My Story

Well It all started with a chance meeting of an old school chum.

I had moved from Braintree to Basildon and one of my old school mates in Braintree had been Len Gunn. We arranged a meeting to talk about the old days. I say the old days, I was only around 20. Anyway he told me about this hall in Chelmsford where once a week they taught wrestling. I was like millions of others around that time, Saturday afternoon 4.00pm glued to the screen. Jackie Pallo, Les Kellet, Mark Rollaball Rocco, Brian Goldbelt Maxine, Johnny Saint, Adrian Street, just a few of the stars who kept all of us entertained. These were my heroes.

So off I go to Chelmsford in my old Corsair. How I loved that car. Anyway into the hall I go, I tell them Len Gunn had told me about them and the hall. "Who the hell is Len Gunn? Never bloody heard of him!" they grunted. But they let me in anyway. I think they thought this could be fun, and for them it probably was. They gave me a hard time for a week or two but from other guys stories Iv`e heard, I got away light. It turns out that Len Gun was in the St Johns Ambulance Brigade and had heard about the hall by being intendance at a Wrestling show.

I met what turned out to be a good friend whilst at the training hall, billed as the Camden Town Iron man. Dirty Dicky Burns.

Well Dick and I travelled to shows together quite a bit. One night I remember while on the journey home in the early hours we got pulled over by the police. The usual thing "Where you going? Where you been? Can we look in the boot?" - "Sure no problem!"

The officer takes a look in the boot and promptly lifts a black mask hanging out from the top of Dicks bag. Dick sometimes worked in a tag team under a mask, don't know why as his real face was frightening enough. If you conjure up a vision of what a really hard Eastend villain looks like while chewing a wasp, and that's Dick. "How the hell are we going to explain this one?" I thought, there is no way I am going to be out of that cell in time for breakfast, probably rip the car to bits looking for the sawn off shot gun first. Luckily there hadn't been any armed robbery's reported and he half way seemed to believe us and so reluctantly let us go.

Wrestling for me never came easy, I wasn't a natural. But I was keen I had to work hard at it. Learning the moves wasn't the problem or being able to string it all together. But the timing, being able to feel the crowd, to be able to tell the story. I don't think it can be taught. Sure you can be given tips on how and when to, but you have to be able to feel it to know when its the right moment and this only comes with experience. Working with good grafters helps, and the one who helped me the most was the late Peter Kelly (The Cockney Kid ). I must have been wrestling for four years or so before it finally all started to click in to place properly for me.

I also owe Johnny Kincaid a debt of gratitude. Unbeknown to me at the time whilst I was in the ring wrestling one night for Jackie Pallo, Jack made a comment in the dressing room, about the fodder getting a lot of heat (crowd reaction). Johnny told him to make a point of watching me next time I was wrestling. Well the next time was at Clacton town hall I was on with Tom Tyrone and I still didn't know anything had been said. We had a cracking bout. We took them up, dropped them back down, and back up again. I had worked with Tom quite a few times before, but it had never worked as well as that night. Well Jackie must have liked it as I got a wage rise without asking. He had sat with JJ Pallo and watched the whole thing. After that I got to work more often with bigger names and better billing. And that was all down to Johnny Kincaid. Jackie told me after the bout what had been said and by whom.

To Be

Continued