Nigel Benn (3 page)

I remember one particular night when we all wanted to go to a new club near Ilford town centre. As was usually the case, none of us had any money, so Paul crept into a house to get some cash. He was about to steal a handbag from a table when he spotted a guard dog — a massive Great Dane,
with long, slimy, yellow fangs that would bring terror to the bravest heart and a gaping hole in your backside. Anybody else, faced with a savage, salivating monster of this beast’s proportions, would have given up there and then and tried another house. Not Paul.

Instead of legging it as I would have done, he told us he was going off to find a cat and to wait for him. With that he disappeared into an adjoining garden and minutes later, magician-like, he reappeared holding a struggling ginger tom. The possibility that he might be clawed to pieces made little impact on Paul. He simply announced that this bit of fur was going to be his decoy and serve as bait for the dog.

Paul took it back to the house and waited for the dog to attack him. That guy was so cool. Before the animal could eat him, Paul tossed the ginger cat into its path. That was too much temptation for the Great Dane. It forgot all about Paul and turned its attention to the cat which raced for the nearest fence. It might have been cruel but it was funny to watch. The poor cat looked as though it had been connected to a live cable. Its hair stood on end. It was frozen with fear. Then its instinct for survival brought it back to life and somehow it escaped the frothy jaws of the Great Dane.

In the meantime, having effectively diverted attention away from himself, Paul crept into the house and snatched the handbag. He was about to give us a victory salute from a side door when the dog twigged what was going on and came bounding back. By this time, Paul’s body was so
full of adrenalin that he sailed over the fence like an Olympic athlete. The dog was left biting air.

Back on the street, Paul was the hero of the moment. His daredevil display had excited and impressed us. We heaped mountains of praise on him before going off to celebrate with his dangerously acquired spoils.

The fourth member of our group was Kevin. At 12, he was already an accomplished pickpocket. Kevin had a way with ladies’ handbags, even if they were still attached to the owner. Nature had blessed him with an innocent face. He had the cherubic expression of a choir boy and the manual dexterity of a surgeon. His fingers had become expert in separating valuable items from a secure holding and transferring the same to his back pocket.

While beaming innocently, he would unclip a victim’s handbag and enrich himself by ten pounds or more in the process. We’d watch him work the market in Green Lanes, Ilford, where his cover would be to stand in a queue pretending to buy apples or other goods. Even if he was caught
red-handed
, his innocent looks would get him off the hook. All he would suffer was a stern warning and, providing he bit his bottom lip and hung his head in shame, they’d let him go.

Beyond our small group, we had a host of mates and acquaintances, some close and others more distant. All were part of a brotherhood who belonged and fought together on the streets of east London. Of our close friends, Paul was the most charismatic. He was also smart, tough and
handsome. Together, we made a formidable team, whether at play in girls’ bedrooms or doing damage to other gangs. Colin was the one I would look up to. He could make difficult things look easy. He got whatever he wanted and he was intelligent as well as smart. On top of all that, he had style and, at that age, he was probably more successful as a stud than I was.

Because we enjoyed each other’s company so much, we would generally meet girls in pairs so that we could be together all the time. Throughout our friendship, we always tried dating together. If our girlfriends were mates like we were, that was a dream ticket. Colin and I seemed to keep out of trouble with the law for most of the time. Occasionally, we’d be chased down the street for shoplifting but that came low on our list of priorities. We were really more into girls and having a good time. We were just kids enjoying life.

I made love when I was 12. She was a year older and had been resisting my clumsy offer of ‘going all the way’ for some months, but I couldn’t wait for the rest of my life. I had reached puberty early. There were my new mates to think of, too. The older guys I had been getting friendly with were young men who were up to ten years older than me and had been going with women for years.

This group pressure, particularly as far as the older boys were concerned, had made me all the more determined that it was time I followed their example and lost my virginity. Conveniently, her
friend had fallen for Colin and he had been putting similar pressure on her. The girls had kept us dangling on the line for a long time — around six months. We must have finally worn them down because they finally agreed to full sexual intercourse. I could never figure out, though, why it should have been all right after six months. To my mind, it would have been fine on the first day! But still, better late than never.

The big event took place at Colin’s home while his parents were out. Colin and I used to wear the same clothes — flared jeans, T-shirts and 50p trainers that looked good when new but were generally worn out by the next day. For this special occasion, we wore our regulation denims which had been nicely washed and ironed, and we’d soaked ourselves in cheap aftershave which you could smell half a mile away. It didn’t matter. I was only 12 and was about to embark on a new adventure, an initiation into a new way of life. A real world where grown-up boys made love to grown-up girls.

We never bothered to find out if the girls thought about it in this way, or if they thought about it at all. You don’t normally discuss your thoughts and feelings when you are 12 or 13 years old. And you certainly don’t ask those questions of girls who are not entirely certain of what they are doing, but are prepared to go with the flow.

