Fighting Men of London by Alex Daley

Author:Alex Daley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing.
Published: 2014-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

5

ALBERT CARROLL (BETHNAL GREEN) 1952-62

I WAS a professional boxer from 1952 to 1962 and I won the Southern Area title and fought for the British championship. I fought most of the top-liners of my day, notably Wally Swift, Brian Curvis, Tommy Molloy, Tony Mancini, Tony Smith and Sandy Manuel. But I want to tell you about my first professional fight, at the National Sporting Club.

I turned pro at 17 and my manager, Mr Curly Carr, had the devil of a job to get my mother, who suffered with her heart, to sign the papers. She relented at last, so there I was, a pro boxer at 17, boxing at the famous National Sporting Club: six two-minute rounds against a guy called Ken Scammell for £5 — a week’s wages at work!

I won the fight on points after my manager introduced me to that great, great ex-world welterweight champion Ted Kid Lewis, who gave me a few tips. Mr Carr gave me a white £5 note, saying he wouldn’t take any commission until I was earning £15 or more. So I got the white £5 note and I said to Ted Kid Lewis, ‘Will you sign that, Mr Lewis?’ He said, ‘Course I will, boy’ and signed it. I couldn’t wait to get home to show my mum.

I was so excited, I forgot about my black eye: I just couldn’t stop talking about the fight and the people I’d met. Mum tried to calm me down, saying, ‘Go to bed — you’ve got work tomorrow. While you’re at work I’ll go down the market and find a frame for your £5 note.’ I went to bed but I had a hell of a job getting to sleep.

Next day I got up and went to work as an apprentice asphalter. I couldn’t wait to get home to see my £5 note on the mantelpiece, in its new frame. When I did get home I couldn’t stop looking at it. I loved my mum more than anything else in the world that day.

The next day I went to work as usual, as happy as Larry. When I got home the first thing I did was look at the mantelpiece, and there it was — an empty frame.

I screamed, ‘Where’s my £5 note? Mother, what have you done?’

‘Oh, don’t start,’ she said. ‘I only borrowed it. I’ll put it back on Friday when I get my pension.’

‘Your pension!’ I screamed. ‘That £5 was signed by the great Ted Kid Lewis.’

‘Who’s he?’ she cried.

I told her he was the greatest world champion Britain has ever produced.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘you’re bound to bump into him again. Perhaps he’ll sign another one.’

It didn’t enter her head that it was the first money I’d earned through boxing: the most precious £5 I’d ever earn. That frame stayed empty until the day she died.

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