The Story

Shirley’s story unfolds as a historical narrative and London is the backdrop that infiltrates so much of her history. Shirley’s ability to move across many London social circles takes readers from the deprivation she suffered as an evacuee during the war to night clubbing with toffs who drove Daimlers whom she took for a ride.

The books contains many crime episodes and this crime backdrop takes Shirley from prison to sipping cocktails in posh London hotels or partying in Spanish Villas in Marbella with what was left of Britain’s so called “Great Train Robbers” many of whom she had grown up with in South London. Her visual descriptions of London give the story persuasive character. From the austerity of the war, the post war changes and good life of the late fifties and sixties (filled with seedy clubs, characters and ideas about new ways of living) her story of crime conveys a very English and human dimension, of the essential female experiences of her life.

Despite being a woman in a man’s world Shirley was essentially feminine. Even when remembering the bad times – problems with other criminals she experienced in the eighties and nineties - her femininity is expressed not just through the way she dressed but through the love for her children, which for her, made up for everything that was missing, made up for all the pressures and conflicts she experienced from making a living from crime. She wanted to give her children everything she didn’t have when growing up.

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