Until that moment, no amount of chat had made them change their mind. I would say to Lee, ‘I can’t wait any more. My dick isn’t going to get any harder than it is and if we go on like this much
longer, I’m going to fall down. My nuts are getting heavier by the day and I’m going to have to cart them around in a wheelbarrow.’

Thinking back on it, I can picture her exactly as she looked. She was every man’s fantasy. She wore tight-fitting jeans, her prettiness enhanced by bright red lipstick, and her breasts were firm and swollen with excitement. What’s more, she should have been in a school uniform and a gym slip rather than dressed like a teenage temptress. She was 13 but had the body of a young woman. Sadly, the finer points of this sexuality were probably lost on me as a 12-year-old. But she was as eager as me was to find out about love, even if it meant losing her virginity.

Style usually only comes with money and the usual way of getting about in those days was either by walking or using public transport. The girls rode to womanhood on the number 25 bus. They came around to the house giggling nervously, excited by the prospective guilt and adventure of the occasion. Colin took his girl’s hand and led her upstairs. I stayed downstairs in the living room with mine, waiting for their door to slam shut. As soon as we were alone, I nervously took hold of her and kissed her.

This was it. The big moment. I started undoing the buttons of her jeans. Unable to contain myself, I lost patience with the unbuttoning and yanked off her trousers. I was too excited to care if I tore them or any other item of clothing she wore. Timidly she helped me off with my trousers and then we raced each other to see who would be the first to be fully
naked. We lost our virginity in about two seconds flat. Thinking back on it now, I would give myself a sexual rating of nought out of ten.

Over the years, I would like to think that I have improved 100 per cent in my love-making. I no longer just try to please myself, but am far more intent on pleasing my partner. On that first occasion, however, I was a selfish boy. There was no romance. It had been a purely sexual experience. But the explosion I felt when making love was out of this world. It was like ‘Hey, the world’s just blown up and I enjoyed it.’ I wanted more. Much more. And I wanted it regularly.

I didn’t ask her if she wanted to do it again after I had regained my composure and the dust had settled from the atomic explosion. After my shamefully fast performance — I admit to having been a premature ejaculator when I lost my virginity — we just did it again as if it was the natural thing to do. The second time left me drained but happy. The experience had been phenomenal and the mental high I’d experienced was something new to me. I was convinced a chemical reaction had taken place in my brain. It had. I was hooked on sex!

M
ost of the teachers at Loxford School were unanimous about my future; they reckoned I had none. They predicted I would end up collecting handouts in a dole office. Understandably, we held each other in contempt. But there were two exceptions: the maths mistress Miss Dorothy Baker, and the PE teacher John Salisbury. Both of them liked me and recognised that I had some kind of potential to be developed.

I liked school only because it meant being with friends and having some fun. My attendance was acceptable, my attitude questionable. Among my best mates at school were Barry Hayden, Garry Clarke, Leon Jackson, Michael Hedley, Derek Miller and Paul Augustin, whom we called Bethel. Since school, we have gone our separate ways.

Although it would have been simple for me to bunk classes, I preferred going because it was more fun being with my buddies. My physical and mental development virtually decreed that I become the school bully and I was also the most disruptive boy in class. At one point, I was
virtually expelled but given a second chance on condition that I attended a support unit for disturbed or difficult kids.

I spent six months there as a cooling-off period. The hours were great. A late start in the mornings, around ten, and you got off by three in the afternoon. The disadvantages were that it was separate from the main school and further to travel to and I was away from my classmates. Another negative factor was the attitude of a few of the teachers. They would treat you as if you were mentally deranged. I couldn’t believe it. They talked to me as if I was some kind of nutter. Worse still, I realised there actually were quite a number of genuine head-cases there.

One of the pupils was certifiably mad. He had a vacant, twisted face, the type you would imagine belonged to the village idiot in medieval Britain. He’d do stupid things to amuse himself and get away with it because he was nuts. During one tea break, he sneaked up behind me, lifted a solid oak chair high above his head and nearly brought it crashing down on me. He was an idiot, completely and utterly loopy. If I hadn’t stopped him, the blow would have broken my back.

If you became bored in this ‘asylum’, you could pretend to be nutty yourself and, providing you were docile, they would listen to imaginary problems and ask ridiculous questions until you tired of the game. I was 14 but the way teachers talked down to us, I might as well have been six. ‘Now, what did you do at school today?’ they would ask sympathetically, wondering if you had
difficulty understanding them.

I’d look around and see people staring into space. Some had their mouths open. Had the world gone mad? Sometimes it was hard to distinguish the staff from the pupils. The place spooked me out. It was weird. There were lots of kids from broken homes as well as some who’d been abused. I had one friend there, though, who reminded me of a Steve McQueen character. He seemed pretty normal and we always had a laugh. He also provided relief from the boredom by constantly getting into fights.

