Billy ‘The Texan’ Longley, the one-time underworld general of Melbourne’s waterside has died

FEATURE: A GOOD general picks his own battlefields, the late and one-time Painters & Dockers Union hard man Billy Longley - who died today - liked to say.

Billy Longley outside HM Prison Pentridge where he was once imprisoned.

A GOOD general picks his own battlefields, one-time Painters & Dockers Union hard man Billy Longley liked to say.

The man they called “The Texan” owing to the .45 calibre handgun he carried, Longley was the veteran of a waterside crime war that gripped Melbourne and Sydney during the ’60s and ’70s.

He survived while at least 40 men fell as factions fought for control of the union and its criminal enterprises.

BIG GUN: LONGLEY’S DEATH IS AN END OF AN ERA

That gangland war was a war without witnesses.

Men fought for control of the gambling, sly grog and prostitution rackets. There was standover and armed robbery.

“We catch and kill our own” was the Painters & Dockers’ motto.

Amid this battle Longley, backed by gunmen like James Frederick Bazley — later jailed for conspiracy to murder anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay and murdering drug couriers Douglas and Isobel Wilson — rose to infamy.

News_Image_File: Evein in his old age, Billy Longley was an imposing figure. Picture: Ian Currie

“I never professed to be a Bible salesman,” Longley said at his Ascot Vale home in a 2007 interview.

“I quite often get blokes marvelling that I’m still alive.”

Alive he is no longer. But the Texan, unlike many he had known, died in peace.

If you had met Longley without knowing his background, you might have taken him to be a soldier from a war long past. He had dry wit and a holster full of one-liners. “An old dog for the hard road and puppies for the footpath,” was one of his favourites.

But a page-long secret police report, which Longley obtained through Freedom of Information, had a different take. Its last paragraph read: “He is extremely cunning, very patient and very, very deadly.”

Longley liked to turn such assessments on their heads.

“The definition of cunning is actually skilful, ingenious and able, so that takes it from a minus to a plus,” he smiled.

‘THE TEXAN’ STAYED SILENT ON DOCKS MURDER

BILLY LONGLEY’S ‘ANSWERS’ TO COPS ABOUT MURDER (*.MP3)

Longley was linked to a $590,000 armed hold up in Sydney, and was later found guilty of ordering the murder of Shannon, who was shot dead in October 1973 at the Druid’s Hotel in South Melbourne.

He served 13 years, corresponding with the likes of wrongly accused killer Lindy Chamberlain.

But at that 2007 interview, Longley still maintained his innocence.

News_Image_File: Billy Longley was convicted in 1975 of having murdered Pat Shannon.

News_Image_File: A letter written to Billy Longley by Lindy Chamberlain while she was in prison.

He spent the latter part of his life out of the spotlight.

A prodigious reader and proud Essendon Football Club supporter, he was a regular at his local swimming pool for water aerobics sessions to keep his ailing joints limber.

A personalised picture of the Bombers’ 2000 premiership team was stuck to his fridge, and a poster of a leggy Marilyn Monroe took pride of place in his lounge room.

“I feel sorry for her,” Longley offered. “She was mixing with politicians, gangsters and powerbrokers. She was badly used and badly treated.”

Lining the top of the lounge window were certificates of achievement from the Celestial Tai-Chi College of Australia. He’d made sixth level.

“The next level is when you start grabbing swords and waving them around,” Longley said.

“I told the instructor, ‘If you don’t mind, you can hold on to your swords and I’ll hold on to my .45.”

He classed Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven and Marlon Brando’s On the Waterfront as his favourite movies. “I can relate to On the Waterfront,” he deadpanned.

News_Image_File: Longley mellowed - somewhat - in his old age. Picture: Mike Keating

Longley recalled how, in 1971 during the battle for union leadership, he survived a gun attack most likely carried out by union secretary Pat Shannon’s crew.

The votes had just been counted and Longley, falsely believing his ticket had won, was sitting in a vehicle with colleagues.

“We had only driven three or four car lengths when ‘bang, bang, bang, bang.’ Some of the car windows were down and the bullets were going that close you could hear them singing past,” he said.

“A machinegun was produced and the window of the car that I was in was shot out from the inside, and a hail of machinegun bullets hit one of their cars.”

Asked how good his memories were of the event, he said: “Reasonable ... and selective. I'll say this: A good general picks his own battlegrounds.

“On that day, we were clearly outgunned.”

When he later appeared before the Costigan Royal Commission, and was asked why such emotion and violence had existed, he offered: “A struggle for power, I suppose.”

PAINTERS AND DOCKERS LEFT A TRAIL OF DEATH

Observing the events of a more recent gangland war between Carl Williams and the Moran clan, Lewis and sons Jason and Mark — all now dead — he said: “The number of blokes I’ve seen killed. God Almighty, there’ve been small dynasties.

“The Kanes — they were like the Kray brothers in England,” he said.

(Les Kane, 33, was shot at his Broadmeadows home in October 1978, and his body never found. Brian, 40, was gunned down in November 1982 as he dined with his wife and friends in a Brunswick Hotel.)

“The Morans — they were another dynasty.

“I’m just an observer now.”
Yesterday Longley, 88, died in hospital — a battlefield, perhaps, of his own choosing.

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