I said, “Look, you’ve shit yourself.”
“I haven’t,” he says trying to get up.
I tell the screws that he had fallen in the shower. The lads in the prison played hell with him after that: they got some acorns and put them in a plastic bag and they would wave the bags at him and call him “Shitty”. He wasn’t long there before he got transferred. So much for him being the big top fighter.
One day all these oranges turned up for the prisoners and, with my mate Steve, we pinched them all. We spend ages crushing them down to make juice. The screw came in and we had cooked steaks and that for ourselves.
“Fucking hell,” he said, “it’s like bloody Goodfellas in here. What about all the prisoners?”
“Fuck them,” I tell him. “We have fresh orange juice for a fortnight here.”
Having done twelve months, I’m out on home leave. Now, I’m not supposed to be out drinking but you know how it is. I’m in this all-night rave and I’m really enjoying myself, dancing and having a good time. I’m talking to this big lad, an ex-amateur boxer who’s had 70 or so fights, a very handy guy. He’s got a flat nose and you can tell from a mile away he’s a boxer. I’ve lost a bit of weight inside. I’m down to 18 stone but feeling okay. This flat nose tells me, “You won’t be so good now Bri, now you’ve lost all that weight.” It’s my first night out so I laugh things off and carry on enjoying myself. I go back to my table and he’s talking about fighting and that. “Look, let’s not talk about fighting all the time, just enjoy yourself,” I tell him. He looks at me and says, “Ah, you’re all right, Big Fella.” With that, the sneaky fucker smacks me in the face with a Pils bottle. Nearly took my eye out. I went mental and really laced him bad, fractured his skull and broke his jaw. He was in hospital for ten days; the police came and got me. Seems his missus pressed charges but they got dropped because of all the witnesses. A year later I saw him in a club. He said he was sorry so we shook hands and I left the place. No sooner had I left than he started bullying kids. Just don’t know what’s wrong with some people.
I get out of prison and I’m back up to 20-odd stone and feeling great. I’m out for a night and got my new suit on, just looking to have some fun in this club. All of a sudden this voice says, “Oi! who the fuck are you looking at?” I didn’t even know he was talking to me. With that, he tries to head-butt me. I push the guy back and hook him right hard. Well, I hit him a little too hard because I smashed his cheekbone through his nose and into the top of his head. I put a few more into him and all the while my mate Kevin is holding my arm and he’s bobbing up and down every time I throw a punch. He’s got about twelve lads with him but when I offer them out they all fuck off. Now he goes back to his older brother who was a good boxer.
His brother asks him, “Who the fuck has done that?”
“Big Brian,” he answered.
“Oh well, you must have deserved it,” he told him. Fair play on the guy I hit, he explained later that he was off it and was in the wrong. The doctor had told him another inch and he would have died. Well, what the doctor told him scared me a bit. I wouldn’t have liked that on my hands. It was only the other day that he argued with someone and got killed. He was stabbed about 20 times in the face.
I never, ever go out just to cause trouble, but you know how some people are. I remember one night this big, tall Army guy was chatting to me in a club. “I just come out of the Army, I was in the paratroopers,” he tells me. I get him a drink and he informs me how good a boxer he was and that he was a tester for streetfighters like me. He’s going on and on about how good he is and how he trains and all. I’ve got a few charges hanging over me so I want to keep out of trouble. I say to the guy, “Look, let’s not talk about fighting all the time, let’s have a drink and a good time.”
My mate Steve goes and tells the guy, “Ease off or the Big Fella will kill you mate.”
“He won’t kill me, I’ll fight him any time,” he shouts out.
Okay then. So I give him a big right hand, then down he goes. The doormen run over and I let them know that it’s okay and things are sorted. All the time, the big Army guy is shouting, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Thing is, it don’t really matter how big you are, it’s how good or how much heart you have that counts. I’m watching some big fucking huge bodybuilder at the bar one night, he’s got his top off and he’s bumping into everyone. He was being a right pain in the arse, proper bully like. Well he bumps my smaller mate and I shout, “Eh mate, come on. Leave him alone.” He tells me to fuck off. I step forward and smash my fist into his face. Down he goes, spark out on the floor. He was out for ages, the doormen struggling to lift the fucker. I must admit he looked good on the floor with all his muscles and his abs and that.
