by Paul Sykes
Also available on Kindle from the 07th September 2017
FURTHER AGONY
‘ONE MORE ROUND WITH SYKES’
The sequel to the Amazon best seller ‘Unfinished Agony’ The 3rd and final book on the wild man of Wakefield Paul Sykes.
Further Agony includes chapters from: Delroy Showers; Davy Dunford; Josie Threlfall; Chris Lambrianou; Harry Lakes; Reg Long; Dave Owens; Neil Atkinson; Janet Sellers; John Purvis; Tom Kiely; Colin Hart; Lance Jackson; Alan Lord; Clyde Broughton; Mark Sellers; Alan Brown; Mark Szedzielarz; Kenny Williams; Tommy Harrison; David Flint; Wes Bostock; Simon Ambler; Ricky Wright-Colquhoun; Tracy Thompson; Andy Hammond; Shaun First; Janet; Danny Leach; Julie Abott; Gary Mills
Imran Hussain; Lee Daniels; Dean Ormston; Wakefield Police Officer.
Written by Jamie Boyle.
SWEET AGONY
"I did what John Wayne did, what any sane thinking man would do, punched em right in the f*cking ear-ole...”
Paul Sykes
ISBN 1-85517-006-X
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This book is sold subject to the Standard Terms and Conditions of Sale of New Books and may not be re-sold in the UK below the net price fixed by the Publisher / Agent.
Produced by Roobix Ltd on behalf of Lofthouse Publications, 36 Ropergate, Pontefract, WF8 1LY.
Printed by Carter & Jackson, Pontefract. (Originally printed by: H. Charlesworth & Co. Ltd, Huddersfield)
Original Jacket Illustration by John Bury
Find out more at:
Facebook: sweetagonypaulsykes
Twitter: @sweetantagonism
Youtube: Paul Sykes at Large - Documentary
CHAPTER ONE
The pale orange glow from the security lights out in the yard filtered through the bars and wire mesh into the cell. A dog snuffled under the window until its handler called. He called softly so it was early. It padded away and then the clock struck. Three times it reverberated like Joshua's trumpet but it didn't knock down the walls or even tell the time. Of all the clocks in the world the one above the gate in Durham gaol is the most aggravating. Months it had taken me to solve the code. It had just clanged three so the next time would be either one for quarter past three or the hour of something else.
Standing at the tiny, heavily barred window, naked and clammy, looking at the stars twinkling a million light years away and listening intently for the clock to strike again, the conversation I'd had with the Governor came to mind from yesterday. He'd said I wasn't good enough to go into the main prison but there wasn't anything he could do to prevent me being discharged, inferring he'd like to keep me in forever. He was a little, portly, arrogant feller, with snow-white hair and the dress sense of a mad budgie, and for all his bluff and bluster he was a rank coward at heart. He'd like to keep me as much as I'd like to stay; three years ago I'd told him one morning during his rounds that if we'd been on a desert island I'd be the Governor and he'd be getting me coconuts. And he would have to be lively about it.
'We're not on a desert island,' he'd smirked, squinting through the screws like a hooker in a rugby scrum.
'It's a good job for you we're not.'
A little officious prick like him wouldn't last a minute without the system; giving him backing and telling him what to do. Anyway I'd more to think about than the likes of him. I could think about Pauline for instance, my wife. The clanging of the clock in the middle of the night always brought on evil thoughts of her and I hadn't thought about her for a while now. Very soon I'd have to see her if I wanted to see my little lad. It would mean being nice when really I'd like to
sling her off the cliffs at Flamborough Head, but I had to see the lad. He'll be three in July and according to my sister he's a little beauty with enough energy to occupy a hundred nurses.
