Elisabeth Leigh’s friend was a Scottish bagman for the Philadelphia mob
What a goodfella! My McMafia mate
B
ob Dick was given an impressive funeral Mass at the Brompton Oratory in the mid-1990s, even though he wasn’t a Catholic. A priest he’d befriended at the church was full of admiration for him. He mesmerised everyone he met. I couldn’t believe he was gone in his mid-60s. Over the years, Bob helped me during my three different careers as documentary-film-maker, freelance journalist and novelist. Born in 1929 in a poverty-stricken tenement slum in Glasgow, he contracted polio which left him with a limp. He worked his way to London, was involved in the property market and then took to money-smuggling. Married twice, Bob had a son, Scott, who ran a carpet-cleaning business. He cleaned Princess Margaret’s carpets – they were disgusting, Scott said. In the 60s, Bob ran a London casino, backed by the American Mafia. From here, he became part of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra, headed by Angelo Bruno (1910-80). Bob was their trusted bag man, carrying blocks of gold in a body belt around the world to offload into obscure banks. In October 1968, he was arrested in Philadelphia, together with other members of the gang; he was later freed, settling in London. In 1985, he wrote his memoir, The Bagman. It took a while before I learned Bob’s secret because I sensed that he didn’t like being questioned. We first met 22 The Oldie August 2021
in a cutting room in Soho, where he was supervising the editing of a documentary on boxing. When he heard I was doing research for a producer for a fictional story based on Lloyd’s of London, he immediately offered to help. He scribbled down the name of a syndicate contact on an old envelope. When I asked the Lloyd’s press representative if it would be worth interviewing the person Bob had mentioned, he immediately said I’d be wasting my time. The name Bob had written down was Timothy Sasse. Some months later, the scandal of the corrupt Sasse syndicate – which collapsed, in part thanks to fraudulent claims – surfaced in the press. I didn’t hear from Bob for a while, but
Bob Dick outside court with mob boss Angelo Bruno, Philadelphia, 1968
he was always there in the background, checking in with the occasional phone call: ‘How you doing, dolly?’ There was certainly no hint of any sexual interest in me. He was somebody who just liked to help and he was unable to resist a good story, especially if it meant exposing ‘skulduggery’. Making money seemed to come naturally to him. As he occasionally mentioned his involvement in hotel construction, I assumed he was a successful property-developer. Having learned that I was to direct a documentary about an English artist living in Sicily for Channel 4 television, Bob made one phone call. He then gave me a name and address in Italy on the back of the usual envelope. I later turned up at a leading theatre in Rome and was ushered up the back stairs to the top of the building. I took my turn in a long queue until somebody noticed me. I was immediately ushered into a huge office. Behind a large, gilded mahogany desk sat a small, rather undistinguished man. ‘I understand you will be shooting a film in Sicily,’ he said quietly. ‘Right,’ I answered. ‘Momento.’ He picked up the phone, said a few brief words in dialect, then put it down and smiled. ‘Everything will be OK. There will be no problems for you or your film crew.’ We shook hands. This was my first face-to-face experience of the Mafia and I began to suspect that Bob had powerful ‘connections’. Once I’d arrived in Sicily and started filming, everything seemed to go very smoothly. Only when a crew member approached a local girl was there a furore. He had unwittingly gone against the ‘code of honour’. I was summoned to a full-scale meeting with the local Cosa Nostra branch in the brand-new hotel at a coastal resort they’d recently constructed. I sat on the terrace with four dark-suited, overweight men while the crew sat on the beach below, anxiously wondering whether their director would return. The rules were explained to me. Local customs were to be respected. None of our crew would be allowed anywhere near Sicilian women. ‘You are the mamma,’ the chief speaker said, in a steely tone which implied I’d better take heed. I later heard Bob adopt this particular tone – but never with me. ‘It’s your job to control your film crew.’
