CHAPTER 10 - BAD BOY MAKES GOOD

Tony Montgomery stood on the corner of the main high street in a little town on the Norfolk coast, dragging aggressively at a rather long cigarette which glowed brightly in the early evening, as the dark curtain of night began to descend on the town. The corner was the entrance to Tom Green’s tailor shop and was the most regular of our assembly places.

His draped, long, royal blue tailored jacket, adorned with black velvet collars, his skin-tight upturned tapered trousers which were neatly anchored above his blue suede beetle-crushers, gave anyone who looked at Tony an immediate desire to turn their gaze away rapidly, and offer only a cursory, peripheral glance out of the corner of their eye. That was because Tony had a reputation of being a thug, a thug extraordinaire who always wanted a fight. To glare at Tony was to risk bringing forth a surge of anger and aggression, uncontrollable adrenaline both ways, and an aggressive squint from his piercing eyes?

“What’re you looking at. D’you want a broken jaw?”

Everyone in the town knew that Tony carried a cut-throat razor which he was known for tucking in his top pocket behind his castellated false handkerchief, carefully closed inside its ivory white handle, so the blade would not cut his precious suit jacket pocket, ready to be drawn when someone was looking for a fight.

In those days, the early 1950s, one could rarely go about one’s business without a thug challenging your right to walk the streets, wanting to engage in some kind of combat, especially in the hours of darkness!

I was the scruffy local lad from a rather poor family, and always steered clear of Tom Green’s corner for fear of having to face Tony. I always made sure I knew where Tony was hanging out, as word soon passed through the streets. On Saturday nights there was always a gang surrounding Tony, all sycophantically sucking up to this street villain known as ‘the hard man’!

Tony had servants, youngsters without a purpose who wished for nothing else but to serve him. I dare say if he asked one of them to stick a knife in someone they would have willingly done so as they always had to agree with everything Tony said, and run down everyone else, especially those that Tony was against and who were against Tony.

Tony was a thief, a liar, a rascal and was, according to rumour, cuffed around the jaw by his father most days, and he often bragged about it to gang members. He also bragged that he had acquired a .38” Smith and Wesson, WWI army issued revolver.

I knew that anyone could be taken down at any time just for being alive, and people were cautious of the razor neatly folded in Tony’s pocket, and the legendary gun!

I used no weapons, so was what was known to the gangs in those days as a wimp! What I wanted to do was to meet Tony on the beach and have a fun wrestle, and then overpower him, for in those days that is how things were settled; but how to get him there?

My thinking was that if I could engage in combat, even if I lost, I would be able to sleep more soundly without conjuring up continual fear about what might happen if Tony was to attack me with his gang behind him?

The chance was to come sooner than later. I had collected rags and bones on a Saturday morning in order to buy a black Tommy Steele guitar that shone like a glimmering star as it caught the light in the front window of the local music shop. It was expensive, at two pounds ten shillings. A man could feed a family of eleven for half a week on that, but I was nearly there; only a quid to go!

I was so delighted with the new ‘jewel’ I had bought that I disappeared from the streets where everyone gathered, for some weeks. I was honouring this beautiful instrument and learning how to play from a ‘Bert Weedon play-it-yourself booklet’. When I could play ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ well enough, I entered the town’s music contest at The Penrice Arms, and when it was my turn, I blew the audience sky high, mostly because I had a good voice, and the few chords strummed on my new guitar sounded great. It was a great challenge for me to master the few chords necessary to play the tune.

There on the front row sat a dozen or so thugs, with Tony in the centre, ‘man-sitting’ legs apart and outstretched, combs in their hands ready to re-style their hair if the door opened and blew it out of place.

The back of the dance-hall door was opened to let someone in, which created a draught enough to dislodge a hair. They all wore immaculately brushed blue suede shoes. Tony was obsessed with looking at his shoes whenever he had a moment to spare. They were certainly cool, and were easily the best in town, as they were bought from the classiest shoe shop in Great Yarmouth, ‘Mayes and Bowen’.

I received an ovation after the song, probably because all the adults knew I was self-taught and was a shy and unassuming performer. I was also known in the town as being the ninth child of a large post-war family who lived in poverty, so sympathy for me oozed out of everyone who was watching.

I revelled in songs by ‘The Animals’, especially those written by Eric Burdon. I took a bow after receiving a huge applause which caused Tony to grimace, placed my new guitar against a table and sat down with my brothers and sisters, happy I had made such a hit. I felt safe in the company of my siblings, who were all older than me and a good deal tougher than the gang members, especially my brother Michael.

Later that evening my guitar was missing and none of my family saw it taken. I thought I had taken it to the lavatory as I hadn’t wanted to lose sight of it. I nipped to the lavatory and on opening the door I saw my beautiful guitar smashed, lying on the floor, the strings hanging, trembling, having been cut. I had tears in my eyes.

When the event was over, I looked for Tony, and there he was, outside in the street, laughing, surrounded by his cronies. “Have you seen my guitar”?

“Where’s the little boy’s guitar then? Where is baby Elvis’s guitar then” asked Tony?

I stepped towards the thug and without more ado punched him on the nose knocking him backwards, then leapt upon him as he fell to the floor. I wanted to make sure I was never afraid of Tony again, so I punched him in the teeth and gave him a left and right hook across the chin. Blood spilled, and I stood up and walked away. I was a bony knuckled, seven stones!

From that evening onwards I walked the streets with a new pride, and I never came across Tony again on Tom Green’s corner. In fact, I never saw him anywhere, and the gang disintegrated.

I was the new hero, the brave one, the cool guy, and received great acclaim from then onwards. I was the seven-stone weakling but had sorted out Tony.

Oh, I did get another guitar, paid for by a collection arranged by Tony’s gang. The new guitar was even better, and it certainly should have been it cost £3, a small fortune in those days.

I never became a singer, but I did become a soldier in The British Army and retired in 1969 and entered public school education as a teacher. My hobby was, and still is, playing the guitar!

At seventy-six years of age, I still remember the details of that night as though it happened only yesterday.

Thanks to social media, I attempted to find out how Tony had fared in his life, and in 2017 I was able, through friends I had been at school with, to locate him and send a message.

A year passed by, and a message came up on my email. It was Tony, a very new, kind Tony. He had been a probation officer for almost fifty years!

Tony and I are now friends on social media, and chatting with Tony showed me how important it is to forgive and forget!