I was brought up at the Elephant & Castle in London. It was a completely different world then.

Our drug was a beer. Our mayhem was a fight. You’d get a black eye or knocked out, and you’d go home or to the doctor. Now there are drugs, which are an absolute disaster. And guns. We didn’t have those. We got drunk and had a punch-up and that was it. Now you stab someone or blow their head off.

Today’s Britain is very worrying to someone like me who knows that milieu. I don’t live there now, but I know about it, and I’ve just had two months back in it. Being with all those boys, those real boys, I started out thinking: “Lock the buggers up and throw away the key.” But then I talked to them. And every single one had a sense of despair. They said: “But how did you get out?” They feel they’ve been let down by society.

My character Harry Brown is a former soldier. I think there is a case for bringing back National Service. I served two years and was in the Korean War. If every young man did six months, when you come out, it’s your country; you belong. That is so important with these boys: they don’t feel that they belong. A lot of them don’t have a father figure. The director put several of the guys off the estate in the riot scene and I said to him: “What are you going to do on take three when they tell you to piss off?” And he said: “They won’t.” He was the alpha male they’d never had, the father figure. And we went on to take five and take six.

How does Harry Brown compare with Jack Carter [of Get Carter]? Well, Carter was a real gangster. Harry is a gentle soul who has been taught to do violent things, but he’s left it all behind. And this life, which is so terrible on these estates, turned him into a vigilante. But he was pushed into it. He remained a victim, right to the end.

Harry Brown is out on Wed

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