Mean Machine: Roy Shaw

By Jamie Boyle

The definitive story of East End Hard Man Roy Shaw, as told by the Shaw family.

Mean Machine includes many, previously untold, tales from Roy's colorful life.

Roy Shaw 'Mean Machine!'

Best Selling Author Jamie Boyle with Roy's son Gary Shaw

• Language: English
• Publisher: WarCryPress UK
• Release date: Feb 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781912543229

Book preview

MEAN MACHINE

Roy Shaw

C:\Users\user\Desktop\Roy Shaw\royshaw_4500.png

Jamie Boyle / Gary Shaw (c)

Facebook.com/warcrypress

This book is dedicated to my son Steven Shaw who was taken too early. Born 12-05-1982 and sadly passed 9th March 2016.

Roy was probably the only case I’ve ever come across where the owner of two Rottweilers was scarier than the dogs.

Jamie Boyle author

‘MEAN MACHINE’

‘Roy Shaw’

‘Mean Machine’ – Roy Shaw ISBN: 978-1-912543-22-9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, without the written permission of the copyright holder, application for which should be addressed to the publisher at [e-mail]. Such written permission must also be obtained before any part of this publication is stored in a retrieval system of any nature. This book is sold subject to the Standard Terms and Conditions of Sale of New Books and may not be re-sold in the UK below the net price fixed by the Publisher. ‘Mean Machine’ – Roy Shaw Produced by Warcry Press (part of Roobix Ltd) on behalf of Jamie Boyle, Stokesley / Gary Shaw, Boston, Lincs (c) 2019.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays, St. Ives

Cover Art by Gavin Parker UK

Find out more at: facebook.com/ RoyShawMeanMachine/

CONTENTS

Introduction                                    1

The Beginning of the End                        7

Growing up in The East End                        13

Learning the Trade                              17

Behind The Door                              20

Playing up                                    24

Roy ‘The Rascal’                              26

Influences                                    33

Ladies’ Man                                    36

The Fight Game                              43

Those Twins                                    47

The Funny Farm                              55

Taming ‘The Bull’                              61

All Beef and No Manners                        64

The Butcher                                    71

I fought ‘The Law’                              74

The 80’s                                    78

Save Your Face Son                              81

Those Eyes!                                    86

The Art of Violence                              91

The Beginning of The End                        98

Had over                                    101

The End of an Era                              109

Daddy’s Girl                                    113

Gary Shaw                                    118

Roy’s Legacy                                    127

Got a light love?!                              132

The Film                                    135

Setting it Straight                              141

Chris Lambrianou                              148

Ronnie Richardson                              162

Paul Pariser                                    168

Dominic Negus                              184

Charles Salvador (Bronson)                        191

Prison History                                    193

Introduction

It must have been around the turn of the millennium when I started to take notice of Roy Shaw. Largely down to that steely chilling stare coming back at me from the shelf his book was on in WH Smiths.

Everybody knows about the dozens upon dozens (63 in total) of Kray books that have been out over the years but it wasn’t until the late 90’s when there was a real avalanche of British criminals writing their own autobiography’s such as Mad Frankie Fraser, ‘The Guvnor’ Lenny McLean and Dave Courtney for example.

As a teenager I would often read everything about the Krays and I even picked Roy’s book ‘Pretty Boy’ up just to skim through it and read what I could about the Kray Twins.

After Roy’s book came out he was also featured in Kate Kray’s book ‘Hard Bastards’ as well as the channel 5 series of the same name, so that’s when Roy’s profile went nationwide and when young kids like me growing up in Middlesbrough started to hear of him.

The internet started around the early 2000s, that was basically when every household in Britain started having access to the net and Roy became far more famous than he had been before. The more I saw of Roy on programmes and on the net like on YouTube, the more fascinated I became. One of the most admirable things I liked about this, almost evil looking man, was that he was never a bully! In fact he was the opposite of a bully, largely because he’d been a victim of bullying himself and he wasn’t the biggest growing up.

