Bernie Fineman, Original Motor Mouth Read online

  But back at Stewart & Arden I was in for a total culture shock. It was a Jaguar specialist, just like Thomas & Draper, so I was well within my comfort zone as far as the work was concerned, but the atmosphere was totally different. In those days the Jaguar E-type was very popular and there were certain jobs on them that no one wanted to do because they were particularly tricky on those cars – clutches, brake pads and discs and especially head gaskets.

  The other mechanics would steer well clear of these particular jobs, so when they found out I enjoyed doing them I was given every bloody car that needed those things doing. However, it worked in my favour eventually because I became so competent at those procedures.

  When a car came in the work was assessed and you were given an allotted amount of time to get the job done. So the client would pay for, say, six hours’ labour and if you got it done quicker, you took a bonus payment from the fee and the garage kept the rest. Because I was doing so many of these jobs I became so proficient I was finishing them in next to no time, so I was doing ten-hour jobs in six and taking home a tidy bonus, which didn’t endear me to the other guys in the garage.

  It turned out that leaving Thomas & Draper was a big mistake. There was no camaraderie at Stewart & Arden, and the culture of the place and the reward system meant that no one was willing to help anyone – it was each man for himself. I’ve always been very free with my knowledge and that’s something I am very proud of, but in those days I was probably too eager to help and it backfired. If a mechanic got stuck, rather than go to the foreman for help and lose face, they’d say, ‘All right Bern, come and have a look at this,’ and I’d help them out. But if I ever needed help I never got the favour returned.

  One day a Jaguar E-Type comes in and the foreman says to me, ‘Service it and let me know what it needs for the MOT.’ I cast my eye over the car underneath, and it’s rotten, rotten as a pear (corroded by rust to a dangerous degree). So I tell the foreman, and his words are, ‘Just service it only, leave the rest to me, got it Bernie?’

  Well, actually I tell him I haven’t got it, so he goes on, ‘It’s a private job of mine, keep schtum if you know what’s good for you.’

  So I service the car, make a whole list of faults, and this information is torn up by him right in front of me. Then I see him go over to Noel, our MOT tester, speak to him, shout at him, and knock him to the floor. Now, I like Noel, he’s a good tester, but I don’t want to get involved. All the guys are shit-scared of this foreman, he’s huge, but because of what he did to Noel, we all crowd together, and set about him. There’s ten of us, and we have difficulty trying to hold him.

  The manager comes over and says, ‘What the fuck’s going on here?’

  None of us want to grass anyone up, but as Noel gets up from the floor, he says that the foreman threatened that if he did not write out an MOT he would hurt him bad. The manager asks whose car it is, and the foreman says it’s his, and a private job, but that Bernie checked it and serviced it and says it’s OK.

  ‘Bollocks!’ I reply. ‘That car is as rusted as fuck. I gave him a breakdown of all the work required and he tore it up.’

  The manager, a quiet man, says, ‘Right, that’s all I want to hear, I’m calling the police.’

  Now this foreman ain’t having none of it, and then accuses us all of stealing, doing private jobs, and doing dodgy MOTs (i.e. passing cars that rightfully should fail). That’s it, we all try to get near him, we’re innocent of what he says, and this big bastard bolts for the door, and legs it. For what? I don’t know, but we never see him again.

  Once the dust settled I was voted by the guys to be the new foreman. Ah bless ’em, maybe they weren’t so bad after all. All goes well for the next six months or so, then shit happens, we are all made redundant.

  FUCK!

  So I’m back to looking through the paper again for jobs, but I soon found a garage in the East End, perfect for me, that was looking for an experienced mechanic/foreman to run the garage. Little did I know I was going from the frying pan into the fire. I was still in my twenties but had many years’ experience by now, so when I phoned the guy up he was very impressed.

  This company specialised in engines, transmission and servicing, and they had their own body shop as well. I turned up for the interview and the garage was very clean, usually a good sign. The five mechanics were friendly enough, and the guy was offering me an extra £25 a week on top of what I was already earning – a good pay rise.

