Nigel Benn (4 page)

Those days are well behind me, although I’ve never forgotten the crowd who used the Mocca. Half of them are jealous, envious that I’ve made a few bob and say I should go down there and give them some money and buy a few drinks. I’d like to shoot them instead. All they can do is ponce. Why don’t they get off their backsides and do something? I don’t respect dossers who won’t work or who won’t try to achieve something in life. No one has it easy. I had to get off my butt to succeed. Some of them have turned into old women.

I had my first experience with drugs at the Mocca Bar. I smoked some cannabis, which I didn’t particularly like, and later made the mistake of telling my girlfriend, Susan Marsh, about it. My best mate Colin and Susan were at my house at the time and I’d been a bit boisterous. Playing silly games, I smashed a milk bottle over Colin’s knee and glass went flying everywhere. Susan told me that if I didn’t stop mucking about she’d tell my dad that I smoked weed. I replied that she wouldn’t dare and then took her home, leaving the broken bottle on the floor. She and I had a fight on the way because she wanted to finish our relationship and I was very upset about it. In fact, she was quite physical in her approach. She kicked me in the shins and slapped my face.

I returned home, absolutely gutted, to be confronted by Dad. ‘What’s this then?’ he asked. Thinking he meant the broken glass, I offered to pick it up. ‘No,’ he said menacingly. ‘What’s this
about draw? You think you’re a big man now?’ And with that he slapped me with his open hand. I swear it was as solid as being knocked down by a truck. He knocked me into tomorrow and battered me around, left, right and centre. It was time for a quick exit, I thought, and escaped back to Susan’s. I thought she’d been a real bitch and spilled the beans. In fact, she hadn’t said anything. Dad had overheard me boasting about the draw.

Nearly all of my older friends were as tough as hardened steel. My mentor was Carl Marston. I admired him so much that I allowed him to step into my brother Andy’s shoes. He not only looked like Andy but he reminded me of him in so many other ways. He was a survivor and an unbeaten street fighter. He was always wheeling and dealing and ducking and diving. He was a street man’s man. Handsome, fearless and cool as an ice cube.

Even stronger than Carl was Owen Johnson, whom we called Bully. I’d never do a round with Bully. He’d murder me. If I did have to fight him, I’d either leg it or shoot him, except that the bullets would probably bounce off him. He’s a doorman in the West End and I felt very sorry for anyone who picked a fight with him.

Sledge was another mate. His real name was Howard Brown and I’m not quite sure where he ended up. He used to make me cry by hammering my head with his fist. Sledge probably thought my body was a post and he was power-driving it into the ground. That might sound funny if you’re not on the receiving end, but I invariably was.

They were all hard men but we called those
three the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Carl was the good, Bully the bad, and Sledge the ugly.

The wider circle included Six-Finger Scotty (he was born with six fingers), Daniel and Nigel Nelson, Lloyd and Richard Ramsey, Carl Mosely, Mousey and Andy Coward. Most of them came from Manor House. Although I originally met them at the Caribbean Club in Ilford, we later used the Mocca as our meeting place.

The street gangs in those days consisted of a group of lads whose common bond was a particular sound system. There were lots around: the Kennedy system (to which I belonged), Quaker City, Small Axe, Saxon, Fat Man, King Original, Tubbys and lots of others. It was just like belonging to a football club except that there were fewer members. The music was street reggae. Shaka was my favourite. We didn’t like Bob Marley, he was too commercial.

Our reggae was not played on the radio, it was too underground. We made our own hardcore mixes which you get in garage music. Members of a sound system would make dub plates — their own exclusive mix. Every time a dub plate was played in a club, a roar of approval would go up from a section of the crowd. It was a bit like seeing your side score in football. If you annoyed members of another sound system, all hell would break loose. Someone would throw a bottle and the fuse would be lit for all out warfare. There were some serious players out there. For instance, you didn’t mess with members of the Small Axe sound. Not if you valued your fingers. They were all
armed with tomahawks.

