The Profession of Violence by John Pearson Read Free Book Online

fair is one more part of the vanished East End, but it remains one of the twins’ few childish memories: to begin with they always went with Grandfather Lee, but at ten they started going on their own.
    There was always one moment the twins waited for – the opening of the boxing-booth, with five pounds to anyone to go the distance with one of the booth boxers at their own weight. Up they came, brawny dockers, rash young tearaways, anyone tough or silly enough to risk a beating from a professional for a fiver and a night’s notoriety.
    The first night the twins came on their own, the tent was crammed. Two of the best local boxers, ‘Slasher’ Warner and ‘Buster’ Osbourne, were on the bill and the booth boxers knew how to please the crowd. There was hard punching, several knock-outs, just the right amount of blood. One of the challengers lasted the distance to collect his five pounds.
    â€˜And who’s the next gentleman tonight to take five pounds off me?’ shouted the booth proprietor. ‘We’re giving it away.’
    â€˜I will,’ said Ronnie Kray.
    Some of the audience laughed, but Ronnie looked so serious that the man in charge explained it would be hardto find someone to fight him at his own weight. Reggie stood up.
    â€˜I’ll fight him,’ he said.
    A minute later the twins were in the ring, stripped to the waist, waiting to begin the first boxing match of their lives.
    They were perfectly matched and fought with the same cold fury as they did at home. The crowd was soon cheering them for their gameness, and after three rounds Ronnie had the makings of a black eye and Reggie’s nose was bleeding. Everyone cheered as the owner of the booth declared the fight a draw and gave each of them seven and six. The twins’ careers as boxers had begun.
    It was inevitable they would start boxing sooner or later. Both their grandfathers had been fighters, and in the navy their brother Charlie was a successful inter-services welter-weight. The East End had produced many great fighters. Mendoza, the greatest prize-fighter of all time, came from Whitechapel, and Charles sold second-hand clothing to one of his great-grandsons. In Bethnal Green boxing still seemed to offer a tough, determined boy the quickest way to fame and fortune.
    But boxing was something more than this for the twins. That night in the Victoria Park boxing-booth, they had their first taste of notoriety; from then on, boxing was a passion, absorbing their lonely energies and setting their hopes for the future. If they were ever to find fame legitimately, this would be the way.
    The East End is still full of retired boxers on the lookout for the treasure trove of ‘a likely young’un’ they can discover and coach to success. The twins began lessons with a wizened ex-flyweight who ran a ‘Midgets’ Club’ for schoolboys in a cellar in Whitechapel. Charles encouraged them and they began training at the Browning Club, south of the river. At eleven they were in the ring again, fighting each other in the Hackney Schoolboys Final.
    This time some of the audience were shocked by theviolence with which these twins attacked each other. Reggie won the decision on points. When the trophy was presented there was a muddle over who was who. People were saying it was wrong to allow twins to fight each other, and Violet made them promise never to again.
    Charles was in the hall to see the fight. He was still wanted by the Law, but now the war was over, life was more relaxed. He thought boxing would be the making of the twins, give them the discipline they needed, take them off the streets and give them something other than mischief to occupy their minds. It could also help the family finances: champion boxers made big money. So he was more philosophical than Violet over the twins fighting one another. ‘If they’d not, they’d have both needed to stand down and some outsider would