Nigel Benn (7 page)

I telephoned my girlfriend Anke and told her to pick us up. She told us to hitch-hike to Bielefeld and she’d collect us from there. For the rest of the exercise, I slept with a beautiful German girl between silk sheets, had hot baths every night and
was fed the best food and wine. This was the life. When it was time to return to base, we asked the girls to drop us off about 20 miles away so we’d look at least a little genuine after our ‘rough’ ordeal. Knowing how serious a court-martial could be, we memorised the story we’d give and the places where we had slept rough.

One of the officers interrogated us desperately, hoping we’d crack. He knew we hadn’t walked back but couldn’t prove it. We stuck to our guns and wouldn’t change our story. To his dismay, we got away with it.

While I was in Germany, I had several fights with other soldiers but avoided getting into serious trouble because of my sporting skills. On one occasion, I was at 7 Platoon in Elizabeth Barracks when a 6ft 5in squaddie stumbled his way down the corridor asking for John Benn. He was a bit drunk and had a plaster over his hand. Nobody was going to try to damage any member of my family so I went up to him and gave him a football kick in the mouth. He dropped to his knees and I tried to break his neck. John, whose room was on the top floor of the building, would have punched him down to 1 Platoon but I wasn’t going to let this guy near my brother. I could sense his hostility and, without asking questions, let him have it. The next day he said to me that I’d beaten him only because he was drunk. I asked him if he wanted to have another go and he cried off. Big as he was, I had to stand my ground, although if he’d whacked me while he was sober, he would probably have knocked me out.

My most serious fight was with another soldier, a Green Jacket, and the events leading up to it took place over the period of a week. Our boys were being beaten up badly by the Green Jackets. They were all London boys who fought in packs and any time one of the Fusiliers went downtown, they’d be set upon. My mate Jacko had been savaged by a guy with red hair and when we heard about it we decided this bullying had to end. A posse of us, about 20 guys, went downtown looking for the redhead. We had two men spread out along the road for about a mile to Red Fred’s where the Green Jackets used to drink. It had been our pub before that. With the other men scattered about I went in with Bic and Cockney Jacko and asked him to point out the guy who’d beaten him up. He wasn’t there so we challenged some of his mates who were drinking. They refused so we went outside and waited.

We hoped Jacko’s assailant might show and after some time a couple of soldiers came down by themselves. I asked them if they were Green Jackets and when they replied positively, that was it. Boom! I lashed into them and knocked out one of the guy’s teeth. By the end of the fight he lay demolished. He had to have 14 external stitches and 7 internal ones. During the fight, Bic jumped up really high and came crashing down on his knee on this guy’s head.

Afterwards, there was a big inquiry and the military police were called in to investigate. A description had been given that one of our men, a big black guy wearing an Arsenal sweatshirt, had
laid into the Green Jacket. Everybody thought it was Dave Barnett who was twice my size. I was quite thin and small at the time. The police started hassling Dave quite a bit so I put my hands up to it. They were not going to court-martial a boxing champ. I only got 14 days’ loss of privileges. In a way, we had been like Tottenham fans going out to get Arsenal fans, but the Green Jackets deserved our revenge.

T
he Commanding Officer, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was to make an announcement to the assembled battalion. About time. It was December 1983 and we’d been waiting months for confirmation of the good news we hoped to hear. Rumours had spread like wildfire that the first and second battalion would be getting a plum posting in Cyprus. That meant loads of sunshine, beaches and white sands, not to mention bikini-clad girls on holiday.

‘There’s good news and bad news,’ Colonel Robinson began. ‘I expect you will want to hear the good news first.’ Without waiting for a reply, he continued, ‘You have been expecting a posting in Cyprus and I am happy to say that …’ The troops hollered and cheered. Confirmation at last! The CO went on, ‘I am happy to say that we will be going to Cyprus.’ We went wild. ‘But here’s the bad news. Before we go to Cyprus, we are going to Ballykelly in Northern Ireland for two years from next January.’

There was stunned silence. This was typical of
the way bureaucracy worked in the Army. Deeply disappointed, half the soldiers didn’t bother returning to their barracks after assembly. They headed for the nearest bar to drown their sorrows. Nobody in their right mind wanted to serve in Ireland. Especially this boy. I mean, how many black Paddys had anyone seen on the streets of Belfast?

I didn’t want to go there. Get shot up for what? It was somebody else’s war, not mine. It had nothing to do with me. The IRA are much more deadly and powerful than the Mafia. I still regard them with respect and fear. I’ve been threatened in the past and that’s one lot you don’t mess with.

But if it happens, it happens. There is very little you can do about it. Three of my mates were blown to pieces on an innocent fishing trip during a few days’ leave. One of them could only be identified by a ring he was wearing. The victims had held no grudge against the Irish. All of them were simply doing their job without malice or hatred. Their widows will have to live with this tragedy for the rest of their lives. It pains me to think about it.

I have no quarrel with the Irish. In fact, I prefer some of them to the English. Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of associating the IRA with the Irish people and that is not the case at all.

