Violent Horizons

A young man, nursing a tortured soul just because he is different. OK, so what’s wrong with being a short-arsed, curly ginger-haired, pale faced, thin looking lad with freckles? Plenty in London’s tough East End during the 1960s.

At the age of 18, something inside Eddie Coleman snapped. His worm had turned, and turned vicious. From here on, he was going to be someone to be reckoned with. Someone to fear. Recruiting like-minded individuals from downtown Limehouse, his crew expanded rapidly. Their deeds and wrongdoings leave a trail of blood, beatings, blackmail, robberies and murders.

At the height of his reign, Eddie finds love. For a time, he seems to have the Midas touch. Even the law cannot put a finger on him, or so he thought. Was it love or the law that finally brought him to his knees?

Rob Walden-Woods spent a great deal of his youth in and around the East End of London. He would, many times, feel the heat generated by the plethora of criminal gangs. In 1965 a much younger Rob, teamed up with three guys from Stratford E15 and together they would frequent gambling casinos and clubs where some of the most violent of criminals would gather. Rob and his mates were witness to many dreadful fights, fights for supremacy, respect and wealth, often with the aim being to take control of the club or casino they were fighting in – with much blood being spilt – on both sides of many a fracas. No quarter was given or taken.

Although fictional ‘Violent Horizons’ contains a strong element of the roughness and ferocity of undisguised violence meted out by mobs, crews and gangs, on behalf of their gangland bosses, whose aim was to climb the greasy pole of notoriety.

Older and wiser, you now find Rob more the country gent than the ‘pitch and toss’ cockney.