I'd married his mother a week before I'd been arrested after knowing each other about two months. She'd come on a day trip to Blackpool, met me, and didn't go back. It was the story of her life. She'd left home at 15, and had been living in a house in Cheadle Hulme, Manchester, shared with 5 other young kids and on the sick when we'd met. She was 20 and I was 27. She didn't give a fuck for anybody or anything but herself and me. She wore two-piece suits in bright pastel colours, lemon, pink, sky blue, and with her short white hair and flashing teeth she was the sexiest bird I'd ever seen. Stripped off she had the body of a middleweight fighter, all bunches of smooth muscle and was so strong she could prevent me from fucking her just by contracting certain muscles.
She had herself a job the first day on a T-shirts print stall; had half a dozen printed with her name on and packed the job in to start
another job next door. This time selling hotdogs and beefburgers and
earning four times more money. She turned my little flat into a home
and guarded it like a mother hen and didn't give me any pressure at
all, not until I'd been arrested, and that's all she's given me since,
pressure and pressure, and more pressure, until 6 months ago when
I'd called it a day.
She couldn't have been better off living with my parents while I'd been in I'd thought, but after two weeks she'd gone out one day and
didn't come back. Three weeks later she turned up in her town of
origin, Bolton. She came back to Wakefield, my home town, and then
turned up in Blackpool a month or two later. The only letters I
received were asking for money for her and the baby with no explanations at all. At the time we'd married she'd thought she was
pregnant, in fact she'd told the judge she was but I hadn't been sure.
She had the baby in Blackpool and I arranged to be transferred from
here to Liverpool gaol to make it easier to visit. She brought the baby,
a boy she called Paul, a couple of times, and then sent another 'Dear-John', about the eighth.
The prison padre in Liverpool was very understanding, said it was probably post-natal depression and arranged a visit. Pauline sailed into his office with Paul on one bulging arm and a huge shopping bag
on the other. At the end I'd asked her why she'd brought the bag and why she kept her arm in all the time. She'd pulled out a carving knife big enough to cut off an Elephant's leg and said, 'in case you started' and waved it under my nose.
The padre had almost collapsed.
A week later she moved back to Wakefield, and was given another council house.
The last of my money set up a home like one it took my mother 20 years to make, according to the letter Mother had sent. Not long afterwards my mate's wife sent in a report that Pauline was taking a different feller home from the local pub every dinner time so I stopped writing altogether then. She moved to Bolton, leaving a £286 rent bill, and then came back to Wakefield a year later; no doubt owing rent in Bolton, but was given yet another council house, and Mother sent me her address.
She answered my letter by return post, and I started having thoughts of settling down to life as a married man with a little lad. A steady job on some building site shouldn't be a problem now I had my City & Guilds in bricklaying, and I'd keep in trim with weightlifting. I'd forget about her sleeping about, 'Tha won't wear it out', my old mate Norm had said philosophically. 'I wish I 'ad a pair a booits med arten one'. The next letter she sent told me she was pregnant and regardless of what I had to say she was keeping it. That was th
e final straw. She was a slag, and the nights I'd laid awake solving the code of the gate house clock had been a waste of time. My feelings for her were dead and beyond recovery.
The clock struck one, two, and didn't stop until it reached six, six 0'clock, Thursday 3rd March, 1977. Six 0'clock and enough time left for a brew before the door opened. The kettle was ready, a Marvel powdered milk tin but now it contained water and was hanging from a length of mail-bag twine from my 3-cornered washstand, and underneath, in the lid of a shoe polish tin, was the wick. Two pats of prison margarine squashed into a scrap of prison vest. Normally I'd take great care to centre the wick under the tin precisely to prevent it smoking and decreasing the risk the screws might get a whiff of it, but it was too late now. I didn't give a toss if they smelt it or not.
Dawn had broken over the women's wing across the yard and the high mast security lights had been switched off by the time the water
boiled. With the tea made, the kettle cleaned and all the evidence removed I dressed, packed my kit, folded the bedding and settled down to wait. What would the little Governor say if he could see me now, I thought, settling on the bunk.
