Foreigners

II. Made in Wales

On the morning of 9 July, 1951, a twenty-three-year-old mixed-race man stepped off a train at London's Paddington Station and looked all around at the cavernous vastness of the place. The youngster had visited London before, but today there was something auspicious about his arrival in the great capital city for the young man's name was on everybody's lips. Randolph Turpin was born, and had grown up, in the Midlands town of Leamington Spa, a place which, until the rediscovery of the town's mineral springs in the late eighteenth century, was little more than a tiny village called the Leamington Priors. The visit of Queen Victoria in 1838, to discover for herself the nature of the healing and restorative powers of the waters, resulted in the town being honoured and renamed Royal Leamington Spa. However, by the mid-twentieth century there were two Leamingtons; the elegant Georgian and Regency Leamington, which was a haven for the genteel and the elderly, and then an altogether less attractive working-class enclave. Turpin was a product of the less impressive face of the town. As the train which had deposited Turpin, his older brothers Dick and Jackie, and Turpin's manager, the reliable and strait-laced Mr George Middleton, continued to belch smoke, the four men stared at the press of people. A large crowd made up of journalists and the general public in equal numbers gawped back in their direction. The train was half an hour late, but Turpin's reception committee would have waited all day if necessary. A flashbulb popped, and a newspaperman's voice could be heard above the roar of the station. 'Randy!' And then another bulb popped, and another voice was raised, and then the crowd began to surge up the platform towards the new arrivants. The coloured brothers looked anxiously at each other, while George Middleton looked beyond the rush of people and tried to find his contact. And then, just as the crowd began to swarm around the Midlanders, Mr Jack Solomons appeared, complete with trilby and chewing on a cigar, and he restored some order. 'Gentlemen, please. Step back and give Mr Turpin some room.' The selfproclaimed king of British boxing slipped a paternal arm around the shoulders of young Randy, and took charge of the situation. Jack Solomons was a man who, in the parlance of the times, liked to talk fast and plenty. 'Gentlemen, you know the procedure. You'll have all the time in the world to converse with Mr Turpin later on. Now come on, please. Step aside. We don't want to wear out the young man, do we?'

As Mr Solomons' car pulled away from in front of Paddington Station, a few newspapermen ran alongside the vehicle, and a lone photographer persisted in pointing his camera at the car window and snapping away. However, once they passed through the first set of traffic lights, the journalists were left behind. On the train journey to London, Turpin, his brothers, and his manager had taken breakfast together and Randy had spilled the salt. Randy wasn't a superstitious man, far from it, but the look of alarm that crossed Mr Middleton's face gave him pause for thought. He had watched as his manager took a pinch of salt and quickly tossed it over his left shoulder. As they now sped towards the West End of London, Randy stole a quick glance at Mr Middleton, who was staring calmly out of the car window, but his manager betrayed his inner anxiety by the fact that he was biting down hard against his bottom lip. By the time Mr Solomons' car entered Piccadilly Circus the crowds in the street had begun to multiply, so much so that the driver was forced to slow almost to a halt. Suddenly, it looked as though it might not be possible to get much closer to Jack Solomons' gymnasium and offices at 41 Great Windmill Street, but two policemen on horseback began to clear a way through the crowds and inch by inch the car made its way forward until it was able to deposit them all at the rear entrance to the building. However, even here crowds of autograph hunters were waiting, but Turpin could tell by the hurried manner with which Mr Middleton and Mr Solomons kept glancing at each other that there would be no time to fraternise with his fans. They both wanted Turpin calm and settled for tomorrow's date with destiny, and the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson.