When I watched Roy’s interviews or read his books I couldn’t help but feel like I knew him. He came across so humane, humble and one of the lads. I’m not trying to sound like I’m an expert on the life and times of Royston Henry Shaw but if I was in a pub minding my own business, like the average Joe Public, then I would never be under threat from a man like Roy Shaw. It was usually the loud mouth braggadocio’s who were at risk, or his fellow criminals and he knew everyone in that world.

Roy’s fights with his arch nemesis Lenny McLean have gone down in history and each one will never be forgotten. If you mention one’s name it won’t take long before the others is brought up in the same sentence.

Another thing which never gets mentioned but played a huge factor in how those trilogy of fights played out was the size difference between them. At his peak Roy Shaw was really only a Light-Middleweight and 5ft 10, whereas Lenny McLean was a fully blown heavyweight at 6ft 3 and 20st plus. Roy, even though he was a heavyweight when he came out of the nick, was only a blown up heavy or a fat heavy and it wasn’t natural. Back in them days there wasn’t any heavyweights out there like there is today 6ft 8, 6ft 9 etc… A big heavyweight was 6ft 3 and that was Lenny McLean, he was as big as they came back in the 70s.

Lenny McLean was a monster on the cobbles and according to his book he was never beaten, under the Queensbury Rules though he was pretty woeful losing 6 times to pub fighters such as Kevin Paddock who was really only a fat middleweight. The other 5 losses were all by KO he lost to Johnny Waldron twice, Cliff Fields twice and lost to Roy inside 3 rounds. I believe McLean struggled with anybody who had half a boxing brain like these men, and although it’s not commonly known, even Roy Shaw had won national titles as an amateur, so the boxing pedigree was there. I can only imagine what would have happened if Kevin Paddock hadn’t of replaced Wakefield’s Paul Sykes in November 1979 due to Sykes having a drunken pub brawl the week before in a pub. Kevin Paddock went on to outpoint McLean easy that day so you can imagine what a fully blown heavy like Paul Sykes, who competed at British and Commonwealth levels would have done.

If Roy had been given a go at the pro’s it wouldn’t have been anywhere near the heavyweight division but around the Middleweight scene. Roy knew the only person he had to blame for cocking that up was himself for behaving like a prat outside the ring, but he definitely had the materials if only he’d have behaved, and beating ABA champions like Terry Hollingsworth back my claims up he could, without a shadow of a doubt, made it in the boxing world, we should have been reading about a very different Roy Shaw to the one we all read about today.

Ever since Roy was a little boy his dream was to become a professional fighter boxing at the mecca of boxing, The York Hall in Bethnal Green and for a short time Roy did just that, only for him to blow it along with a promising career because he was always on the lookout for a quick pound note!

Roy Shaw was never a man you could call blessed with patience at the best of times and he had no one to blame but himself when the only boxing he could do was on the unlicensed circuit.

Of course, we know now that Roy became a legendary figure in the unlicensed scene and his fights with Lenny McLean are still spoken of today over 40 years later.

For the years Roy wasted inside the prison walls I’m told Roy more than made up for them when he finally won his freedom back. I’m told Roy, rather unwell and at the end of his days, looked back on his life with a smile and was happy with the things he’d done.

Over the past couple of years, since I’ve been writing books for a living, I’ve been offered to write more than the books I’ve written (this is my 7th) I couldn’t just write anybody’s book though, even if the money was great, because I like to get a feel for the subject and I like to try and relate. Now Roy Shaw’s book, well how could I relate to him?! No I haven’t been the most dangerous man in the prison system or kicked a cell door off its hinges to pass the spare time away but I couldn’t help but find the infamous East End hard man’s story absolutely intriguing.

As I’m writing this the Roy Shaw film is being made and you can’t help but agree when you read this book why the money people have come along to bring the life and times of Roy Henry Shaw to the big screen. People who live a normal life don’t live a life like Roy Shaw lived his. I’m told Roy had some rather unique strange ways about him which really cast him aside from other men to truly make him a ‘one off’.

