wouldn't get home all week. This benefited me for two reasons: one, it kept me out of the pub and so aided my battle away from the drink that was making me so ill; and two, it provided me with a good enough wage to be able to start taking Natasha out for nice meals and treat Morgan to days out at the weekend.

At around this time, I felt ready to try to make contact with Lauren again, whom I had not seen for the best part of a year due to my state of mind and personal predicament. Quite understandably this took some time to arrange, as Jackie obviously had concerns about Lauren's welfare following my lack of commitment. Slowly but surely, however, everything began to fall back into place, as I clawed my way out of the seemingly bottomless black hole that had been my life.

I threw myself into work and, after a few months had passed, my HGV training was starting to earn me some good money. I had begun to see Lauren again and was spending more time with Natasha and Morgan. It was not long before we began to have Lauren to stay again at the weekends. We have come a long way in the last three years or so and, even though we have had a number of setbacks, we are still together and our future now looks good.

I have kept in touch with Charlie over the period since leaving the Prison Service, and attended his hostage trial at Luton Crown Court and his subsequent appeal at the Old Bailey. I was happy to provide evidence about his treatment and also a character reference based on my dealings with him, but I was not allowed to present them on either occasion. I really feel that had I been given the opportunity to speak I might have been able to help change the jury's opinion of the man. I have been privileged to be involved in a number of social and media events concerning Charlie, and as a result I have met many interesting characters along the way. I have finally, after some five years and three or four attempts, been cleared by the Home Office to visit Charlie in prison. The enquiries I made with the local police as to the reasons for my previous applications being refused were non-conclusive, as they said there was no problem at their end. It would appear that it was the Home Office that was blocking my application, although when I wrote to query the reasons for this I was given the standard reply: "It is not Home Office policy to discuss the reasons why a person is refused Category A visiting rights". I have made a few visits since finally being cleared in the early part of 2006, but it still saddens me to see the conditions in which the Prison Service still insists on keeping my old friend. Charlie is now 55 years old and is still being subjected to closed visits even with his own mother, to whom he cannot even give a hug when she goes to see him. This is in a prison that holds some of the most infamous convicted sex-crime perpetrators and child murderers. Even that rat Ian Huntley can be seen in the main visiting hall on occasions, cuddling and laughing and joking with teenage kids, as you are escorted through to where Charlie is still being held in solitary confinement. How can that be allowed when Charlie, who has NEVER killed anyone, can't even give his own mother a kiss? Charlie knows that he will always have my support and that I will always be available if he ever needs my help, and I am sure it will not be very long before the Prison Service has to admit its failings and release Charlie -and let me tell you, that will be some party, so I hope to see you all there soon.

As for the other people mentioned in the book, I have lost touch with most of them over the years. I still see Harry, who is currently working as a mechanic for Vauxhall, and Gary Thompson, who is still in the Army but will come to the end of his 20 years' service in the next couple of years. He is currently training to become a paramedic in preparation for his release. I see Simon every now and again, who is still happy with Sharon and they now have two lovely little girls, Rachel and Courtney. Occasionally I am in touch with Tim Marsh, Wayne Smith and a few other lads from the Green Jackets via the phone or email.

So what does the future hold for me? Well, Natasha gave birth to our beautiful new baby boy Thomas on 12 November 2006, so with Lauren, Morgan and now Thomas our lives will be pretty much occupied with the joys of trying to provide for their needs and enjoying watching them grow up; that precious time does not last very long, as I am sure all you parents will agree. I have a few ideas, but my main ambition now is never to fall back into the mental hell I found myself in when I was drinking, not least for Natasha and the children's sake, as they deserve much more from me. We have recently moved into a nice house, which we are slowly transforming to our taste. I have also recently started my own business in locksmithing, as I was growing tired of working for other people and decided to have a go at working for myself. I just want to continue to support my family as best I can, give them a good life and never let them down as I have in the past, as it is them I have to thank for supporting me through all the bad times when most people would have just left me to destroy myself.

I have been fortunate enough to have made some very good friends both through writing this book and as a result of my support for Charlie, not least Dave Courtney, who has very kindly offered to include me in a number of his projects. We are planning to do a joint tour, which will include book signings for various charities for which Dave is a patron, and he also wants to involve me in his very unique 'An Audience With' shows, which he performs at venues throughout the UK. For anyone reading this who has not been to one of these shows, I would urge you to look out for one and go along, as Dave's unique brand of humour and very open and honest views on his past experiences of the London underworld make it a highly enjoyable and entertaining evening. I never tire of listening to Dave's stories when he is on stage and thoroughly enjoy being part of the show. A line that always raises a laugh when I join Dave on stage during the show is when Dave says: "Hello, the last time I saw you you were hitting me on the head with your truncheon". If someone had said to me ten years ago that I would be enjoying games of pool at Camelot Castle (Dave's home) or joining him and people like Roy 'Pretty Boy' Shaw at book signings or other such events, I would have told them they were mad. But that is exactly what I do now, and it just goes to show that it does not matter what you do or did for a living so long as you treat people with a bit of respect and carry out the job you do conscientiously; then people will treat you the same in return. Dave tells me he has great plans for the future in relation to my joining him in various media and social events, so watch this space.