After the incident with the carving knife I realised my good behaviour had been in vain, and the screws were taking advantage. Pushing to see how far I would go. It cost me 8 months remission to rectify matters and I was transferred back here to Durham, which coincided with Pauline's latest move to Wakefield. Although I'd been thinking very seriously of getting a job I didn't really want one. Stuck on a building site wearing wellies and a donkey jacket wasn't for me but what else could I do, and I wasn't much of a weight-lifter either, I realised, after I'd seen the mighty Russian, Vasily Alexiheev, win the gold medal at last year's Olympics; on real good days I could manage around 300 lb whereas he could manage 572 lb. Going back to my cell after watching him, a screw had given me Pauline's letter telling me she was pregnant. The following day I'd seen Teofilio Stephenson win the gold medal in the heavyweight boxing and thought an amateur like him couldn't beat me while ever he had a hole in his arse and decided to have one more go for a licence. By now I was 30 but I was supremely fit, strong, and knew how to box, but I'd been refused a professional licence once already, four years ago. A week or two after I'd seen the Olympics I'd been brought down here; segregated under rule 43, for the good order and discipline of the prison, when I'd been looking through an old copy of 'The Boxing News', and seen exactly what I'd been looking for. Tommy Miller's address. It was like a sign from God.
Tommy Miller had told me four years ago I wouldn't be granted a licence unless I signed with him and he'd been right even though I already had a manager. Back then, when he'd more or less threatened me I hadn't given a toss if I'd been refused a licence or not because I'd been all signed up to go and fight in the States on a sponsorship so I'd told him to piss off and not without good reason too.
A few months before I'd finished a 5-year sentence which I'd served in Hull gaol, the prison Lord Mountbatten had recommended all the 'difficult' prisoners in the system should be detained. I'd been there about 9 months when somebody had found two pairs of battered old sparring gloves hidden away in the gym. In no time at all boxing
became one of the main sports in the nick. Right from being a little lad I'd been trained in the 'noble art' and I'd had heaps of amateur bouts, winning schoolboy and junior titles galore. A month later, one Saturday afternoon out of the blue a feller turns up with a big black American professional called Freddie Mack, with a one round KO victory over Jack Bodell, who was then the British heavyweight champion. He didn't have a cat-in-hell's chance and not long afterwards the feller, Mr Alex Steene, brought in Ray Patterson, Floyd's brother, and Frankie Taylor, the boxing correspondent of the 'People'. The following Sunday Frankie Taylor tipped me to be the next British champion after watching me flatten Ray. On my home leave Alex arranged for me to spar in the Thomas á Becket gym in the Old Kent Road before Frank Butler of the 'News of the World'. He agreed with Frankie Taylor, but the publicity did nothing to persuade the parole board to give me early release. The minute I had been released I'd entered the national amateur championships, the ABAs, and reached the national semi-finals. Before I'd started the organisers had told me 'my sort' wasn't welcome and the first person who went the distance would win on points. That's exactly what happened. Immediately Alex arranged with Yancey Durham, the manager of Bob Foster, the current World light-heavyweight champion, and Joe Frazier, who'd just lost the World heavyweight title to George Forman, for me to spar with Joe at the Empire Ballroom, Leicester Square, where he was training publicly to fight Joe Bugner. After two weeks of standing toe to toe, no quarter asked and none given I'd impressed Yancey so much he wanted to take me back to the States with him there and then. Alex said providing I wasn't given a licence to box over here, I'd be over.
When Tommy had come to the beach, where I'd been working as a life guard in an effort to convince people I was all straight and above board, I'd been waiting for the answer to my application for a licence. Tommy had been right but I wasn't bothered and arrangements went ahead for me to fly out to Philadelphia. Thirteen days before I was due to go the news came over Yancey had dropped dead of a heart attack. I packed the job in and went across the promenade to mind half a dozen mock auction shops for ten times more money. It was during this period that I had met Pauline. At the end of the season, with a pal of mine we'd robbed a bookmaker's accountant of the week's takings
from 32 betting shops and an hour later there had been a general alert for our arrests. That was three years and four months ago, and four months ago I'd written to Tommy and told him if he could get me a licence I'd earn us both a bucket full of money when I was released.
