Twisting My Melon Read Online Free PDF Page A

became so disillusioned with school that it got to the stage where it was a good day if I was told to go out to the playground and pick up litter. When I had to do that, a pal of mine who was also disruptive would have to spend all day painting the bogs. Being sent to pick up litter in the playground was great for me, as it meant I could smoke all day while I was doing it, and run off out the school gates and sneak down to the precinct when no one was looking. That was better than being in class.
    By this point my main mission was making some money and buying nice clothes. I was far more interested in having cash in my pocket and looking good than learning anything. Because we went to a Catholic school, we had to wear a bloody blazer and a jumper, which I wasn’t into, especially as you couldn’t really customize them and make them your own. I’d always liked clothes and I can remember mithering my mam for a pair of bell-bottom trousers at the end of the 60s when I was only about seven. They had become really important to me by the time I reached high school. In the mid-70s it was all about Doc Martens, parallel trousers, two-tone trousers, patch pockets, platforms and Royal shoes which were popular with Northern Soul fans. Looking good was important, so any money I laid my hands on, I spent on either some new clobber or on booze.
    Ever since I first nicked the toffees at primary school, going on the rob had seemed natural to me, but by the time I was at high school nicking stuff became almost my main mission. There wasn’t much money at home and, as I’d become frustrated and disillusioned with school, there wasn’t a great deal else to do. It became a bit addictive as well. I’d steal anything – toffees, money, booze, clothes, bikes. I wasn’t unique in that. Most of my pals that I knocked about with were doing it as well. We would sell a lot of what we nicked, especially the booze, which we’d sell to ice-cream men, who would flog it from their vans. Back in 1973 we were lucky enough to have the Bulmers and Schweppes depots round our way, so we would rob both of them. The Bulmers depot had barbed wire and that black tar anti-climbing paint on the wall, but we would get over it quite easily. At Schweppes you used to have to get into the yard first, then kick a couple of doors in and then you’d be in the store where there were crates of booze – whisky, vodka, all sorts.
    We also used to hit pubs and off-licences near us. One pub – which is actually not far from where I live now, so I’d better not name it – used to keep all its stock in a garage attached to the pub, so we’d break in there. We weren’t professional, we were just kids, so we just used to kick doors in or smash windows, or go through skylights to get in where we needed to. I didn’t have a particular partner in crime; there’d usually be a few of us , including some of my cousins. We might not have been professional, we were just kids, but we were good little sneaks, so we hardly ever got caught.
    In 1973, a huge superstore called Scan opened near us, in Walkden. It was the first place of its kind in the area; we had never seen anything like it. Even now, it would be considered a big superstore. It was bigger than most of the places you get at those out-of-town retail parks. It was fucking huge. They sold everything from sports gear to guitars to records to food, but basically they had it set up like a fucking greengrocer’s – a couple of those useless security mirrors and then twenty old biddies on the tills. There were no security guards or anything. In Salford! It was a joke. It was an open invitation to nick stuff. We used to go shopping with my mam and dad sometimes, and we would purposefully put our fishtail parkas on, which had holes in the linings. We would then walk out with all sorts in the linings – records, airgun rifles, darts, you name it. It got ridiculous in the end. They had these old country and western amps in