Wrestliana

by Toby Litt

  Usually, when I travel by train, I like to look out the window and drift off. I play Nick Drake songs and make notes in a black notebook. This time, as the clock ticked down toward my A&E appointment, I went urgently through Wrestliana, searching for 200-year-old tips.

  What did William say about avoiding being thrown?

  … the defendant should feel his feet firm upon the ground, slack his hold, and bear forward with his breast against the assailant’s.

  That seemed plain enough. What was his best tip for knowing what the other wrestler was about to do? He stressed:

  … the judgement formed by feeling with the chest, and breast, what kind of assault is most likely to prove effective…

  A little later on, William – after repeating tips about the chest – confirms this:

  … it is the feel, and not the sight, which generally regulates the movements of a good wrestler, especially at the commencement of a contest…

  I felt like I was listening to Yoda: ‘The chest you must feel.’

  When I began to lose attention, I thought about Asminder Asmindersson, hitting the grass of Ennerdale.

  I re-read William’s words more intensely.

  Roger Robson met me at the station. I was carrying my suitcase down off the stairs from the opposite platform. Roger gave my upper arm a squeeze. ‘Some muscles there,’ he said. ‘We’ll see what use you make of them.’ I could tell he was looking forward to this.

  Jill collected us in the black Skoda.

  After a quick trip back to the farm, to deal with a flood in the barn and to feed Gules the bull, and to eat a dinner I wasn’t sure I should have, we drove to Currock House.

  Every Wednesday evening, from October to April, the Carlisle Wrestling Club meets here. The coaches are Andrew Carlile, Alun Jones and Tom Harrington. There is a monthly points competition.

  Through some gates at the side is The Small Room. It is slightly bigger than a tennis court. Blue mats a couple of inches thick, and thirty or so people sat watching the youngsters.

  Most of those getting ready to take part were young farmers. A call had gone out on Facebook. This was the last chance to have a go, this year. They were shy, jokey. One of the boys wore a T-shirt that read, ‘Forget farming, let’s do carpentry – we’ll get hammered and then I’ll nail you.’

  We warmed up. This meant running in a circle on the blue mats, then turning sideways and keeping going, then touching down left and right hands, left and right knees, and that was it. There weren’t even any groin stretches.

  ‘Warmed up?’ Andrew asked.

  Everyone harrumphed yes.

  Along the far wall were school benches – the long, low, pine sort, with robot-nipples of rubber sticking up at both ends. Three in a row.

  Andrew Carlile asked us to stand in a line, smallest at one end, and oh my God I hope I don’t have to wrestle him at the other end.

  I ended up in the middle, two female young farmers in orange polo shirts to my right.

  We sat down, and Andrew and Alun showed us some basic clips.

  Theory and practice. I was very aware how difficult I find having something physical demonstrated to me, and then actually doing it. For example, depressing the clutch when about to change gear whilst checking the rear-view mirror as you’re going round a roundabout. I failed my driving test first time, and didn’t retake it for fifteen years, because I knew I’d fail again.

  The shortest pair of wrestlers, from the bottom end of the bench, were called up. Andrew asked the next wrestler to be ready to come on straight away. No messing.

  Then, soon, far too soon, although I’d successfully delayed it for months, I was called on the mat.

  I felt amazed horror: You’re really doing this. You haven’t wimped out.

  But there was only about a second for that – before the handshake, before I was remembering right arm over, left arm under.

  The two girls beside me had been beaten by a young man who was shorter than them. So I was against him.

  We put our arms around one another. I’d seen it so many times, during the previous summer. I’d demonstrated the hold to Henry and George. But it still felt extraordinarily weird being in a tight hug with someone I’d never even spoken to. I could smell his hair, his ear wax.

  I concentrated on my chest and his chest. Trust William, I thought.

  Young Farmer #1 vs. Not-Young Writer.

  Chest.

  Feel the chest.

  Somehow, without really knowing how, I had won – and, crap, after a handshake and another handshake, I had to go again.

  I was a bit disappointed – if I’d lost, I’d have been able to sit down and think about what I’d just done.

  Also, I could have looked across at Roger, to see if he’d give me a smile or a nod.

  I didn’t celebrate in any way, not even inside. I don’t think I was even relieved. It was a job of work. I’d finished it, which meant I had another job of work in view.

  Figure 22. That is me on the left, bringing all my weight to bear.

  Figure 23. I am taking this seriously. I hope you can see that I am taking this very seriously.

  Young Farmer #2 – Tom Dent – was ginger-haired and compact. He’d sat to my left because he was taller than me. I think we were about the same height, but after a moment’s eyeballing, I’d let him be taller.

  Chest.

  I felt him. He was very solid but quite stiff. I must have felt mushy and middle-aged to him. I’d been at a desk when he’d been freeing lambs from barbed wire fences.

  But I got my leg outside his, pushed, pushed again, and down we went – him beneath.

  Two in a row.

  This time I really wanted to look at Roger, but didn’t. I could feel the attention of the room. It was warm, amused. With my bald head and tummy, I was a bit of a surprise.