  As soon as I started something didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then one day I overheard a conversation where the boss told one of the mechanics, ‘Don’t worry, just put it through the books and charge him for it.’

  I was horrified. I’d never heard anything like it in my life. Where I came from you never cheated someone like that. If you put a new part in then you charged them, but these guys were charging for work and parts that didn’t exist, they were blatantly ripping off customers.

  So that evening after work I had it out with the boss, confronted him about what he was doing, but he just said, ‘If you want to earn the money, you’ve got to sell stuff.’

  I said if the work needed doing I had no problem advising it on the work sheet.

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘even if it don’t need doing, you put it down on the work sheet. We’re here to make money and the only way you’re gonna make money is by selling stuff.’

  I worked the rest of that week, collected my pay packet on the Saturday (we worked half-day Saturdays in those days), walked out and never went back.

  Next I spoke to some people in the trade who tell me to go and see a guy called Dave at the arches in north-west London. Now these are railway arches, with big, very high ceilings, and were generally rat infested and had no running water. I got there and asked for Dave – he had heard of me through friends, and he offers me the job of a Foreman Mechanic underneath the arches. The only downside is that they are busy and he needs someone to manage the place totally, and if I want to earn real money then I will have to start selling the services of the garage as well.

  I asked him what he meant by this, and he says, ‘If a car comes in for a service, get the mechanic to hand you a list of what needs to be done, then sell the client other work. The more you sell, on top of a standard service, the more commission you will earn.’

  Now where have I heard this before?

  But I wasn’t about to walk out on another job, so armed with my experience, a good work attitude and clients who like me, it’s not long before the money is rolling in, the guv is happy, we don’t have to rip anyone off and the garage is full to bursting, and for a change I’m content.

  And so then comes a Monday morning – pissing with rain, the garage is full, loads of work – when two men walk in and show me their credentials: VAT inspectors. They’re followed by a police officer. Oh fuck, what do I do now, I thought?

  They go into the office to see Dave, demand the books, but I just get my head down and get on with my work as usual. Three hours later, Dave is handcuffed. As he’s marched away he turns to me and says, ‘Run the garage, see you soon.’

  I hear from Dave’s wife that he has got six months for fraud, and so I have a choice: run the garage, keep it profitable, and hope for the best, or leave and be out of another job. So I do the wages, buying of parts, keep all the staff happy, check the work, do the MOTs, bank the takings, and Dave’s wife comes in each Saturday to collect cash. But I log how much she takes, keep a list and this is sent to Dave at Brixton Prison weekly by letter, just to safeguard me.

  All’s well for about four months, when Dave’s brother comes in and says to me, ‘Sorry son, I’m selling up.’

  WHAT?

  I ask him why.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell ya,’ my boss’s brother explains, ‘Dave will be doing an extra stretch, he’s now being done for attempted murder, and the brief reckons he’ll do another three years or more. So find yourself another job. I’m sorry, I’m closing it ton
ight, and I’ve found a buyer already.’

  Well, I’m a cheeky sod, always have been, and my motto is, if you don’t ask in this life you don’t get – sometimes you ask, and still don’t get, but there’s always a chance. So I say, ‘Can’t you have a word with the new owner? Tell him we all want to keep our jobs, and we will run the garage the same?’

  He smiles and says, ‘He will be here in two hours, ask him yourself, cheeky bollocks.’

  The new owner was Sid, and I’ve seen him around. He was a heavy looking character with a scarred face. I’m introduced to him, give him the overview of what I do, banking, cash, suppliers etc., and he’s impressed, I feel he likes me. Then I ask, could I still run the garage for him, with the same staff as well?

  ‘Tell you what son, you got balls,’ Sid told me. ‘I can see you do a good job, I’m told by Dave’s brother that you’re honest, and you’re not a grass. I’ll think about it and let you know on Monday, OK?’

