A Sense of Freedom by Boyle Jimmy

Author:Boyle, Jimmy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473529229
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

9

I WAS RELEASED from Barlinnie Prison on 13th January 1967, and was met at the the gate by Frank Wilson and some others. We all went to my house, where breakfast and drinks were organised, and for the first time I was able to hold my child who would shortly be having his first birthday. After breakfast they all left and I was alone with my son and his mother. This was crazy and very unfair to her as I knew then definitely that this should never have been, but I felt that the child was a commitment. However, that aside, it was good to be with a woman again.

I wanted to see what was happening in the district so as to get the feel of the events now taking place. That same afternoon the guys picked me up and we went round looking at everyone and seeing things. It was a time of elation as it’s great to have one of your own out from prison. We had all been brought up together so we were very close. Certainly we fell out now and again but usually this amounted to nothing and even when it was serious the opinion of the group would dictate the way it went. There was one particular incident when two of my pals fell out around this time and had a quarrel, resulting in one of them coming to my door covered in bloodstains and the other guy – Tam Comerford – coming very near to death. I helped him into fresh clothes, getting rid of the bloodstained ones. After that I went to the house where the fight had taken place and found it covered in blood. I told the two girls who were there to say nothing to the police. Tam was unconscious at the bottom of the stairs with blood pouring out of him. An ambulance was called for him and we left him to be found alone when it came. The following day I was up to the intensive care unit to visit Tam. The whole thing had been over girls and he was in the wrong, so Frank and I acted as mediators and advised Tam and the other guy to leave it there and forget it and this was done. These things went on but they were our way of life and the actions and the part that I played were normal to us. I wasn’t showing any disloyalty to Tam by helping the other guy get rid of his bloody gear, nor by telling the two girls to say nothing, nor for that matter by visiting Tam in hospital. These were just done things and the fact that one of them nearly died was the way things go.

Anyway, with me just out of prison, I was given a piece of the action to get me on my feet. With this came some money to start my own moneylending book and I wanted to start my own shebeen. The money and assistance to start this was crime working at its best from my point of view.

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