Mean Spirit

From Bang to Wrongs: A Bad Boy’s Book,

by GARY SEWARD

Listen, you have a kid hits you with a stick, you hit him back and you do it good and hard and you do it fast. And, most important, you do it with the jagged side of half a brick.

As a country boy in the East End, I had to learn this quickly. I was six years old when my old man done a runner and me and my mum come to live with my Aunt Min in Saxton Gate. I was the only one in our street ever seen a cow and I had this funny hayseed accent and so the other boys naturally took the piss, and you cannot tolerate this, can you?

The first one I done, his name was Clarence Judge and when I done him with the brick I didn’t realize he was the hardest kid in the street. This was a piece of real good fortune because me and Clarence, when his scars healed, we become the best of mates and we still are.