David Bowie and the Criminal Underworld.

Howard Stenton Jones, later known as John Jones, was born

in Yorkshire, in 1902. His parents died when he was young
and he was cared for by relatives who sent him to a public
school. He was left an inheritance in trust which he collected
in 1933 when he reached his twenty first birthday. With
£3000 he set off for London with dreams of becoming a show
business entrepreneur. He fell in with a crowd of entertainers,
one of them Sullivan, a professional clown. With the rise of
Hitler and his fascism, Sullivan thought it wise for his
daughter Helen to return from Vienna because of its close
proximity to Nazi Germany. Helen was a singer in the clubs
of Vienna known as ’The Viennese Nightingale’. When John
Jones met Helen he was so taken with her that he not only
offered to invest a good part of his inheritance in her career,
but also asked for her hand in marriage. Helen Sullivan
accepted both proposals, and soon she was booked for
weeklong residences at Dudley, Chelsea and Croydon. John
and Helen went into partnership with a theatrical producer and
set up a review called ’11’o’Clock Saturday Night’. The
shows were not a success, worse still, when John Jones tried
to bring the show to a theatre in the West End, the producer
seized the John Jones’ theatrical props and equipment,
threatening John Jones with an open cutthroat razor. The
cutthroat razor was the weapon of the day for the gangsters of
the West End. This producer may have been an imitation
gangster, but John Jones was taking no chances. He still had
£1000 and with this he decided to open a piano bar and
drinking club in Charlotte Street, also in the West End of
London, where his wife could entertain the customers. He
called the club the ‘Boop-a-Doop’. The clientele included
boxers, wrestlers and gangsters. Sadly, the club was also
unsuccessful; John Jones was not, according to his wife,
sociable enough. Though Charlotte Street had already been
under police surveillance for drug crime, even in the 1930s,
there is nothing to suggest that John Jones was anything other
than a victim of the sharks who have been and still are waiting
for the naive to prey on. The’ Boop-a-Doop’ closed within a
year costing him the rest of his money In 1935 John Jones got
a job as a clerk at Dr Barnardo’s, the charity for destitute
children.
John Jones was already a member of the Territorial Army
when the war broke out. He joined the Royal Fusiliers and
fought in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. After the war he
returned to his work at Dr Barnardo’s. Peggy and John set up
home together in Stansfield Road, Brixton. Here Peggy would
have her third child while Terry Burns, her first child, by a
previous relationship, whose father Wolf Rosenberg, the son
of a Parisienne fur dealer, was stayed in Kent with his
grandmother until she became ill and was no longer able to
look after him. Peggy Jones’ third child, David Jones, was
born in 1947 at 40 Stansfield Road on January 8th. The
midwife who delivered Peggy’s baby had a more optimistic
outlook towards Peggy and she told her that she thought that
David ’had knowing eyes’ and ‘had been here before’.
Though John Jones was supportive towards his son’s career
choice he did not want him to have the same problems he had,
so until he died in 1969, he oversaw David Bowie’s career,
meeting with his managers and monitoring his contracts and
publishing deals. It was only after John Jones died that David
Bowie signed a contract that he did not fully understand.

One afternoon in 1981 in the Guy ward dormitory Terry made

a point of telling me that though entertainers like George Raft
and Frank Sinatra liked to be seen as gangsters, they were not.
I wondered if he was implying that his brother wanted a
similar reputation. When Terry worked as a clerk for
Amalgamated Press in nearby Holborn, from 1958 to 1962, he
used to visit the Soho clubs to listen to jazz music, Ronnie
Scott’s was the name he mentioned to me. If he went to
Ronnie Scott’s then it is likely that he went to the Flamingo
club in Wardour Street where Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes and
Ronnie Ross played. and perhaps the Black and White club,
which was round the corner from the Flamingo. Terry
suggested that David Bowie telephone Ronnie Ross to ask for
saxophone lessons.in Orpington, which he did. Ronnie Ross
accepted David Bowie as a student and for three months he
learnt some of the basics of saxophone playing.

George Raft was the manager of the Colony and Sporting

Club, in Berkley Square, but the owner was Meyer Lansky. In
an interview to promote his autobiography ‘Krayzy Days’,
Mickey Fawcett said that Ronnie Kray tried to impress the
Mafia at the Colony Club by intervening in an argument
between some customers, but they told him that ‘this is not
how we do things’. Then George Raft said to Reg Kray, ‘I can
see that you are not doing very well and would like to make a
small gift to you. I want to give you £300 a week. Then he
gave Reg an advance of £3,000 pounds. Mickey Fawcett, then
says that Reg Kray shared the money between himself and his
brother, the Nash family, and Freddie Foreman. John Pearson,
in his book ‘Notorious’ says that the Krays provided security
for both the Colony and the Astor clubs.

