Opinion: The ones that got away from a life of crime

But such ready wit and witty repartee invariably clouded and covered some pretty dreadful childhoods. The boys grew up in poverty and many were subjected to violence, if not downright abuse. So I spend a lot of time celebrating the fact that quite a few have come through more than unscathed, indeed relatively successful, rather than commiserating with and about those who have ended up on the margins of society.

Mal is a good example of one who pulled through. When I went to see him, after more than 20 years, I needed to use the toilet. I asked where it was and his response was a typical wisecrack: "Where it always was, mate, by the front door, only now it's on the inside." This reference to the fact that he now had a downstairs toilet was an implicit statement about how far he had come. He grew up in a council house with a brutal father. He described to me that, as a child, he lay terrified in bed waiting for his drunken dad to arrive back from the pub.