"Now working on a second book, Silver is finding the transition from gangster to author difficult, but only because so many people confuse the reality with what they see in gangster films. ‘The public have a very strong image of what gangsters are like, and it’s tied up with the likes of Lenny McLean or Dave Courtney, but that’s a long way from the truth. I did an interview with a journalist from one of the lads’ mags and he asked me if I had any funny stories. I didn’t know what to say. To me, the time I put a nonce case in a coma was fucking hilarious. I fell about laughing afterwards. We used to laugh when we tortured people, too. I don’t think he understood. I think he wanted a tale about the time we went out to rob a bank, pulled our guns out and our trousers fell down around our ankles.
“‘The humour is there, but it’s dark. And that’s how it should be. These people go around pretending to be some kind of Robin Hood, but the truth is that they’re scumbags, and I should know because I used to be a scumbag too.’”