by Ralph Robb
Maybe he was appealing to a vanity I denied possessing but for the first time I began to consider bringing my medal to work; that was until we reached the machine we were to repair. Four men were standing around drawing on scrawny roll-up cigarettes as they waited for us. Mick dropped his toolbox, and to the oldest one he said, “Bert, I was just saying Ralph must be the first bloke in the factory to ever represent Great Britain in any sport.”
Bert, a fat man with a silver Teddy-boy quiff, blew smoke from the side of his mouth. I had always been aware of a certain malevolence in his eyes but Mick remained completely oblivious. “Oh yes?” Bert said. “What sport, exactly?”
Embarrassed, I bent down and pretended to be looking in my tool box as Mick replied, “He was fighting for the British karate team at the European championships at the weekend – and won a silver medal.” I wished Mick had kept quiet as I straightened up. There was a scornful twist on Bert’s lip as he said, “Fighting for Britain. Well, there’s a thing.” He turned to the others and said, “Did you know he was fighting for Britain?”
“I thought he’d be fighting for Jamaica or some other African country,” one laughed.
“You daft bastard,” I growled, “it was the European championships. In case you didn’t know, Jamaica’s a Caribbean country … A long, long way from Europe.”
I hunkered down next to Mick and began to work on the machine, but the response I waited for never came. I thought someone might say: “Never mind where Jamaica is, you couldn’t pass for an Englishman.” There had been a few snide comments after I had fought for England in the match against Scotland, stuff like: “I didn’t realize you qualified for England, Ralph”, or “Nice to hear you were defending our English heritage for us against those bloody Jocks.” It was those sorts of comments which had made it so difficult for me to put on that tracksuit top before the medal ceremony.
Mick had heard the comments too and told me to take no notice of them. It was not as easy as that for me. At some point during my life the concept that I was an outsider had crept into my consciousness and I did not know if the idea were mine, or if it was a reflection of how I was perceived by others. The local National Front was doing its level best to foment conflict by continually handing out provocative literature around where I lived, and had me retreating behind some kind of mental barricade. Similar stuff had been put up at work, but it was quickly taken down by the management who made it clear that any employee who was found in possession of such inflammatory racist material would be instantly dismissed. I straightened up once the repair was finished and each of the four men looked at me in a manner that made me wonder which one of them had put up a National Front poster in the washroom.
It should not have affected me, but the reaction of Bert and his three mates had got under my skin and the prospect of another forty-five years of work was starting to get me down. If karate had provided me with many of the highs, every day I spent at the factory was beginning to feel like a low. I sought comfort in the notion that I had only a few months of my apprenticeship remaining, and provided I passed my exams at night school, I would then be fully qualified – and free to move on.
Perhaps losing in the final had been no big catastrophe in the grand scheme of things, but it was another straw of misery that threatened to make the load I felt on my young shoulders much harder to bear. Questions about Clinton’s state of health remained on my mind, work was doing its best to suck any vitality from me, and returning to an empty flat did nothing to lighten my mood. Before the European championships I had called on my childhood sweetheart in an attempt to break the monotony of my solitary lifestyle. Hilda was very pretty, intelligent and the object of desire for many guys I knew. We had originally split up because her mother had gone out of her way to make things very difficult for us. But seeing Hilda again had only increased the feeling of loneliness and not diminished it.
It was a Friday evening when I thought about contacting her again, but there was a beauty contest at the Rising Star and I did not think Hilda would appreciate a night out with me as I ogled a score of local women in swimsuits. I slapped on some aftershave and thought I would see if I could rekindle our relationship just a little more – but not on a ‘boys night out’. Hilda could wait for another night.
*
The club was packed out and I was doing my best to find a better view of the stage when a tap on my shoulder turned me around. It was Ewart. He had a look on his face that communicated that there was trouble afoot, and with a nod of his head he indicated for me to follow him outside. I expected that there was a gang of rowdy young men who were unwilling to accept that the club was full, but except for Jerome and a couple of regular customers the foyer was empty. Ewart told Jerome he would see him in a while and went outside. Pete, a karateka who had remained a green belt since the day I began training, was waiting for us in his car. Ewart got in next to Pete and with a pair of eyes that were blazing with anger, he signalled that I was to get into the back.
