Nigel Benn Read Free Page B

complement his smart trousers and jackets. These small treasures would all be locked away until another brother decided to pick the locks and borrow the items. On discovery, the inevitable fight would break out, but what else could you expect with up to five brothers sharing one bedroom?
    If the fighting became too violent, Andy would protect me from the others. He was by far the toughest of the Benn brood and nobody would take him on lightly. I felt happy and contented in his company and revelled in tales of his street fighting and his daring. I was too young to be judgemental about his actions and too much in awe of him to question his motives. After his death, I cried and cried for him. I missed his warmth and his charisma. I was unwilling to banish him from my mind. I wanted to be Andy.
    It is possible, if I search my mind and try to be honest, to come to the conclusion that, for the restof my life, I would seek his replacement. That, at least, is one interpretation that could explain my actions because, after Andy’s departure, I befriended much older boys than myself and was determined to be the toughest kid in the neighbourhood. From the age of 11 or 12, I would be found in the company of older boys and young men, some of whom were twice my age.
    Later, in my professional life, whenever I saw what appeared to be exceptional or Svengali qualities in people, I tended to be impressed by them and, on occasions, fell under their spell until disillusionment set in. At the end of the day, I should have realised that the best people for advice were back in Henley Road — my mum and dad. They are the only ones I really listen to now.
    After some expensive and harrowing experiences, I now manage my own affairs and tend to keep people at a distance unless I know them really well. I have been very badly let down and hurt in the past by people to whom I extended my loyalty and friendship within a business relationship. Learning through my errors, and some of them have been very costly, I have become more cynical in my choice of friends and business partners.
    Outside my immediate family circle, my first fight was with bare knuckles at a local swimming pool with a kid called Leo Isaacs. I was about nine and Leo was three years older and full of himself. Now he’s a good mate of my brother’s, but then I just wanted to hit him. He was short, powerful and stocky. I wouldn’t like to fight him now because heis really strong and a specialist at holding you in a deadly headlock. But I didn’t know that at nine, and I punched him straight in the eye and scored my first victory.
    The fights with my brothers were too frequent and too numerous to list, although there were a few memorable ones.
    On one occasion, my brother Danny thought he had killed me. We’d been fighting over a can of baked beans when Danny had had enough of me punching him. He grabbed me, held my arms and bit my tongue so hard that his teeth went right through it. (All the scars on my face and head are not from the ring but from injuries sustained when fighting my brothers and members of the public in the streets around Ilford long before I became a boxer.)
    When Danny bit me, I was in a state of shock and couldn’t talk. However, the wounds healed relatively quickly and soon we were at loggerheads again. This time it started after I’d given him a lot of verbal. I was taking the mickey and he told me to shut up. Kids can be pretty cruel and we were no exception. Danny had once had a fit while eating a toffee. The sight of it was hilarious and will stick in my mind for ever. We’d all watched him sitting in front of a heater, a toffee stuck in his mouth, and his head jerking towards the ceiling and these two large eyes were rolling around uncontrollably. A doctor had been present and was tugging at his ear lobe to bring him to his senses.
    After that, we called him Toffee. Adding insult to injury, we would play a version of the TV