I can understand that my wife resented my wicked life, but she never complained about the ease of living it brought her. Our flat was so luxurious that a film star would have been happy to live there. I once estimated that I had spent about £8,000 decorating and furnishing the place. But despite my financial generosity towards her - I was always buying her jewellery and other presents - a meal from Maureen was a rare delicacy. Usually I had to go to the chippy or munch a pie in the pub. We irritated each other beyond words.
 
So when I met dark-haired Susan, she was like a vision of loveliness in every way. She was sensitive, pretty and someone I fell in love with immediately.
 
Our first meeting was in a Fulham disco where I would go to dance off the frustrations of my marriage - and also meet villains. Susan, in her early twenties, was a cashier there and as I handed over my entrance fee I came up with my usual corny line. ‘Hey beautiful, why are you working in a dump like this?’ I asked her. ‘I have to work because I have a child to support,’ she replied. ‘No husband?’ I queried. ‘I’m separated from him,’ she said. As I looked at Susan’s beautiful, but sad face, I exclaimed: ‘He must be mad!’
 
She seemed taken aback by the compliment, and blushed as I added, ‘If I had a lovely wife like you, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.’ With that I took my ticket and went into the noisy, thumping, seething place, which was packed like sardines with people dancing to soul music. Strobe lights in rainbow colours flashed on and off. I watched the dancing for a few minutes and then went upstairs to discuss business with three of the bouncers who worked there. We had met on a previous visit and they had told me they were fed up only earning £6 for a night on the door dealing with the awkward customers. ‘We’re after some really big money. Have you got any work for us Mo?’ one of them had asked me. I told them to come up with ideas for jobs themselves and then we’d talk further.
 
Well, this night we stood in an upstairs corner and one of the bouncers - let me call him Malcolm - who was about 16 stone and very tough looking, said he knew a place where we could do a £10,000 wages snatch. It was at a builder’s firm on the western outskirts of London. They pay out to the workers early every Thursday afternoon,’ he told me.
 
So we agreed that we would keep observation on the firm each Thursday for a few weeks. It wasn’t too difficult because we knew the bank where the wages were collected, and there was a café exactly opposite it. I would have toast and coffee as I watched employees from the firm come for the ten grand at the same time each week.
 
Now we had a pattern established. We knew the exact times the money was collected and later paid out. I told the bouncers that the job was on. I checked the roads around the building firm and worked out a getaway route. The car to be used was a Ford 1300 Cortina which I’d stolen from Kilburn High Road, and then false number plates were put on it.
 
On the morning of the job we all met up at a Wimpy Bar in North End Road, Hammersmith, and talked through exactly what had to be done. I, as always, relished the job, but I could see that these muscled novices were getting decidedly edgy and I told them to just keep cool and not get too worked up. ‘It’s an easy job, this one,’ I said, as we devoured hamburgers and chips. We then piled into our cars and drove to where the change-over point was to be. Then we got into the stolen Cortina and went the short distance to the yard.
 
It was one o’clock when we zoomed in through the gates, turned round near the cement lorries and screeched to a stop facing out towards the main road and next to a door marked ‘Offices’. We noticed some men coming out clutching wage packets. We all quickly masked up and jumped out of the car, carrying sawn-off shotguns. One of the gang also had a policeman’s truncheon.
 
The paddies who had just got their cash sensibly decided not to interfere with the raid and we dashed up the stairs to the office. A few seconds later a shotgun blast went off and blew a huge hole in the ceiling. There was a snowstorm of plaster. A man rushed out of an office to see what the commotion was about and he was bashed in the face with a fist. Then the butt of a shotgun sent him spinning. With that we went into the office he had come from and realised we were in the wrong place. There was no money in there.
 
Another terrified employee pointed to another room. ‘It’s the office over there, mate,’ he said. ‘The one over there.’ There must have been at least ten people cowering in terror in the room when we entered. One woman, obviously pregnant, was shaking with fear. The money we were after was scooped up and dropped into a canvas shopping bag we had brought with us, while our guns covered the staff. One false move from any of them and a shotgun would have blasted them through the heart and into eternity.
 
‘OK, let’s get out of here,’ I shouted. We ran down the stairs as fast as we could, but just as we got outside an alarm bell went off. ‘Keep moving,’ I roared. We piled into the car, with our balaclavas still on, put our weapons on the floor, and shot out into the main road.
 
Suddenly our hearts dropped a mile. A policeman was directing traffic at a busy intersection just outside the yard because the traffic lights had failed. But when he saw us he just waved us through. I am sure he must have thought his eyes were deceiving him as he saw us flash by and realised we were wearing masks.
 
But by the time he could collect his thoughts we were just dust on the horizon. We soon arrived at our change-over point, unmasked, jumped into our own cars and then drove straight back along the road, past the copper directing traffic. We watched with pleasure as we saw police cars with their blue flashing lights and wailing sirens pouring into the yard.
 
With the money from the raid in my pocket, I plucked up courage to go back to the disco and ask Susan for a date. When I was on a job I had no real care for anyone, yet I became tongue-tied when I approached her at the payment desk to ask her out.
 
She made it easier when she gave me a lovely welcoming smile. When I asked her if she would care to join me for a meal in a particularly expensive restaurant, she said, ‘Of course I’d like to come out with you.’