Terry Smith - Nil Desperandum: Never Despair - A Biography Of Patsy Feeley

Title Page

NIL DESPERANDUM:

NEVER DESPAIR

A Biography of Patsy Feeley

by Terry Smith

Publisher Information

First published in 2006, Updated and Reprinted in 2010 by

Apex Publishing Ltd

PO Box 7086, Clacton on Sea, Essex, CO15 5WN

www.apexpublishing.co.uk

Digital Edition converted and distributed in 2011 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

Copyright 2006-2010 by Terry Smith

The author has asserted his moral rights

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition, that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder.

Cover Design: Siobhan Smith

Dedication

Dedicated to Lenny Carter.

Fortius quo fidelius

(Strength through loyalty)

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my mother and father Patrick and Mable Feeley for starting my journey. Brother and sisters Stephen, Kathy and Eileen. Little nanny Feeley, Kitty Banks, Alice, Mary, Shelia, Tommy the cat, Terry, Frannie and Christine and family.

My direct family, my wife Milly and our children, young Patsy, Diana, Karen and Suzy and families. You will always be with me.

Special thanks to Albert Yellop for showing me the ropes, also Lenny and Benny Carter, young and old Tommy Hole, Terry and Tracey Smith and family, Pat and Iris Etherden and family, Bubba and Liza, Lenny Smith, Peter, Paddy and John Callagan (the three fighting brothers), Pennies and family. Johnny Fitz and family of Liverpool. George and Maggie, Scott and Jim of The Peacock Pub in Canning Town. Bobby and Albert Reading. Frankie Frazier, George and Johnny Nash, Terry Orwell, David Bailey, Joe Welch and family. Rosie and Rooky Lee and family. May the sun shine on you always.

Those unsung heroes of the care homes, Mrs Kelly, Vera, Marie and Brenda at Turner Court. My dear friend Polly Davis and Prison Officer Billy Purnell for saving my life.

Lastly, thanks to Chris Cowlin and the staff at Apex Publishing Ltd for publishing this book.

Foreword

I first met Terry Smith when I was recruiting a team of criminal masterminds to carry out a series of elaborate heists. I was recruiting them in my role as a TV producer, for them to take part in a Channel 4 television series. They pitted their wits against the real security of various institutions. (They were frighteningly successful, stealing everything from a prototype sports car to a thoroughbred racehorse).

But while I have watched a gang execute heists for TV - Terry has spent most of his life doing it for real. He planned his gangs armed robberies with military precision, stealing what must be millions of pounds in cash. As a person he can strike you as a force of nature - physically strong, utterly determined, incredibly forthright. You feel like he could walk through walls. One can immediately see why other criminals would want him to lead them into the life threatening situations involved in such serious crime. In his time he has escaped from prison, and been Britains most wanted man.

However this is only a part of who he is. He also has a strong sense of values - particularly respect and honour. He considers himself a moral criminal. He has successfully campaigned for improved prison conditions, and today takes a great interest in helping those still inside with everything from legal advice to practical support.

While he was in prison he used his bright mind in a new way. He educated himself. Having been virtually illiterate at the start of his time he began collecting words he saw in the newspaper - and writing down in notebooks everything he could find out about them. These words became sentences and the sentences became essays. He was soon taking exams in criminology and English literature. He got straight As. By the end of his sentence he was a genuine expert in the works of Shakespeare. I liked it when he told me where he studied the various plays - King Lear in the Scrubs.The Tempest in Long Lartin.Hamlet in Pentonville.

He has used this knowledge to become an author. He has written much of his life story in two books - The Art of Armed Robbery and Two Strikes and Youre Out. Both of which I highly recommend. They give an extraordinary insight into the world Terry inhabits. In bookshops filled with true crime books none are as real or as vivid as Terrys work.

It was at a party to celebrate the launch of Terrys second book, that I got my only glimpse of the subject of this book. He was a big man, with grey beard, sitting in a wheelchair, with I think some kind of breathing apparatus attached to his face. For Terry this man is like an old lion. He is from the generation of criminals before Terry - a pioneer of the art of armed robbery. Terry wanted to use his skill as an author to tell this mans story, and began an extensive process of interviewing him. The result is this book. It is brutal, moving, and extraordinary.

You may, as I do, have moral qualms about what both Terry and Patsy have done. But as Shakespeare knew, the people themselves are not just black and white. This book provides a unique insight into their side of the story. It also sheds light on the way the criminal justice system works. If you are interested in the truth about the criminal world you will find nothing more real or insightful anywhere else.

I hope you enjoy the book, and as we say in TV Dont try this at home.

David Glover

Windfall Films (Producer)

Maternity and Mayhem

As I sat there in my Dagenham care home contemplating the ultimate sin against humanity, my mind and soul had all but surrendered to the idea that I was better off dead. Over the last decade or more these dark and desperate thoughts and feelings had slowly, even imperceptibly, like some stealthy form of human rust, eaten away at my resolve and desire to continue. A massive incapacitating stroke and twenty years in a wheelchair had brought me to this perilous stage of my life. But, being an immensely stubborn and determined man, I thought I would look one last time for my old friend and former partner in crime, Terry.

Over the last five to six years I had tried and tried to track him down. I sent numerous notes and letters, knocked on countless doors, and even visited pubs and clubs deep in the East End of London to find him, but to no avail. Then one day, on the brink of blackness and inevitability, I found a handwritten note wedged in my letter box. It was from Terry and his brother, proclaiming that they called and they would be calling again tomorrow. Almost immediately, I felt as if a lead overcoat had been lifted from my weary shoulders and I knew that my life had more to offer. This is my remarkable story, a story that demands to be told, so hang on to your seats.

It all began way back on Wednesday 3rd May 1936 when I came into this world weighing a healthy and humble 7 pounds and 6 ounces. This is in no way meant to be disrespectful or derogatory to my loving parents, my father Patrick Feeley senior and my mother Mable Feeley ne Sullivan. But, to be brutally frank, there has been more than one occasion in my life when I wished that they had thrown me in a ditch and kept the afterbirth. I am not proclaiming that I was an unlovely or unloved infant. That is not the case here. But when our grand and glorious Maker was dishing out roles to play in this life, he definitely set me a testing and troublesome task.

Perhaps that is why I was born under the resilient Sun sign of Taurus the bull. It is stated that Taurean men and women deserve a gold medal for courage under the blows of fate. If that is the case, I deserve a cupboard full of medals and trophies.