My father said, “Right, that will teach you, now my fine for you is that you now pay five pounds lodge.”
“But Dad,” I argued, “my wage doesn’t cover that.”
“Well,” he said, “up that forestry you can get paid for doing piece-work, so that’s what you must do.” Piece-work was like a bonus, with you getting paid by how much extra work you did, and that’s what I had to do.
The Forestry had just planted loads of young trees and I was now being paid to trap rabbits; seems the rabbits would nibble the tops off the little saplings. This was great because I could now sell the rabbits to local families to make up my money. There was a forester there called Danny who I used to go hunting with; he was the only one who had a licence to shoot deer. He once took aim at a deer he spotted, leant across his Land Rover and got the deer in his telescopic sights. He fired away, but the sights were on the deer and the barrel was pointing at the wing of his Land Rover. He put a bullet hole straight through the wing. He was teased for ages about that one, we all played hell with him. I used to enjoy my days with Danny and learnt a lot from him.
It wasn’t long after my stint with the Forestry that I met a girl who later on I married. She was married at the time and her husband was in prison. Well, things came to a head when he came out of prison and she returned to him for a short while. I was out drinking in town one night when he caught up with me. He was a big lad of about six foot two. He had his mate with him who was a pro boxer, which didn’t help me much. He takes a swing at me and we get into a fight very quickly.
“I only want to talk, that’s all,” he shouts.
“Well, that’s a funny way to talk,” I answer him. We agree to go down some back alley, to “talk it out”.
His mate shouts out, “Just put a fucker on him and let’s go.” I can hear him coming up behind me and I get a tap on my shoulder. Next thing I remember, I’m walking from the alley up through the main town. I was disorientated and so I sat on the window ledge of an Indian restaurant. Two policemen turn up. “Who done this to you boy?” they ask me. Slowly I start to get myself together and start to work out what had happened. The guys in the alley had done me over; the boxer must have hit me when I turned around. My whole face was smashed up, I was in a terrible state, both my eyes were closing and my mouth was cut to shreds. People couldn’t recognise who I was, they had done me over that bad.
A short while later, I get my mate and we go into town. He takes one end of town and me the other. “We will search every pub. If you see them, you know my route, just come and get me,” I tell him. We searched for a few nights but he wasn’t out drinking. Then one night I catch up with him in this pub. We get outside and I must admit this was the first time that I really wanted to kill someone. We start to fight and I’m destroying him. I get him down between two parked cars and start to batter him. Same thing happened again, the boxer sneaks up behind me but this time my mate was there to stop that. The police turn up and restrain me from doing any more damage to him. While I’m being held, he runs up and throws a punch that goes whizzing past my face. It was the only decent punch that he had thrown in the whole fight and he only did that when my hands were being held down. I talked my way out of things with the police and jumped on the bus home, before I’m charged. I’m sitting on the bus covered in blood, not my blood but his. I ask the driver to stop on the way for me to be sick. He lets me and I eventually get home. A tiredness I had never known comes over me. I had put so much into beating him that I was mentally and physically exhausted. It must have been the release of so much anger that made me so very tired.
Anyway, I get back with my ex-girlfriend and we get married. It wasn’t the best of marriages but we spent twelve years together and had two boys, Ivor and Carl, before we split up. She already had two kids, Gareth and Anne, who I brought up and consider as my own.
I was now working on the door of the Four Sevens Country Club. By this time I had got myself a nice Jaguar car and was doing alright. I must say that temptation got the better of me and I started to see various girls. My wife would get up in the mornings before me and search the car. If she found one hair that wasn’t mine then there would be hell to pay. It was a stormy marriage to say the least, but I take full blame for the break-up.