The following lunchtime, Turpin's opponent, along with his retinue of handlers and hangers-on, arrived at the 'Palace of Jack', as Solomons liked to call his gymnasium and suite of offices. Sugar Ray Robinson was born Walker Smith in Ailey, Georgia, in 1921, and he grew up in Detroit, Michigan. As a teenage amateur he won the Golden Gloves featherweight title, and people were already talking about him as a potential great champion. However, just how 'great' he would become none of them could ever have imagined. He made his official professional debut in 1940 as a welterweight, and he soon won the 147 lb world title. He then stepped up to fight as a middleweight and he also won the world title at 160 lb. By 1951, Sugar Ray Robinson had fought 133 professional fights and lost only once, to Jake La Motta. However, this was a defeat that he soon avenged in a rematch. Ray Robinson was a worldwide celebrity whose very name conjured up notions of both invincibility and flamboyance, and his fame was such that only a few weeks earlier, on 25 June, 1951, he had appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Having dispatched all of his American opponents, Robinson had recently taken to trailing Europe for fighters who would provide him with big paydays and easy victories, and when Robinson toured he did so in style. He drove a huge flamingo-pink Cadillac convertible and he stayed in only the swankiest accommodation. His entourage of boosters included his manager, his doctor, a golf pro, a hairdresser, a spiritual adviser, and a midget comic, or 'good humour' man, named Jimmy Karoubi, among many others. Awed by legendary tales of the Sugarman's extraordinary skill, and by the evidence of the maestro's oozing confidence, his opponents were generally beaten before they had even ducked their heads through the ropes. Very few doubted that Robinson was, pound for pound, the greatest fighter who had ever lived, and at thirty he was at the peak of his career.

It was Jack Solomons, Britain's pre-eminent promoter, who had persuaded Robinson to add a final date to his latest European tour and cross the English Channel in order that he might fight young Turpin and put his world middleweight title on the line. Solomons was born in 1900 in the East End of London, but this Yiddish-speaking cockney was not the most popular man in British boxing, combining as he did the 'talents' of thuggishness and business cunning. However, Solomons was a man who could get matches made. Robinson was undertaking a series of non-title exhibition fights in Zurich, Antwerp, Liege, Berlin, and Turin, and initially the American had little interest in risking his title in London against an unknown, unless, of course, the money was right. Solomons travelled to Paris, where Robinson's entourage was resting before moving on to Belgium, and he asked Robinson to name his price. Robinson laughed and told him '$100,000 and not one cent less', and a disappointed Solomons returned to London. This sum, which was the equivalent of nearly £30,000, was unheard of at a time when the vast majority of British workers earned less than £5 a week. However, Solomons was a man who relished a challenge, and having been in the company of the great Sugar Ray he was now more determined than ever to make this match. Solomons worked and reworked his figures, and then persuaded Turpin's manager, George Middleton — a man who he described as 'one of the most reasonable men in the world to do business with' — to accept £12,000, which was less than half of what Robinson would earn. Finally, he returned to Paris with contracts in hand, and a smiling Sugar Ray Robinson signed to fight Britain's own Randolph Turpin for the world middleweight crown. Jack Solomons would be promoting the biggest bout in British boxing history, and the great Sugar Ray Robinson would be bringing his flamingo-pink Cadillac and flamboyant personality to post-war Britain.

Soon after Robinson's arrival, the Savoy Hotel in London had asked the American to leave, for the masses of fans that daily thronged the lobby and pavements outside of the hotel were making it impossible for the management to run the Savoy with the grace and decorum that their regular customers had come to expect. As a result the Sugar Ray Robinson party decamped to the Star and Garter public house in Windsor where the proprietors made every effort to accommodate the eccentricities of their coloured guests. On the morning of 10 July, Sugar Ray Robinson and his team departed for central London and the weighin. Once they reached Piccadilly Circus, Robinson's party were taken aback by the size of the crowds that had gathered in anticipation of the day's events. Crowds like this had not greeted him in France or in Belgium, or in any of the other places where he had displayed his flashy talents on his recent tour. It was clear that the somewhat depressed people of England, in their still bombed-out country, were in need of some kind of glamorous boost, and this being the case Sugar Ray was happy to provide this for them.

The weigh-in was scheduled to take place at just after noon at 'Solomons Promotions', and this would mark the first time that Turpin would set eyes upon the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson. Turpin had once again struggled to make his way through the crowds and into Jack Solomons' gym, but the Leamington man understood that although people were thrilled that a British lad was getting a chance to 'have a go' at Robinson, the vast majority of those in the streets, and the lucky ones packed into the gym, were eager for a glimpse of the hotshot American. His involuntary exile to the Star and Garter pub in Windsor had deprived Londoners of the chance of seeing the world champion and his entourage promenading through London, or going through their paces in Hyde Park. This would be their first and last chance to ogle the American before the title bout, and most London fight fans seemed keen to seize it. As Turpin stood beside the scales and waited, he remained calm and he appeared, to those who looked on, to be patient and focused. As noise and confusion continued to swell all around him, Turpin decided to sit down and stare at the ground between his feet and ignore the shouted questions from the mob of journalists.