The lasting image I have of Carl Marston is one of classic heroism as he bravely faced his enemy. It was a David and Goliath-style confrontation and reminded me of the Clint Eastwood classic
The
Good,
the
Bad
and
the
Ugly.
Carl was my black knight. He was so impressive I’d put him on a pedestal way above most of our group. The Kennedy posse, to which I belonged, had gone to a packed dance hall in Mile End, east London and were about to leave the club when a massive black guy, who looked nearly 7ft tall, and belonged to another sound system, took a dislike to us.

He challenged Carl. Not with words, but with body language. The two eyed each other up. Carl was my height, about 5ft 10in and nearly a foot shorter than the oaf. He must have been expecting Carl to turn tail and leg it, but Carl just stood there, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth like Clint Eastwood. He was calm and intent. He was wearing a long beige coat, the bottom part of which he now swept behind his back with both hands, to reveal an axe.

He kept that pose, looking as if he was about to have a gun fight. His feet, slightly apart, were weighted to the front, ready for action. He would have chopped that hulk to pieces if he so much as moved a muscle against any of us. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. It was better than the movies. The big guy backed down. He knew he’d met his match. I felt proud to be in Carl’s company. Afterwards, a massive fight broke out between
different groups. Fingers were lost to choppers, and heads were smashed in. I was not to be found anywhere. I’d legged it back home.

Several members of our gang made me cry. They were hard men who could take a lot of punishment as well as giving lots out. I’d go with them to martial arts films late on a Friday night. Afterwards, we’d practise some of the moves. My brother was very fond of the ‘claw’. This was used countless times on my head and I’m surprised my hair is intact after the brutal way he scraped my scalp. We’d also jab each other in the solar plexus, the temple and any other vulnerable spot on the body, using the snake, the mantis or the crane. We regarded these movies as classics:
Warriors
2
,
Iron
Monkey
and
Snake
in
the
Eagle’s
Shadow.

At the same time, I was being taught martial arts, first by Master Kam at the Wu Shu Kwan and then at the Lau-Gar with Neville Ray. But I could still be beaten by other lads. I had a punch-up with David Terriot who was a bit older and bigger than me. He was a hard nut and really hurt me with a blow to my face. I fled home crying. That was nothing, however, compared to what Sledge did to my head with his fist. And one of the Ramsey brothers, huge guys, let me have it whenever I gave them too much lip. It would often be in the form of a hot bag of rice in my face at first, then a hard slap. They all used to beat me up, but by the time I’d reached 15 I said to myself, ‘You ain’t crying no more.’ I’d never run from a one-to-one fight unless the opponent could kill me, but I would leg it from a street situation that looked bad.

Crying over women or relationships is quite different to crying over physical pain. I don’t think I’ll ever stop tears over personal relationships, particularly when the people involved are very close to me. In terms of physical punishment, however, I have always been able to put up with a lot. Like the time Colin Chambers pulled me up over a wall so that we could sneak into a cinema. He lost his grip and, as his hand slipped past my face, his ring caught my front tooth, twisting it 90 degrees from its original position. Gingerly, he tried pushing it back, but two years later I had to have it removed. Curiously, I felt no great pain.

Perhaps I had been well schooled by my older mates. Bully also seemed impervious to pain. On one occasion he was at a fair with his girlfriend, Linda Rogers, and his money fell under a ride. He knelt down to pick it up and was attacked by a hammer-wielding attendant. The guy was calling him ‘black’ this, and ‘black’ that and whacked him with the hammer. Bully took it from him, broke the hammer against an iron railing and then let him have it with his bare fists. He beat the crap out of him. He is one of the most powerful men I know. He’d eat you up and spit you out.

He was extraordinary to watch. He once had a shouting match with Linda at the Mocca Bar and the police were called. They came in a team and Bully sent every one of them flying through the air like rag dolls. It was an amazing sight watching him pick them up, one by one, and tossing them about like an angry child discarding its toys.

When the going got tough in gang fights, I
usually stayed away. For some reason, other gangs were always out to get me. Monday nights used to be our club night and we would go down to Ilford Town Hall where I’d won a dance competition. Can you imagine that? I could have been a dancer. I was a right little bopper. Down at Ilford there were a lot of racist whites and we used to fight the skinheads and mods. This particular Monday there was going to be another battle, but it wasn’t my cup of tea.

