Wild Thing by Bernard O'Mahoney, Lew Yates

swelling had subsided.
    Finding employment was becoming almost impossible in the north-west of England at this time. Even if you did manage to find a job, your days were spent on strike rather than working. It is difficult to comprehend today how much power union barons wielded in those days. There were endless strikes afflicting the Post Office, the steel industry, the construction industry, the ferries and much more. In 1977 a staggering 49 per cent of self-employed people in the construction industry went bankrupt. Throughout the 1970s industrial disputes alone cost the country between six million and ten million lost working days a year. The introduction of the three-day week and the arrival of ‘stagflation’ (the combination of inflation and recession – an economy that begins to shrink while prices still continue to rise) brought the country to its knees.
    To keep myself occupied and in shape, I started training at Eric Wilson’s gym, which was in the old town-hall buildings in Burnley. Prior to Eric’s arrival at the gym, a wrestling club had used it, but he had ‘evicted them’ and encouraged boxers, cyclists, weightlifters and anybody else interested in developing their physique or skills to train there. Eric was 69 years of age and had been involved in boxing all of his life. For his age Eric was very fit. He would work out in the gym and cycle everywhere he went, regardless of the distance. Eric’s home, like his gym, was cleaned with military precision. Everything had its place and everything was spotless. The walls of his home were adorned with his excellent drawings, mainly of Disney characters. Autographed photographs of boxers, famous singers and actors, all in praise of Eric, surrounded the fireplace. He would not listen to any music other than country-and-western, and woe betide anybody who tried to handle his prized record collection.
    In his younger years Eric had worked as a bouncer. During one incident he had been blinded in one eye after being stabbed with a drumstick. This made reading and some other tasks difficult, so I would do his weekly shopping, sort out his mail and do anything else that he had problems doing himself. Eric did not seem to be generally liked around Burnley. I think it was because he spoke his mind and didn’t care whom he upset by doing so. That is what I liked about him: his almost brutal no-nonsense approach to life. When Glynn and Joanne were at school, I would take my youngest son, Billy, to Eric’s home. One lens in Eric’s spectacles was made of slightly misted glass to hide his damaged eye. Billy used to drop a coin behind the lens and howl with laughter while shrieking ‘Penny Head’. When it was time to leave, Eric would give Billy a pile of drawings to take home for his brother and sister. Eric really appreciated all I did for him, and I appreciated all he did for the children and me.
    In an effort to save money, I would go out in search of work on my bike rather than using the car (and this also helped to keep me fit). One lunchtime after yet another fruitless search I returned home, put my bike in the back garden and walked into the kitchen. It had been my intention to have a cup of tea and a sandwich before resuming my search. As I entered the kitchen, my old khaki-coloured transistor radio was playing some awful ’70s music. David Cassidy, Donny Osmond and the Bay City Rollers all sounded pretty much the same to me: crap. I picked it up to turn it off just as the presenter introduced a guest. ‘Welcome to Radio One, Roy,’ he said. ‘It’s great to have you on the show.’
    The man didn’t reply; he grunted. Deciding against turning the radio off, I sat down and listened. Roy turned out to be Roy Shaw, a respected fighter who had made his name on the unlicensed boxing circuit in London. I had heard of Shaw through my good friend Ray Todd, who shared a flat with Brian Jacobs, Shaw’s weight-training partner. Ray had told me that Shaw was an