To supplement my earnings, I started selling firewood. I’d pinch the wood from the Forestry and sell it door to door. Well, a couple of young girls would hang around and I started to see Mary, who I later married. Now Mary was a lot younger than me and also I was still married at the time. I came home from work one day and there was all my food laid out on the table. I sat down and ate my dinner. My first wife turned to me and said, “Right, you’ve had your food, I know what you’ve been up to, your bags are packed, now get out.” I left the house with my young boy Carl crying his eyes out, he kept crying to my wife to take me back. That really choked me up to see him like that but there was nothing I could do. I had split up with my wife before but this time I just knew it was for good.
My whole family and Mary’s family turned against us. The fact that I was a lot older and married caused a lot of problems for us. I now found myself homeless, so I moved into an abandoned stone cabin in the forest. The building had no windows or doors and the only bed I had was an old thick piece of foam. I was doing stonework at the time and didn’t have far to walk to work. Each morning, first thing, I would wash in the stream before getting to work. I never thought water could be so cold, it was like an electric shock hitting me. Mary would walk from her house each day all the way over the mountain to where I was working, just to bring me some food. I would work my heart out on the stonework, getting there hours before anyone else and leaving after everyone had gone home. The only food I was having was the food that Mary brought me. I needed the money so it had to be done. I’d get back to the stone cabin absolutely shattered, really worn out. The only company I’d have was the sheep that strayed up there, but of course Mary was a lot prettier than them, so they were of no use to me!
Things were very hard for Mary and me, but we got through it all. I can remember days when we had no money and I would go poaching to make ends meet. Mary would have to stand watch for me when I caught fish or even drove the car for me when I shot deer. Thing was, we would sell the deer for about £35, and that was good money back then. When you are desperate, you’ll do whatever you can, and we did everything until there was enough money for the house that we have today. It was an old wreck of a house at first, with only goats living in it. There was four inches of goat shit in every room of the house. It looked terrible but we felt we could do something with it. We worked our fingers to the bone to get it the way it is today, and looking at it I’m glad we did. My ex-wife found someone else and moved away. With that happening, my two boys came and lived with me and Mary.
I was still working the doors to get the extra cash in. Most of the time I’d be on my own, with no back-up at all. I can remember throwing a few guys out one night and there was this big coloured lad there who I thought was with the troublemakers. Turns out he wasn’t. We get talking and he tells me, “Tell you what, if you can sort it for me to start a karate club here, I’ll come down on weekends and help you with the door.” I have a word with the manager and it’s sorted. Now I start to train in karate and also I have back-up on the door. From that first conversation I had about a karate club, I went on to get heavily involved in the sport. I and most of my family took it up and haven’t looked back since. There are loads of stories I could tell you about the competitions we have entered over the years, but that would fill about ten books.
I’ve had some memorable times on the door. I can remember once a gypsy lad arguing with a barmaid at the club. He was ten pence short for a pint and was giving the girl a lot of aggro. I get involved, and explain that I was working on the door and weren’t just sticking my nose in. “Oh,” he says, “you’re the tough guy are you?” and throws a punch, which I slip. At once I hook him and down he goes. Now, I didn’t know th
at he had others with him. I was grabbed from behind and this big fat guy punches me in the face full force. I could feel my nose break and with that I was released and slid to the floor. I get back up and in front of me is one of the guy’s friends, a tall lad with greased back hair. I wade into him and put him away. I turn and put another away. I look for the big guy who took the sly punch at me. I catch him in the club’s foyer. I throw a beautiful hook that catches him on the side of his head. I launched him into the air and onto a table. He was stone cold unconscious before he landed. I get on top of him and start to plough my best shots into his face. With each punch, his face distorts with the impact. It was like hitting dead meat. I didn’t hold back on him because he was out, and he looked a right state.
There was one of the gang waiting in the car park for me, hands on hips, shouting for me. I ran up and put him straight away, didn’t mess with him, just laid him out. One of them was hiding behind this rose bush and every time I came at him, he ran around the other side of the bush. It was like ring-a-round-a-rosie. I keep going around and around until I’m out of breath. My nose is busted over my face with blood pouring out of it, my hands are smashed up and my thumb is broken. I’m back at the door to shake the last one about a bit. A good friend of mine says, “Leave it there Billy, we’ve done them all.” There was a mate on the door who used to collect the money in. “What do you mean?” he states, “Nobody’s done anything except Billy. He did the load of them on his own.”