  I have a great weekend, but I worry if I’ll have a job on Monday. I get up extra early, get to work and park, and as I walk to the garage, I can’t believe my eyes.

  WHAT THE FUCK?

  There’s no garage!

  It’s burnt down, just some cinders and some pieces of steel sticking up at the sides. Oh no, oh my God, what the hell has happened, I wonder? Dave’s brother is there, but there’s no Sid. There’s police and a fire crew there as well.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask Dave’s brother

  ‘Don’t know, Son,’ he says. ‘I done the deal, he is the owner now, so it’s really not my problem.’

  I’m devastated. The garage is gone, all the staff and me are without jobs, and something smells, and it’s not down to me. I talk to the fire officer, tell him who I am, and he asks me, ‘Who locked up on Friday night?’ I don’t tell him, as the owner’s brother was the last to leave. I have to tell the truth, without grassing on anyone, and Dave’s brother has already admitted to the police that he locked up.

  The fire officer tells me that it was an oxygen cylinder explosion. The reason why it happened he does not yet know, but investigators are checking it. Now, I did some welding on Friday, but I know for a fact that I turned all the gas off, I’m always double-checking things like that. I don’t know what really happened, or what the fallout was, but let’s just say that for a few people it was a very convenient ‘accident’.

  So I’m out of work. Again.

  I go to see my bank manager to see if I can get a little of the folding stuff to tide me over. As luck would have it the guy gives me some even better news. He has a client who owns a garage, he’s having problems with staff and the receivers are ready to go in, so did I want an introduction to go and see him, so as to try to find out what’s wrong with the business?

  So I go and meet Ken. He’s a real gentleman, whose business was going down through bad management, shit work and clients who were generally, in his words, ‘as tight as a crab’s arsehole under water.’

  This was a garage in Kilburn. I spent two days with Ken, speaking to his service receptionist, mechanics and bookkeeper, and I knew that something was not quite kosher. Ken employed me as a foreman in charge and told me that he would pop in twice a week as he has other businesses to run.

  After my first day on my own, my suspicions were confirmed – the banking did not match the money that came in. Two of the cars that were repaired previously were back in the workshop, so I looked at the invoice of the previous jobs and went over with the mechanics what had been done. The invoice stated, to rectify a misfire, ‘removed and replaced head gasket, road test, no further fault found.’ After checking the car, it was obvious that the head gasket was not removed but just cleaned, and the mechanic who did this job denied doing a head gasket, although it was billed for on the client’s invoice.

  I’m not an investigator, but neither am I a prat. And if the mechanic denies doing a head gasket and the client has been invoiced for it, then who wrote the fucking bill out? Inspector Bernie Fineman investigates…

  I notice in the office a locked metal filing cabinet beside the reception desk. I ask the receptionist, Paula, what is in the cabinet.

  ‘Oh,’ she states, ‘this does not concern you, it is purely for the accountant.’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘I wish to see what’s in there.’

  ‘I don’t have the keys,’ she says.

  So after everyone went home for the day, I called Ken and told him that I needed to see what’s in the cabinet. Something is wrong, but I don’t know what. He says that he does not have the key, Paula has it. Now my hackles are raised and suspicions confirmed, so I pick the lock.

  Lo and behold, inside are hundreds of invoices, neatly filed A-Z, so I pull out the invoice for the so-called replaced head gasket, and the client’s invoice states £1,050 but on the invoice in the filing cabinet it states £196. So my thinking is as follows: the mechanic does the job, sends Paula the invoice for £196, Paula then re-invoices the client for £1,050 and pockets the balance (850 quid).

  I need an urgent meeting with Ken, I need to find out how long this has been going on for and how long has Paula been employed at the company. Whilst looking at other invoices, ranging from £800–£2,000, I am wondering how many other thousands she has creamed off from the company. What I need to do now is go over all the parts invoiced and establish what has or has not been put onto the cars that have been repaired.

  After my meeting with Ken it was decided not to call in the police, for reasons that only Ken knows about, but Paula was sacked on the spot. How long this scam had been going on for, God only knows.

