A Dead Man in Greek Street

My name is Douglas Wilson, but you can call me Dougie. Today is my eightieth birthday, and there isn't going to be an eighty-first. They're going to murder me today, right here in Soho. I always knew it would end like this and let's face it I've had a good run. It's been almost sixty years since I got here and I'm the last one left, so no complaints. I was in a pub on Old Compton Street the other day, and they were playing a song by that Yank, Willie Nelson, it went something like – I don't wanna be the last man standing, or wait a minute maybe I do. Well, Mr Nelson, I'm the last of the Mohicans around here, and I've seen it all.

I've got my best suit on today: a dark three-piece job from Saville Row, and a hand-stitched white shirt with cufflinks because it's my birthday and I was expecting a steak dinner, and then Ronnie Scott's for a nightcap. Amazing this old suit still fits me. I haven't changed much, I was always a big man, and truth be told I've never moved on much neither. Why would I? Sin was better in black and white. That was my time. Soho belonged to people like me and even the likes of Oliver Reed, Michael Caine, and that Simon Templar bloke needed the nod from us if they wanted to be here. We always dressed well back then because we never knew when we would be on the front page of the newspapers. We were the real celebrities around here and they all bloody well knew it.

We had no time for poncey food because we'd grown up during a war. What you saw on Soho was blokes in whistles, eating fish and chips off newspapers, and dolly birds in mini-skirts with leather boots that went all the way up to their arse. Sometimes it was pie and mash. And on your birthday you had a fucking steak. Men drank pints, and the birds got Babycham, and nobody took liberties, not if they knew what was good for them. When I look around Soho now, it's hard to tell the birds from the blokes, and the fish and chip shops, cafes, and the pie places have all gone. The brasses are still here mind, but they don't stand in doorways anymore, they chat men up by typing on their mobile phones. All in all, it's a shambles; a sorry state of affairs all 'round. And that reminds me of a funny story. I was walking along Frith Street back in the day, and two old brasses were standing in a doorway nattering. One says to the other, "You won't believe how busy it was 'round here yesterday; I must have been up and down that staircase twenty times." The other brass looks at her with pity and replies, "Oh my good Gawd – your poor feet."

I was here the day they shot Italian Tony in the Golden Goose Amusement Arcade. I saw the rise of the Maltese and was already a known face by the time Big Frank Mifsud, the Messina brothers, and Victor Spampinato ran Soho vice. I remember when the Albanians showed up and took it all away from them. I remember those Kray twins, but I didn't have a lot of time for them, and no time for them at all after they slaughtered my mate George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel. George was alright, even if he did peddle pills and pornography for a living. Apart from all that and let's face it, everybody's got to make a crust, he was staunch was George. He was old school, a villain's villain, they don't make them like that anymore, and they shot him over bugger all. Allegedly for calling Ronnie Kray a 'fat poof' – well, he was a fat poof. Everybody knew that.

Me? When I started, I was nobody. The first day I set foot on the cobblestones I was coming here for a bare-knuckles boxing match. I won it of course. I boxed around for a bit and earned enough coin to become a regular at some of the pubs and clubs, and then I fixed a few fights for the Billy Hill Mob. Soon after that, I got a job on the door of a spieler right here on Greek Street. That's how it all began, from little acorns. I've played my part on these pavements for over five decades, come rain or come shine, every day except Sundays; apart from that couple of years when I was away doing porridge on the Isle of Wight for living off immoral earnings. What a joke, living off immoral earnings? I was a good-looking bloke once upon a time, and you can hardly blame me if a few of the brasses fancied me, and bought me gifts and things. Parkhurst quickly taught me how much I loved Soho. I didn't know it when I went in, but from the minute I got banged up, I missed the old girl. That love affair has lasted till now. Ironic that it will all end right here, where it all began.