Just because a guy is full of muscle it don’t mean he’s a good fighter, it means nothing. Once this big bodybuilder was telling people he wanted to fight me. He was one of two brothers both loaded with muscle. I approached him and he even tried to pretend he was someone else. I smash him one and launch all 18 stone of him against the bar. He staggers back off the bar and runs like fuck through the club, knocking everyone over. I catch him and throw him into the corner. He lifts his hands up to cover his face so I smash fuck into his body. While my mates try to talk me out of it the guy runs like Linford Christie out of the club. Of course he tells everybody I tried to stab him and all that shite.
I hate people who use knives. It’s just not on, is it? I get a phone call once from some guy who said he had work for me. I go to the guy’s house and I’m invited in but it’s a set-up, there’s about twelve guys with guns, knives, you name it. One puts a gun to my head. I hit the gun away and smack him. Another comes from behind and smashes my head with a baseball bat. They are hitting me with bats, pokers, hammers and all sorts but I won’t go down, I just keep fighting back. Out of the kitchen comes a boxer whose jaw I had broke ten days earlier. Seems I put an end to his boxing career. He’s carrying a pot-type bread bin, of all things. Now I had just gone over with holes in my head, hammer blows to my legs and stab wounds everywhere. He starts to smash my ribs in with this pot thing. They weren’t just going to do me over, these guys wanted me dead. I get one huge blow to the top of my head and the blood is shooting out and hitting the ceiling, I have to hold my hand on it to stop the blood. One big lad smacks me with this big sock full of marbles, it wraps around my head and I thought it was going to pop my eye out. I didn’t get knocked out but I did think I was going to die. I was shouting when they left that I would fight them all when I got out.
I’m trying to walk but my legs are full of holes and I’m losing too much blood. The guy next door gets me in his car and drives me to the hospital. Thing is, he takes me to the wrong hospital – he takes me to the maternity hospital, which was no fucking good to me. Well, I get there in the end and tell the doctor that I fell over. They give me over 100 stitches. Now the police are there and I’m thinking they are there for my protection but they go and fucking nick me. Seems they wanted me for a fight I had in a club a few weeks before. They had been told that I went to the club with shotguns and all sorts. I’m in court and I got so many holes in me and I’m in so much pain that I nearly pass out in the dock. Well, I get off with that and some people are charged with the set-up on me. I can’t see someone go to jail over me so I explain that it wasn’t them, so nobody was charged. From what I gather I was on the news with the attack and in all the papers. The boxer and me have shook hands and his mates said I must have been an alien because I just wouldn’t give in, said I wasn’t natural.
[Another time] I’d been out all night, and it’s the next day in this pub. I’m with my mate Dennis when the guy who killed Lee Duffy walks in. I’m starting to think I’ve been set up, with me being Lee’s mate and all, but he starts to fight with a smaller lad. The other guy’s a good ex-pro boxer but he’s just too small. The boxer goes down and the other guy is hitting him with a stool. I’m thinking he’s going to murder him so I try
to stop the fight. With that, he grabs my heavy gold chain and tries to pull me in close. I head-butt him three times and drop him to the floor. At this time of my life I was 22 stone and doing ten-minute rounds on the bag and 20-minute circuits each day so I was fit and big. He gets up and runs at me. I smash him with two body shots and a left hook and down he goes between these two parked cars. I’m shouting to him when he gets up that I’d fight him and his mate together. His mates, two big guys, ran off down the road and left him. Well to give him his due he admitted to friends that I was just too good for him.
