by William Lobban
Arthur Thompson, the undisputed heavyweight of crime in Glasgow, held a clandestine grip on the criminal underworld in the city for more than 30 years until he died of a fatal heart attack on 13 March 1993. He was 62-years old. Born to law-abiding parents in the north side of Glasgow in 1931, a young Thompson grew up in the squalid, rundown slums of the largest city in Scotland amid bombing and terror created by the Germans during the Second World War. Like countless other youngsters of that era Thompson progressed naturally on a well established path towards violence, criminality and severe media pressure. Ultimately, this would catapult him into the history books as one of the most notorious criminals not just in Glasgow but the whole of the UK.
Arthur Thompson was first convicted in 1949 aged 18; he was fined for an assault on another male. He would soon add to this first conviction 
with offenses ranging from robbery, extortion and reset (an offence in Scotland known for being in possession of stolen property). Thompson was close friends with the notorious safe-cracker ‘Gentle Johnny‘ Ramensky, the last prisoner in 
Scotland to be shackled and who the British Government gave a Royal Pardon to after his daring raid in blowing a safe deep within German enemy lines during the Second World War. Another of his safe-cracking pals, often referred to as ‘Peter Men‘, was the notorious Glaswegian Paddy Meehan who himself received a Royal Pardon after a controversial miscarriage of justice where he’d been wrongly accused of murdering Rachael Ross during a robbery attempt at her bungalow in Ayr, Scotland. Thompson and Meehan would team up and together they travelled to the Scottish Highlands where they broke into the Scottish Beauly Bank to blow the safe. This particular robbery ended in disaster for Thompson when he got sloppy and left a set of house keys at the crime scene. He would spend two years in jail for his carelessness.
Thompson began specializing in protection rackets as well as money-lending and he operated illegal casinos in the city. One of his most 
precious gambling dens which had been kitted out with all the latest roulette wheels, gambling tables as well as flambouyant wall drapes, was busted by Glasgow cops who quickly stripped the joint of all its trappings and anything else related to illegal gambling. This barely touched his illegal gaming activities and at the height of his trade, it is said he was raking in thousands upon thousands of pounds every week, making him a very wealthy man in the 60′s. Thompson was also a close friend to the notorious Kray Twins south of the border, London’s most feared gangsters. It is known that he would travel to London at times, the plane being his favoured mode of transport, in order to carry out ‘Hits’ for the brothers. These favours would often be repaid when someone from his neck of the woods had to be dealt with, a perfect joint understanding between old school villains. The mere mention of Thompson or his activities was enough to strike fear into people from Glasgow.
In May of 1966, Thompson would become an overnight household name in Glasgow. A bookie who had been receiving protection from 
Thompson decided that he should take advantage of his insurance policy when he felt intimidated by a man called James Goldie, a sworn enemy of Thompson who had placed a bet in his shop. Earlier in the day Goldie had been drinking in a pub named the Forge Bar with another of Thompson’s bitter enemies, a man by the name of Patrick Welsh. It was around this time Goldie had placed the bet. Goldie left the pub to collect what he felt was the takings of a winning betting slip and he took Welsh along to increase the coercion. An argument quickly ensued and with the bookie feeling aggravated, he gave in offering Goldie the correct winnings, but not before he called Thompson pleading for help and a solution to the problem. By the time Thompson arrived Goldie and Welsh had left the Forge Bar and were now driving towards Blackhill where they lived. Thompson, in his powerful Jaguar Mark X, set off in hot pursuit and finally caught up with the pair, ramming them at every opportunity. As the two vehicles reached reckless speed the big Jaguar clipped the small white Morris van and sent it careering into the stone parapet of a railway bridge where it bounced off and smacked into a concrete lamppost killing Goldie and Welsh outright. Two off duty police officers, brothers Joe and John Jackson, who happened to be in the same area and claimed to have witnessed Thompson running Goldie and Welsh off the road, later gave statements that led to Thompson being arrested and charged with not murder but culpable homicide, to the astonishment of the two cops who apparently witnessed the event. It was alleged that on the night of the incident the Detective Chief Inspector leading the inquiry had contacted the senior Procurator Fiscals office asking that the charge be one of culpable homicide; this clearly demonstrates the power and fear Thompson had instilled within the force. Joe and John Jackson received death threats and their families and households were placed under 24 hour guard.
