When I had my medical, the doctor held his stethoscope to my chest and kept looking up at me making ‘um, ah’ sounds. He got me doing press-ups and listened to my heart again, saying, ‘Very strange, very strange.’ I wondered what the problem was. Perhaps there was something wrong with me and he was frightened to tell me? Just goes to show how ignorant we were in those days. My mother suffered with angina all her life. When I was a little boy, she used to collapse into an armchair, and say to me, ‘Quick! Can you fetch my bottle of salvelity?’ And I’d give her a spoonful of that until the pulse in her neck would go away. You could see it I her neck trying to pump the blood to her heart.
Years later, when I was in Full Sutton Prison, I was told what it was: I have a very slow heartbeat: the average beat for a person is 70 and mine is only 45 – and that is very much in my favour. Thank God, I’ve got something going for me.
All the local fighters from south London trained at the Thomas A’Becket: Henry Cooper, George Cooper, Freddie Reardon, Dave Charnley and Charlie Tucker, to mention just a few. Dave Charnley wound up British champion. Peter Waterman, Eddie Hughes, the Auld twins from Bermondsey and Fred and Dinny Powell also trained there.
Tommy had fixed me up with a guy from Croydon called Del Breen for my first professional fight at Manor Place baths. Del was experienced. He’d had about 20 pro fights, winning the last four on knockout, so I was cannon fodder. Stan Baker was the promoter. Topping the bill were Henry and George Cooper, Dave Charnley, Freddie Reardon and Charlie Tucker. Then there was Del Breen and little old me on the undercard.
It was a Tuesday evening, 23 November 1954. Normally, boys were given a few easy ones to get their confidence up and not get too hurt for about six or so fights. That’s the general rule of a manager. Tom may have had second thoughts about pitting me against Del, but, even if he had wanted me to pull out, it was too late, because I had sold so many tickets. I was quite well known and already had a bit of a reputation as a street fighter.
The place was packed: I looked at Del. You could see every muscle in his body. He was a fit man. The first two rounds were all Del’s. I couldn’t match his experience. In the third, he caught me with a good shot. I fell back on the ropes and the crowd went wild. I came back strong at the end of the third, though, and caught him with a left and right hook, bang on the chin. I felt it go right up my arm to my shoulder. He went down right in his corner.
The crowd went wild. I was the underdog of all underdogs and I’d knocked him out, I thought. But just then the bell went and he sat in his corner, his seconds feverishly working on him. They lifted him up and pushed him out for the fourth round. The baths were buzzing. He boxed his way out of trouble in the fourth and I couldn’t get a good shot in. His head cleared and his experience came to his aid. We both gave it our all for the rest of the fight. It was a war. Toe-to-toe stuff that the boxing crowd love to see. The final bell went and it was all over. Del won on points. If the bell hadn’t gone in the third, I would have won. That’s the luck of the game. The money started to pour into the ring. The seconds picked it up in a towel. I got £12 for the fight and Del and I shared £25 in nobbins (tips thrown in by an appreciative crowd).
Ernie Derfield, a promoter, was on the phone to Tommy: ‘We want your man on our next show; he’s a good ticket-seller and crowd-pleaser.’ So that was my moment of glory in the fight game. All the fighters up and down the country have had similar fights to mine. I hold out my hand to them for their courage and heart, because it takes a lot just to step into a ring.
My rating in the Boxing News went into the six stars, so now I would never have an easy fight, only wars with experienced fighters. Their report on my match noted, ‘Promoter Stan Baker can have every reason to be satisfied with the attendance and crowd-pleasing bill of fare in his first venture at Manor Place baths. Three former ABA champions Freddie Reardon, Henry Cooper and Dave Charnley all won their bouts and gave promise of great things in the future … “Nobbins” were showered into the ring after the first bout of the evening, in which Del Breen, Croydon (10–11), outpointed Freddie Foreman, Walworth (10–11 3/4), over six rounds. It was Foreman’s first pro bout…’
Stan Baker was asked about his best undercard fight and he mentioned mine. In the book Down Memory Lane With Stan Baker, he said of the fight, ‘It was right at the end of 1954 when I put on my first bill there. I had three ABA champions on the undercard, Freddie Reardon, Henry Cooper and Dave Charnley. Henry’s brother Jim boxed in one of the six-rounders and Charlie Tucker topped the show against Hanley’s Tommy Higgins. The entire bill cost me £300. Do you know what I paid Cooper? – 20 quid!
‘One guy who deserved to be paid 100 notes was Freddie Foreman, who had his one and only pro fight, against Del Breen. Best supporting scrap I ever saw! They hit each other with everything but the corner buckets. Nobbins were still coming in five minutes after the fight ended. After such a fistic baptism Freddie never again drew on a glove.’
As it happened, I did go back into training intending to carry on with the fight game but fate had other ideas in mind. The promoters wanted me on the next bill. I fought as a middleweight and was in really good shape, so much so that my trainer, Tommy Daly, made me a sparring partner to top fighters. I sparred with Peter Waterman, who was British welterweight champion, and even got into the ring with cruiserweights, whom I was bowling over with big gloves. Unfortunately, I had no sponsors to pay my bills and I still had to put food on the table for my wife and son. So, to support my boxing career I had to continue thieving. Then I got nicked and another stretch in prison ended my pro career – at least in the ring.
I sometimes wonder whether things might have turned out differently if I had done National Service. My brothers talked me out of joining up; the war in Malaya and Korea was beginning and they thought that, although the four of them had survived WWII, this time the family might not be so lucky. The problem was how to get out of it when I was in such peak physical condition. We decided I would become mentally deficient, and my brother George organised a medical certificate requesting a deferment on the grounds of my ‘schizophrenia’.
We went down to Chelsea Barracks, George leading me by the hand and complaining that he had to take the day off work to accompany me. My mum, who was not party to the proceedings, asked incredulously if I was going out of the house in my present state. My hair was unkempt, I had Bert’s clothes on (he was much smaller than me), which were tight-fitting with bits of wool hanging out of an old blue jumper, and some sticking plaster on my face. I had deliberately cut myself while shaving and was a complete mess. On top of what I was wearing, I’d donned an old air-raid warden’s overcoat. When we got to the barracks, I meekly did as I was told by George, not taking any interest in the surroundings but staring, open-mouthed, through the window. George bullied me: ‘Get over there and sit down. Get your socks off and hurry up, don’t take all day.’
Watched by the Army personnel, he then took my socks off himself. They must have thought, ‘We’ve got a right nut here.’
George never let up for a moment: ‘All he does is sit watching out the window seeing them trams run by. He won’t do anything. He just sits staring.’
The Army doctor said they would give me a deferment for four months before making a final decision.
George had a go at them: ‘I’ve got kids to support,’ he complained. ‘I can’t spend all my fucking days here. He’s a fit boy. He did a lot of boxing and sparring but fucked up his brain; he’s a bit scrambled.’
After going through my acting performance of being a nut-nut, I was getting dressed in a cubicle when the curtain pulled open and George’s head popped in. He told me he’d heard the panel of doctors talking about me.
‘What