Geoff Howe's Blog

Sowerbutt held up the last file in the Ambassador's safe; it was unlabelled. More financial papers from the Kennedy business empire, no doubt. Opening the file, Sowerbutt could not make out the typed words on the flimsy sheets. He held his pencil torch closer to the file.
He muffled a gasp and turned to Spaghetti. The first sheet was typed in German, as was the second sheet and the third. Each bore the distinctive scrawled signature of Rudolf Hess.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-of-Red...

The long-retired writer for the East London Pioneer, who still has the notebook from his interview in the early 1960s with Jimmy Sowerbutt about the Battle of Cable Street, said: "Jimmy was a cunning bastard. He was determined to get local families re-housed as quickly as possible after the war. He used to say they had suffered enough.
"The trouble was the Reds were taking control of the building unions and were calling the shots on the reconstruction sites. Jimmy found out that many of the housing contracts had a timeline. The contract was void if the flats and houses were not completed within a certain time.
"The bricks came from the London Brick Company in Bedfordshire where Jimmy had a lot of contacts. Many Italian workers there who had sympathy for the pre-war English Blackshirts. Jimmy spread cash around and some charm and the supply of bricks to Poplar slowed to a snail's pace. The sites, controlled by the Reds, lost their contracts and Jimmy took them over. A few months later, the building work was completed and the local families were rehoused."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Lemon-...

Nero said: “New tramp in the East India, Mr Sorbay. Came in from Lisbon of all places with a load of Spanish iron and tungsten. Would have gone straight to the bottom if the Jerries had caught her. Ran an Eyetie flag until she got to the Channel. Any road, the crew have got some crates of tinned sardines to sell, they want English cigarettes or cash. Lovely on a bit of toast, I’d say, the sardines.”
Sowerbutt looked serious. “Do the deal when we get back, Nero. We’ve got plenty of Players to trade which can be in the Smoke in a couple of hours. Store the fish at Pop’s place, we’ve cleared out all the tinned steak he had.”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-of-Red...

“What about the job you’re planning, guv?” Spaghetti asked. “Two or three of us in a few days’ time at the new American Embassy. I’ve sent Nero down to Grosvenor Square to keep a look-out. Polly checked out the layout as far as she could - selling fancy hats to the embassy ladies, can you believe? She didn’t see inside Kennedy’s study, but we know where it is," Sowerbutt said.
“Nero said the security is not great. They’ve got a couple of fancy bovver boys walking around inside. He didn’t think they’d be a worry. Bit of cold steel and they’ll go to water.”
He sipped his Old Bushmills. “We’ll do his study, that’s where he’d keep anything private, stuff he doesn’t want anyone else to see. His office would be the straight stuff, official reports, paperwork from the State Department and the like. I checked with Bracken and he’d be interested in any letters or papers from neutrals or even the Jerries. They do over his diplomatic bags, but you can’t keep frisking the diplomatic blokes coming in and out."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-of-Red...

East India Dock Road was almost deserted by the time Sowerbutt and Spaghetti got there. A couple of familiar buildings had disappeared, flames licking at the ruins and rubble strewn across the road. A trolleybus leant drunkenly against a line of warehouses, the blast from a nearby bomb pushing it sideways. A couple of bodies on the pavement covered in bloody sheets were evidence of the mounting death toll. An ambulance zigzagged along the road, bell ringing, heading for Poplar Hospital. As the two men looked around, the whistles of bombs falling and the steady crump, crump of explosions could be heard; rubble and smoke shooting into the sky. Daylight had become a black and yellow pall. The sky over the Docks was blood-red, criss-crossed by huge plumes of thick black smoke. The afternoon sun had disappeared; a commentary on the future, Sowerbutt thought.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-of-Red...