Jackie Trent first caught the attention of the Kray brothers on

a Tuesday ‘publicans and villains’ night at the Jack of Clubs
nightclub in Brewer Street in London’s Soho. They took her
under their wing, putting out the word that ‘no-one was to
touch her’. They gave her teddy bears as presents and
occasionally sent a car to take her to the nightclub door. One
night they suggested that she move in with their friends Mick
and Sue Donovan, who ran the Pride of the Isle pub on the
Isle of Dogs. Though Jackie Trent says she was not aware of
their reputation, this was in the early 1960s, she acknowledges
their brutality which she learnt of later.
In 1963 she was invited to join Tony Hatch at his table in the
Astor Club. He was not only impressed with her singing but
also with her song writing. He offered to record her, and they
went on to not only write hundreds of songs together
including most of Petula Clark’s hits, Tony Hatch and Jackie
Trent married in August 1967.

In March 1964 David Bowie, then still David Jones, and his
band the King Bees played at the Jack of Clubs at a private
function for John Bloom, his wedding anniversary party.
Though the band were asked to stop playing because they
were too loud, manager Leslie Conn was impressed and
offered David Jones a five-year contract.
By November 1965, David Jones had changed his name to
David Bowie at the suggestion of his new manager Ralph
Horton who introduced him to Tony Hatch who signed him to
Pye records on the strength of a demo tape that they had
brought to a meeting.

The Battle of Mr Smiths.

There is nothing to suggest that David Bowie was in any way
connected to the Kray brothers, but they were there in the
shadows in the London clubs and on the periphery of the
entertainment business. They were part of the landscape that
is often neglected when biographers tell the David Bowie
story. Besides organising security for the Colony and Astor
clubs, the Kray brothers collected protection money from
clubs and pubs.
Mr Smiths was a club in Catford in South London, near
Bromley The sign outside the Savoy Rooms in Catford read
Mr Smiths and the Witchdoctor. Mr Smiths was the gaming
and drinking club on the ground floor, the Witchdoctor was a
night club upstairs where there was live music. David Bowie
would play at the Witchdoctor on the 11 th of June 1966.
Earlier in the year Rival gang the Richardsons were asked to
provide security for Mr Smiths. Local gangs the Haywards
from Lewisham, and the Hennesseys thought that was their
job. Accounts of what happened differ, but James Morton lists
different theories in his book ‘Gangland Volume 2’ One
theory he recounts is that the Richardsons’ gang turned up on
the night of the 7th of March 1966. He repeats Frankie Frasers
version of events from his autobiography ‘Mad Frank’, where
Fraser says that he heard that the real cause of the trouble was
that Billy Haywood was having an affair with one of the
Richardson’s friends who had worked on their slot machines
as a mechanic. But in a later autobiography, ‘Mad Frank’s
Diary’, Frankie Fraser says that after Richard Hart shot him,
he shot him back, then limped away and threw the gun into a
garden before collapsing in another garden fifty yards away.
But Eddie Richardson, who was also present, and shot that
night, disputes Frankie Fraser’s version of events, saying
Fraser did not shoot Richard Hart, but they know who did but
will not name them. Eddie Richarson and Frankie Fraser of
the Richardson gang were tried for murder, but acquitted.
They were then charged with affray and sentence to five years
in prison. The Kray brothers could not be happier. With the
leading members of the Richardson gang in prison, and
Charlie Richardson out of the country, their reign of terror
continued. On the 9th of March 1966, Ronnie Kray walked
into the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel and shot George
Cornell dead. Those present in the pub felt too intimidated to
go to the police and it would be two years before the Kray
twins were arrested, both charged with murder, Reg Kray was
accused of murdering Jack ‘the hat’ McVitie. Both were
found guilty and sentence to 30 years in prison.

Coincidently David Bowie and Tony Hatch were in the studio

on the 7th of March 1966 recording two songs, ‘Do Anything
You Say’ and ‘Good Morning Girl’. These were the last songs
Tony Hatch produced for David Bowie, but they had
previously realised David Bowie’s first exceptional
composition ‘The London Boys’ on the 25 th of November
1965. Though the song painted an evocative picture of a
young man who leaves home for the first time, Pye records
refused to release it because the song contained lyrics that
referred to taking pills. There had been talk of David Bowie
and Tony Hatch working on a musical called ‘Kids on the
Roof’ together, but they disagreed over the subject matter.
Tony Hatch’s mainly wrote love songs with Jackie Trent, very
successfully for Petula Clark. David Bowie was already
experimenting with psychological and sociological themes. In
a way ‘The London Boys’ was a statement which said ‘I want
to do more than pop songs about relationships.’

After the battle of Mr Smith’s, the American gangsters

connected to the Colony Club, and George Raft, left Britain
because they ‘didn’t want to be associated with people
shooting each other’ but were unable to return after the fuss
died down. George Raft was banned from re-entering the
country by the Home Office because his ‘continued presence
in the United Kingdom would not be conducive to the public
good ‘.