I’ve lots of respect for people who box or train in martial arts. They are sometimes very committed people. I admire their dedication. But one karate guy came one night to try me out, he was a big lad and was a fourth or fifth dan. He came at me throwing all these kicks and punches so I just stuck a couple into him and over he goes, fast asleep. Well, I know I shouldn’t have but I took off the guy’s shoes and socks and threw them up on a pub roof. When the fucker woke up he had to walk home without them.
Some guy I had previously hit jumped out at me one night as I left a club. I just catch him with a straight right hand and down he goes. As I threw the right hand I somehow moved awkward on my knee and dislocated it. I had to push the whole knee over to get it back in. I jump on the guy and stick some more into him when he shouts, “I’ve had enough.” I thought, thank fuck for that. The pain in my knee was killing me. When I was fighting, I had pushed one of the doormen there. A few weeks later I went up and said I was sorry to him. I had just bought him a drink and that when he comes up to me and tells me he wants to see me outside. I’m thinking he wants to shake my hand and accept my apologies. He tells me he wants to have a go. I drop my glass and right-hand him into the doorway. I unload some more, then I bite his nose off. His mates come and I threaten them but they don’t want to know, they close the doors and go back in.
I got sent down for two-and-a-half years for, believe it or not, dangerous driving. I was driving my Cosworth when the police were on the lookout for me. They thought I had been involved in a shooting. I’m in this 40-minute chase and I’m driving like a rally driver and they can’t catch me. The only worry I had was if I run out of petrol. They blocked my car off at all exits so I handbrake my car and slip through two of the cop cars. The copper behind me tries to do the same thing and smashes his bloody car up. I went to the station and admitted my guilt but I told them there was no way I was going to be stopped by armed police – they may have shot me. I was remanded in prison and from what I gather the police had told the screws that I was a very bad lad and should be down the block. This stopped me getting an easy jail so I ended up in Durham Prison, which is a “Cat C” prison.
They remanded me first for six weeks because the bloody judge was on holiday. I was supposed to get a video to watch every three days, which the Home Office entitled me to because I was a remand prisoner. There were these two guys in the gym mouthing off so I battered the pair of them. They went and stole two knives from the kitchen to stab me with. Well, they found the knives and I got the blame so they stopped my videos. I’m shouting like fuck for my video when more and more screws turn up.
I’m shouting to the screws, “Come on then you wankers, if you want to have a go, come on then.”
“Look Bri, we don’t want any trouble,” one of them tells me, and off they go, and I’m locked up again. This was on a Saturday.
Next morning, fucking loads of them turn up with all the riot gear on. I’m up for it so I’m yelling, “Come on, I’ll fight the fucking lot of you!” There was this big lad in the front and I thought, one move from these pricks and he’s the first. I tell him that I am going to punch my fist straight through his facemask and bust him open first. After a while I decide to come out and there’s every screw in the place in pairs all the way down to the block. I walk on past them all and enter the block. It was fucking tiny in there, I couldn’t even stretch out my arms. The screws demand my shoes so I throw the fuckers at them.
I’m sitting in this tiny fucking cell with compressed cardboard table and chair and I’m devastated, no fucking video and I’m down the block. Now I’ve always been a well-liked guy and get on with most people. Turns out 500 prisoners do a sit-down protest out in the yard. They said they wouldn’t come in unless I was out of the block. They sat out for two days. I could hear all the screws they had recruited from all the other prisons marching past the block dressed like Star Wars stormtroopers. It was hard to believe I was the cause of it all and how so many people liked me and stood up for me. Eleven of them got onto the gym roof and smashed up the gym. This went on for two to three days. I felt sorry for some of them who got an extra two years for it and will never forget them for it.
I would have liked it if I had never had to fight and would be happy if I never fight again. I really enjoy my training and have a nice home and a good family around me. I just want to get on with people and I never ever hold a grudge.
HENRY FRANCIS
Newark, Nottinghamshire
Born in 1960, Henry Francis is said to be the most dangerous traveller around. Equally deadly with his fists and his head, he has been fighting and beating rivals since the age of 15. He has survived shootings and stabbings and was nicknamed “the Outlaw” by former Gypsy King Bartley Gorman. Is Henry the new King of the Gypsies?
