Essex Boy Read Online Free Page B

but she was clearly not listening, nor was she prepared to comply with my demands. When she began to call out, ‘Peter, Peter,’ I panicked, as I assumed that somebody else was in the rear of the shop. A dog began to bark and seemingly from nowhere a heavily built male appeared from behind the counter. I had no intention of getting involved in a fist fight and so I turned and ran out of the door.
    When the police arrived at the shop, the lady gave them a detailed description of the miniature robber, and triumphant officers were knocking at my front door within minutes. At the age of eighteen, I was still only five feet tall, which is why I was given the nickname ‘Nipper’. Doctors had explained that the treatment I had received for leukaemia may have affected my development and so there was no guarantee that I would ever grow any taller. Fortunately, they were wrong and I did gain six inches over the next few years. Unfortunately, in the meantime I was the most distinct-looking teenager in the Southend area.
    My mother invited the police into the house and as soon as they set eyes on me I was arrested for attempted armed robbery. I asked if I could fetch my coat before departing for the cells and as one of the officers escorted me upstairs I heard my mother say to his colleague, ‘Oh yes, Steven did go out with a knife about that time. His father was really unhappy about it.’ My escort looked at me and smiled.
    I knew that there was no point in denying the offence and so I simply said, ‘It wasn’t worth it, was it?’
    The officer laughed and replied, ‘It never is, son. It never is.’
    When I was interviewed about the offence, I made a full and frank confession before being charged with attempted robbery. The following day I appeared in court and was remanded in custody to Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) at Ashford, in Kent, to await trial. This may sound somewhat bizarre to many people but, like my stay in hospital, I actually found myself enjoying the experience. For the first time in my life I wasn’t being bullied, I had like-minded friends and everything I needed was provided for me. When I appeared in court for sentencing, the judge ordered that I should serve two years and three months’ imprisonment. I was 18 years of age. I certainly didn’t need to invest in a pair of sunglasses because my future was looking far from bright.
    The morning after I was sentenced, I was transferred to HMP Chelmsford, home to lots of young men from the Southend area. The first face I recognised when I entered the jail belonged to a man named Malcolm Walsh, from Leigh-on-Sea. I had occasionally attended school with Malcolm but I wouldn’t have described us as friends. Because we did recognise each other, Malcolm and I exchanged pleasantries and after a few brief conversations found that we had a lot in common. That is, we both made what little money we earned from committing crime. In the weeks and months that followed, our friendship grew and we spent a lot of time together. I was released from prison two months before Malcolm. On the morning I walked to freedom, we had both vowed to keep in touch but, apart from exchanging letters for the first two weeks, neither of us bothered to keep our promise. Three months later, I bumped into Malcolm at a pub called The Carlton, in Leigh-on-Sea. It was a chance meeting but we soon rekindled our prison friendship and became partners in crime. Malcolm and I earned a dishonest living committing burglaries, an occupation I now concede is vile. Like all criminals, we tried to justify our immorality by telling ourselves that, despite the fact that we were breaking the law, we were not all bad. For instance, we had pledged never to break into people’s homes, but breaking into their businesses and stealing their cars was deemed acceptable. We never stopped to think that the people whose homes we spared could have been the very same people who owned the businesses that we looted. The money