Most of the sportswriters were convinced that Jack Solomons, and his 'yes man', George Middleton, had, in their quest for money, foolishly overmatched the promising coloured fighter with a man who was not only going to roundly wallop him, but a man who might well inflict serious and permanent damage on the youngster. The bookmakers' odds of seven to one on for a Robinson victory, and twenty to one against Turpin being on his feet at the end of the contest, suggested a forgone conclusion at best, and at worst a cynical attempt on the part of Solomons to cash in on Robinson's brief presence in Europe by throwing a dusky English lamb to the slaughter. Even if the coloured lad from Leamington did manage to stay out of Robinson's reach for the early part of the fight, he had never gone beyond eight rounds in his life, while Robinson had regularly fought fifteen-round pitched battles against American men of steel. But this did not deter the public who, once the fight had been announced, snapped up the 18,000 tickets to the Exhibition Hall at Earls Court in less than a week. Jack Solomons soon realised that he could have sold twice as many tickets, which ranged from ten guineas at ringside, to one guinea in the rafters, and doubled the £80,000 gate by putting the fight in a larger venue. Robinson versus Turpin was not only the highest profile fight in British boxing history, it was destined to be the biggest single sporting event ever held in Britain. Young Randolph Turpin's part was already written: to take his punishment like a man and put up a good show, and the unusual nature of his preparation suggested that he fully understood the script.

A year earlier, in the summer of 1950, Turpin, together with his brother Jackie, moved temporarily from Leamington Spa to set up training camp in Wales. The fight with Robinson had not yet been made, but Turpin had got it into his head that by moving away from the distractions of his home town he could better concentrate on preparing himself for the business of championship boxing. A Wales-based businessman named Leslie Thomas Salts had recently purchased Gwrych Castle near Llandudno, which had been originally constructed in 1819 and over the years had fallen into some disrepair. However, it still remained a magnificent listed property with a view of the Irish Sea, a famous marble staircase, dining rooms, smoking rooms, a billiard room, and over 200 acres of land that included stables and extensive lawns. Intending to open the place to the public as 'the Showplace of Wales', Salts had installed rides and attractions for children, but it occurred to Salts that having professional boxers training and sparring on his grounds, and charging the public to watch, might well be a further source of income. And so it proved. His first boxer was the British heavyweight, Bruce Woodcock, but Salts soon realised that the amenable and charismatic Turpin would most probably be a better drawing card. Turpin was initially overwhelmed by his first sighting of the huge, stone-walled fiefdom, with its acres of open, rolling hills, and the castle presiding high up on a hillside. The spectacular estate possessed a verdant grandeur that exceeded anything Turpin had ever seen or imagined. He was safe in this private kingdom, in which he was the prince to Salts' king, and he could temporarily escape his upbringing, his past, and imagine himself to be a man free of the considerable pressure of being obligated to family and friends. However, Turpin's manager, George Middleton, was not happy with his fighter retreating to Wales for he did not regard Leslie Salts as a straight shooter, but he knew that once Randolph Turpin had made up his mind there really was little point in arguing with him.

In the late summer of 1950, Turpin fought a tough opponent, named Eli Elandon, and defeated him in under two rounds, and therefore the relative isolation of the castle as a training base seemed to have worked. Once the world title bout with Robinson was announced, Turpin decided to move back to Wales in order that he might prepare for the biggest fight of his career. This time, rather than have Turpin training up on the hillside, the opportunistic Salts moved Turpin's camp to the more spacious east lawn and put up a huge sign: COME AND MEET A BRITISH CHAMPION AT SUNNY GWRYCH CASTLE.

