During that long hot summer there was always someone willing to create a dramatic picture of what the local secondary school- Johnson’s Park- was like and the introduction new boys received. But the reality was far worse! Had they stopped at stealing anything of value from my locker, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but when they upended me in the toilets and pulled the chain, that really was one step too far. The problem was knowing what to do.
The basic difference between us was that I had an ambition to go to college and then, depending on my grades, go on to a university; they, on the other hand, had no intention of going to school regularly, let alone going to college. Once I had asked one of the boys what he wanted to do when he was older; he simply shrugged his shoulders and swiftly changed the subject.
In a bizarre turn of events the solution presented itself. There was an after-school swimming activity at the local pool, reserved exclusively for our school and I joined that as a form of relaxation and sport. That first session proved to be much more than just swimming. Not only did the three new-comers have their trunks forcibly removed, but the price of their return was to agree to join the “Fin Club”, their term for the gang they operated. From what I could understand, the sole purpose of this gang was “Trouble.”
At first it didn’t seem to be too serious. Two or three of us, usually ma and two fourth or fifth year boys, would go out together and they would steel something small, say a jacket that had been left unattended, or something like it. But matters took a dramatic turn for the worse when Winston, one of the boys with us that night, suddenly snatched a gold chain from an elderly lady walking towards us.
“Run Leroy,” he yelled at me, and that is exactly what I did. When we finally reached Clapham Junction Station, Winston said,
“Hey man wasn’t that cool? Look at the merchandise. Maybe five hundred at the pawn shop?” The following weekend I was “invited” to go with them again, but this time I was far more apprehensive. They walked down the High Street with such a confident air that it almost invited trouble. I don’t think they saw the policeman in the doorway of the Railway Arms, otherwise they wouldn’t have tried their next move. They deliberately bumped into a man walking towards us and tried to steel his watch. Unfortunately the policeman saw it and was across the street before I could tell them to run. It was their own fault; if they had not been so greedy, they would not have been caught.
The three of us were in front of the magistrate on the following morning- with the headmaster. He talked to the magistrate and then the magistrate stood up and spoke,
“You Winston Lane and you Spencer Jones will both go to the Remand centre at Risley for six months. You Leroy Brown will spend the next six months on probation. Winston and Spencer were led away and the headmaster explained what probation meant. Two days later I met the probation officer and we talked for an hour or more. At the end he asked me if I would like to have tea at his house on the Saturday. I said I would and took his address. That Saturday changed my life. He and his wife suggested that I spent Saturdays with them- later it was the whole weekend. They became a second set of parents to me; they listened to me and took an interest in me, unlike my proper parents. They were far to busy to notice and when I began staying overnight they didn’t say a word. After “O” levels I asked if I could move in with them and my parents agreed. This was no surprise at all to me! My good Samaritan had succeeded and I never looked back. I never saw my friends again.