Some people at the end of the night in a club will just drink up and go home, but there’s always one or two who just want to be awkward. This one guy in the club was trouble from the start, bumping into people, and just out and out looking for it. He was a professional boxer at the time and was in tidy shape, he looked the part. I told my mate on the door with me that when it kicks off, that he was to be left for me. It’s the end of the night and I’m walking around the club asking people to please drink up. I get to the boxer’s table, I ask them to drink up and the boxer tells me to fuck off. “Come on lads, just please drink up,” I ask again. He gets up and takes a swing at me. He missed me and I get stuck into him. I beat him bad, real bad and it’s only what the man deserved. I couldn’t take a chance with him so I let him have it.
Later his friends are cleaning him up in the toilets when he says to me, “You are dead.”
I answered back, “Yes, you can come back and try your luck any other night you want.”
He tells me, “I’m going to fetch my brother here to sort you out.” I couldn’t believe it, he was supposed to be this big tough boxer and here he was threatening me with his brother.
I’ve had knives thrust at me on many occasions on the door; people have also tried to glass me. One guy I had banned for fighting came back to the club after his ban was up. Halfway through the night, he wants to have a go at me. “I could beat you,” he informs me, so outside into the car park we go. What I didn’t know was he had hid a pint glass behind a car wheel. He had planned to get me outside and cut me open. He picks up the glass and waves it around. “Come on then, you gutless bastard, go for it,” I scream at him. He lunges forward and I sidestep him, knocking the glass from his hand at the same time. He realises that he has no weapon, and in the few seconds that he’s stopped to think about his actions, I’m on him. Anyway, I do the business with him and I also ban him for two years.
Not long after, I’m at the club and I realise that somebody has let him into the club with three of his mates. I approach the owner, Clem, about it. He informs me, “Thing is Billy, it’s been quiet in here of late, and we need the money.” Well, I let the owner have it his own way, but later on the trouble starts. The guy I banned comes up to me and again he wants to have a go outside. Out we go. It was a dark, winter’s night and freezing out in the car park. He pulls out this huge bowie knife. I can still remember the way it shone in the moonlight. Anyway, same thing as before: sidestep, disarm and then batter him. I take the bowie knife into Clem and ask him to call the police, because the next person he tries to stab just might not be so lucky. He says, “No, we shouldn’t do that Billy, bad publicity. I tell you what, you keep the knife.” As if that was going to make me feel better. Can you believe that?
This one night, things had been particularly bad, I had been in a few hard fights and my hands were cut open. The skin was hanging off my knuckles from punching. I was in the kitchen washing them and I was worn out and breathing heavy from all the fighting. The owner comes in.
“Are you alright Billy?”
“Nah, my hands are killing me,” I answer.
He looks at my cut-open, smashed-up hands and informs me, “I’ve got something to make you feel better.”
I’m thinking a brandy or something. He comes back five minutes later, and puts a bloody can of tomato soup in my hand.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“You get that down you Billy, do you a world of good it will,” he replies.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A can of tomato soup of all things, what the hell good was that going to do for me?
A coachload came to the club one night. I had this one guy marked out as a troublemaker straight from the start. Sure enough, trouble starts and he started it. I give it to the one I was watching and after a while we manage to get them all out of the club. Around the back of the club was a place where we kept all the empty bottles. Next thing, there’s crates of bottles coming through the windows. Glass was everywhere. My two mates realise that one of the gang is still in the club, and they grab him. They lift him up and hold the poor bastard in front of the windows as the gang was still throwing. He was screaming his head off. The gang tries to kick in the locked doors of the club, so a few of us pick up these draining rods with brass attachments on as we exit the club via the basement. We come around behind the gang, who were very surprised to see us, to say the least. I throw my stick away and get onto the first guy; I have him by the hair and I’m punching hell out of him. My brother Jimmy for some reason thought I was on the worst end of it. He brings his stick down on the guy’s head but it lands on my hand, paralysing my hand for the whole night. He shouts, “Sorry about that Billy,” as I’m stood there nursing my swollen hand. The gang gets back on their coach. First thing that went in were the headlights, then every window on the coach. The driver couldn’t go anywhere, the coach was totally wrecked. Most of the gang needed the hospital and I must admit things got a bit scary that night.
