(Click photo to view original source and Bio)
Many were those in the boxing world claimed Tommy Farr, our very own heavyweight, beat the brown bomber, Joe Louis in a world championship bout in America.
No need to name the date, for it was held at the time of bare stairs, no carpets on the floors, and cold draughts through half open doors.
I was living in a Shenley nurse’s cottage in North avenue with others. It was not an easy gig, relieved only by the arrival of newcomers from Dartford, the Lucia’s.
The father and son were both alike, apart from age. Today they would have earned the sobriquet Godzilla. Of such girth, they would frighten anyone, within or without
Despite the son, Billy’s, wayward proclivities, I made a mate with him, that’s what kid’s do. Of course, he towered way above me, being six and a half foot tall. Bill lived in Shenley’s nursing cottages, down the hill from Black Lion in North Avenue.
Now, Billy’s old man had secured a job in the local mental hospital by Shenley, above the hill, alongside our quaint old village, not twenty miles out of London.
Being days of non PC it was referred too, indelicately as the ‘loony bin’, and those confined, called ‘lunatics’.
It was not long before I learned that Bill senior would take himself on occasion to the Thomas A’ Beckett pub in the Mile End Road, to spar with our very own British heavyweight champion, Tommy Farr.
At the same time, Bill junior was taking on well bronzed fighters in the boxing booth at Barnet Fair, to earn a mean five pounds.
Times so bad in those days it was not unusual to find Bill’s dad in his potting shed filtering blackcurrant juice or such like, through his old aertex pants, flaring up on our chivvying him.
Yet, I believe those hard times, sharpened one’s senses, to strive for the eternal goa of making money, making Bill’s dad fearless, to take on the mighty Tommy Farr, in the boxing ring. No small feat.
It had its consequences. Arriving on Bill’s ward as Shenley Charge Nurse the staff would note his dishevelment, his punished, bruised body. It being, more black then blue, and say, ‘he’s been at the Beckett again, Farr’s given him a right seeing too, a real pasting, bet he belted him from one corner of ring to the other!
(Published in Shenley Village Matters – Issue 31, Page 35, Summer 2024)