along too fast. Jackie put his foot through the fence on to a pile of cigarette ends and had to shoot a hand out to stop himself falling when the dogs started trying to scrabble all together to the top of the denuded muddy bank. When he was satisfied there was nothing coming he let them go, and followed them across the lane and over a stile on to a footpath which, as he suspected, the men from the Ministry hadn’t been able to get to to rule out of bounds yet.
Jackie still had the margarine carton inside his jacket. And when Telfer, who had quickly lost ground to the others, tentatively lifted his leg against one of several dozen blue plastic tree tubes that this part of the field was bristling with, he grabbed his chance. He transferred the unhealthily sluggish sample to the plastic bottle and buried the carton in nearby bushes while Telfer hobbled away in pursuit of Ellis and Stella, who had hared off in the direction of a perfectly bone-shaped pond, developed from a settling pond used to trap silt from rainwater run off during open-casting and newly colonized by dragonflies (an illustrated board explained all this). Telfer’s rich sable tail was tucked miserably into his blond hindquarters and he was moving in a way that couldn’t help but remind Jackie of himself.
There was an old saying among the fraternity of punchateers: First your legs go, and then your money, and then your friends. Jackie’s legs had gone and his career had hit the buffers in another age, on another planet, more than half a century earlier, on the night of 11 December 1951.
It was in a British lightweight title eliminator at the Empress Hall, Earls Court. He was on the undercard of Arthur Danahar vs. Omar Kouidri. His opponent was Alby Ash, a Hackney plumberwho boxed under the name ‘Kid Bostock’. Jackie knew he wasn’t fit at the time of the fight, but he was boracic, as everybody seemed to be in those days, and needed to be earning. Six weeks earlier he had been doing some sparring with the European and Empire featherweight champion, Al Phillips, who was known as ‘The Aldgate Tiger’, at Jack Solomons’ gym in Soho, his home from home, when Jackie had felt his knee go. He felt it pop. But he had kept on going and afterwards the Tiger had taken him downstairs to the billiard hall, where there was a coffee bar, and bought him a cup of tea, a cheese roll and five Woodbines. The next day Jackie had been back for more punishment, and a couple of weeks later had even sparred for two rounds and eight pounds with Sandy Saddler, the featherweight champion of the world. In the run-up to the eliminator with Alby Ash, instead of resting the knee, he had punished it by running up and down the terraces at West Ham’s ground at Upton Park, where one of his hundreds of cousins from the Fens had signed papers as a junior. He spent hours alone on the terraces, high-stepping up and down, punishing himself; up and down.
On the night, he began by giving Alby Ash a boxing lesson and was ending by handing him a large-size hiding when, about a minute into the fourth round, he threw a left hook at the hapless Hackney plumber. Jackie’s foot got caught on something loose in the canvas. His body went with the punch but his leg didn’t move. His knee made a terrible pop, and split like it had been sawn in half. He got up and kept hopping on one knee, throwing punches. And then he blacked out. They took him off on a stretcher. The cruciate ligament was torn and repair proved to be out of the question. The hospital operated on the medial as well as the cruciate ligament, and his leg was set in plaster from the ankle to the groin, with the knee in a bent position. That’s the way it had to be for three months. But at the end of that time Jackie knew it was over for him, even if other people didn’t. He rememberedtelling Mr Solomons, who was his manager, of his belief that it was all over. Mr Solomons was rotating a cigar between his lips to light it evenly.
Jackie still had the margarine carton inside his jacket. And when Telfer, who had quickly lost ground to the others, tentatively lifted his leg against one of several dozen blue plastic tree tubes that this part of the field was bristling with, he grabbed his chance. He transferred the unhealthily sluggish sample to the plastic bottle and buried the carton in nearby bushes while Telfer hobbled away in pursuit of Ellis and Stella, who had hared off in the direction of a perfectly bone-shaped pond, developed from a settling pond used to trap silt from rainwater run off during open-casting and newly colonized by dragonflies (an illustrated board explained all this). Telfer’s rich sable tail was tucked miserably into his blond hindquarters and he was moving in a way that couldn’t help but remind Jackie of himself.
There was an old saying among the fraternity of punchateers: First your legs go, and then your money, and then your friends. Jackie’s legs had gone and his career had hit the buffers in another age, on another planet, more than half a century earlier, on the night of 11 December 1951.
It was in a British lightweight title eliminator at the Empress Hall, Earls Court. He was on the undercard of Arthur Danahar vs. Omar Kouidri. His opponent was Alby Ash, a Hackney plumberwho boxed under the name ‘Kid Bostock’. Jackie knew he wasn’t fit at the time of the fight, but he was boracic, as everybody seemed to be in those days, and needed to be earning. Six weeks earlier he had been doing some sparring with the European and Empire featherweight champion, Al Phillips, who was known as ‘The Aldgate Tiger’, at Jack Solomons’ gym in Soho, his home from home, when Jackie had felt his knee go. He felt it pop. But he had kept on going and afterwards the Tiger had taken him downstairs to the billiard hall, where there was a coffee bar, and bought him a cup of tea, a cheese roll and five Woodbines. The next day Jackie had been back for more punishment, and a couple of weeks later had even sparred for two rounds and eight pounds with Sandy Saddler, the featherweight champion of the world. In the run-up to the eliminator with Alby Ash, instead of resting the knee, he had punished it by running up and down the terraces at West Ham’s ground at Upton Park, where one of his hundreds of cousins from the Fens had signed papers as a junior. He spent hours alone on the terraces, high-stepping up and down, punishing himself; up and down.
On the night, he began by giving Alby Ash a boxing lesson and was ending by handing him a large-size hiding when, about a minute into the fourth round, he threw a left hook at the hapless Hackney plumber. Jackie’s foot got caught on something loose in the canvas. His body went with the punch but his leg didn’t move. His knee made a terrible pop, and split like it had been sawn in half. He got up and kept hopping on one knee, throwing punches. And then he blacked out. They took him off on a stretcher. The cruciate ligament was torn and repair proved to be out of the question. The hospital operated on the medial as well as the cruciate ligament, and his leg was set in plaster from the ankle to the groin, with the knee in a bent position. That’s the way it had to be for three months. But at the end of that time Jackie knew it was over for him, even if other people didn’t. He rememberedtelling Mr Solomons, who was his manager, of his belief that it was all over. Mr Solomons was rotating a cigar between his lips to light it evenly.
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