Free Heavy Duty People: The Brethren MC Trilogy book 1 by Iain Parke Page A

prospects and even hangarounds looking to prove themselves, to do the work on the ground.
    As a patch club with members who dealt, we had the same issues.
    Sometimes people would ask us why we didn’t disassociate ourselves from one of our guys who got had up for doing something, or condemn what they had done. Anyone asking that sort of question just showed they didn’t understand what membership of a club like ours meant.
    Within the club we had quite a challenging regime. Like anywhere else you would have your core group of buddies within the club, the guys you hung around with, rode with, partied with. Every group was different, things changed over time, but even within this core group there would tend to be a continual process of mutual testing, winding each other up, checking to see commitment. This went further the less well you knew another member.
    But whatever we might say to each other inside the club; whatever we might say in coming to club view; we never, never, never disagreed outside the club in front of, or to, non-members. As a patch, you never betrayed your brothers, whether they were part of your close local circle or someone from another cohort that you hardly knew, by word or deed to anyone outside the club, whatever you might say or do privately. The absolute rule was always absolute solidarity with anyone inside the club against anyone outside; a non-member. Whatever they said, whatever they had done, a brother was always right.
    In a club like ours , or like The Brethren, you could rely on your brothers, and their silence.
    For them, i t was also a world of Brethren. As they said, ‘The sun never sets on a Brethren patch,’ and so with their worldwide network of charters, members of The Brethren had access to an international set of connections if they wanted them.
    So those of our guys who were already well in with The Brethren, dealing with them on drugs or whatever, were generally very pro. Like Billy, they saw this as their big opportunity to move up the ladder from membership of a friendly but separate club to a Brethren patch themselves. Besides, if we fell out with The Brethren and their connections, where else could they get their stuff?
    But it wasn ’t just a simple question of business. There were a whole range of both personal and club reasons why people were pro, anti or undecided.
    But one thing was clear. There was now no status quo ante . It was join, disband, or fight.
    North-east president or not, Dazza wouldn’t have the authority to make this offer on his own. This was not a local decision. This affected The Brethren nationally in bringing in a whole club as new members, as well as the impact it would have on the balance of power in their rivalry with The Rebels in the UK. It would have to be something that had been agreed and approved by The Freemen leadership. Making an offer like that without proper authorisation would have been a fatal decision on Dazza’s part.
    And what an offer. It was almost unheard of. Normally , if a club like The Brethren wanted us to patch over it would mean the entire club, or those guys that were wanted anyway, going back to being strikers for a Brethren patch. We’d put on their bottom rocker, get our heads down and do our time. OK so you’d expect that if they wanted us, we’d be put up fairly soon, fast tracked to a patch vote after say three or six months, no one would be expecting us to stay striking for a year or more the way a straight tagalong, some potential wannabe would. After all, the reason the offer would be made would be because they could see we were stand up guys, good material with what it took.
    But the point was, whatever you ’d worn before, to wear a Brethren patch, you would still have to strike for it, either individually or as a club.
    A straight patch swap, a guy transferring full membership straight from club to club, with no screwing about as a striker? Well sure we knew that occasionally, very, very occasionally it