Grafters

Colin Blaney was a grafter, a wired-up, beat-down, real-life version of Kerouacs’s Dean Moriarty. He set out from the decrepit council flats of east Manchester on a mission - to burn, burn, burn through a world of sex, booze, scams and good times. As a child he burgled warehouses and factories. As a youth he joined the bootboys of Manchester United’s Red Army as they rampaged through the country. As an adult he learned to ‘dip’ with the Scouse pickpocket gangs, to sell drugs to Rastas in Moss Side shebeens, to sneak-thieve from tills and jewellery stores with his mad Collyhurst crew. But Europe offered the greatest lure. ‘We started to buy Inter-Rails. These were for students but we knew a girl in the travel office who sorted us out. They cost [pound]60 and you could travel anywhere for four weeks…’ Soon he was scoring hash in Amsterdam, peddling Ecstasy in Spain, kiting dodgy credit cards in Belgium, flogging bootleg t-shirts at rock concerts in France, snatching jewels in Germany. He and his mates served time in half the jails in Continental Europe - and then went back for more. They were on a raucous, riotous, rollercoaster ride - until they finally hit the buffers. Some people live for the day. A grafter lives for the minute.