After six months in purgatory, I returned to the main school. Nothing had changed. I was back to my disruptive self within days and a tiresome flow of expulsion threats once more began dropping through our letterbox. It was as if the Benn family were sending a faulty product to school and it prompted a series of complaints: ‘Mr. Angry from Loxford School writes again …’ Obviously, they considered me to be one of a bad batch which they were desperate to reject. Anyway, one of my parents would always turn up at the school pleading my case and assuring them that the product was sound. Poor Mum and Dad. I gave them a tough time.

English and maths were my best subjects but I hated history and electronics. I’m proud to be British but I couldn’t relate to English history. It meant very little to me. What did Richard the Lionheart or Robin Hood have to do with me? I was sure I was a couple of shades darker than Robin Hood. I wanted to learn a lot more about my
own background. History should be meaningful.

My family in the West Indies had been sold into slavery centuries ago. Was there a white trader or plantation owner in our bloodline? I was told a lot of them couldn’t keep their dicks inside their trousers. What were my family’s origins? What hardships did my ancestors endure as a result of slavery? Was this why we are a strong race today, because only the fittest could survive the harsh conditions imposed by their masters? These were significant historical matters which were not covered in our boring syllabus.

On the sports field, however, I came into my own. I was a natural athlete, the best in school at cross country, pole vaulting, the long jump and running 1500 metres.

My favourite subject was fighting, but that wasn’t taught in class. I learnt it in the streets and in clubs where they practised kung fu and other forms of martial arts. Bruce Lee was all the rage. He was my film idol. I was captivated and totally inspired by his fighting skills. I wanted to be Bruce Lee.

While the head teacher considered me disruptive and a danger to other pupils, my father argued that I was only letting off steam. What Dad wanted was for them to offer a constructive outlet for my inexhaustible energy. If I was to blame for my behaviour, then they were equally at fault for not recognising my potential and harnessing it to our mutual benefit.

Dad had always hoped that one of his boys would make something of his life. He had a
sneaking suspicion that it might be me because he remembered how I had always insisted that I would one day be famous. Ever since I was a small boy, I had told him I would drive a Rolls-Royce or a Porsche when I grew up. And he was quite sure that if success came, it would be through sport.

Whatever ambitions he might have held for me, school was not the place to air them. Loxford didn’t know how to handle Nigel Benn. They didn’t seem to agree with Dad’s suggestions or his explanations about my boisterous behaviour. As a teenager, I did not appreciate my own strength. Dad, on the other hand, was well aware of it, and he was very worried about the damage I might inflict. After all, he had inside knowledge. He’d seen it all happen at home. My younger brother Anthony, a good-looking little boy, had had his head sliced open like a watermelon after a mock kung fu battle in which we used long pieces of wood. And although I’d dished it out on that occasion, I was always at the local hospital myself having parts of my body stitched together.

Once I was booted, smashed and slammed into a brick wall. Afterwards, my head was dented into a U-shape. It was my fault. I’d been too mouthy to Michael Davidson, whose mother owned the corner shop. He was really like a big brother and used to take us to football matches. He’d let us clear the shop of sweets for five pence but could occasionally play rough.

Once I started going out with the older boys, my confidence grew out of all proportion to my years. By 13, I’d become quite punchy and if
someone dared to touch me, I’d knock their head off. If I was walking down Ilford High Street and someone offended me, they would never repeat it. The fact that I wasn’t scared of anyone worried my father. He told me to cool down. ‘You just don’t recognise your strength. It’s getting you a bad reputation. People are becoming frightened of you,’ he warned. I would fight anybody, no matter how big they were.

After he’d been summoned to school following yet another punch-up, Dad turned to me and said, ‘If you’ve got that much energy, get in the boxing ring and do it for real.’ That was quite prophetic because I had been in a ring only once in my life. My brother John had arranged for me to have a try-out when I was 12. They put me in with a guy who’d been boxing since he was five years old and apparently I panned him all round the ring. My opponent ended up with a blotchy-red complexion and the ‘fight’ had to be stopped. John told me then that I was a natural. ‘You’re a born fighter,’ he said. He took me to the gym a few more times but I showed little interest. I was much more into martial arts at the time.

Despite Dad’s advice, I could never imagine that, one day, I would make a career of boxing. I’d have been the last person to believe it. But perhaps the seed had been planted, along with a warning. While he acknowledged my skill as a fighter, Dad cautioned me, ‘You’ll be a dead man if you try it on me.’

In spite of that, he backed me all the way when another expulsion threat was made. Dad was
sick of the letters complaining about me. He’d had enough. He steamed into the head teacher, ‘I’d like you to listen to me for a change. You’re picking on my son. You’re a
racist
. I’m sick of your letters. A lot of kids at your school don’t understand that Nigel has so much energy. He’s only playing with the kids. He doesn’t know his own strength.’

