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noting that he looked the business, offered to take him to Hollywood to act in films with Cagney, Raft and Bogart, but he turned it down. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘I was born in the East End and I’m going to die in the East End.’
    And he did. He was only in his early fifties when he had a brain haemorrhage. The funeral was like something out of a film – a proper gangster’s send off. There were hundreds of shiny black cars following the coffin. There were television cameras, celebrities, pop stars and almost every major villain in London. The wreaths wouldhave knocked your eyes out, all shapes and sizes. Jimmy Spinks was a legend.
    So that was Uncle Jimmy. At the time, us kids didn’t know anything about his reputation or his villainy. All we knew or cared about was that he had chucked out the bastard who had terrorised our home. If I’d known then that Irwin was only out of the way for three months, I wouldn’t have been so happy, but I didn’t, so I was over the moon.
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    It was at about this time when I had my first paid fight, and I think I was as pleased with what I earned then as I was with some later fights which earned me ten grand.
    Barry came home one day with a bleeding lip and Mum said: ‘Now, what have you been up to?’ Through his bawling he told her that Brian Hyams from downstairs had punched him in the face. Because Brian was older and bigger than Barry, Mum turned to me and said, ‘Lenny, go down and sort out that bully.’ So down I went.
    He was the same age as me but a lot bigger. Still, I steamed in anyway. Bang, bang, bang, Now he’s crying, and when you’re that age it’s the same as a knockout. So back up I go to tell my mum. Dead proud I am. Straight away she dipped into her purse and gave me three old pennies. But, in a way, the little pat on the shoulder she gave me was worth more than the money.
    Still, you couldn’t buy a lolly with a pat on the back and that’s what Barry, Kruger and me did. We shot round to Morgan’s on the corner and got a little square ice lolly each. The owner, a mean old bugger, used to make them himself in his freezer, two sucks and they went white, but we didn’t care. The three of us sat on the wall, the champion and his brothers, and sucked them to death.
    Every kid passing by was collared by Barry and Kruger and dragged up to look at the tough guy who’d given Brian Hyams a bashing. They were well impressed because he was a bit of a handful, but I think most of them were even more impressed when they heard I got paid for it. So, in a minor way, I became ‘the Guv’nor’ of Godwin House.
    I was getting a fair reputation at school as well, but I never picked on anyone smaller than me. Come to that, I never really picked on anyone – they seemed to search me out to prove themselves tougher than me. I’d noticed that if you were a good fighter you had loads of friends – the more fights, the more friends. So I was always mixing it in the playground. Shirt-tail hanging out,knees and knuckles grazed, and the odd bloody nose. I loved it. Suddenly I was somebody who counted.
    As often happens when you’re a kid, after that first fight with Brian Hyams, him and me became mates; there was Brian, Alfie Hayes and Frankie O’Leary. We did everything together. We’d be in and out of each other’s flats, though none of them wanted to come near mine if they thought Irwin might show his face. We’d spend hours together and we were always trying to outdo each other – who could run the fastest, who was the best swimmer, or who was the toughest fighter.
    Alfie and me got into a fight one day with a kid about four years older than us – Roger Smythe, a right handful. He wasn’t going to give up and neither were we, so we took turns in belting or being belted. When Alfie got tired he’d say, ‘Come on, “Boy Boy”, your go,’