Jan Lamb: The Life Of An Angel In The Underworld

The Life Of An Angel

Jan Lamb

Jan Lamb

Copyright © 2018 by Jan Lamb

The author, namely Jan Lamb, has asserted her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as author of this work. Copy or use of her material is forbidden without prior written permission.

All photographs are courtesy of Jan Lamb and are taken from her private collection (unless otherwise stated).

All contributors in this book have submitted their own work covered by their own Copyright Protection, copy or use of their material either in part or in full is forbidden without prior written permission.

All rights reserved. All references and persons mentioned are subject to individual contributor’s recollection.

ISBN: 9781370978298

FOREWORD

Jan is a very loyal and trustworthy friend of ours, we are proud to have her as one of us. She stands her corner and takes no shit from anyone. She is so fearless and does not get scared, in fact, I do not think we have ever seen her scared.

We were all out for a drink one time she was over in NY and some trouble flared up, there were guns blasting away and Jan still sat there having her drink, whereas many other people would have got up and ran for their lives.

Mr Gotti said You know where you stand with Jan in fact he said just look at her eyes and you know if you have said or done something wrong.

We have lots of respect for her and wish her all the best with the book.

Michael G and co. New York

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: From An Orphan To An Angel.

Chapter 2: Taking A Fucking Liberty!

Chapter 3: Five Feet Four And Fucking Fearless.

Chapter 4: Charlie Richardson, ‘Pretty Boy’ Roy Shaw and Joey Pyle ‘The Don’.

Chapter 5: One Big Ego But One Genuine Guy.

Chapter 6: Rocky Troiani – Heart Of A Lion.

Chapter 7: Tributes From Those Who Know Her.

Chapter 8: Jan Lamb, In Her Own Words

Chapter One – From An Orphan To An Angel.

Variety is the spice of life or so they say. Well if that is the case then the subject of this book has had a veritable vindaloo of a life the good, the bad, the happy and the sad all in equal measure – but every individual personal challenge she has ever faced and every triumph she has ever gloried in has made her stronger in character and more self-protective, wiser and more astute, for there are certainly no flies on Jan Lamb, more affectionately known by those closest to her as the ‘Angel of the Underworld’ – a name first given to her by her good friends ‘Pretty Boy’ Roy Shaw and Joey Pyle, notorious underworld figures who have since sadly departed but whose legends and memories live on in the hearts and minds of many, many people.

Jan’s life has been a constant combination of situations, events and encounters – she has rubbed shoulders (and occasionally more) with almost every high-profile underworld figure on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, all of whom respectfully admire her for her undivided and incorruptible loyalty, her platinum-encrusted trust and her unwaning confidentiality.

She has partied with celebrities, sporting legends, screen stars and every mover and shaker in-between. She has appeared on TV and in newspapers more often than most superstars though she has always remained grounded and genuine, has fought tirelessly for victims of abuse and for those seeking justice where justice had not been served by a still Victorian-esque judiciary or by an institutionally bent police force. She is a friendly though formidable lady, she is nobodies fool and the respect people have for her is unquestionable, undeniable and very noticeable. The recurring and repeated accolades that people pay when speaking about her speak volumes themselves, many of which will be included within the pages of this modest publication.

Though actually, Jan’s life has been far from the proverbial ‘bed of roses’ despite her current high-profile ... in fact, it has been peppered with family impropriety, parental failure and personal traumas of every conceivable and inconceivable description. Jan has journeyed a path that would’ve psychologically crippled or completely killed off others of a less determined nature, sheer determination is the driving force of this indomitable woman and those who know her best know this to be true.

She has turned struggles into strength, difficulties into dreams and losses into important life-lessons, yet through it all she has been the most supportive of friends to those less fortunate, those more fortunate and those who are still to enjoy their fortunes. She is quite simply one of life’s most precious jewels.

Jan was born into this mixed-up, fucked-up, crazy, confounding world on May 10th 1949 at Airthrey Castle in Stirling, Scotland but was moved to Devon as a baby. Her incapable and incompetent mother repeatedly failed in her duties as a responsible parent and as a young girl Jan was placed into a children’s home, traumatic enough for the infant Jan but at least she wasn’t given away in the back room of a pub – that particular disgraceful indignant act was reserved for Jan’s only sibling, her brother Tony (more commonly known as ‘Sparky’) some years later.

While growing up firstly at home and then in the children’s home Jan did not have the closeness of her mother, Isabella, and sadly she never knew her father Andrew Lamb. Jan still despises her mother, even in her 67th year, and she has right to do so because her mother failed to ensure Jan’s safety, welfare and protection when she was a vulnerable child which is something that few of us could ever forgive or forget. The only good thing that Isabella ever did, it seems, was bring Jan into this world so that Jan could carve her own path of survival and success, something which she still maintains to this day. There is no love lost whatsoever and when asked what childhood was like she replied without so much of a split-second of hesitation completely and utterly shit! Which when viewed in reflection of Jan’s early life can only be concluded as completely and utterly fair-comment!

Hindsight, they say, is a wonderful tool but it is only with hindsight that Jan could try to fathom her fucked-up, failed early beginnings. Whilst growing up as a very young girl she was less aware of those parental failures and more concerned with having and enjoying as normal and happy a childhood as her contemporaries were having and enjoying. She made the most of a bad situation and she made friends as a child which she keeps to this day, friends like Julie Hutchins. Jan’s loyalty cannot ever be questioned and she values loyalty as the most important virtue a person can possess. Given the fact she was basically abandoned as a child then this comes as no great surprise whatsoever.