Come they did, and they paid two shillings to see Turpin jogging lightly towards the ring like a gladiator in his white robe, flanked on one side by his smaller brother Jackie, who carried his gloves, and on the other side by a sparring partner who would soon be given a thorough goingover. Salts was making good money not only out of admission fees, but from selling autographed souvenirs. The constant flow of sparring partners, including Turpin's brother Jackie, all felt underpaid and underappreciated, often having to go down into the town in order that they might find a decent meal. However, Salts had managed to work his way into the full confidence of Turpin, and the fighter's mind remained fixed on the discipline of training. In fact, Turpin was content to leave all business and financial arrangements to Middleton and Salts.

Britain in the early fifties was a desolate place whose urban landscape remained largely pockmarked with bomb sites. Derelict buildings and wasteland spoke eloquently to the pummelling that the country had taken in the recent war, but the government lacked the resources to do anything about this bleak terrain. Victory against Germany had been achieved, but at a price that some now considered simply too high. While Allied money flowed into Germany to help rebuild the defeated nation, six years after the war Britain appeared to have stagnated economically, its confidence shot, and its people suffering. Thousands of servicemen had returned after the war only to discover that there was no industrial machine for them to rejoin, and that jobs were scarce on the ground. The women who had manned the factories during the war found it difficult to readjust to their old roles as housewives and mothers, and those for whom privilege had been an accepted part of their pre-war life soon discovered that the introduction of a welfare state, with free health and education for the working classes, heralded a challenge to their assumptions of class superiority. Britain was depressed and good times seemed a long way off. The average Briton still utilised his ration book and had to remember to count each penny, and day trips to glamorous locations like Gwrych Castle were to be savoured. The opportunity of seeing boxers in action, particularly champion boxers like young Randolph Turpin, brightened up everybody's lives. When it was announced that Sugar Ray Robinson would be visiting Britain, and that a British lad would be given the chance to enter the ring and go a few rounds with him, this was a shot in the arm to the blighted confidence of the British people. Everybody was excited that the Sugarman, pink Cadillac and all the rest of it, would soon be in town.

After Turpin and Robinson shook hands and posed briefly for photographs, Turpin stripped off his shabby dressing gown and mounted the scales. At 5'11'' and with unusually broad shoulders, he tipped the scales at 159 lb. His opponent, on the other hand, was 5½ lb inside the 160 lb limit. Robinson looked at the Englishman and found it hard to believe that this heavily muscled coloured lad was not at least a light heavyweight. The strapping lad was clearly as strong as an ox and in his autobiography Robinson was to describe his feelings at this moment. 'Right there, Turpin impressed me. His torso was like an oak tree. If he could box even a little bit I was going to be in trouble.' Of course, the British knew that their man could fight a bit. After all, he was the British and European middleweight champion, and he never seemed to worry unduly about who he was going to fight. In fact, this was his greatest asset, his ability to approach every bout as though it was no more or no less difficult than the one before. However, those pressmen who had bothered to visit his camp at Gwrych Castle would have seen how, on this occasion, his training had been geared specifically to cope with Robinson's fast combinations and the most devastating left hook in the business. One training partner in particular had been detailed to throw nothing but Sugar Ray-style left hooks, hard, fast, and non-stop. However, despite Robinson's private ruminations on seeing Turpin stripped to the waist, Sugar Ray knew that he was the champion, he was the draw, and tomorrow his European sojourn would be at an end and he would be counting his money and readying himself to depart back across the Atlantic Ocean in the direction of New York City.

The weigh-in ended with the British Boxing Board of Control doctor verifying that both the champion and the challenger were in a fit state to fight this evening over fifteen rounds for the middleweight championship of the world. For most of the proceedings, Robinson had effortlessly played to the crowd, who clearly adored him. Turpin, by contrast, had stayed quietly in the background enjoying the 'show' as much as anyone else. As the weigh-in concluded, and the Robinson entourage left noisily for a West End hotel, Turpin, his brothers Dick and Jackie, and George Middleton realised that they had a whole afternoon to kill and they were momentarily stumped as to what to do. It was Randolph Turpin who decided that the most important thing would be to get away from the hordes of people, and so he suggested that they all go and watch a film. After all, it would be dark inside the cinema, and nobody would recognise them so they would be able to sit down and unwind in peace.

