by Nigel Benn
The training was easy until they tried to get me to map read. We had some free time but in the first weeks there was little or no opportunity of meeting women so I remained faithful to the photograph under my pillow and generally tried to behave myself. I wasn’t going to have any old trollop who had been through the British Army, at least not the ones I had seen around Royston.
Once I’d overcome my loneliness and had been given a few days off, I returned to my confident old self again. Feeling happier, Joe Reeves and I became a bit lairy and our antics would sometimes reflect badly on Tobruk Platoon. To teach us a lesson, Sergeant Weaver organised an old ritual which involved running the gauntlet. The whole platoon formed itself into two rows of soldiers and Joe and I had to walk down the aisle between them. The soldiers had been given permission to whack or kick us as hard as they wished. Like a pair of reluctant brides, we began our passage down this dangerous aisle, but it was only poor Joe who suffered an onslaught of blows which rained down on his head, shoulders and back. Nobody dared touch me because I had issued a prior warning that I would beat the hell out of anyone who dared. ‘Whack me,’ I said, ‘and you’re marked. Marked!’
Tough as they were, my colleagues had better sense than to attack me. The week before, they had seen me fight a 6ft 9in giant called Pete Driver. He was my first unofficial fight opponent in the Army. Pete was so big, they had to break up two beds to improvise one long enough to accommodate him. We shared the same dormitory and I had been looking out of the window, watching another soldier dismantle a general purpose machine-gun when Pete told me to get down.
Uttering some fairly common expletives, I suggested where he should get off, adding that his size didn’t scare me one bit. It seems that he was annoyed with the verbal abuse or else he didn’t like my attitude. Either way, the result was the same. He attacked me.
He lurched forward at me like a huge bear and shoved me with the stub of his hand. Thrown back, I recovered and ran at him, knocking him down on to the bed. Then I smacked him in the mouth with my fist and his teeth went through his lip. He was a tough so and so and got up and punched me in the eye. It split and there was blood everywhere. Suddenly, I saw two of him. Two massive bears towering over me. His punch had given me temporary double vision. That was no help whatsoever, just twice as scary! I legged it but the two of him chased after me.
By this time, we had acquired a growing audience and the Sergeant Major, hearing the rumpus, shouted at us to stop. As he did so, I turned around and kicked Pete in his nuts. He didn’t budge. It seemed as though he hadn’t felt a thing.
Because we shared the same quarters, I was terrified at first that he might throw a wash tub over me while I slept, but he knew the ‘koo’ — the score. He realised that if he came for me, I wouldn’t back down. But, then, I had respect for him, too. He could have inflicted serious damage on me. After that incident we became quite good friends. Pete’s height resulted in Sergeant Weaver often making him fall to his knees when talking to him. Gods were not expected to look up at mere privates.
Pride of place on the wall above my brother’s head at his barracks in Minden was a photograph of me looking as if I had jumped six feet off the ground while doing a martial arts kick. In fact, the picture lied. I had jumped off a box which was conveniently left out of the shot. However, John had already told his mates and colleagues about my fighting abilities and this picture corroborated his proud boasts, and compounded my reputation even before my arrival in Germany. I was posted to Minden at my request but didn’t advise John of the date. I surprised him by springing out from behind a tree in the camp square just as he was returning to quarters from dinner. He was delighted and shocked and hardly recognised me in my flat cap, jeans and trainers.
During the Second World War, our camp had been home to the German SS and a penal battalion. Now it catered for armoured regiments and their personnel carriers which would take us to the Soviet border in the event of attack by the USSR.
The first thing John did on my arrival was to read me the Riot Act. ‘You’re in the Army, now. Things are going to be slightly different to the way they were back home.’
He stressed that I should keep my temper in check and my hands to myself. Avoid fights at all costs, he warned. I think he was asking me to show tolerance, especially as I would be sharing a room with a real hard nut. Everybody was scared of this guy and John didn’t want to see me beaten up.
