The Show Must Go On

by Bernard Ross

  We were at a hall venue in Lincoln when I met one of Mal’s black-book fighters called Sid. Sid was a rough looking man from the north east of England who looked as if he’d sell his granny for a few quid. He was about five foot ten, skinny but really wiry, with what looked like muscle stretched over bone but not an ounce of spare fat on him. He was quite heavily tattooed and was apparently a former Royal Navy stoker and boxing champion. His ears were a shocking mass of scar tissue and looking at Sid you really could see why they were called ‘cauliflower ears’. He was thinning on top and kept the rest of his hair short. His forehead was a mass of small scars, which coupled with the ears, a broken nose and the palest blue eyes you ever saw, made him a pretty intimidating looking character. Actually, if he was your friend, he was a really nice bloke, but he really looked as if you didn’t want him as an enemy.

  He joined us as we built-up the ring and Mal had already briefed him on the show that night. I was going to be a top man and Sid was my challenger in the four bout round; the second fight of the night. The plan was that I was to throw him out of the ring in the second round, but that in the long term he was to go the distance, and we would then do the re-match act.

  As we discussed the plan Sid said, “I’m going to use the chiv when you throw me out of the ring, so once I’m out, make a big show somehow in the ring to keep the punters’ attention while I sort it out.”

  I was at a loss, this was not something I’d come across before. Sid immediately saw that I wasn’t with him and so he added to my education; back in those days electric razors were still pretty primitive so most men wet-shaved. Disposable razors or razors with twin blade cartridges were still far in the future and open, “cut-throat” razors were the speciality of West End up-market barbers, your Granddad or the local gangsters. Most people used a “Safety Razor” which held a Wilkinson’s Sword blade. These blades were bought in little cartridge paper envelopes of 5 or 10 blades from every chemist’s shop in the country. Barely a hair’s-breadth thick, the blade was sharp on its two long sides and had a symmetrical zig-zag slot down the middle that anchored it into the head of the safety razor. This slot made it quite easy to snap a blade, both lengthwise and widthwise, to end up with four small single edged blades, each with a wriggly blunt side. Each one was about five eighths of an inch long and half an inch deep. A fighter could take one of these blades and cover most of both sides with a small strip of fabric plaster; this made a non-slip grip and left just a tiny corner of blade, about and eighth of an inch long. This was a chiv. Then another, larger piece of tape was used to create a small pocket on the inside of the stiffened waistband of the fighter’s trunks.

  At an opportune moment the chiv could be pulled free of its sticky-plaster pocket and used to self inflict a cut somewhere where the ‘victim’ would bleed copiously. As any medic (and many parents of adventurous little boys) can tell you, head wounds bleed like crazy. The chiv could then be returned to the waistband or into the top of the boot, and the fighter is now apparently injured and the blood will flow. Cuts made with very smooth, sharp blades take longer to stop bleeding than impact tears and other more ‘natural’ injuries, so the effect is not only instantaneous, but also quite prolonged. Looking at Sid’s forehead I could tell that he was a past master at the art of chivving himself.

  Mal added ten shillings to a fighter’s ‘wage’ for the night for a chivving. Blood Money!

  When the time came Sid threw himself at my head in a vaulting high dive that would have had him grab me around the neck had I not dropped into a crouch. I grabbed him in mid air and, taking his entire weight across my shoulders I stood up, Sid was suspended in air and, without traction on anything, was apparently at my mercy. I looked out into the crowd and advanced on the ropes at the left side of the hall. There was a narrow gangway and as I approached it the punters could clearly see that I was intending to throw some ten stone of sweaty wrestler out of the ring and into their be-suited number, there was a rapid scuttling as the faster moving punters shoved their neighbours away from the aisle and tried to ensure that he didn’t land on them, with a grunt I hurled Sid over the ropes and out into the auditorium. He landed with a crash and not a few squeals from the audience members who were not as fast or were impeded by larger and more sluggish neighbours. I jumped up on the ropes, shouting challenges at Sid and generally making a lot of noise, he started moving, showing that he wasn’t dead or out for the count, and so I immediately turned and shouted to the ref to give me the victory on the grounds that my challenger was outside the ring and time wasting. Mal argued back and I became angry, launching myself towards him to yell in his face. My second came and grabbed me, shouting at me calm down. I shoved my second away and turned to the audience to appeal for their support. They responded loudly, some in favour and some vehemently against. Most of the audience was on its feet now and the noise was indescribable until a second later Sid was helped back into the ring by a couple of audience members who were solicitous but trying hard not to get covered in the blood that was pouring from his head. Sid looked mean and angry and was about to lunge at me when Mal rang the bell for the end of the round.

  The third round Sid bled continuously and I made it look as if I were deliberately targeting the injury. We both got pretty slippery with blood and near the end of the third Sid unexpectedly dropped me and, though I was up and on my feet in seconds I played the act of being winded.

