Born in May 1940 it was not a good start for Michael McGregor and his mother alone in the East End of London and it got even worse when the blitz began a few months later. Where the family were living over 40% of the houses had been badly damaged or destroyed. After the family home was bombed, they were re-located to nearby Dagenham. And things didn't get that much better when the war eventually ended. Greatly influenced by his East End roots and background Mike spent the greater part of his teenage years at work and play in those places most familiar to him. It was an amazing journey, a kind of Jekyll and Hyde existence of excitement and adventure and at the same time with danger often on the horizon. By the end of the 1950's London had become a different kind of place. Organised crime was violent and out of control and police corruption rife at almost every level with much of it centred around the old East End.