Once our regiment had established itself in Ballykelly, it was not at all bad living over there. It was certainly a hard lesson and we were on edge much of the time, but I managed to avoid taking
part in the more deadly wargames which some of my colleagues went in for.

Before we were transported, there was still much to do in Germany. I had to sort out various relationships as well as repay personal debts. Anke was deeply in love and had given me a diamond ring as a token of her affection. My dad now wears it. I was very attached to Anke and told her I would be back. That was the least painful way to leave her.

On the debit side, there was my colleague’s smashed up BMW. It had been a brand-new car before I wrote it off. I crashed it while he was away on leave and had to find enough cash to pay him back. He was on holiday and I had agreed to buy the car on his return, but I was too impatient to wait for him to come back so I let myself into his room and found the keys to his BMW. Unfortunately, I hadn’t passed my test at the time and my driving skills were woefully inadequate for a high-performance car. Furthermore, the weather had been atrocious. Continual rain on the cobbled stone roads around the camp had made conditions extremely dangerous. The cobbles were as slippery as ice.

One of my friends had tried teaching me the basics of advanced motoring. I hope he kept away from driving schools on his return to civilian life. He showed me handbrake turns and other stunts which a learner shouldn’t even think about. Now I was in the driving seat, feeling for the first time the power I could muster at the touch of a few controls. The urge to put my foot down was far
greater than the need to obey speed limits and soon I was gliding around camp, delirious with joy, like a kid who’d just got his first Christmas present. However, the combination of speed and slippery cobble stones spelt disaster. I lost control and found myself skidding towards a kerb which I hit full on. The car bounced over the pavement and smacked into a tree which it uprooted. My hands gripping the steering wheel, I hung on with
lip-biting
determination, bewildered by the
slow-motion
destruction taking place and hoping against hope that it was all a bad dream.

But the dream had not yet ended and the car continued its journey of demolition, crashing into a NAAFI building and then catapulting through a wall into the bedroom of the lady who ran it. Shaking, but relieved that I had come to no harm, I switched off the engine and wrenched open the doors to inspect the trail of this man-made hurricane. Had the NAAFI manageress been in bed at the time of impact, there is little doubt that she would have been killed. I couldn’t believe the damage. Although the car was a write-off, it took one hell of a battering and it made sure it damaged itself before it damaged me. I was in deep shit, let me tell you. In fact, I’d never been in so much potential trouble in the Army before. Happily, however, after some fancy footwork, I somehow managed to wriggle out of having to pay for the damaged building and the matter was quietly dropped.

Compared to me, my brother John was a saint in the Army, just as he had been at home. I was
always getting into trouble, although the complaints were mostly trivial. I think I had more charges brought against me in a week than my brother had in his six years. Violations of the rules were normally punished by way of fines. There were fines for losing working parts of a gun and fines for insubordination. I lost quite a bit of money this way.

One of the NCOs given the task of collecting these fines was too frightened to ask me. He had been given the job of collecting barrack damages. When you hand over your block to the next regiment, damages sustained to the barracks must be paid every month. He had noted a deduction of about 20 Marks but was terrified of my reputation as a fighter and asked John to collect the outstanding dues.

Ever since I had been posted to Germany, John had played the role of the protective older brother. In fact, he signed up for another three years just to make sure he would be around with me and was quite annoyed when I left before he did.

My final confrontation outside the boxing ring took place on the streets of Bielefeld when two Germans tried to mug me. I was walking along a quiet road when I noticed two guys strolling down towards me and then separate as I came close. Their intention was for me to walk between them, at which point they would attack from each side. The taller of the two went for me first but he was not fast enough. I cracked him on the jaw and he fell down like a lead weight. The other panicked and legged it.

By the time I was ready for the transfer to Ballykelly, I’d fallen deeply in love with Mary Nichols. I had never felt so much passion for any other girl, apart from my first love Susan Marsh. By coincidence, Susan had married an American and was living in Frankfurt during my posting in Germany. She was now a mother of two children and John and I had been invited to visit her. The ten-hour return journey by car was an eye-opener but disappointing. I couldn’t believe the change in her. I was barely out of my teens, a carefree boy with an image of a girl who would be exactly like me.

That image was permanently shattered. Instead of the young girl I had known, I saw a mum with kids and a husband.

Now my thoughts were only for Mary. I had courted her during my leave and was seriously in love. Although we had never been mates, I was at school with her brother Joe who did a huge double-take when he found me comfortably ensconced in an easy chair in his parents’ sitting room. He remembered me as the school bully and, as such, I was the last person you would bring home to meet your mum, dad and sister. However, they were easy to get along with and his sister was in love with me so I was accepted without question.

Mary was two or three years younger than me. I had first set eyes on her at Valentine’s Park in Ilford. We would walk past each other in our own group of friends, exchanging shy and secretive looks. We kept this up for some time, aware of the
attraction but too nervous to do anything about it. Some months later, we crossed paths again at the Palais, a club in Ilford, and this time we summoned up enough courage to talk.