  Handshake and handshake.

  No time.

  Young Farmer #3 was taller than me – dark haired with wide shoulders.

  I was aware of muscle and a will that, through that muscle, was more likely to move me this way, that, and down. This body had been to the gym.

  Crunch, for the third time I hit the blue mat – hit first.

  It felt a bit like being slapped with the flat of a spade, playfully. Whack, across the shoulder blades.

  Handshake, and go and sit down, puffed.

  The ginger-haired young farmer, Tom Dent, was sitting where he’d been before.

  ‘I think I have to go there,’ I said, and he had to slide to the left, down the ladder.

  When two men say ‘Hello,’ one of them loses.

  In one round, I’d moved two places up. I was no longer shoulder-to-shoulder with the lasses and the 14-year-olds.

  It had been years since this much adrenalin had sluiced round me. I remembered being in the delivery room for the birth of Henry. Fuck, this is really happening. Fuck.

  I was afraid of an adrenalin backlash. I might start shaking badly.

  I had won.

  At the time, it’s just something that has happened, only later – when you walk away from it – does it become a victory.

  I was afraid what little would be left of me, when the adrenalin tide went out.

  The muscles across my chest, on the right, felt tight. Was this a heart attack?

  A couple of minutes later a young farmer, taller, dislocated his shoulder and had to go off to hospital – much sympathy he got from his mates.

  (‘That’s unusual,’ said Roger later, ‘that hasn’t happened all season.’)

  ‘I didn’t see anything bad,’ said Tom Dent.

  ‘I’m not doing this again,’ said the next but one along. He’d pranged a bollock. His jeans were too tight.

  We were all embarrassed. We’d been closer to one another than to any other strange man (except, perhaps, when hugging drunkenly) – it is embarrassing. You do want to get away.

  Your face has been rubbed against their shoulder. Anyone would blush, if only on the right c
heek.

  Afterwards, after I had won twice more, and lost twice more, I went and sat down next to Roger.

  ‘You did well,’ said Linda Scott, who I’d met during the summer.

  Roger said nothing.

  When I’d got my breath back, I got Andrew Carlile to show me what I’d done wrong. Mainly, I had put one leg across another, as if attempting a judo throw. Then we went through some basics. When we took hold, he felt like an iron climbing frame.

  ‘A world champ,’ Roger reminded me, from off the mats. ‘He’s the reigning 11st champion.’

  That made him about two and a half stone lighter than me.

  At one point Andrew twisted his spine to show me how he’d shift position to take advantage of me being off-balance. He turned slightly faster than he’d meant to, and his shoulder hit my shoulder like a punch.

  I got a glimpse of what it would be like to be against him – the sheer muscular intensity.

  No possible way I could compete.

  Too weak, too slow.

  I thought that was it – we’d shake hands and go home. I was disappointed that Roger hadn’t said anything. But it turned out there was a bit of club business. Some cups were to be awarded. These were Points Trophies, for the best performances over the whole season.

  At the Academy Shield in Bootle, I’d been worried that Roger was going to announce me in front of everyone as William Litt’s ancestor, and then force me to wrestle.

  Now that I had wrestled, I didn’t have to worry about that second bit any more. And, after quickly asking if it was okay with me, Roger loudly announced to everyone in the room who I was and why I was there.

  I was glad to hear William mentioned.

  Then I got to shake the champions by the hand and give them their trophies.

  *

  I spoke to Alun Jones, ex-champion – winner of everything but the All-Weights World Championship.

  He was bulky, matter of fact. I’d seen him lose at the Academy Shield.

  ‘How’d you enjoy it?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said.

  ‘See how you feel tomorrow,’ he said.

  Tomorrow, when I woke up at Roger and Jill’s, I felt okay, a little achey – and then I sneezed.

  One or two muscles didn’t scream.

  I felt it in the chest. The muscles below my arms were torn in both directions. My upper back, particularly on the right, felt as if someone had tried to break a champagne bottle on it. My right calf was very sore, because I had pushed off from it more powerfully than for years. I’d taken a small chunk out of my left thumb. I had broken blood vessels streaking out of my armpits. There was a tiny scar on my cheek.

  But I hadn’t been badly injured. And I’d beaten a couple of younger, fitter men.

  I was sure that, if I hadn’t read Wrestliana, and learned from William, that they’d have humiliated me.

  William had been a good coach.

  Alun Jones had said, ‘I had to give up.’

  ‘What gave first?’ I asked.

  After a grunt, Alun Jones said, ‘Everything.’

  17

  DOGFALL

  When I came back to London and carried on writing William’s life, going through it stage by stage, I began to feel him coming apart.

  I read that in the 1820s, he was reputed to be ‘wrecking his fortunes through attending wrestling and race meetings’.*

  As merely attending wrestling matches is not expensive, this seems to mean that William was drinking a lot and losing bets.

  In quite a few of his writings, especially those for the newspapers, William offers a wager. It seems to have been his default response when he disagreed with someone.