George Middleton bought four entrance tickets and they all trooped into a West End picture house and took their seats. Within minutes of the feature beginning, Turpin was pushing Jackie and rousing him from his sleep. 'Wake up, Jack. This is a bloody good film!' Jackie tried to stay awake, but the warmth and comfort of the cinema won the battle and soon he was once again fast asleep. Randolph Turpin, however, paid rapt attention and he followed the whole story right down to the film's conclusion. As they stepped out of the cinema and into the light of a beautiful late afternoon in July, George Middleton looked nervously at his watch. It was time. They found their way to the nearest Tube station where George bought four single fares to Earls Court and handed the brothers their tickets. Fight fans who were travelling from work directly to the Exhibition Hall at Earls Court could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw Randolph Turpin, his fight gear in a used carrier bag that was tucked neatly under his arm, riding to the biggest night in British sporting history on the same Tube as them. Whatever the outcome of tonight's fight, this man of the people was already a hero. Should he manage to survive even one or two rounds and put up a decent showing, this would be enough to get the celebratory pints flowing later on in the evening. Few could ever have imagined it, but on this particular night it was a coloured fighter on whom all British hopes were pinned.

British people have always held their prizefighters in high esteem, for their toughness and rugged durability represents, in their eyes, the very best of the British bulldog spirit. Boxing is also a sport which brings together those at either end of the social spectrum, with the bouts generally fought by working-class toughs under the supervision and patronage of blue bloods and aristocrats. For the upper classes, being able to box is a social skill which one often acquires as part of one's education, but actual prizefighting is considered best left to the lower orders. In the early nineteenth century, both the blue bloods and the lower classes came together when an outsider, a black American named Tom Molineaux, was scheduled to fight the British hero Tom Cribb for what would have been regarded the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world. The fight took place in December 1810 at Copthall Common just south of London, and thousands of people poured out of the city and gathered in a field to witness the battle royal. The black American was clearly getting the better of the Englishman, but unable to tolerate the notion of the championship being in the hands of either an American, or a black man, the crowd stormed the ring injuring Molineaux's hands. The fight was eventually restarted, but the 'ebony imposter', as the English had dubbed him, was incapable of defending himself and was eventually defeated. The championship title remained in English hands and the foreign threat was vanquished.

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century bare-knuckle fighting eventually gave way to 'boxing' in 1867, when twelve rules for the sport were drafted and published under the patronage of John Douglas, the ninth Marquess of Queensberry. Fights were now to be 'a fair stand-up boxing match' in a twenty-four-foot ring, with rounds of three minutes duration and one minute of rest between each round. Padded gloves were to be worn, and there was to be no 'butting or wrestling', and should a man be knocked down he would be allowed ten seconds to get up. The first world title bout under these rules saw the heavyweight 'Gentleman Jim' Corbett defeat John L. Sullivan in 1892 in New Orleans. By the end of the nineteenth century, and on into the twentieth, the odd stout-hearted English fighter aside, American boxers ruled the roost at most weights. Wave after wave of new American immigrant — Italian, Irish, and Jewish — attempted to establish a place in American life by earning some respect in the ring. However, when it came to title shots black boxers were often deliberately left at the back of the line. The charismatic black boxer Jack Johnson, who held the world heavyweight title from 1908 until 1915, did much to stir up hostility and antipathy towards coloured fighters by the outlandish nature of his behaviour. Boastful, arrogant even, with a twinkling eye, a broad grin, and a succession of white women on his arm, Johnson was everything that 'white America' hated. When 'white America' finally won back 'their' heavyweight championship in 1915, they were reluctant to let any other uppity negroes take it away again. In the future their champions would be white, or black and humble, like Joe Louis. Sugar Ray Robinson fell into the category of the humble for, despite all his flash and his panache, he was a charmer who possessed impeccable manners. He was, in short, an acceptable negro, a person who most white Americans were proud and comfortable to see representing them.