I still had not closed the door as the car shot off down the road. I had yet to find out what this was all about but I knew that violence was imminent. As we sped towards another nightclub, Pete gave a brief outline of what had happened. Vernon, who was still at school and the baby of the Campbell family, had persuaded Ewart to get him a job as a glass collector that would provide him with a little pocket money during the weekends. Unbeknown to Vernon, a notorious gang of thugs were in the club that night and looking for trouble. The gang was made up of black and white guys, but nothing positive came out of this alliance, rather they became a feared ‘crew’ of football hooligans who became notorious after one of their number had stabbed a man to death in the town centre. Vernon had lifted a glass from their table that he thought was ‘dead’, but high on drugs and belligerence, one of the gang had snatched the glass from Vernon’s hand and then thrust it at his head.
Pete’s car screeched to a halt right outside the club’s entrance and brought a doorman out to wave us to the far end of the car park. As soon as he saw who was in the car he backed off. Ewart also worked at this club and all the bouncers had seen him in action: they knew better than to try and stop him while he was in this mood. Ewart ignored the outstretched hand of Earl, a large doorman, as he entered the foyer. Earl knew why we were there and began giving his version of what had gone on. With a finger jabbing at a very large chest, Ewart responded by chastising Earl and the rest of the doormen: if they had been doing their job properly the gang would not have been allowed entry in the first place. Earl replied that they had ejected the gang and then got Vernon to the hospital. “Ejected?” snarled Ewart. “After what they did to my brother, he’s the only one who ends up in hospital?” He did not have to say what retribution would have been meted out if he had been there. ‘Glassing’ was a terrible crime that often led to permanent disfigurement but it was frequently treated with undue leniency by the legal system: the police rarely visited the crime scene and if a case did get to the courts the perpetrator often escaped with a few months in jail while the victim suffered the consequences for the rest of his, or her, life. “I want names!” Ewart demanded.
Sheepishly, Earl pointed to a group of men and women standing in the car park. “That’s some of them,” he said. Ewart frowned bad-temperedly, as if to ask everyone present that if they were some of the guys who were responsible for attacking Vernon, then why was it that they were still conscious?
I went out with Ewart and Pete into the car park. The tallest of the group was a black man who was pulling on a cigarette as he briefly looked over to us as we approached. They were chatting amongst themselves and seemed so unconcerned that I did wonder if they could have been the ones who were responsible for attacking Vernon. Ewart beckoned to the tall man who sauntered over to us. “What?” he sneered. It was obvious that no one around the place intimidated this man; he clearly thought of himself as untouchable. Perhaps he figured that as a member of the town’s most dangerous gang he had the safety that wa
s afforded by its reputation.
Ewart said, “I want the names and addresses of those who did the glassing.”
The man put a piece of gum into his mouth and let out a disdainful chuckle as he started to chew. I thought then that he was making a very big mistake – it was not as though he had been given a right to silence in this regard. Ewart struck the man’s throat with a technique called toho, which uses the hollow between the forefinger and thumb, before his fingers took hold of his throat. He simultaneously performed ashi barai to sweep away the man’s legs from under him, followed by a stamping kick to the chest. There was a terrible beauty about Ewart’s technique that I could not help but admire: he had employed exquisitely controlled techniques that were hard enough to bring down the man but not so hard as to knock him unconscious. “I want the names and addresses of those who did the glassing,” Ewart repeated.