Mary was blonde and very good looking. I still remember the clothes she wore on our first date — a green canvas jacket and faded blue jeans. She looked like Goldie Hawn in the film
Private
Benjamin
. She was really beautiful, with a face that reminded me a little of the actress Felicity Kendall. Eventually, we became lovers and she was my first fiancée. We had a really good relationship which didn’t just depend on sex. There was more love than lust. She would write to me every week. Her letters were like treasures arriving in the post.

We had so much going for us. Her family was lovely. Her dad, Fred, and mum, Patricia, welcomed me into their home and their hearts and I was besotted with their daughter. I always liked women with whom you could have a laugh and Mary had a great sense of humour. She would copy the antics of my brother Mark and have us in fits of laughter. Her dad even got my father trying Indian food, which he normally wouldn’t eat.

The camp at Ballykelly was 13 miles from Londonderry but it was nearly eight months before I ventured outside its perimeters. I continued boxing but occasionally had to take part in army exercises and operations. It was an education being there and I was continually aware of the threats facing us. But let me tell you, I was not going to be a foolhardy volunteer and stick out my neck for inclusion on dangerous missions. One of the great
lessons I had learned from the streets of east London was survival.

My knee wound from Germany had healed up pretty well by now so I could no longer slash open the same scar to get off exercises. However, I became aware of other convenient foot problems, like verrucas and ingrowing toenails, and these provided sufficient relief from boring drudgery in the field.

The danger money they paid us in Northern Ireland was a joke. It was about £2.50 a day — a hell of an incentive to get blown up for Queen and country. I would look at some of the wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-olds who were meant to back me up on manoeuvres and think, ‘No way!’ I was not mad enough to put my trust and life in the hands of young kids who could hardly feed themselves. There was also the constant reminder at the back of my mind, saying, ‘This isn’t your war.’

Mum was always worried about me being in Northern Ireland. Dad told me, ‘She hates it, Nigel. Mum is trembling and scared. She fears for you and John.’ Dad reckons that being in the Army and serving in Northern Ireland changed my whole attitude to life. He said it gave me discipline and direction, although he was aware that I didn’t like being there.

Once you’ve been there you’re not scared of what anybody can do to you. We were required to undertake guard and patrol duties near the border in what was bandit country and that was a bit hairy. You could be blown up or shot at by a sniper. I have never fired a shot in anger, neither was one
ever fired at me but, then, I kept out of the firing line as much as possible. Nevertheless, there was always the danger of being killed and we lost a total of five blokes on two tours. One soldier was shot twice through the head and then there was the terrible bomb blast which killed three of my mates in a van at Enniskillen. The explosion was so devastating that the Army wouldn’t ask the wives to identify the soldiers’ remains.

Because of the advantages it gave, boxing continued to be the most important thing to me. I still hadn’t conformed but a little eccentricity was allowed in sportsmen. Besides this, my reputation was growing all the time because I had never lost a fight. John was more than a little surprised at what they allowed me to get away with, and he liked relating my escapades to family and friends.

‘Nigel was away on patrol with Z Company for a month and I was back at the main base in Ballykelly. All of a sudden your brother is back. I see this guy with boxing boots, denims, combat jacket and a Russian furry hat with a red star on it! That’s how he dressed for the four weeks they were down there. We were howling with laughter. He was the only one who could get away with that. It was obviously because of his boxing skills. They brought a guy from Queen’s Regiment to fight him. This soldier was an old hand in the ring. He’d had 60 fights. Nigel took him out in the first round.’

While it was mostly my brother who battled for me, I was determined to seek revenge on someone who had beaten him in a boxing fight. George Jay was my final boxing opponent in the
Army. Some time earlier he had beaten John and I said that before I left, I wanted to fight him, not through hate but just to even the score. He was a heavyweight while I was only a middleweight, but I beat him on points. Family honour was restored.

A few people asked me if I would consider taking up fighting professionally but that was the last thing to enter my mind. I only saw it as a means to an end while serving with the Fusiliers. It made life easy. I was better fed, excused from boring exercises and enjoyed a new status as the regimental star.

The cushiest number I ever had in the Army was when I became an RP (regimental policeman).

The camp nick was always full. When I was there it was empty. I’d give them a hard time and enjoy it. A squaddie’s idea of a good night out was 15 pints of beer and a good scrap, but they knew if they went to jail with me in charge, they’d get mauled. Some of the men would go really wild. We had a Geordie battalion and some of them lived for drink. One drop of Newcastle Brown and they’d be anybody’s. It took me a while to understand their accent but I really got on with those guys, much better than with the Cockneys.

I happily confess to the fact that I enjoyed bashing blokes about if they got in trouble. It was a great power kick and also the only way to win their respect and keep the jails empty. I’d make them mark time with a heavy artillery Wombat shell. I told one soldier who was particularly lairy to stand against a wall while holding the shell in both hands and then gradually squat down,
kicking out his legs in turn. Once he was down, I cracked a broom handle across his legs.