In spite of the warning, I battered the hell out of the soldier as soon as I moved in. He was playing his music loud, far too loud for my liking and I guessed it was done to get on my nerves or to test my reaction. I asked him to stop and he refused, so I punched the daylights out of him. He tried to have a go at me but I got in first and gave it to him. From that time on, I was one of the main men in camp. Everybody showed respect. John tried once more to read me the Riot Act but his words fell on deaf ears.
You didn’t have to be in the Army for very long to realise there were great advantages in being a good sportsman. I was given a work-out in a ring two months into my posting and must have impressed the officers who thought I showed enough promise to continue. John was already in the boxing team training up for a fight. They put me in the ring with Shifty who stood about 6ft 3in and had a massive chest. I panned him all over the ring and the Sergeant Major took me straight out of uniform and into a tracksuit and that was it for the next year or so.
Up until this time, I had had little or no boxing training. I’d been in the ring with John but he had decked me a couple of times and I thought it wasn’t for me. Long before this, I’d had a fight with him and he beat the granny out of me. At that time, I was looking for Mum to come and bail me out. John was tough. He may have been more powerful than me but he was not as agile. He was a heavyweight in the Army and only lost two fights, both to the same guy, George Jay. I had to fight Jay because he beat my brother twice and I battered him, even though I had just seen him knock out three other guys.
Curiously, I didn’t want to become an army boxer because of my interest in the sport. It was more a matter of personal pride. I wanted to shine and make a name for myself. Perhaps the most pressing reason was being able to get off work and a lot of the unpleasant routines. Being a boxer meant you got special food — steaks instead of slops — and it also meant you could get up at 8.00am instead of 5.45am.
Corporal Jones trained me at first and, as I got better, I began training others. I was constantly excused from army exercises so I could get on with my training, which included running and gym work-outs. When I was doing battalion boxing, Quartermaster Brown and Corporal Mark Gleason trained me. Gleason was a hard man but a good trainer. He still calls me now. Captain O’Grady was the chief man and he made me work really hard. I sometimes resented this but he did the right thing.
Although I thought John would have the edge over me in boxing because he was heavier, he was very wary of my martial arts training. He rightly thought he wouldn’t stand a chance because of my speed and power punching. When we sparred, he said he couldn’t lay a glove on me. He would tell our mutual friends, ‘Nigel would hit me ten times and I was lucky if I could land one punch against him. When I tried, it was too late. He’d already be over the other side of the ring looking at me. I put that down to his martial arts training. His hand speed was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal.
‘When we fought in the Royal Fusiliers, Nigel annihilated the Welsh champion in two rounds. At one stage, he put him against the ropes and gave him 20 punches up and down the body. The Welshman then tried to box and his arm went and it was all over.’
That was some fight. I broke the Welshman’s arm with my head. He punched the top of my head in the second round. I nearly blacked out but recovered. I was about 18 then and a welterweight but he was really tough.
When I fought for the battalion against the REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) one of my mates was knocked out. I jumped into the ring and knocked out the guy who did it in a couple of rounds.<
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John always said my reputation grew at a startling speed and that I was feared in the ring, particularly when we visited Berlin to fight individuals, both as novices and in open-class boxing. The most memorable fight was with the singles winner Harry Harrison of the King’s Regiment. John overheard someone say, ‘Watch that guy from the Fusiliers, he is so fast. It will be a very good fight.’
As you can imagine, all the open-class boxers were huddled around the door to watch this fight. The tension was electric as this very good boxer, Harry, had beaten every other person he’d met. But it all changed when I fought him. Harry came into the ring bobbing and weaving about. All of a sudden, I let fly with a left hook, bang, straight on the jaw. Harry hit the middle rope, crashed to the floor and the fight was all over in 17 seconds.
I didn’t lose one fight in the Army. The world was my oyster. It was a great feather in my cap to beat these men who had been boxing for years and years.