The making of a Roy Shaw film whilst he was alive was something Roy wanted more than anything so I’m told and I believe it was only ever a matter of time before it was going to happen now that I’ve dug deeper into Roy’s life during the research of this book.

When I was asked to do this book by Roy’s only son Gary I was told that the money wasn’t the main instigator for it happening and I believe him. If it was just about the money then the Shaw’s would have joined forces with Jonathan Sothcott and Co and he could have been fed to the wolves. No, I was told that anything the Shaw’s get involved with regarding Roy’s legacy had to be perfect! Basically they don’t want another Kate Kray job on their hands or anything that makes a mockery of their dad’s memory.

I’ve looked into Roy Shaw’s life for the last five to six months for the research of this book. Of Course everybody’s heard of Roy Shaw the scallywag and Roy Shaw the fighter but not many people know Roy Shaw the entrepreneur who was an incredibly successful business man! Roy became a multi-millionaire and he managed that completely away from any criminal element in his life and that has to be applauded. Not bad for just a ‘rough around the edges’ kid out of the East End with no education.

Roy was Roy and they’ll never be another like him. Above all Roy Shaw was a head strong man and he lived in his own man’s world and he wasn’t going to listen to anyone, maybe rather selfishly, but he was his own boss and he knew best about everything in life, even if that wasn’t always the case.

R.I.P. Roy Henry Shaw 1936 – 2012.

Jamie Boyle

When I was very young my father, who I adored, was killed on a motorbike, that really did me in and I struggle even now to talk about him. I actually threw myself on top of his coffin at his funeral.

Roy Shaw

The Beginning

of the End

Roy hadn’t spoken to his son for around 18 months. Then Gary, Roy’s son, received a phone call from a film producer friend of the Shaw family. Basically on the phone Steve Lawson said, You need to get down here and see ya dad because he’s not too well. Gary hadn’t seen his old Dad for near enough 18 months but he went to see him straight away and Gary knew there was something definitely wrong with him. His sharpness and usual wit had now all but disappeared and Roy was really starting to let himself go a bit. Roy had always been particular about his appearance, he was usually impeccably dressed and very smart and so it was strange that he wasn’t as well turned out. Roy was also always clean shaven, smelt nice, usually with the most expensive of aftershaves and very well groomed so alarm bells were ringing for the whole Shaw Family.

It turned out that there was this woman named Linda who had been fleecing Roy financially. Roy had a place in Spain at the time and he was selling it and this Linda knew it, so she borrowed a hundred grand from Roy and gave him an I-O-U, saying that she was going to start up a company promoting Roy Shaw.  Now obviously Linda knew how to flatter Roy and this woman worked on Roy’s ego to get what she wanted out of him. She then asked him to put another fifty grand in the bank. Now this Linda wasn’t a girlfriend by any means and Roy said it was the most expensive fuck he never had because she had a fortune off him. All she was was a con woman who had a talent for ripping people off who had a mental illness!

Linda lost her case when the Shaw family took her to court and she still owes Chettina and Gary Shaw a million pound!

The last fifty grand that Roy put in the bank for her, she took it out and disappeared. This coincided with Gary Shaw getting back in his Dads life, obviously because he didn’t want someone taking the piss. The difficult thing was that Gary was in Boston, Lincolnshire and Roy was in Upshire, Essex so he couldn’t keep an eye on him all the time. At that time everybody knew Roy wasn’t himself. Anybody who really knew Roy Shaw knew you didn’t get money off Roy without having to pay it back. Roy could go out with someone and pay for your food and drinks, anything you wanted he’d pay for but if you borrowed a pound off him and you never paid it back he’d hunt you down and kill you for it! It was the principle of it and he was such a proud man he’d see someone was taking a liberty with him and he just wouldn’t allow it. In 2005 Roy was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and by 2009 he was registered as having it.

In the October of 2008 Roy was told that Ronnie Richardson’s Son