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earning. He had a small kitchen staff of two waiters and a cook. I was told to wait in the kitchen until the appointed time. I had undressed and was wearing only a bathrobe. While I waited, I drank brandy at the kitchen table.
    When my cue came, the cook slid the bathrobe from my shoulders and placed a tray with a decanter full of port in my hands. I entered. For a naked body the temperature was not warm, and my penis was not at its most glorious. In fact, because of the chill and my nerves, it was limp and bloodless, a shadow of its usual self. I approached the table and as I poured the first glass, I felt a hand cup my balls and give them a loving squeeze. With each glass that I filled, different hands caressed me. The blood streamed into my cock – you could have hung your hat on it. Rattigan’s dining-room was mirrored wall to wall. The men who weren’t looking at me directly were staring into themirror. Hands slid up and down my body. The fingers of the rich and privileged probed my arse and I smiled and served. This beat leaning up against a bar daydreaming. As they touched me, I wondered who I’d be able to rob, and who I wouldn’t.
    I was open to everything and, in time, everything would happen to me. This was just another day.
    I took a flat in central London and, as the many commuters travelled into the city to work, I travelled to the suburbs that they had just emptied and robbed them. I had been leading the city life for just under a year, when I was arrested on a burglary charge. I asked for fifty other offences to be taken into consideration, and was sentenced to two years. I was taken to HMP Wandsworth, in South West London. In Wandsworth, I met many people who would remain lifelong friends. In Wandsworth I met John Wooton.
    In 1948 prison time was hard time. You were not allowed to speak to a warder unless he addressed you first. You had one bath a week in five inches of tepid water, you dried yourself with a piece of coarse canvas cloth. At night you sat in your cold, dank cell sewing mailbags. The bags secreted a black, sticky resin, which would eventually cover your hands.
    It was no place for the faint-hearted. All my life I had abhorred violence. Although no victim, I was not a natural fighter. Words were my weapons. During exercise one day, my Scottish accent attracted the attention of a big English con. Taller, heavier and older than me, he decided he wanted to fight me – his reason being that he didn’t likethe way I spoke. In prison, if you can avoid using your slop-out pot, you do. As the exercise period was finishing, I took my chance to use the toilet. The English con followed me. His intent was clear and, barging into me, he raised his fists. The voice of John Wooton prevented that first punch being thrown. He said, ‘Why don’t you try me? I’m more your size.’ Aged 34, Wooton was ten years my senior. He was tall with dark hair and an athletic build. In his youth he had done some boxing and he ‘shaped up’ to the would-be bully. This man had wanted a soft target, someone to beat, someone to take his anger out on. He left the toilet without saying a word. He never bothered me again. For John and myself, it was the start of a friendship that would shape both our lives. Years later, this most trusted friend would marry my mother, making him my official stepfather.
    Wooton and myself were cut from the same cloth. Neither of us was typical of our backgrounds. We both moved easily in middle- and upper-class circles. John was no more a typical Londoner than I was a typical Glaswegian. We would work together, but in 1948 our time had not yet come. Before Wooton would come Johnny Collins. Collins was an East End thief, two years older than myself. Now he was a typical cockney – he loved going to the dogs, gambling, womanising, and boozing. On his right cheek he bore a scar, which he said was inflicted by Jack Spot, the so-called King of the