  In the fourth round Sid came back hard and with a little judicious allowance from me was clearly getting the upper hand. I was looking as if I were done in and Sid was looking as if he were treating this as a grudge match, when Mal rang the bell for the end of the bout. As Mal began his wrapping up a voice from the audience shouted that the last round was not a full three minutes in length. Mal tried to ignore the challenge but the cry was taken up by other punters. Whether they were motivated by a sense of injustice or whether there were some bets at stake I don’t know but feelings began running pretty high. Sid chipped in his demand for another round and the audience fell silent. When Mal refused a growl went up from the crowd and within seconds there was a major slanging match on the stage, with Mal standing his ground and speaking authoritatively into the microphone, Sid bellowing in Mal’s face and to the crowd, the crowd yelling at Mal. This was perfect; loads of these people would come back in to see the rematch! Then it all went wrong. There was an invasion of the ring, punters were everywhere, Sid was being hoisted onto people’s shoulders, Mal was being harangued. It was just short of a riot but it was clearly out of hand. Mal continued to deny the right to a fifth round and to stand his ground over the length of the last round. Eventually, just as I was getting worried Mal finally raised his voice and yelled in a stentorian voice into the PA (which suddenly had been turned up to full volume.

  “VERY WELL, THE CHALLENGER SHALL BE ALLOWED THE RIGHT TO A REMATCH IN THE NEXT PROMOTION. A FULL THREE ROUND BOUT AGAINST THE SAME FIGHTER...IF THE MAN IS WILLING!”

  With this last comment Mal turned to point at me and so the ball was now in my court. I pushed my way across the ring past the invaders and thrust my hand forward to Sid as a handshake.

  “Yes” I said in my most authoritarian voice.

  The crowd erupted into applause and Mal and the boy began shepherding everyone out.

  We were a well oiled team, skillful in the art of crowd manipulation but that one had nearly got away from us!

  Chapter 31

  He Really Has A Wicked Sense Of Humour

  When on stage or in the ring the noise of the crowd, the PA and the thudding of the canvas covered boards beneath you all combined to make a cacophony of ambient sound. This covered any murmured communication between the two combatants. However, the couple of hundred people watching, some from as little as a few feet away, would have spotted any moving lips, especially from the challenger. The masked ‘top man’ had a slightly better chance of getting away with it but we all learned to
speak with hardly any lip movement.

  Davy the Dustman had a wicked sense of humour and a stock of one liners that seemed inexhaustible. His signature behaviour was to crack one of these jokes when he had you in a hold, particularly one that should have been agonizing, in order to try to get you to laugh. In reality, he was endangering the show, but the jokes were so worth hearing no one ever tried to get him to stop.

  As I mentioned before, we always had lots of spare time between our speedy set up and the start of the show and we usually spent this in the pub having a drink or five. One night Davy was fighting a black book challenger and in the second round Davy got the guy into a hold from behind in such a way that Davy’s mouth was just beside the guy’s left ear. With his face contorted at the effort of the straining hold, Davy murmured something into the guy’s ear. The audience didn’t spot this at all but as we were used to it I could see that something was said. It must have been an absolute humdinger of a joke; the challenger went rigid, then his face started to turn purple. The crowd thought that this ‘body language’ was him either losing his capacity to breathe, or winding up for a massive physical effort. In reality the guy was desperately trying to avoid laughing. To use normal theatrical parlance he was “corpsing”, he was incapable of doing much other than try to stifle the giggle and of course, he was in a really difficult situation. Davy deliberately gave him an opportunity to break the hold and the fight went on, the moment was over and the guy had managed to escape with honour.

  During the break I was seconding the challenger and he quietly confirmed to me what had happened. I glanced at Davy and saw that he was clearly in deep thought. The bell rang and the next round started.

  After a minute or so of normal fighting Davy again managed to get a hold where he could murmur into the guy’s ear. This time the joke must have been even better than the last one; the fellow’s face twisted into one of those smiles that babies get just as they fill their nappy. He twitched as if being electrocuted and then suddenly a small dark patch appeared on the front of his trunks. There were several pints of mild and bitter sloshing around in his bladder and he was clearly losing the battle to hold it in in the face of this “silent killer” attack by Davy the Dustman. The crowd spotted it and roared with laughter, this unsettled Davy enough to allow the challenger to break off and the rest of the bout followed like a normal wrestling fight, except that the challenger was allowed to go for a pee between rounds!

  Davy now made it a personal crusade to make each of his opponents, regular and occasional, wet themselves at least once in a season. From that day on, in the pre fight pub session, you could always spot the person allocated to fight Davy; they drank halves, slowly and were always seen in the gents squeezing out the last possible drop of pee before going out to volunteer to fight the wicked little bugger.

  Chapter 32

  Winter Wonderland?

  Mal looked after his fighters and so anyone who wanted to stay the winter with Mal, wherever he may have rented a yard, was welcome to work with him on the coal deliveries. For the next three winters I stayed with Mal. Slowly I managed to build up a small next egg of savings; I got paid a pound for every three round fight and one pound ten shillings for every four round fight, added to that was my share of the nobbings and the money I earned in the winters. Tax was something that flatties paid and all my income was in cash anyway. My expenses were pretty small; yes, I drank, but I didn’t smoke, hadn’t got any rent to pay and in those days we didn’t own much by way of clothing. iPods and mobile phones and all the stuff youngsters ‘need’ today just didn’t exist.