MY FAMILY ARE from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, though for most of my life I have lived at Newark in Nottinghamshire. My dad met my mam in Yorkshire and they stopped down there ever since. My mam was a Middleton and Higginbotham. My grandad, Henry Francis, was a fighter and so were my mam’s people. I had a great-uncle called old Tommy Higginbotham and he was a fighter. In war-time he cut his wrist not to fight in the war [many gypsies faked injuries to escape war-time service – JD]. I had three brothers but one of them, Michael, was killed recently in a road accident.
I have just always been able to fight. It’s natural in me. I was a young lad when I had my first fight, against Johnny Cash at Worksop. The Cashes are a big name among fighting men in Ireland. I was 15 and he was 18. We had a good fight and I won.
I licked Bob Gaskin [a well-known gypsy fighter from Yorkshire] when I was 17 or 18. I was in a nightclub and his brother Tiny picked on me and picked a fight. I didn’t want to fight him but gave him a bad hiding and it caused bad blood. Then I had a fight with Henry and Kevin Gaskin. They came one night with all these bottles and stuff. I put them both in hospital
My dad had a site at Dinnington near Sheffield and someone shot up my dad’s caravan. Then a fellow called Young Billy Gaskin and Bob Gaskin had hit my sister. Bob Gaskin went to Newark to fight me. At the time, I couldn’t get as many people together as I could get now, whereas there was loads of them. Anyway, as I was going to fight Bob I got stopped by the police. They turned us back around. But we met him afterwards in a scrapyard in Rotherham. The Gaskins used to weigh their scrap in at one yard and we weighed ours in at another. We were passing this yard and saw Gaskin’s motor outside. I went into the yard and we had a fight and I hammered him.
I was training to go professional as a boxer at the time and was about to put my application in for a licence on the day that Bob Gaskin sent down from Rotherham Infirmary a warrant for my arrest. The police arrested me and I never did get to apply for my boxing licence. But nothing came of it with the police; I wasn’t convicted or anything. I also got locked up over Joe-Boy Gaskin. His wife told a lot of lies about me because she thought Joe-Boy was in danger. And I beat Hardy Gaskin and he is the biggest of them all. I went through all of them.
I was fighting men when I was a boy. I had a good fight when I was 19: Big Ralph Pilkington, at Dinnington. He is not a gypsy but a fighting man. He could lift a car shell onto the back of a truck. He had never lost a fight in his life and I took his reputation off him. But we have always been friends since.
I also had a fight with a good friend of mine at Dinnington. We used to do a lot of training together, jog to the boxing club every n
ight, six miles a night, and train every day. We were the best of friends. One night he had fallen out with another man and was talking about setting fire to his caravan. I said, “You mustn’t do that.” So he challenged me to a fight! My dad was there and he made me look small in front of my dad.
I fought him and gave him a very bad beating. He was in bed for a week. A week after he came out of bed, he knocked on my door, still with a bad face on him. I looked through the window and thought he had come to fight me again. He said, “Henry, I’m very sorry,” and shook my hand. We went for a drink and went in two pubs and they wouldn’t serve us because he looked so rough, still with the two bad eyes. Then we got drinking and have been the best of friends since.
Me and Simon Docherty [a very influential Irish traveller and former knuckle fighter who runs campsites in England – JD] were the best of friends. Simon was like the Don King of the travellers. He would arrange all the fights. Simon is like myself: he could fall out with somebody but would always make up with them. He was a rough man when he was younger. He took me to London for the first time. I would look after him, a bit like a minder. One day we went in a pub and there were some huge Irishmen in there. One of them was the biggest man I have ever seen. I’m about five foot eight and my best fighting weight was 13 stone, though I’m nearer 16 now.
Streetfighters: Real Fighting Men Tell Their Stories Page 11
