Glasgow in the 1990s

Catch-as-catch-can

I remember one turn down the west-end, we were three of us, so two of us were the decoy, and as we entered the shop we headed to the back isle and started to push each other around to make the person on the till come all the way to the back of the shop. While we distracted him the only other sound in the shop you could hear was the coins getting lifted from the till. The instant you heard it he knew what we were up to so made a beeline to the door of the shop. This guy was very hard to budge, but eventually we managed to get him away from the door and made our escape with £80. This was one of our favourite play. If there was a few of us which usually there was we would go into a shop and draw the owner away from the till then someone would casually lift the till and release the catch and take the cash. It was pretty simple, so for boys from the ages of 12 to 16 it was pretty clever. 

One time me and two mates of mine went to McDonalds for a grab at Maryhill road and in the car park there was a Metro two-door car and believe me, it might have been tiny but this thing could shift. Once we stole it and was driving out of the car park the owner was running after the car and we were sticking our middle finger up to him. We headed down to the city centre where the hookers would go as my mate was selling smack at the time. As I was in the back I had to hold the boot down from the inside as it would spring open as we were driving along the road.

We made it to the town without incident and got to the drag where the hookers would be “as it is a well known area”. My friend stuck his head out the window and asked this girl if she was looking for gear. She replied yes, but first would like to test the merchandise. So we told her to jump in. She jumped in the back beside me and got the foil out to have a taster. So while we drove around the town centre this girl was in the back of our stolen car having some heroin, she decided all was good and bought some half grams, then we dropped her off on her corner. While driving along Argyle street we saw what looked like an undercover police car as the occupants stared us out so we made a beeline for the High street. When we got half way up, we took a sharp right towards Duke street and just as we rounded the corner a marked BMW police car, lights flashing, was coming straight at us. As we passed each other it was like a stand-off but in cars, we hit the gas along Duke street and took a sharp left up towards Dennistoun, once we got there and parked in one of the streets just as we were taking out our tape … of course the police Ford focus came screeching along and parked right beside us so we all bailed and ran through some back gardens and finally ran up a tenement close, while at the top of the close we tried to snap the occupants door, to see if we could be let in, but nobody answered, so we flung the screwdriver and any evidence thru the letterbox. We sat there for 5 mins before a load of cops ran up the stairs and we got the nick, but not before my friend puked over the cop’s shoes, haha.