While Thompson awaited trial at the High Court in Glasgow, he’d been let out on bail. He had swapped his vehicles and was now driving an MG Magnette sports car. Thompson always parked his cars right outside 
his home known locally as ‘The Ponderosa’ on Provanmill Road. The Welsh family, who were still grieving the loss of Patrick Welsh and Goldie in the horror road smash, decided to administer their own twisted revenge in the shape of several sticks of dynamite which they attached to the manifold that ran from the engine below the front passenger seat. The car bomb was rigged so that when the indicator was switched on it would set a fuse to ignite the dynamite. Thompson’s mother-in-law, Maggie Johnston, 62, who accepted a lift to her house that day, took the full force of the blast and was killed immediately. Thompson was thrown from the car and survived with only minor injuries. Three of the Welsh family, Henry, Martin and George, were charged with murder and attempted murder. Ironically, Thompson stood trial in one part of the High Court in Glasgow while simultaneously the Welsh family stood trial in another. This state of affairs would ultimately push the Scottish legal judicial system to extreme embarrassment, placing tremendous pressure on the courts, and all for nothing it would appear because Thompson and the Welsh family both walked free from court with all charges dropped. Thompson’s wife, Rita, would receive a three-year sentence for forcing her way into the Welsh family home and assaulting Mrs Welsh with a hammer.
It would seem Arthur Thompson’s life was mapped out with plenty of heartache, pain and misery. In 1989, one of Thompson’s daughters, Margaret, died of a heroin overdose. In May 1990, Thompson himself was almost killed when a white Ford Escort XR3 mounted the pavement just yards from his home, smashed into him at speed, and sent him flying against a fence. Witnesses said the white car then twice reversed over his body as he lay pinned to the ground before shooting off along Provanmill Road at high speed. Then someone shot Thompson in the groin as he left his local pub called the Provanmill Inn. When he turned up at a private hospital with a gunshot wound, he told medics that he had been carrying out some home improvements when the drill bit he was using shattered, sending a piece flying into his body. This was a likely story for an old-school gangster who would never have reported the incident to the police. The worst was to come and some say that this was the final straw that broke the camel’s 
back. Thompson’s eldest and favorite son, Arthur Junior, was gunned down and shot three times in the back in a cowardly attack right outside his home; he died soon afterward in Glasgow Royal Infirmary as one of the bullets had pierced his heart. Thompson Junior had been let out of prison on his first weekend home leave, having been sentenced to 11 years for drug dealing in 1985. What followed was a spate of murders committed in Glasgow, and on the day of young Arthur Thompson’s funeral the bodies of Joe ‘Bananas’ Hanlon and Robert Glover, both involved in the killing, were found dead in Hanlon’s blue Ford Orion motor vehicle. They had both been shot and then dumped in the street right next to their gang hut headquarters, the Cottage Bar in Shettleston in the East End of Glasgow. The underworld in Glasgow would never be the same.
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This chilling and disturbing memoir tells the story of one of Glasgow’s most notorious criminals.Writing in his own words, William Lobban tells how he was born in Exeter Prison to a violent, schizophrenic mother. His upbringing in the East End of Glasgow was just as bleak, and he ended up in care at an early age, destined for a life of violence and criminality. Aged only 15 he masterminded a daring break-in to a Glasgow pub, and many years of armed robberies, dealing narcotics and gang fights followed. When he wasn’t causing mayhem on the city streets, Lobban was serving terms in various high security prisons, where he was involved in some of the most serious prison riots and hostage taking of recent years.In the course of his criminal career Lobban teamed up with the infamous Paul Ferris, someone he believed was a trusted associate, someone who would later incriminate him as the murderer of fellow gangster Arthur Thompson Jr. Police also believed that Lobban was the man behind the brutal double killing of Bobby Glover And Joe ‘Bananas’ Hanlon, but none of these charges was made to stick.Finally released from prison in 1998, Lobban decided to walk away from a life of crime, but personal tragedy led to a dependence on alcohol and drugs which nearly killed him. Only In recent years has he found a measure of peace and stability, and now lives quietly in the Scottish Highlands. He has decided finally to set the record straight, and in this searing expose of the Glasgow underworld he reveals the true facts behind those crimes which he really committed, and those of which he is falsely accused.Released from prison 14 years ago, he has turned his back on crime ever since. He now lives quietly in the Highlands of Scotland.