Gang members had a rule that they did not squeal on one another – that was how they had got away with so many crimes. Maybe it was down to a primal instinct but every one of them knew that their notion of strength had its origins in a misguided unity and that without it they had nothing. The man put his health in grave danger when he refused to answer Ewart’s question. He was about to take a vicious blow when a young woman screamed that she would tell Ewart what he wanted to know. She managed to stammer one name and address – there was more than one involved – but one name would be enough, for now. Ewart hauled her boyfriend upright and then threw him over the roof of a parked taxi. There was a terrible cracking noise as the man landed out of our line of vision, but Ewart did not seem concerned as we headed back to Pete’s car.
We got to the Campbell household shortly after Vernon had arrived there from the hospital. His head was swathed in bandages but thankfully the lacerations were away from his face. His reflexes had saved him from facial disfigurement and the glass had struck him to the side and rear of his head. He filled us in with what had happened and although he had escaped with relatively minor injuries, Ewart was still bent on vengeance. In response to his older brother’s question, Vernon said that he was fit enough to travel and that he would accompany us to the address the woman had provided.
Pete and I peered though a hedge as Ewart and Vernon went up to the front porch door. A heavy-set youth with tattoos on his arms, and dressed in only his boxer shorts, opened the front door, but he was streetwise enough to keep the porch door only slightly ajar. He was cocky too – he knew that there was little chance of Vernon and Ewart pulling the door open before he locked it again. I could hear Vernon verify that he was one of his attackers and the tattooed man respond that the two of them had better leave his premises or there would be ‘consequences’. Suddenly, a middle-aged woman appeared at the man’s rear; she was drunk and screaming that she did not want her son bringing trouble to her house again before slamming the front door shut behind him. Now he was trapped inside the porch. Even from where I was standing, the terror on his face was obvious. Vernon took advantage of his momentary lapse and yanked the door open before punching the man squarely in the mouth.
It was truly amazing what fear was enabling this man to do: within an instant he had recovered from Vernon’s punch and barged past him and Ewart before vaulting over a hedge that was at least five feet high. Pete and I moved to cut him off as he hurdled over three-foot picket fences. He was moving with the speed and grace of an Olympic hurdler until he saw that we were about to cut off his escape route. The tattooed man pivoted and started to go back over the fences he had just cleared – only to run into Ewart. The gyakuzuki was technically brilliant: it had both speed and weight transfer; his rear foot, hips and shoulders had all turned in unison. The man was rendered unconscious the moment Ewart’s knuckles connected with his chin, and as he flew backwards through the air – and through a bay window – he was blissfully unaware that he had just been taken out with a masterful technique.
All around, lights were being switched on as we drove away, and it did cross my mind what the inhabitants of the house with the broken window would have to say as they found an almost naked man lying senseless on their living room carpet.
I did not fully appreciate then just what I was being drawn into. Blood, in this case my cousin Vernon’s blood, had been spilt and I did not give my subsequent conduct a second thought. In the following weeks, despite several of them going into hiding, every gang member, whether they had been present in the club during the attack on Vernon or not, was found and dealt with – and I felt every action taken against these men was entirely justified. Years later, I read an interview with one of the country’s most notorious football hooligans in a British national newspaper. It turned out he was the leader of the gang who had glassed Vernon. In proclaiming his toughness he omitted to tell the journalist of the time when he had finally been found by Ewart, how he had cried and begged for mercy – and how he consequently spent a lengthy period in hospital. I thought then that the reputations of men such as these were built up by people who were easily impressed, or intimidated.
– Chapter Twelve –
To all ways there are sidetracks.
Miyamoto Musashi – The Ground Book
THE ATTACK ON Vernon and its aftermath had some unexpected results: my cousin Clinton was back to his old self. It was as if he had never been away. In taking part in the tracking down of his brother’s attackers and then delivering the beatings that were deemed appropriate, Clinton seemed to forget about his own troubles. He also, thankfully, seemed to forget about that old wreck he had bought, and now the evenings were drawing in, he was once again back to training in the dojo at every opportunity. I was now content that his health scare had been only a temporary aberration.
