Nigel Benn Read Free

parents given birth to a girl after their first two sons, they might well have called it a day and not had any more children. I guess there are probably a lot more people out there who also wish I’d been born a girl.
    My dad later told us why he and Mum were so convinced I would be female. Quite simply, they were conned by a gypsy woman who came knocking on the door of our Ilford home two months before I was due. She’d probably heard about us from a mutual acquaintance, because she told Dad, ‘You have five sons and your wife is expecting another child. This time your baby will be a little girl.’
    Dad jumped with joy. He was ecstatic, delirious and grateful. To reward this herald of good news, he went rummaging about the house for money and flowers and gave the gypsy woman his last few pence. In 1964, that amount of money was very important to him and could mean the difference between eating a proper meal or not eating at all. But that didn’t matter in the least. This was what my parents wanted to hear and believe.
    When, some time later, my mum gave birth to me, Dad rang her at King George’s Hospital from a public phone booth. Guessing the worst from the tone in her voice, he said, ‘Go on, tell me it’sanother boy.’
    Mum responded in the repentant tones of a sinner at confessional. ‘Yes, it’s a boy,’ she whispered.
    Dad went berserk. Angrily, he kicked and punched the red telephone kiosk in unbridled fury, hoping it would fall over in the misguided belief that it might help to relieve his frustration. A woman neighbour, who happened to be passing by at that moment, brightly remarked, ‘It’s another boy, then, Mr Benn?’ He gave her a grim look and stormed into the house, muttering that he would be going out in search of the gypsy woman.
    Later that day, he visited Mum in hospital and she asked if he was still disappointed with her. He replied, ‘I’m disappointed, but not with you.’ Apparently, she just smiled and said she was going to be happy with her boys.
    When they’d got over the shock of another son, they christened me Nigel Gregory Benn. However, in spite of everything that had happened, they were determined to learn their lesson the hard way and five years later tried once more for a little girl. This time, there was no gypsy woman on whom they could heap disappointment and anger when their seventh son was born.
    What a shame we weren’t Irish because I learned during my army days in Northern Ireland that the seventh son of a seventh son has special powers.
    With hindsight, the number of men in the Benn family should have been expected because Mum’s brother had six sons and her sister, five,before she gave birth to a daughter.
    Andy was the only child in our family to have been born in Barbados. He was eight years older than me. The rest of us were all born in London. Dermot is five years older than me, then John who is three years older; next is Danny, two years older; Mark, one year; and Anthony, the baby of the family, is almost six years younger than me.
    Although they already had five sons when I was born, Mum was still only 26 and Dad 30. It’s just as well because they needed to be young, healthy and strong, as it would have been impossible otherwise to feed and control seven boisterous lads, each of whom had the appetite of a horse.
    Although we never went hungry, there were lean times and seven lively boys sharing a small three-bedroom house put a strain on everyone. The brothers were forever fighting over food or clothes or just brawling with one another for amusement.
    Thankfully, Mum was a genius at making ends meet and creating meals out of virtually nothing, while Dad provided a heavy-handed discipline in an attempt to keep us all on the right side of the law. I always feared his temper if I did wrong. He is a big man, 6ft 1in and powerfully built. Before he whacked us — and he did so only when we