One fight I remember well was my battle against Corporal Lewis, who was a massive black guy and a real fitness fanatic. He was knocking everybody out like there was no tomorrow. When it came to my turn to fight him, I felt like heading for the closest latrine. I’d seen him in my weight class and he was about 6ft 2in of muscle. He was really, really athletic. You wake up when you see someone like him. As I went for him, I thought, ‘Here we go. I’m going to get knocked out for the first time.’ But I mullahed him. He may have been four inches taller but I punched him through the ropes and knocked the granny and the grandad out of him. I became an instant hero for wiping the floor with him.
Eventually, I was given the opportunity of fighting at Aldershot in the open-class army championships. Now we were talking about the élite: the Paras, Irish Guards and Green Jackets. I’d made the grade up from novice and I put everything I had into it, winning the championship.
John told me later that Captain O’Grady and the Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant were going to put money into me when I left the Army. They saw my potential for professional boxing but are still kicking themselves for not having done anything about it. While I was the toast of most of the soldiers and officers in my battalion, there were one or two who were not happy about my achievements. I really hated one officer, whom I was sure loathed the way I had exploited my boxing abilities. There was no love lost between us.
It looked like he had pressed his clothes using a cold mess tin rather than a hot iron. He was a right ex-Sandhurst nob. I would still feel like punching him in the mouth if I met him again now. If we were in a war together, I’d be the first to leave on a jet bound for Barbados.
I could have taken him outside and confronted him in a one-to-one situation with no witnesses present. He irritated me to such an extent that I still feel hatred for him. Our CO, on the other hand, was posh but very nice. And there was another NCO in charge of us, Lieutenant Keegan, who was a lot smoother.
I have already described how my sex life began at a very young age and that I had been a selfish lover, more interested in satisfying myself and ignoring the techniques necessary for a mutually pleasurable event. This all changed in Germany. The country proved to be a great teacher, particularly its fräuleins.
Not long after I was posted to Minden, I met a German woman who was much older than me. It was at Snoopy’s nightclub in Bielefeld. I was dressed like a ‘sticksboy’ which was the black fashion then. We liked gold sovereigns, gold ducats on long chains and brim hats. I had a massive ducat, suede shoes and a jacket with an open-neck shirt underneath. She had the hots for me although she was there with another man. She was short with dark hair and a good body. I preferred dark-haired women, although my fiancée, Mary, whom I loved to distraction and lived with when I left the Army, was blonde.
She came over after I’d gone to the bar and asked for a dance when the reggae came on. Me? I looked around. Apart from John, I was the only black brother there. I didn’t believe this was happening to me. I was still a kid in Germany. I hadn’t even talked to a woman up to that point and this lady had a male friend in tow! Everybody was staring at us. She took me to the dance floor and held me so tightly that penetration was the only way we could have got closer. In her lifetime, the woman, who was 31, must have had more pricks than a second-hand dartboard, but I wasn’t to know that at the time. She whispered in my ear. She said how much she would like to take me to a restaurant. As she danced, she moved her head from side to side. I had to keep ducking in case I connected with her parrot nose.
The meal she had promised was delicious. She drank a toast to me with neat gin. Then another, followed by a third. I was reeling. After that we got stuck into the main course, duck à l’orange. She’d ordered plenty of German wine and after our fresh fruit cake, she ordered brandy. I knew I would have to work hard for the meal. I suggested we cut it short and went back to her place. She stripped me, went to the bathroom and returned naked. I gave it to her and she was dying for it. She had a lovely bed with a full-length mirror along the wall. I saw our reflected bodies and thought: ‘This 17-year-old boy is doing good.’
By now, she was really making me earn my meal. She wanted more and more and more. I was Lester Piggot riding Red Rum. I was exhausted after doing it the second time. Her whole body shuddered and I fell asleep on her heaving breasts. Half-way through the night, I felt her hand working its way down my back to my bottom. I woke with a jerk as she tried to push her finger into my anus.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You leave my black ass alone. Ain’t nobody touching my backside. I’m not that kinky. I’m not a homosexual.’
