Mark Roodhouse

Does #crimehistory
@YorkHistoryDept with sidelines in #corruption #lobbying #illegalmarkets #informalsector #undergroundeconomy and #organisedcrime

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

Nice to start 2025 with the first output from my pandemic-interrupted project on illegal markets and criminal organization in mid-twentieth-century London. https://t.co/MpkJt33ZK3

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

So fellow authors, Meta used pirated copies of my first book, several journal articles and books reviews to train its AI. What about you? Try the search tool in this article. Make sure you've a punchbag available.
https://t.co/Zv7rqnFGvA

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

Reading a statement from February 1974, I spotted my first "innit" recorded during a police interview the month before. And yes that's Bert Wickstead's signature.

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

@profbarrydoyle Having listened to @Aiannucci in the latest #StrongMessageHere podcast, its far more likely to have been one of David Davis' comms team.

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

Interviewee: So I said, “What do you want?” He said, “Anytime.” I said, “Anytime!” Bomp! Down he is, where they piss, with his head in the piss. And I thought to myself “Shouldn’t have done it. Fuck it.” And I went out.
Not your usual oral history testimony, this.
#transcribing

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

@OU_Williams I think used the phrase "dipping your hands in the blood" during a recent teaching committee meeting...

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

@OU_Williams A good question - yes, I have. I'll tell you about it next time we see one another. What I haven't got is an effective way to stop the speech patterns of the interviewees infecting my own. I think my colleagues might've noticed an earthier demotic Roodhouse in meetings.

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

Pressed to label himself, he chose that very British word "minder." His enemies called him a "ponce" or a "bully."

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

Asked what a gangster was, the interviewee said:
"A gangster like in, er, America. They used to go in and muscle in. 'I want so much a week' and all that. What the mafia started in America, they were gangsters. Well I never done that."

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

@OU_Williams The best bit is that the organiser Billy Hill caught Taters trying to break into the safe at his club where Tater's had just lost his cut of the proceeds.

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

Nice to start 2025 with the first output from my pandemic-interrupted project on illegal markets and criminal organization in mid-twentieth-century London. https://t.co/MpkJt33ZK3

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

"Ten East End Boys Had a Tangerine Orgy," Evening News, 20 Jan. 1947. What a headline! Had to stop the microfilm reader to see what it was about. The boys stole boxes of apples and tangerines from a lorry in Bethnal Green then gobbled them. Clickbait publishers take note.

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

A paen of praise for the Tam and her colleagues @britishlibrary Boston Spa, and Nicholas of the Humanities Reference Team at St Pancras who've helped me find the weekly Racing Calendar. The hack has been such a pain, but the stronger ties with the excellent BL staff is a boon.

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

The moment #London #gangster Jack Spot, his associates Sonny The Yank, Moishe Blueball, Little Hymie and Solly The Turk, and many others went for the Blackshirts assembling on Tower Hill for the march to Cable Street courtesy of a German press photographer. #CableStreet

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

Like much else about this case, we need to widen out focus from just the police to include the community from which the suspects came and wider society from which a jury might have been drawn.

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

Here's the story by @Sanchia7. To gloss it, I'd add that the lead investigator Ian Forbes Leith was an old Etonian who had less investigative experience than his contemporaries of similar rank.
https://t.co/QcKVqisUBz

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

But the typical jury in 1959 was overwhelmingly white, male and middle class due to the property qualifications for jury service at the time. Would such a jury have convicted? The answer to this question likely informed the decision not to prosecute.

[Mark Roodhouse @illegalmarkets]

@Sanchia7 @OldenRay It really is and perhaps precedent setting for those interested in other unsolved cases from the time. Many congratulations to all those concerned.