The Profession of Violence by John Pearson Page A

against the neighbouring gangs were organized in deadly earnest by the twins. For most of their followers ‘they were just a lark, an outing, a sort of club activity’. But for the twins there was too much at stake to leave anything to chance. They quickly learned the elements of leadership and imposed strict discipline. They began using many of the military principles they had avoided in the army; Ronnie’s fantasies of Lawrence of Arabia started to make sense.
    From the start he knew the importance of reliable intelligence about the enemy, and took trouble picking up facts about rival gangs. He had a following of small boys he used to meet in a cafe in the Bethnal Green Road. He was developing a taste for teenage boys, but these also acted as his ‘spies’; he used to send them out to watch a house or club, or follow someone and report back to the hall. Payment was strictly by results. He used to call the boys ‘my little information service’.
    As a result of what they told him he often managed to plan out his battles in advance, banking on surprise and giving his followers their orders with cool military precision. Soon he was demonstrating more complex military skills. The billiard-hall wars became more ambitious. He would take trouble over ‘propaganda’ to mislead his enemy – usually in the form of rumours put round by his friends. Sometimes he used diversionary tactics during a raid, splitting his forces into two and timing his attack after the main body of the enemy had been drawn off by a false offensive. Secrecy became important.
    A failure or an indiscretion by any follower was taken seriously. Sometimes the twins sat in judgement on an offender in the billiard hail late at night in a carefully staged court-martial. Evidence was heard, the prisoner was allowed to speak, the twins passed judgement. Ronnie was careful to make the punishment fit the crime. Sometimes it would be a simple beating, sometimes expulsion from the group. Several times members of the gang were awarded a day’s solitary confinement and locked up in an empty house behind the billiard hall.
    Reggie was an effective fighter and organizer, but the more serious the ‘wars’ became, the more the initiative and the ideas seemed to be coming now from Ronnie.
    â€˜Christ, Ron,’ said one of the gang, after a preliminary briefing, ‘you’re just like a bloody colonel.’
    â€˜Am I?’ he said. The name stuck.
    Although short-sighted and an indifferent shot, Ronnie was obsessed with firearms. The twins had bought their first gun at sixteen. Since then their armoury had grown. Now it included a new Luger automatic, an old Mauser, revolvers of varying calibres and several sawn-off shotguns. Most of these were hidden under the floorboards of 178 Vallance Road. Ronnie dreamed of using all these guns, though at the moment they remained objects of fantasy. He still had his big Alsatian; he had trained it to be fierce and liked to think nobody else could handle it. He also had his ordinary weapons, a large collection of cavalry sabres, Gurkha knives, bayonets, anything that cut, most of them bought from antique shops. He enjoyed the feel of them and spent hours sharpening his swords on a big grindstone in the yard at Vallance Road. He filled his bedroom with them, saying that he slept more soundly surrounded by cold steel.
    Reggie also saw the billiard hall as an important opportunity in life, but in a more practical way than Ronnie. With much of his father’s sharpness, he was the businessman of the two and quickly realized that with the name thetwins were getting, they had a chance of money. Possibly the good life was not so hard to find as they had thought.
    Many of their friends were criminals, mostly thieves, and since the twins’ fame had spread they started to play host to a fair slice of the up-and-coming criminals of the East End. Most thieves require a well-run base if