  In my third season with Mel, a chap, who was universally known by the tautological moniker of ‘Irish Mick’, joined us. When he was happy he was a great bloke to be with but when he lost his rag he was a really dangerous character. It didn’t take a lot to set him off, but we knew what subjects to steer clear of and what things got him riled so we were able to generally keep him happy.

  One day Irish Mick and I were out delivering coal in one of Mal’s trucks when a bus pulled out of a bus stop right in front of us. Whether the driver of the bus didn’t look before pulling out or not I don’t know, he may have just taken the view that as he was a public service vehicle he had the right of way over us lowly commercial types. Whichever it was it I had to slam on the brakes and we could hear the clattering sound of coal sacks falling over in the back and coal going all over the bed of the truck. This pissed Irish Mick off; we’d spent a couple of hours filling and weighing all the bags and now we’d have to do some of it all over again. Mick’s eyes started to go red, a sure sign that he was getting really angry. The bus dawdled along at the sort of speed that a person could jog at, for no apparent reason. Suddenly the bus driver braked to pick up a person at a request stop, he didn’t indicate or even pull over into the recess of the bus-stop but just stopped in the middle of the road. I hit the brakes again and in a flash Mick was out of the passenger door and sprinting to the front of the bus. With the speed of a semi professional athlete, and one that belied his not inconsiderable bulk, Mick was beside the open half cab of the bus, he grabbed the bus driver by his two lapels and hauled him out of the bus. Without letting go of the driver’s uniform jacket, Mick dragged the man up into the standing position. Then Mick let go of the guy’s lapels and appeared to smooth down the fabric of the shoulders where the dragging had lifted and rumpled them. With the palms of both hands on the driver’s shoulders Mick just nutted him full on the bridge of his nose. The driver simply crumpled to the floor and Mick turned sharply back to me as I let the clutch out and ran the truck up to him. He jumped in and we drove off as fast as we could. I didn’t condone Mick’s level of violence but I could kind of see his point. Arrogant bloody bus drivers! More to the point, I didn’t want to be around when the police turned up. Luckily our truck had no distinguishing markings, nor, in fact, any rear number plate. We never heard anything about the incident and it was soon forgotten.

  Mick was not all bad; he was a good hard worker and had a degree of respect for the paying customers. He was also a complete gentleman with older ladies as was demonstrated on one memorable day. The Welsh house coal used to come to us in sixteen ton railway truck loads and some of the pieces of coal were the size of a sideboard. These bits we would break up with sledgehammer and pick until they were small enough to fit into the hundredweight sacks that we operated with. We had unloaded a railway truck into sacks on the back of our lorry and were heading back to the yard at the end of a backbreaking day. Mick was at the wheel as we barreled down the road, looking forward to getting into the saloon bar with its roaring fire and a pint of beer. As we approached one particularly sharp bend we could see a little old lady standing waiting to cross the road. She was a tiny little thing; no more than five feet tall and probably about four and a half stone in weight. She wore a headscarf under which peeped grey curls, and a belted, bright red overcoat with a shiny brooch on the collar. She was wheeling her ancient bicycle upon which was a basket containing her shopping. As Mick swung the truck around the corner there was a load scraping noise as several sacks full of large chunks of dusty black coal slid across the bed of the truck and bashed the side rail. Hard. Mick swore and I whipped around to look through the window in the back of the cab. A couple of hundredweight sacks of coal were jettisoned at speed from the side of the truck and flew towards the little old lady. She stood transfixed as the sacks hit the ground; one split instantly with a load bang and the scene began to disappear in a cloud of thick black dust. Before the dark cloud hid everything from sight I could clearly see several dozen chinks of coal, some bigger than your head and weighing about fifteen pounds, bouncing across the tarmac towards the lady. The first passed about three inches from her head and bounced off down the side road. Another passed her waist so close that I saw her belt blown in the slipstream. The third actually passed through the frame of her bike without making contact with anything at all. Several more were sti
ll flying in her direction as she disappeared, enveloped in the black cloud. “Holy Mother of God!” yelled Mick, as he braked, opened the door and leapt out of the cab in one single, lightening fast movement. We ran back to the corner, arriving just as the cloud settled. There she was; totally untouched, though a little dusty around the edges, surrounded by potentially murderous meteorites of Number One Grade Domestic House Coal. Mick was solicitous in the extreme, brushing the coal gently from her coat, and helping her up into the cab of the truck before collecting her bike and lifting it carefully into the back of the truck. We drove her home before returning to the “scene of the crime” to collect up all the lost coal that the locals hadn’t already half inched. There but for the grace of god!

  Mick took to me and we worked together a lot, both on the coal deliveries and the following two seasons in the ring. The third winter we decided to buy a truck between us, hire our own yard and do our own deliveries. It was bloody hard work but we did well at it and by the end of the winter we had three trucks and a handful of casual lads working for us. As well as working together, we shared digs in a house owned by an old Irish woman, Mrs Grady and her spinster daughter, Marie. We kept the business going and Irish Mick gave up fighting altogether. I still worked occasionally for Mal as one of his black book irregulars.