About 200 mods had gathered to fight us. I was sitting in McDonald’s waiting for the action when some blokes walked in. I couldn’t believe that they were involved. We were mostly young teenagers but these people were in their mid-20s. One sat next to me and said, ‘It’s a bit fuckin’ dark in here.’

He was huge and I thought, Yeah, it sure is. There was no way I wanted to roll around the floor with this grizzly bear. All his mates were coming out of the woodwork. We were surrounded and these guys were not playing around. They’d come tooled up for the occasion. Some had irons and sawn-off shotguns. It could have been very nasty.

Fortunately, I was able to push one of them over and then legged it in the confusion that followed. I think they were after us because, a week earlier, one of our group had smashed a furniture shop window and about ten guys had fallen into a double bed and hammered the life out of another gang member. That time I had stayed around and we had had to fight hordes of people. As we marched down the street like a marauding
army, people kept joining our ranks from bus queues and post offices, like volunteers in a wartime emergency.

After one of these sorties, a bottle had been thrown at police who’d chased our gang. We were ordered to stop but as I was the only one who obeyed, they tossed me in the police van and charged me with the offence. I told them I hadn’t done anything and on that occasion Dad rightly believed me. He knew I would usually put up my hands if caught.

When I was 15 I was convicted of GBH and threatening behaviour against an Indian guy almost twice my age. I usually went to the Hope Revive pub in Ilford Lane to be with the big boys, although I didn’t drink any alcohol. On this particular evening, I was sitting on the pool table and was asked to get off by the man I assaulted. I told him I would if he asked me nicely but he said something derogatory. He must have thought I was a weakling because he was much bigger than me. While verbally abusing me, he also started walking towards me. My brother Dermot was there but didn’t have time to intervene.

As the guy approached, I whacked him in the face and it was all over. He was bloodied and beaten and seriously hurt. Bill the barman had, seconds earlier, feared for my safety and armed himself with a monkey wrench to stop the fight, but it was over too soon.

A day later, I was walking down Ilford High Street and about six policemen jumped on me. I thought they were going to do me for nicking but,
as I hadn’t done anything, I protested, ‘Hold on,’ I said, ‘I ain’t nicked nothing yet.’ That’s when they told me they were holding me for assault. I then saw the Indian guy identifying me and thought, ‘What a grass!’ Again, my initial fear was that I would be in big trouble with Dad and I begged the police not to call him, but he was already at the police station by the time I arrived.

This time, he supported me. ‘Did you win, son?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, Dad. I knocked him down.’

Dad was pleased. He told the police after they had explained what had happened, ‘So he should have done. I would have bashed him up as well. I always told my sons if anyone wants to bash you up, don’t let them put you in hospital. But if you steal, then I’ll bust you up.’ Mum had to pay £30 to the court and I was given 60 hours’ community service which took six months to do.

My life wasn’t all fighting, though. There was a lot of fun in between and a continual flow of women. Because of my youth, I would like to excuse my behaviour with girls. I would treat them quite badly from time to time because of the influence of the big boys around me. Some of them had been just as tough and cruel to their girlfriends as they were to me. It was part of their macho image. They treated them mean and I followed suit. Women whom you did not love were simply used. We’d never fight over them. We’d just use them and like having them around to do our bidding. Happily, that attitude has long since changed.

I remember going to the Notting Hill Carnival with my friends Colin and Mark Jemott. We got separated and I had no money, although I had arranged with one of my girlfriends to meet her at her house later that night. Her parents were going to be away and I wanted to sleep with her. I didn’t want to be embarrassed by boarding a bus without money and getting kicked off, so I walked all the way home. It was a horrendous 15-mile trip. When I finally arrived at her house, it was nearly 4.00am and there was my good friend Mark curled up in bed with her! I was gutted.

I very much regret the way I treated one of my girlfriends. I was inexcusably mean. I used to make her meet me at 1.00am and bring me Kentucky Fried Chicken or fish and chips. She was like a slave to me. I used and abused her and slapped her around. That is not a period I am proud of but I have grown up considerably since then.