I used my car to roadblock a street once. A friend had been beaten up by a gang and we knew which way they were travelling. I cut the street off with my Jaguar and they turn up in a minibus. There was a few of us in my car and we jump out and pile into them. I’m giving this rough bastard a right tuning when this streetfighter I know grabs me. “Look, it’s got nothing to do with you, you’re not involved,” I shout. With that he launches himself at me. This guy later on in life becomes like a brother to me and I love him to bits, but back then we fought for about 15 minutes. There was hardly any grappling, just both punching each other, and really going for it. Let me tell you, he was a hard man, strong puncher with a heavy muscular frame. I put him down but up he jumps. He was in such a temper that he was almost crying with rage. There’s blood all over his face and he still comes at me. I put him down again and again but still he comes forward. My brother Jimmy shouts, “You’ll have to put him out somehow Bill.” I knock him down one more time and as he falls to his knees I grab his mop of curly hair. I slam his face into the kerb. I had to slam it down about three times before he went out. To this day I regret having done it. I just wish I could turn the clock back on that one.
I spot two guys going into the same cubicle of the toilets one night. I look underneath the cubicle and I can see one has his trousers down to his ankles. The pair of them were shagging. I couldn’t believe it. I just crept out of there. No way was I going to break them up, no way. Carry on boys, I’m out of here, I thought.
On the subject of naked men, we had t
his live group playing once and right by the stage this guy was dancing bollocks-naked. I start to grapple with him and the fight goes to the floor. All the time that I’m grappling with him, the singer is still singing. I smash him around a bit and we get him out of the club. Everyone was laughing and shouting things like, “I didn’t know you were gay, Billy.”
This headcase is giving me some trouble in the club, so we go outside to sort it one night. All the time he’s calling me on, he’s backing away from me. Closer I get, the further away he moves, until he actually ran away. Well, I don’t know how he got back in the club, but back in he gets. I hear girls screaming inside and there’s the buzzer going off. I leave the foyer and get to the dance floor where the screams came from. There he was, stripped to the half, with this bloody big butcher’s knife. This big 20-stone bouncer is backing off and he tells me, “Billy, he’s got a knife.” But I don’t care about that. It was my job to get him out, come what may. I sweep his legs, take his arm and disarm him. For good measure I snap the blade, in case he picks it back up. I manage to get him to the front door and throw him out. I’m a bit thirsty after all this so I go up to the bar and ask the barmaid for an orange juice. “No,” she tells me. Now, I can’t figure out what’s wrong with her, so I ask her. “I’ll tell you why,” she says, “I didn’t have a decent kitchen knife here, and you go and bloody well snap that one.” And I just laughed my head off with her over that one.
I’ve had a problem with some farmers from up the road for the last 20 years now. I was taking my son Carl out in my van once when the farmer sees me and drives his tractor down the lane straight at my van. At the last possible moment, my son sticks his head up and the farmer puts the brakes on, trying to scare us. I jump out of the van and pull the farmer down from the tractor. I hold his head against the tractor’s wheel and start to pound it. His brother runs down the lane at me and I throw a cracking left hook which takes care of him. The father of these farmers comes down and smashes me over the head with his walking stick a few times. I hit him once and he flies across the road and lands on his arse. The police turn up and it’s not looking good for me because the farmers are all bashed up, with teeth missing and black eyes. They wanted to press charges but after I showed the police the walking stick that was broken over my head, there was no charges pressed.
Streetfighters: Real Fighting Men Tell Their Stories Page 16