Bob, the gallant, Scottish

Elisabeth Leigh’s friend was a Scottish bagman for the Philadelphia mob

What a goodfella! My McMafia mate

Bob 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 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 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.’

Bob Dick outside court with mob boss Angelo Bruno, Philadelphia, 1968

Scotland the knave: Philadelphia cops arrested Bob Dick, the only Glaswegian at a 1968 meeting of Italian-American hoods

I promised to sort it out and repeat what had been said to me. The four men smiled, flashing their gold teeth, rose from their chairs and made it clear the interview was over.

I made my debut as a food correspondent for the Sunday Times and was given a regular column to write about food, restaurants and chefs. Bob thought it was a waste of time. I should write about crime; he’d teach me all I needed to know. He strongly believed that most women were brighter and better than men.

By now, he had confided in me that he was part of the American ‘family’ in Philadelphia, who were branching out into film development.

Whenever he had an idea for a script, he’d summon me round for my opinion. Once he invited me to his spacious Knightsbridge flat to meet a top Mafia lawyer who had managed mob affairs from a fully equipped office inside a high-security prison in America.

I was asked to have tea with him and his associates and to give advice on a film treatment. This was a full-scale ‘meet’ held in Bob’s sitting room, elaborately furnished with highly glossed and gilded antiques. I was introduced to the lawyer who towered over his smaller, equally sun-tanned ‘associates’.

‘This is Lis, my script advisor,’ said Bob. ‘She’s got a degree from Oxford.’

The lawyer gave a respectful nod and scripts were handed out to everyone. After going through some possible libel areas with the expert, Bob suddenly turned to me and said, ‘In this scene, a Jewish gangster eats a prawn cocktail. Would this be correct? Would a Jewish man eat a prawn cocktail?’

‘Not if he ate kosher,’ I replied.

‘He eats kosher,’ said Bob. ‘So cut it out, then.’

The prawn cocktail was duly redpencilled out of the script.

I didn’t go to Bob’s funeral. I wanted to remember him as he was, bursting with ideas for projects, with his own peculiar strong sense of justice. He had a bizarre notion that the old days of the Mafia were over and that it would be reborn as an organisation ruled by compassion.

I used to wonder how he could possibly have believed such an idea when extortion, intimidation, violence and murder were its everyday tools. Yet Bob went his own way, perfecting his own vision of the New Mafia Man.

The last time I heard from him, he was helping some nuns raise money for their convent by showing them how to run a stall at a local fête.

‘I’m teaching them all about pricing,’ he told me proudly, chuckling at the idea.

A unique man – I miss him.