The headmaster was in no way a racist, and wasn’t very happy at being called one, but both he and Dad calmed down and shook hands after their heated exchange. My position was not vastly improved by the showdown. The letters stopped coming for a while but, before long, I was up to my old tricks again.

The main difficulty was that I had outgrown the kids at school. Even at home, because of my ability to look after myself, my parents had given me much greater leeway than they did my older brothers. I was allowed to stay out later than them, and more often, and they were less worried about me if I didn’t return on time. I also had a lot more street cred than my brothers, through mixing with much older boys.

Loxford School may not have liked me then but they would always remember me. In fact, I warm to the idea that even if I hadn’t been a success in the ring, they would still have remembered me. And if that memory may have been a little soured, it wouldn’t have bothered me in the least. I’d rather be a somebody than a nobody. I bet all the good boys who kept their heads down and swotted hard for A-levels have long been forgotten.

Old wounds are quickly healed when there is the chance to rub shoulders with fame. Had I been serving ten years for a crime — and there was a strong possibility of this at one stage of my life — my teachers would probably have nodded wisely and said, ‘We told you so. We knew that boy would come to no good.’ But as a world champion boxer they were proud to have me return as an old boy. When I was invited to address the school after leaving, they lined up to shake my hand. They even asked me to attend one of the teacher’s funerals. I still visit Miss Baker who stood by me all those years ago.

After addressing assembly and chatting to various staff members, I wondered if any of them recalled the time when one of the teachers wanted me arrested. That happened a couple of days before my fifteenth birthday, when the local police received an urgent invitation to visit the school. They arrived with sirens blaring after being told that a pupil had obtained money using threats. I had devised what I considered a brilliant plan to acquire instant riches on my birthday.

Financial circumstances being as they were, I could not rely on sackfuls of presents from home so I turned my attention to my school chums. I figured that if everybody in school brought 50p as a birthday gift, it would be like winning a mini lottery. In the past, I had gently persuaded students to bring me small peace offerings. These included a bike, a skateboard and running shoes, all of them freely handed over. Nobody had the guts to say no to the toughest kid in school.

I was determined to make my fifteenth birthday memorable. By that age I’d figured out that people only give you presents if they love you, respect you or want something from you. I worked on the respect angle. Because my birthday was due on Sunday, I told everyone to bring a present before the weekend. Moreover, I let it be known that if respect was not shown in the form of a shiny 50p piece, those withholding might have serious regrets. The fear factor worked a treat. Silver coins rained from heaven. I’d hit the jackpot. A sack so full of money that I could hardly lift the thing. My mate helped to keep an eye on the stash which we hid under my desk. During the lesson, my mind concentrated on how I would spend this bonanza. Unfortunately, my spendthrift fantasies came to an abrupt end. One of the form mistresses called me out of the class.

Somebody had grassed and she accused me of extorting money with threats. I protested my innocence and tried to convince her that each coin was a gift for a popular classmate. When she called the police, my only regret was that they would seize the money. I’d never had so much. Watching it disappear was heartbreaking. Couldn’t they let me keep it a bit longer? Parting with it reminds me of the film
Ghost
in which Whoopi Goldberg briefly gets her hands on $4 million but is told to give it away to New York nuns collecting for charity. Like her, I could have screamed in despair.

I was brought to my senses when they told me they were phoning my dad. Have you ever seen a black man turn white? Well, that’s what happened
next because, in spite of my protests, they called my father. As far as I was concerned, they might as well have asked me to start digging my grave. Dad managed to iron matters out but, for some reason, didn’t whack the living daylights out of me.

The centre of our universe was the Mocca Bar, a café in Ilford. When I was not at school I practically lived there, particularly over weekends. It is now called the Rainbow, which is under different ownership, and is a very different kind of place. It was owned by a real character called Jimmy. He was an Alex Higgins lookalike who would scream abuse at you if you gave him a hard time. In fact, you wouldn’t even have to abuse him. He was always screaming and shouting. He had a bad temper but a kind heart.

The Mocca was always a hive of activity. It was like the Old Vic pub in the TV soap
EastEnders
. Deals were made, meetings arranged and goods exchanged. Petty villainy was discussed over an orange juice or a weak cup of tea, after which the conspirators would play pinball machines or tug at an illicit joint in a dark corner.

However, there was little honour among thieves. Despite the beating I’d got over Auntie Shirley’s purse, I nicked another one in a jeans shop near Cranbrooke Park some time later. There was twice as much money in this one and I couldn’t believe my luck. Like an idiot, I boasted about my rich pickings at the Mocca Bar and, by the end of the evening, someone had pickpocketed me! I cried at the loss of my ill-gotten gains. It just shows that you should never show a thief you’ve
got money.