The Criminal Alphabet Read Free Page A

left. (Of course, it could be very annoying to others, who were only just
     starting their sentences, to have people openly and gleefully counting down the days
     to their release, and this sometimes led to violence.)
    The borstal system was a hotbed of
     slang. If someone was misbehaving, they would be told to ‘toe it’, meaning to toe
     the line. I found out years later that the expression ‘toe the line’ dates back to
     the early days of bare-knuckle fighting, when a line would be drawn on the ground
     and, after a knockdown, each fighter would start again, with their toes on this
     line. So to ‘toe it’ meant to get up and get ready for what was coming. Insults in
     the borstal system were rife, and if you weren’t the brightest spark in the box you
     would be referred to as a Plum (apparently a reference to a
     dim-witted Red Indian character featured in
The Beano
, Little Plum). ‘Sap’
     was also big as an insult in borstal. This word has its origins in American slang:
     it was a small cosh carried by police and criminals, a blunt instrument. It wasalso used to describe a soppy or stupid person, and borstal boys
     picked up the word from old Hollywood films. Borstal society was basically split
     into two separate factions: you were either a chap or a sap. Chaps
     were tough guys, future career criminals, and not to be messed with – the leaders.
     And the majority of borstal boys were the saps, sheep to be bullied and taken
     advantage of.
    My entry into the world of the
     professional criminal and adult prison was an eye-opener when it came to slang. An
     old expression that was still in vogue among criminals when I started out was
     ‘wearing the paper hat’, meaning to be ‘mugged off’ or put in a compromising
     position with no gain, or to end up behind bars, and it’s still heard today in some
     circles. If a group of criminals is committing a crime and one of them gets caught
     while the rest get away, the one who’s caught is said to be left ‘wearing the paper
     hat’. Nobody wanted to be in that position. I entered the world of the police fit-up (tailoring of evidence by the police to fit the
     suspect), the sweatbox (prison transport) and the mattress job (a
     beating by police in which a cell mattress is put over the prisoner before they are
     given a kicking), of verbals (made-up statements supposedly said by
     the suspect at the time of arrest and recorded in the arresting officers’ notebooks
     as gospel) and ‘mags’ (magistrates’ court). The slang was coming fast and hard, and
     I barely had time to learn it all before I found myself serving a lengthy
     sentence.
    At the age of sixteen I appeared at the
     Old Bailey, having forsaken the juvenile crimes of TDA (Taking and Driving Away), hoisting (shoplifting) and ‘scrumping’ (stealing fruit from
     gardens or orchards) in order to pursue a career in the more adult environment of
     blagging and GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm). I stood in the dock and was sentenced to a
     three-stretch (three years) for my indiscretions, and though I was still legally a
     juvenile offender, Iwas treated like an old lag .
     My life was now set out for me – crime, detention centre, crime, borstal, crime,
     prison, old age, die was what I was heading for. Having read a report written by a
     prison governor in 1976, when I was fifteen, I have no reason to believe that ‘the
     system’ (what most criminals and prisoners call the criminal justice machine) had
     any faith in me pulling out of the life I’d chosen. The report said, ‘Smith has been
     identified as one of a small group of boys who will spend their lives in and out of
     institutions.’ Nice to know that I was written off at the age of fifteen! But, it
     must be said, I was a terrible little scrote who couldn’t stop half-inching ‘the prize’ (proceeds of robbery) whenever the
     opportunity presented itself.
    Armed robbery, the criminal offence that
     became my
raison d’être
, is