Powder Wars by Graham Johnson Page B

the big ones off the sites, he’d rob normal size ones from outside of people’s houses. Cunt’s trick, I know, but as I says, we had no regard for nothing, in all honesty.
    Snowball would suss it out on someone’s path and that and just tow it away in the middle of the night. I’d get a call at four in the morning, open up the yard and he’d drive it in. The next day we’d change all the locks, burn the numbers off and tow them down to Plymouth. We had a contact down there who’d put it in the local paper and get rid. Mostly we’d get grands here and there, but sometimes for a good one we’d get £2,500. Was good bunce, in all fairness, considering it was just caravans and that. It was all money in your backbin, knowmean?
    The Scrapman’s Gang was making good money. It had been good to all those involved: nice houses were being bought, cars, exotic holidays, golf clubs – all that carry on. We were also spending a lot on going out – pissing grands and grands up the wall. Got into being bits of playboys and that. The kiddies around town and that. Ten-day benders were not uncommon – especially if we’d had a good touch. I didn’t go home for weeks. Was out shagging all kind. Getting totally slaughtered.
    At about this time I thought it was a good idea to knock it on the head for a while. Were starting to attract a bit of attention, in all fairness. Busies were sniffing round the yard and that. It was time for a bit of a long break, in all fairness – from the robbing at least.

7
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    Caesar’s Palace
    Meanwhile, back on the doors Paul was embroiled in an endless round of gangster violence as the battle for control of Liverpool’s bloody and brutal clubland raged on. It was 1976. Change was in the air. Disco was invading the dance floors. Punk rock was kicking off. Chicken-in-the-basket cabaret was fighting to hold its own. In Liverpool, a new and exciting youth trend was taking root.
    Fuelled by Liverpool Football Club’s success in Europe, fans had taken to wearing expensive training shoes ‘zapped’ from exotic sports shops in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. The scally or football casual was born, the bane of door teams across the land. That year there was also a heatwave. Society was restless. Like a fresh wound, an unnerving undercurrent of panic meandered through the nation’s collective psyche.
    Old institutions were being affronted, insulted and torn down. The underworld was not insulated from this cultural upheaval. New gangs were growing stronger, tearing up the rule book and challenging the old order. As Paul gently expanded his own influence on the nightclub scene he was locked into a war of attrition, fighting on two fronts with old enemies and the young bucks alike.
    The Oslo moved from the rundown Dock Road area to a more prestigious and lucrative town-centre location. Paul took over the door on several other clubs including one called the Beachcomber, and when a new three-tier dance-floor-on-every-level club called Caesar’s Palace opened, it wasn’t long before Paul had muscled in on the action. Business was good, but it came at a price.
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    PAUL: The punks were sound, in all fairness. No trouble from them at all. Their clobber was truly outlandish, knowmean? Mad kecks, kilts and all of that. Some of the lads couldn’t get over them, knowmean? We was wearing flares and shiny bomber jackets and all of that so we thought we were sound.
    A lot of folk thought the punks were hell bent on trouble and that, just ’cos of what they wore – razor blades on their heads and that – but the way I seen it, the punks just came in my clubs for a good time, not for meddling with fellers like my good self and the lads, so it was sound, as far as I was concerned. Did not half-mind some of their tunes, mind you, too. The Sex Pistols and The Clash and all of that. Used to loiter around the top floor when