  And therefore, ye gentlemen of Keswick, we offer to your acceptance one bottle of Ginger beer, and one piece of the largest silver coin in this kingdom – for we will not bet gold – on the heel, not the head of this Patlander [William means an Irish person], against any light-footed native swain, not only of your own far-famed vale, but of the County which boasts your beauties as one of its most attractive embellishments.†

  From William’s point of view, just having an argument didn’t prove anything. You could carry on forever. But offering a wager invited a challenge. You think I’m wrong, show us your money. If no one was man enough to take up this challenge, the point was made.

  Around this kind of behaviour, a whole economy was established of what nineteenth century men knew to be right and proper. Just as in the British legal system, abstract law-making had no place: precedent could only be set by adversarial trial.

  William loved laying down the law. What I found throughout my research was that, in the moments he came off the page most livingly, William was often in the role of referee or judge – even before his retirement.

  On the 10th of June, 1808, William had been in attendance at the Lamplugh Club – this was according to William Dickinson, in his collection of local stories called Cumbriana. It was an occasion for great mirth, following the pastor’s sermon. The young ones from Harras Moor and Distington were kind of half bickering about their bull-dogs and terriers. Some of the young lions from Whillimer couldn’t keep out of it. A fight was clearly in the offing.

  An’ rare wark theer wad ha’ been if Will Litt heddent sprang in amang them an’ sed they suddent feyt, an’ he whangt them aboot like as menny geslins: bit he duddent git them fairly partit till sum o’ them gat gay bleuddy feasses. T’ meast o’ them was willin to giv way ta him, for they o’ knew it was neah single handit job to cum crossways o’ him, an’ it o’ settelt doon ageann.‡

  Jump ahead to the late afternoon of the 29th of December 1830, and we find a middle-aged William attending one of the Lonsdale birthday dinners. His mirth is interrupted by the suggestion from the floor that, breaking with the accustomed way things have been done since his father helped set them up in 1807, the Chair would supervise proceedings rather than the Vice-Chair. Although it seems a minor point, William immediately bristled, in strong defence of tradition:

  MR. LITT and some others expressed themselves hostile to the proposed change. They could see no ground for the innovation, and they could not consent to any deviation from the original custom at the meeting, and under which it had risen to its present magnitude and importance.§

  William and his backers were successful. ‘[F]eeling… was so warm in favour of the old custom’ that the motion was withdrawn, and the subject dropped.

  William had won, on both of these occasions. But it was something that was to become rarer the longer he went on.

  If William was losing money, it was because he was backing losers. What is also strongly implied by the report is that – at a certain time – William began merely ‘attending wrestling’ rather than participating as an umpire.

  I thought I had discovered why.

  In 1824, a few months before the Lonsdale Dinner, William became involved in what Bill and Margaret have christened ‘the “Athleticus” Controversy’.

  William had written an account of the wrestling at Carlisle on September the 14th for the Cumberland Pacquet. He took his usual combative tone, inviting challenges, but this time someone did decide to step up and gave him what for.

  The correspondent, who called himself “Athleticus”, wrote a letter taking issue with some of William’s proposals for the efficient running of an open wrestling competition. He also publicly attacked William both as an inflator of his own reputation and as an incompetent umpire.

  [N]otwithstanding the vaunted achievements of the champion of Arlecdon Moor, there are those now living old enough to remember his being thrown in the Carlisle ring by very ordinary wrestlers, when in the zenith of his fame.

  William replied to this with ferocious exactitude.

  I never wrestled but twice in the Carlisle ring, and never saw it when “in the zenith of my fame”. The first time was in 1811, when, as I have stated elsewhere, I was thrown by Joseph Bird, who was surely no very ordinary wrestler. When taking
hold, Bird got below my breast, and pinned my right arm close to the elbow, down to my side; and a person, ignorant enough surely! insisted, that because he found by pulling my left arm over his back, that he could make my fingers meet, I should either take hold, or be crossed out, I foolishly chose the first, thinking that I might perhaps better myself after. I was mistaken…¶

  (What an incredible memory William had, for the smallest physical details of a match that took place years before.)

  “Athleticus” gave an unflattering description of William’s demeanour in the ring.

  [W]hilst the wrestling was going on, it was observed in the crowd, that Mr. Litt was evidently displeased with some part of the proceedings; because he did not appear to take that interest in, or pay that attention to the sport which his situation as umpire demanded… he wandered about the ring with an apparent indifference, and seemed to pay less attention to the duties of his office, and altogether showed less anxiety about what was going on, than many of the spectators in the crowd evinced from the common motive of curiosity.||

  William not paying attention to the wrestling, his great love? I felt desperation here, felt it in my chest.

  Later on in his life, there came a greater modesty, and some accommodation with his diminished state. William’s body had passed its climacteric. But in 1824, he seems to have been frustrated. The accounts of the day’s wrestling at Carlisle suggest that the larger than usual crowd was drunk and disorderly. Behaviour at ringside was reprehensible; no hush fell.

  I can understand William’s annoyance. His own efforts, both in the ring and with his pen, had helped increase his beloved sport’s popularity. Now, surrounded by the curious and the mocking, he saw the quality of the contest suffering.