Despite the hardships Jan faced she still has some fond memories of her childhood away from the ‘family home’ and in the children’s home in Dawlish, Devon and later her time living in Bishop’s Tawton in Barnstaple, North Devon with her favourite aunt, uncle and cousins.

Her only memories of the children’s home were the building itself, an old Victorian detached property in its own grounds not far from a lake where Jan saw her first black swan. She remembers being told to regularly stand in line in a formal line-up when prospective adoptive parents would come to select a child for adoption. She escaped being adopted and was soon cared for by Uncle Ken and Aunt Mary whom she shared many happy times and again has many fond memories of.

Where other dispossessed kids might have gone off the rails Jan stayed on a straight path, she was a good student and popular with school-friends and teachers alike at Bishop’s Tawton School in Barnstaple. She loved school and she tried as hard as she could, fully committing herself to her work and to her lessons. She was a talented artist and also a talented writer of both prose and poetry.

She had a mind of her own though and she used that mind to cleverly manipulate life to suit her needs and requirements – self-achievement was always going to be something Jan would strive for throughout her life whether it be socially, domestically, academically or, later in life, professionally.

Youth for many young people can be a trying and challenging period of time, hormones have kicked in and moods have swung, behaviours have changed, attitudes to authority have diminished, rebellion has taken over and Jan was no different to those many other young teenage tearaways, though mischief and naughtiness was more evident than any serious criminality. She admits to hanging around with the wrong kind of kids, she was attracted to tough guys and saw them as cool, intriguing, interesting, daring and occasionally challenging. She started smoking at the age of thirteen or fourteen, buying single cigarettes with her dinner-money and she started drinking alcohol around the age of fifteen, so by comparison she was no different to millions of other young kids who were determined to live life the way they deemed fit and proper, regardless of what society as a whole may have thought.

Jan Lamb aged 17.

So-called ‘normal’ kids didn’t dare stray from the confines and the boundaries of acceptable behaviour but Jan wasn’t like all those normal kids and normal doesn’t fit in with her ethos on life, an ethos that has remained largely unchanged throughout her tumultuous and turbulent life.

It’s not all doom and gloom though because the adult life that Jan has enjoyed is one that some less fortunate would look on with envy, whilst others would or may find it extraordinary, astonishing and occasionally unbelievable. Her reputation precedes her and her name is respected and revered by tens of thousands of fans, friends and second-family members.

Her connections to various underworld figures is far and outreaching and includes names such as The Krays, Charlie Bronson, Charlie Richardson, Joey Pyle, Frankie Fraser, Roy Shaw, Freddie Foreman, Dave Courtney and even the New York Mob right up to and including John Gotti, more famously known as the ‘Teflon Don’ who was head of the Gambino family in New York. She is, and was, held in very high esteem by all these names and hundreds more as the foreword for this book will testify.

Mike Gambino does not go out of his way to write book forewords for just any old person, that person must be special, they must be worthy and they must be respected on every level, The Mob don’t endorse books under normal circumstance so for them to give this book the nod of approval again just highlights Jan’s standing amongst their numbers. Jan’s own respect for Mike and the rest of the Mob is unquestionable; she knows the relevance of having such high-profile friends in her life but if someone who knew nothing of her background saw her in the supermarket then she would appear to be just an average middle-aged lady with a very unassuming look about her, her long blonde hair and talon-esque fingernails, the knowing look in her eye and the cool demeanour she exudes are probably the only give-away as to her true, though secret, identity

Jan Lamb, the Angel of the Underworld, wasn’t born to fit in, she was born to stand out, she wasn’t born to fail, she was born to succeed, she wasn’t born to take shit from nobody and she doesn’t take shit from nobody, regardless of title or stature. Jan is very much her own person, her own woman and her own guardian angel. Despite her early disadvantages Jan was determined and prepared to succeed where others may have faltered and failed. She has helped thousands or down-trodden people through her work as both a counsellor and her work with Victim Support, which we will go into more detail later in this book. So yeah, she knew her own worth and her own abilities and she formulated her own fruitful and friend-filled future – a future which makes her worthy of this … her own biography.

Not every kid gets an easy start in life, as a result of difficulty and despair some of those kids become victims whilst some become survivors of their up-bringing. In the UK during the nineteen-fifties and sixties even fewer kids got an easy start. Social housing was home to the majority, times were hard, attitudes were different and society was undeniably beset with all kinds of problems.

Rogues and ‘wrong-uns’ ran amok , villains and street-level violence were at an all-time high and many of societies ills were far more prominent back then than they appear to be today, though it could be suggested that that view in particular would depend on which side of society one was born into? Those born into privilege appeared to be living it up whilst those at the bottom of the social strata were more likely to have struggled – they would be living ‘hand-to-mouth’ and cheek to jowel with others in similar Shit Street situations.

Jan’s early life was blighted with personal hardships and headaches, problems in general as well as a problematic relationship with her mother Isabella. Jan was only a year old when her mother split from her natural father, Andrew Lamb, who was a Captain in the Royal Signals, because of the split Jan never knew her father though she often dreamt of him as a brave soldier, handsome, loving, kind and nothing at all like the sad excuse of a man who later became Jan’s step-father.

Jan’s mother, Isabella, during a family holiday.

Alex Shaw married Isabella and dutifully moved into the family home, immediately assuming his position as boss of the household and of sexual-abuser to Jan. The pure white pages of this book will never be stained with the details