John Bindon was the main connection that David Bowie had
with the criminal underworld. According to Wensley
Clarkson’s biography, John Bindon had met and befriended
Frank Mitchell while in Wandsworth prison. Frank Mitchell
was then part of the Kray ‘Firm’ or gang. They visited
Mitchell and when he was transferred to Dartmoor, helped
him escape. Clarkson says that Bindon got to know the Krays
through Mitchell, and that they paid him to ‘sort out a
problem’ with a man in Fulham who owed them a large debt
which he had not repaid. Others say Bindon never knew the
Krays. But, according to David Buckley’s biography, ‘Strange
Fascination’, David Bowie said, in an internet chat in 1998,
that John Bindon was ‘a friend of the Krays’, and ‘a regular
visitor’ to the house in Oakley Street where David and Angie
Bowie set up home in the 1970s after leaving their flat in
Haddon Hall, in Beckenham. In John Bindon’s in the
Independent newspaper, writer Phillip Hoare said that,
In between bouts of acting, Bindon became involved in the
music scene, acting as tour manager and security for Led
Zeppelin and David Bowie; he was a particular friend of
Bowie's manager, Tony de Fries, and through him got to
know Angie Bowie, with whom he had a well-publicised
affair.
But how did Tony Defries, the manager who David Bowie
had signed up with after his father died, and whose contract
he did not fully understand, meet John Bindon? Tony Defries
was a lawyer who had worked with manager Allen Klien, and
producer Mickey Most, both high profile in their fields. His
c.v. may well have impressed David Bowie, but it is
inevitable that the paths of criminals and respectable
businessmen will cross in the music business. Perhaps a more
precise answer could be found in Tony Defries’
autobiography, ‘Gods and Gangsters’, that was due to be
published in 2008, but never saw the light of day.

John Bindon was a criminal and did intimidate publicans and

club owners into paying protection money. But he also
became an actor. He was asked by Ken Loach to play a villain
in his film ‘Poor Cow’. This he did with some success, which
led to other further parts in films and television crime dramas,
though he became typecast as a criminal. John Bindon worked
as a bodyguard for David Bowie for the last part of one of his
American tours. This may have given John Bindon the
experience he needed to work in a similar capacity for Led
Zeppelin. As David Bowie drifted apart from his wife Angie,
he stopped seeing Bindon, his circle of friends ever changing
and increasingly insular, his privacy was maintained by his
zealous personal assistant Corrinne Schwab.
I wondered why David Bowie had no time for his mother or
his half-brother Terry after leaving Haddon Hall in
Beckenham, in 1973. He had recording commitments and the
obligation to tour to promote his LPs. But by 1975 he was
dissatisfied with the contract he had signed with Tony
Defries. David Bowie thought he owned half the company
that Tony Defries had set up to promote his, and some other
artists’ music. He did not. When he found this out he felt that
he was paying for too many people and decided to have a new
manager and to begin negotiations with Tony Defries. This
became very time consuming and complicated. Then he
decided to divorce his wife, Angie. By 1981 David Bowie
was nearing the end of the contract he had signed with Tony
Defries, but not fully understood. He was to sign a better deal
with EMI records which would bring him more commercial
success, and with it the opportunity to play stadiums and earn
vast amounts of money. Sadly, it was around this time that
Terry became more ill and needed the support that his half-
brother David Bowie would eventually promise in 1982,when
he eventually visited Terry at Mayday hospital in Croydon
,after he had jumped from a second storey window at Cane
Hill hospital in neighbouring Coulsdon, but was too busy to
give.
By 1984 more circumstances and events had quietly conspired
against Terry. With the added despair caused by David
Bowie’s refusal to help him and his girlfriend Janet leaving
the hospital, Christmas was a lonely time for Terry. When he
was apprehended on the 27th of December at Coulsdon South
station by three railway workers he claimed to be waiting for
his brother, but they had seen him take an overdose of tablets
and held him upside down and phoned for an ambulance. Was
Terry really hoping that his brother would invite him to
Switzerland to join in the family celebrations? It seems
possible. Perhaps he thought if not Christmas, perhaps David
Bowie might ask Terry to join him for his birthday on the 7 th
of January, but no word came. Terry only spent five days on
Ruskin, the locked ward, after his suicide attempt on the 27 th
of December, Terry eventually killed himself on the 16 th of
January by lying down in the path of a train bound for London
at Coulsdon South. This time he was not saved.
It would not be fair to blame David Bowie for Terry’s suicide.
Though he did not keep his promise to help Terry, there were
staff shortages at Cane Hill that he was probably unaware of.
For Terry this meant he was free to beg for beer money in the
corridors. But he did not realise the danger of drinking on
medication. From comments made by Angie Bowie in Dylan
Jones’ biography David Bowie A Life, both she and David
Bowie had a very limited understanding of psychiatric
medication, its side effects, and its interaction with alcohol.
Fifty years ago, when David and Angie Bowie were
discussing medication compliance, few were aware of the
long term health issues associated with these drugs. Though
some say David Bowie never talked about Terry, others say
he talked of little else. Over the years Terry became less
hostile, he had only been aggressive when he drank in any
case. He heard voices, but though the medication did not stop
them, he could cope. He did not follow command voices and
sometimes found their comments amusing. He would laugh
out loud sometimes then say, ‘I’m sorry it was something my
voices said’. His change in disposition from angry drunk to
someone who would just sleep off the effects of the Special
Brew he had drank in the town, in the dormitory, seemed to
go unnoticed by his psychiatrist. There just were not enough
staff to monitor patients, most of who were, like Terry ended
up, harmless, sometimes paranoid, schizophrenics.