Less than a week after receiving my letter he came to visit me with his son, young Tommy, a skinny, bald, silent feller about my age. Tommy made all kinds of arrangements with the prison welfare and doctor to try and get me a licence so I could box on this show at Liverpool stadium on Saturday March 5th, where John Conteh was defending his world title.
He wanted me to fight Leon Spinks, last year's gold medallist in the light heavyweight division at the Montreal Olympics, but the most he had been able to manage was the promise of a licence in six months if I behaved myself and stayed out of trouble. He told me to turn up on Saturday because he'd got me a job as a security man in the dressing room area, but Alex had got me a ticket and asked me to sit with him. Tommy wouldn’t like it but I couldn't give a toss if he liked it or not. If Alex didn't tell the judge at Teesside Crown what rotten diabolical luck I'd had I wouldn't be out for at least another 3 years, and if Tommy and his pals hadn't refused me a licence I wouldn't have been in here in the first place. Saturday 1'd be sitting with Alex and Tommy could look after the dressing rooms himself.
It would be hard at first, it always was coming out of the nick after a few years, but this time it would be harder than ever. Going home to live for the first time since I was 18, with the old man retired and Mother and my baby sister; baby sister, that was a laugh; in her latest letter she'd bragged how easily she'd passed the driving test first time and she had gotten herself engaged to be married. She'd be 18 on my 31st birthday in two months but she'd only been four when I'd last lived at home. Now her and Mother were standing markets all over the show. Once I'd used up the adrenalin and I could eat, sleep, shit, stay in one place for more than 20 minutes and my temper came off a hair trigger maybe then I could settle into something with them. The thing I had to do was take my time and just get through this 6 months until I started boxing because if I didn't I'd be in the nick for the rest of my life and I couldn't bear the thought. Cons on the whole were the silliest bastards of them all and to think I was one of them made my blood boil. No wonder I preferred it behind my door out of the way.
There was an inch of tea remaining when a brand-new screw opened the door. The cell was totally bare but for the poster advertising the Conteh fight on Saturday stuck on the wall behind the door. The next f
eller in the cell could have a look at it but knowing this mob he'd probably roll it up and smoke it.
'Are you ready then?' the screw asked, smiling nervously and peering in disbelief at the steam rising from the pot.
'Yeah I'm ready,' I smiled reassuringly. 'In fact I've been ready well over three years.'
'What's in the pot?' he enquired.
'Tea boss, look.' I held it under his nose. It was strong and sweet and if he liked tea he'd love this.
'Where did you get it from?' He was totally baffled.
'The chief,' I answered airily, 'brings me a pot every morning. Old
pals you know me and the chief. '
The whole nick was still locked up, even the con who made the screws tea, as I walked along the wings to the reception. At the junction of D and B wings, where the centre box stood, the day shift were reading their work detail boards and hoping they'd been picked for a good job. They all studiously kept their backs to me as I skipped down the steps to B 1 landing and on to the reception. The whole nick was silent as if I was on my way to the topping shed instead of being discharged. Cons in every cell huddled under the bedding trying to keep another day at bay for as long as possible. Not me, I'd always made it a point to be up and ready, washed and shaved and full of life. It frightened the screws to death. They got their own back in their own crackpot fashion with silly aggravating little strokes like they'd done in the reception last September. The nick doctor said I had to go to Dryburn hospital for an X-ray and when I'd come to put my clothes on I'd found the trousers of my suit had been slashed to ribbons. It cost the nick £68 and all the screws in the reception had been severely reprimanded. Whoever did it thought I'd discover them this morning.