I managed a third time but couldn’t go the fourth, no matter what she did, and that lady was experienced! She taught me a lot. In the morning, we were woken by her young daughter who brought us a cup of tea. This was too much for me. I didn’t even realise she had been married. I returned, bleary-eyed, to camp. My clothes were in disarray and I begged John to look after me. ‘I can’t take any more,’ I pleaded. That was the first time he had heard me admit defeat.
She wanted me back but I managed to avoid her by concentrating on two other German girls called Anke and Gabrielle, both of whom became my girlfriends. Anke was my age, and Gabrielle about six years older. I met Anke at a disco and she was stunning. Her body was fitter than mine. She had her own business. Gabby was beautiful in a different way. She had long hair down to her bottom, a slim body with small breasts and quite big hips. I met her at a field sports day. She had been married to an English serviceman and had a kid, so I thought I had quite a good chance. That’s a joke, but I chatted her up and she and Anke, while both unaware of it, became my main girlfriends, although I had to do a bit of nifty juggling to make sure the girls didn’t find out that I was two-timing them.
Apart from them, I had a considerable number of one-night stands, some of which were quite eventful. The German girls I met seemed to be fairly uninhibited. They didn’t seem to have the normal hang-ups about making love on the first night. In fact, they often suggested it!
Sometimes I wish I’d been more choosy, but then youth can be excused many things. I still shudder a little at the memory of making love to John Lennon. Not the Beatle, but a German girl we called by that name because of her looks. While she was a lot of fun to be with, her looks ensured that you could safely leave her with your mates and know she’d still be there waiting on your return. However, after a stiff drink or three, this girl became Marilyn Monroe. We went out into the fields together and, like a gentleman, I removed my jacket and laid it on the ground before undressing her and making love. Fired with passion, I had not noticed how wet the ground had been and, when we returned, virtually the whole camp had a laugh at my expense. Everyone took the mickey.
‘Oh mate, you didn’t go with her, did you?’ they asked incredulously. I denied it. I lied and lied but the evidence was on the back of my muddied blazer. It was the first time my fellow soldiers had seen a black man turn red.
When we were given home leave, I would return to the clubs I’d visite
d with my mates before joining the Army and meet some new girlfriends. My relationship with Debbie had started to fizzle out and I had met Vanya whom I really liked. I’d also started a relationship with another girl called Julie Laurent, a really pretty black girl in her 20s. Understandably, I became quite emotional when, after returning from leave on one occasion, I received a call from her ending our relationship. I was so upset that I called up my mate Dave Barnett and drank a full bottle of Malibu in the record time of eight minutes. My brother John tried to cheer me up after finding me on all fours in the street. He picked me up by the scruff of the neck and hauled me towards his car, and its giggling passengers. He had been looking forward to a night out with some girls who worked in a bar, but just before I was thrown on to the back seat, the potent mixture of Malibu and curry combined to make me let rip a loud fart, after which I fell asleep. What had been a bit of fun for the girls had now become rather more unsavoury, so they really went off me in a big way.
While in the Army, I considerably increased the scar tissue on my body through playing rugby. I received a particularly bad wound to the inside of my knee where flesh was ripped out, leaving a gaping hole and white skin. After it had healed, I lost some of the feeling, particularly where the skin had formed a thin white scar along my leg. However, I was able to use this to my advantage whenever I wanted to avoid rigorous field exercises. I used to poke the scar with a knife and then I was able to cut it with a razor blade without feeling a thing.
We once went away for exercises to another part of Germany, a horrible place where all we did was dig trenches and train solidly for two weeks. I was depressed about it and told John I was getting off these exercises. With that, I jumped into one of the ditches and slit open my wound again, pretending a rock had caused the injury. With blood gushing from my self-inflicted wound, they took me back to camp and I was as cheerful as anything. I lived the life of Riley, sneaking women back to my quarters while the other chaps were slogging away in ditches.