‘Anyway, that night, I hauled the cart to where Stan said I had to go – a house on Bedford Road, right on the corner, and I waited. Stan comes out the door with an enormous roll of fabric underneath his arm. He goes inside again and comes back with another, and another, and another. Once he’s loaded up the cart with six of them, I heave it down to someone’s shed on Derby Road and leave the fabric with some fella. And that’s how it starts. Before too long, I’m coming home from school most days and hauling stuff for Stan at night. Beer barrels. Crates of whisky. Tea chests full of God knows what. Sacks of flour. Sacks of coal. That stuff was the easiest to hide. My uncle’s happy with the money coming in and everything seems rosy for a while. But then Stan tells me I’m to go down to the shed and fetch some things for him. I get there and a fella starts to load the crates on to the cart. They’re filled with bars of Battleaxe tobacco – really heavy stuff for pipes. I’m meant to take them over to a pub, the Washington, and see a bloke who runs the cellar. So I do. But when I get there, about eight or nine, I find a copper meddling with his bike chain on the kerb outside. And I suppose he hears the clatter of the cart along the street, because he looks right at me. I try and edge away – I know he’s got me, though. A smarmy grin is on his face. He calls to me, You’d best wait where you are, boy. And I should’ve run, if I’d been thinking straight. But I just stood there. He walks over, has a peek what’s in the cart. He says, Ah, you like a pipe, do you? I like a pipe myself. I’m thinking, maybe he’s just after some for free. I might get out of this if I can let him have a bar or two. But no. He says, I wouldn’t touch the bar tobacco, mind. It’s too much bother, cutting it. Where’d all this come from? I don’t give an answer. Magic, was it? Miracle? He looks towards the pub. I don’t suppose you’ve got a bill of sale or something you can show me? That’s when I decide to run. Forgetting that the copper’s got his bike. I’m panting down the lane. He catches up with me in no time. And he puts me in the handcuffs, Just in case you try and scarper on the way. He walks me down to Bootle station. Happy with himself, he was, though I was crying like a baby. That was that. They charged me, sent me to the magistrate the morning after, and suddenly I was in the cells with proper criminals at Walton on remand. I never even got to see my uncle till he showed up at the Court of Sessions for my hearing. Feltham borstal’s where they sent me – just about two years – and in the end it didn’t turn out to be all that bad, considering where I might’ve ended up. At any rate, I think I’ve probably scared you off by now. I wouldn’t blame you if you want to leave …’