In a bizarre role reversal, I was the one who was falling into contemplative silences and he was asking me what was on my mind. We were in the changing room next to the dojo when Clinton asked me again about what was wrong. I had been struggling to tie my belt, which was something I had managed to do correctly for five years without too much trouble, when I took a deep breath and said, “Hilda. She’s having a baby. Make that, she’s having our baby.”
Clinton’s face lit up and he shook my hand vigorously. “And there were rumours that you weren’t up to it,” he laughed.
I did my best to join in with him but the laughter died in my throat. Hilda had called to my parents’ house after I had failed to respond to the calls she had made to the factory – and they had guessed the nature of the news she had for me. They both liked Hilda very much and thought she was a stabilizing influence on me, and my dad had made it plain that he hoped that once I became a father I would stop my karate training and live up to my responsibilities. When I met up with Hilda again, I was still unsure about how I should react to her news. I was barely twenty years old and had just made up my mind to finish working at the factory so I that could do some travelling. I had fantasized about going to Japan and training at all the top dojos and then perhaps heading to Hong Kong and finding work in a few kung fu films. They were only daydreams to get me through the day at the factory but Hilda’s pregnancy had robbed me of even those harmless flights of fancy. There were big, life-changing choices ahead of me and I needed more time before I came to a decision.
The talk amongst the students before the lesson began was of the final installment of retribution that had been handed out by Ewart to the leader of the football hooligan crew. When Ewart had finally found him, he suggested that they go for a drive. Away from the glare of his comrades, the so-called hard man disintegrated into a flood of tears as he was driven out to a secluded wood; Ewart did not want the screams to be heard and risk having the terrible lesson he was about to dispense being disturbed.
As we lined up for the bow, Eddie Cox scrutinized all those who made up the front row. He did not seem happy and I got the feeling that he wanted the extra-curricular activities to end. He was initially sympathetic and was prepared to tolerate the odd incident but what had happened over the previous month h
ad been a sustained litany of very public beatings – often in someone’s front garden – involving members of the YMCA karate club. During the ensuing two hours he and Declan Byrne had us practising basic techniques and kata and made it clear throughout the lesson that we were not up to scratch.
With so many tournaments around the country – and invitations for members to attend British international squad training – there was a danger that the training in the dojo was becoming too competition-orientated. While both instructors had been successful as students, they had retired from competition karate at relatively young ages because they were not prepared to sacrifice what they considered the true essence of karate in return for success on the competition mat. In competition karate only a small percentage of a vast range of techniques is used, and the most dangerous – and most effective – are banned, but in Wado Ryu that percentage is even smaller because it is a fusion of Okinawan karate and Japanese jujitsu, the locks and throws of which are totally forbidden in karate contests.
Before the final bow, Cox sensei announced that there was to be a grading in a little more than three weeks’ time for the brown belts. Because of the regulations of Wado Ryu’s governing body, examinations of grades above fourth kyu had to be taken with a Japanese instructor and so the brown belt gradings usually took place in the dojos of either Kuniaki Sakagami or Peter Suzuki – and I knew which one of the Japanese senseis everyone in the front row would have preferred. Mick Bryan could not restrain his curiosity. “Where is the grading going to be, sensei?” he asked – on everybody’s behalf. A smirk twisted the lips of Eddie Cox. “At Peter Suzuki’s,” he said, prompting an audible hiss of displeasure to escape from us.
*
On a rainy Saturday morning I drove to Peter Suzuki’s dojo in Birmingham with Clinton. The other karateka who were eligible to take a grading examination had decided to opt out and wait for a later opportunity with Sakagami sensei. Sakagami was considered far more amiable and consistent than the mercurial Peter Suzuki. While the personalities of the Japanese instructors were factors for some, for others it was down to the lack of available time in which they had to rearrange their training regimes. Clinton and I agreed that the change in our routines had done us good. As with all constant repetition, there is the inherent danger that you may continually reproduce the same mistakes but the practising of a range of kihon and renraku waza (basic and combination techniques) and kata had made us more aware of how our bodies were moving as we executed techniques that we had neglected over the months.