  After a few months the business is back on its feet, it is making a profit, and I am loving what I am doing. Then something terrible happens.

  It was a dark Monday, bleak out but we’re busy, and the bodyworker, Tom, is fitting a new chassis outrigger to a Jaguar which I failed on an MOT, all the mechanics are busy, and I’m talking to a client. I hear noises, like thunder, look over to the ramps and see flames coming out of the Jaguar that Tom is working on. I’m shouting to him, but he can’t hear me. I run over to the ramp and propel myself at Tom, and, just at that moment, the tank explodes. I’m covered in flames, Tom’s on the floor, writhing around, acetylene torch in hand, but I’m lucky – all the mechanics grab fire extinguishers and put the flames out.

  I’m burnt, not so badly, just my arms, eyebrows, and my moustache, my pride and joy – and what hair I had in those days was gone. The worst were my arms, they hurt like fuck, but the ambulance crew does a good job on me. Tom, the silly fucker, has his arms broken where I propelled myself at him. I heal quick, and forget, but safety will always be my prime thought, even though it’s not everyone’s. By the way, this was not the last time I saw someone burnt by carelessness…

  I was with Ken for fourteen months after that accident before it was time to move on again. I got a call from a mutual friend that he knew someone with a breaker’s yard and a garage attached in London. I go and see the guy, he’s heard of me, and takes me on, cash in hand, I pay my own tax, no questions asked.

  It’s a series of lockups, I’m not allowed to do invoices, just have to repair the cars, and occasionally remove second-hand bits for clients from the cars in the breaker’s yard. I’m earning, it’s hard work, no ramps, we had to make do with just jacks, and there’s concrete floors, but I’m working.

  An MG Maestro is towed in, it’s been flooded with water, so the electrician is called to check it out. He does all the normal stuff: checks the ignition amplifier, removes the plugs and leads and powers it up. He asks one of the boys to turn over the starter so he can check for spark, and that’s when disaster strikes. The engine turns over, fuel is shot out from the plug holes, the leads ignite the fuel – and he’s alight, from head to toe, and screaming a blood-curdling scream.

  The other mechanics come over, they are shell-shocked, can’t move, fear and fascination together paralyzing them. I see this, jump the stairs from the office, grab a hose and
pull him to the floor. I’m dousing him with water, trying to put out the fire which is spreading all over his body and face. ‘CALL AN AMBULANCE!’ I shout, ‘FUCK SAKE SOMEONE HELP ME!’ My mind runs riot, remembering all the pain I felt when it happened to me, and I’m in near-panic mode.

  The flames are out, but this poor fucker is in agony, his clothes literally melted onto him, and his face, oh my God, it’s red raw. He can’t breathe, and smoke from the fire has filled his lungs. I remember something from my old days when I did St John’s Ambulance training, so I try chest compression, but there’s nothing, so I breathe into his mouth, wait for the fall and rise of the chest and lungs, but nothing.

  So I take drastic action. I proceed to slowly cut into his windpipe above the breastbone and the soft tissue at the base with a Stanley blade and open his airways with a biro outer casing from my pocket. I hear gurgling, and coughing, but he’s breathing now.

  Where the fuck I got the balls to do this, I will never know. The ambulance arrives and the paramedics commend me on saving his life. I’m a hero, then I puke my heart out.

  I went to see him at Mount Vernon hospital three times a week for two months. He had all sorts of operations to rebuild his face and arms, poor bastard. If only he had taken the coil wire out none of this would have happened, but then it’s easy to talk after the event. We are still mates today, and I’m delighted to say that the operations have been successful. His girlfriend stood by him. What a marvellous lady she is, bless her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE BLIND BEGGAR

  As my name got around as someone reliable, people would come to me directly to work on their cars, which I’d do in my own time. By the time I was eighteen or nineteen I was getting so much private work I decided to rent my own lock-up garage so I could come and go as I pleased and work on the cars.