Nero slowed the Ford at the guard post at the main entrance to Luton Hoo. From the faint lights flickering inside the huts, they could see a beefy Redcap sergeant standing in the road, a Lee Enfield rifle slung over his shoulder, his hand held up in a halt sign.
As the Ford came to a halt, a mobile searchlight was switched on in defiance of the blackout, bathing the car in light. A second Redcap walked around the car with two Alsatians, barking and sniffing the car’s wheels. After the sergeant peered inside the vehicle, checked the occupants and ticked some papers on a clipboard, the barrier was lifted and Nero eased the car forward. A Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire captain smartly marched out of one of the guard huts, barked orders at a group of soldiers who snapped to attention and saluted. As the Ford drove up the driveway, Sowerbutt noticed the soldiers were on full alert, patrols marching around the buildings, several machine-gun posts manned and a scattering of Redcaps with Alsatians straining at their leashes.
A civilian in a business suit came down the steps to welcome the visitor as he alighted from the car. Not a word was said as the man wearing the black uniform of an SS Oberstgruppenführer walked stiffly into the house, carrying his briefcase.
“Talkative bastard, wasn’t he guv?” Nero said as they drove away. “Regular barrel of laughs,” Sowerbutt smiled. “Let’s hope he brings peace.”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-of-Red...

Nero slowed the Ford at the guard post at the main entrance to Luton Hoo. From the faint lights flickering inside the huts, they could see a beefy Redcap sergeant standing in the road, a Lee Enfield rifle slung over his shoulder, his hand held up in a halt sign.
As the Ford came to a halt, a mobile searchlight was switched on in defiance of the blackout, bathing the car in light. A second Redcap walked around the car with two Alsatians, barking and sniffing the car’s wheels. After the sergeant peered inside the vehicle, checked the occupants and ticked some papers on a clipboard, the barrier was lifted and Nero eased the car forward. A Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire captain smartly marched out of one of the guard huts, barked orders at a group of soldiers who snapped to attention and saluted. As the Ford drove up the driveway, Sowerbutt noticed the soldiers were on full alert, patrols marching around the buildings, several machine-gun posts manned and a scattering of Redcaps with Alsatians straining at their leashes.
A civilian in a business suit came down the steps to welcome the visitor as he alighted from the car. Not a word was said as the man wearing the black uniform of an SS Oberstgruppenführer walked stiffly into the house, carrying his briefcase.
“Talkative bastard, wasn’t he guv?” Nero said as they drove away. “Regular barrel of laughs,” Sowerbutt smiled. “Let’s hope he brings peace.”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-of-Red...

"This special lady been keeping us company long?"
The slight military man looked sheepish. "Frankly, no idea how the lady entered the country or when she arrived. The borders are supposed to be locked up. A Jerry U-boat off the Irish coast, though the ferry operators and the cargo-ship captains running across the Irish Sea have no recollection of seeing her and she's a good-looker whom you wouldn't forget.
"Can't see her parachuting in - too risky. Perhaps she slipped through in the chaos of Dunkirk, but there are no records of any civilian women entering the country. Of course, there wouldn't be. We are sure some of the French, particularly the officers, brought with them wives or other people's wives who have now gone to ground." http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Lemon-...

He was never without his girl guide clasp-knife, one of the thousands mass-produced by Sheffield cutlery manufacturers for Lord Baden-Powell’s youth movement over the years. Sowerbutt, who had spent a short spell as a sheet metal worker at the Westwood heavy engineering factory in Millwall, had drilled easy-to-flick locks onto the blade and the needle-point stabbing spike, but otherwise there was nothing remarkable about his favourite work tool.
The knife, stamped girl guide in capital letters along its metal case, had escaped countless searches over the years to the fatal cost of some of the searchers. Sowerbutt had palmed it, hidden it, secreted it and pocketed it, but his faithful servant of steel had never once been accused of murder and mayhem. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Lemon-...

What puzzled the sergeant was how Sowerbutt and his former Blackshirt cronies managed to avoid the trip to the Isle of Man and the other emergency internment camps, hurriedly set up after the outbreak of war to detain enemy aliens and sympathisers.
But that was the superintendent’s call, not his. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Lemon-...Geoff Howe