Machetes, Strangeways & Police Corruption: One man turns his Manchester gangland experiences into a ‘naughty’ adult storybook

There aren’t many writers who can say they’ve had stints in Strangeways, befriended some of Manchester’s most notorious gangsters and had their books gifted to British royalty; but there aren’t many writers quite like Nick Fisher.

Nick, from Reddish, Stockport, has worked as a bricklayer and property developer throughout his life but has also managed to write ten books in that time; his first book was ‘Gym’ll Fix it – Lose Fat, Build Muscle and P*ss Yourself Laughing’, a playful fitness, bodybuilding and lifestyle book that offered health tips with a little bit of warped humour thrown in for good measure.

Other books include ‘Everyone’s Got A Story To Tell’, a collection of true life stories by people from around the world, ‘The Best Husband and Wife Joke Book Ever’, which was actually gifted to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their wedding day, and ‘Hardmen Gangsters Jokers and Pranksters’, a book detailing the murder, mayhem, antics and shenanigans from 1980s Manchester.

But his latest literary offering, ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bare Arses’, instead puts a dark twist on the title of a number of popular children’s tales to relay a number his own life experiences, such as his days spent with spent with famed gang lord Chris Little, stories from his stint in Strangeways, bloody machete fights down the Curry Mile, and the time he attempted to recreate the famous ‘great train robbery’ – which resulted in Nick and his friend being charged with the same offence as Ronnie Biggs – as well as tales from ‘clubland’ when he was as a ‘sixteen-odd stone doorman full of steroids’.

Nick Fisher

Though don’t let the grisly theme of his life experiences fool you; Nick also adopts a wickedly dark sense of humour in all of his stories, so you’ll be guaranteed to ‘p*ss yourself’ throughout.

The idea to relay his experiences under the template of children’s tales actually came from a simple run-in with a friend of his during the 2020 lockdown, who told Nick about the time he stumbled upon a rather lewd sight while enjoying a holiday with his daughter.

Nick, fifty-eight, said: “My friend was out in the forest with his daughter when he came across this parked car… And what he didn’t realise was that during the day, this was a huge beauty spot and all the tourists gather there but during the evenings, doggers meet there! He told me how he saw these three blokes with their arses out, and that’s how the idea to rename children’s stories came about.”

A stand-out story in Nick’s book comes courtesy of his eight-month stint in Strangeways – where he was an inmate during the infamous riots – after being convicted for threatening witnesses. In a story titled ‘Bedknobs and Sharpened Broomsticks’, Nick recalls an incident involving a convicted paedophile, several inmates and the end of a sharpened broomstick handle. You can picture the rest.

Another story titled ‘This Little Piggy Went to Market, And Some Other Piggies Went to Court And Told A Few Porkies’ touches upon police corruption and the lengths the force would go to to get a conviction. Nick explained: “One of the stories relates to the trial of the murder of David Barnshaw, where the police deliberately took around fifteen pieces of evidence and disposed of it in order to strengthen their case and secure a conviction against those they’d arrested for his murder.

“Another example I use is when they arrested Paul Massey for a credit card scam just after he’d been released from prison. He’d been out of prison for a day so it was impossible for him to have been involved in it but they banged him up anyway.”

Massey – known as ‘Mr Big’ – enjoyed a reputation as a leading player in Salford and Greater Manchester’s underworld until he was killed in a doorstep machine gun attack in July 2015. It has since emerged that he or his associates had been paying off police officers.

Many of his other stories include the infamous Stockport gangster Chris Little, too, one of which details the night they became embroiled in a feud between two Rusholme curry shop owners down the Curry Mile, resulting in a gruesome machete attack.

Nick said: “There was an ongoing feud between this restaurant and the restaurant across the road, and these men thought we’d been sent from their competitors across the road to cause trouble. So it all erupted. Pots were flying, as were fists and the tables and chairs.

“The chefs came out of the kitchen armed with machetes and meat cleavers… One of the chefs stabbed me through the arm with a machete and my friend in the face. My friend very nearly died from his injuries. I was lucky because I ducked at the right moment.”

Nick Fisher

Becoming an author wasn’t always on the cards for Nick, however – even before he had started mingling with some of the most formidable figures in Manchester’s crime underworld, he found it difficult to focus at school. He recalled a moment when his English teacher gave him a black eye after he wasted time during his English exam.

He said: “This teacher told me I had a potential to do something because he said he enjoyed reading my stories. But writing a proper book was never something I thought I’d actually do, it was just something I did then for a laugh. But when I write my stories, working class people can relate to them and that’s the key to it for me.”

And fast forward to today, that potential has been proven; Nick’s books have been read by people all over the world, including the likes of Prince William, whose assistant even wrote a letter to thank him for sending the book over – though the contents of that letter have remained shrouded in mystery. He has also used his books to raise awareness and money for the NHS and issues such as prostate cancer.

Nick’s work is well worth a read and will provide some real eye-openers and, most importantly, some real laughs. His latest book, ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bare Arses’, is on sale NOW – get your own copy here.