Sowerbutt's Visit

"A visit he and the lads made to the Soviet Embassy school in Hampstead in '46 or '47 was a real caper, Sowerbutt told me," the retired writer for the East London Pioneer, who still has the notebook from his early 1960s interview with Jimmy Sowerbutt, said. "He'd had a few run-ins with the Reds during the war, so I think he enjoyed the job.

"The school was for the kids of the Embassy staff and all the Russki businessmen who flooded over after the war. He took a peterman with him, Captain Morgan, as they'd asked him to check a big safe there. Jimmy and Captain Morgan managed to open the safe without blowing it and they took all the papers. The lads searched the building and found an Aladdin's Cave behind the classrooms at the back. Black market stuff, ready to be shipped home. Spirits, cigarettes, tinned stuff - you name it. Tipper legged it to a nearby builder's yard and brought back a lorry. They loaded up and had disappeared by dawn.
"Jimmy got paid handsomely for the papers, the lorry-load was worth a fortune and the Russkis couldn't report the theft to the stoppers, could they? They all had alibis anyway and Tipper took the lorry back to the builder and squared him. A good bit of business and a punch on the nose for his old enemies."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Lemon-Surrender-1940-ebook/dp/B008USR7FA