In Britain things had been, until two years earlier, somewhat different. A clear colour bar had been in effect so that black boxers were prohibited from fighting for or holding the British title. They were allowed to fight for the British Empire title, but at all weights black boxers, even if they were, like Randolph Turpin, born and bred in Britain, were treated as foreigners and excluded from fighting for their own national championship. After the Second World War there was increasingly vocal opposition to the policy, and in 1947 the racist restriction was lifted. Fittingly, it was Turpin's eldest brother, Dick, who, in June 1948, became Britain's first black boxing champion, lifting the middleweight crown. He lost the title in April 1950, but a few months later, in October 1950, his brother Randy won back the title. However, a national title was not nearly enough to guarantee a lucrative payday. Fight fans tended to rally behind local heroes, and to some extent box offices depended upon a fighter bringing his loyal followers to a bout. Although many people in the Midlands did recognise Randolph Turpin as one of their own, there was no serious box-office support for a coloured fighter no matter how skilled or game he might be. There was no doubt that Turpin was popular and regarded as a man of the people, but the interest of the general public in the Robinson versus Turpin bout was generated by Robinson's presence, and by the David versus Goliath aspect of the clash. The British Boxing Board of Control may have relaxed their rules to accommodate coloured boxers, but the general public had still not fully warmed to the idea of black boxers being also British.

On the warm summer's evening of 10 July, 1951, 18,000 people were packed into the Earls Court Exhibition Hall, with many hundreds more milling about in the car park outside. In homes throughout the length and breadth of the country, over twenty million people were tuned into the BBC Home Service to listen to Raymond Glendenning's live radio commentary, including King George VI who was sitting next to the wireless in Buckingham Palace. Inside Turpin's dressing room, the young boxer sat calmly on a bench immersed in a comic book, which was often his preferred reading matter. Never one to panic or become overly agitated before a bout, there was something almost resigned about Turpin's demeanour which worried his Manchester-based Irish trainer, Mick Gavin, his brothers Dick and Jackie, and his manager, George Middleton. Eventually Turpin was encouraged to put down his comic book so that his seconds could slip on his gloves and fasten them tightly into place, and then his threadbare dressing gown was slipped around his broad shoulders and everybody was ready. In keeping with tradition, the challenger would enter the arena first. Shortly before 9:30 p.m., George Middleton opened the door to the dressing room allowing the clamour and noise to greet them for the first time. As Turpin shuffled past Robinson's dressing room, he could hear noise and laughter from within. The American was clearly upbeat and confident of an easy payday and a swift return trip home.

These days fighters tend to enter the ring to loud, thumping music of their own choice, with laser beams cutting through the air and a razzle-dazzle of a performance that is more akin to the circus than a sporting event. On this particular July evening, the lights were dimmed and the spotlights picked out Turpin as he entered the arena to nothing more than loud cheers of encouragement from those who were able to strain their necks and get a glimpse of the lad from Leamington Spa. Some spectators stood on their seats as the British champion edged his way towards ringside, and then Turpin ducked through the ropes and stepped into the ring where finally he was visible to the sell-out crowd. They noisily and enthusiastically cheered the coloured lad, and then the champion appeared and he, in great contrast to the low-key entrance of Turpin, seemed to revel in his self-assigned role of showman. His hair was slick and straightened, with not a single lick out of place, and he flashed a broad smile for the cameras. As he moved towards the ring, draped in a white robe with a blue silk gown on top, he bobbed and weaved as though eager to let everybody know that he was ready for business. Behind him, like courtiers traipsing after a prince, were his attendants, all uniformly pristine in blue and white tops with the words 'Sugar Ray' emblazoned on their backs. Having climbed into the ring the champion bowed respectfully to all four sides of the arena, and then he turned to acknowledge the challenger who was visibly sweating in his corner. As the announcer began to declare that the feature contest of the evening was about to commence, Robinson made a display of not taking his stool, preferring instead to bounce ominously from foot to foot in his corner, and bang his gloves together as though eager to get the proceedings over and done with. The prince of the ring stared at his English opponent, who appeared to have dead man's eyes, and Sugar Ray wondered if the Limey was yellow. Turpin sat slumped on his stool as though awaiting his fate. From where he was sitting he could see the Movietone cameras already whirring with activity for, whatever the outcome, the newsreel of this fight would soon be broadcast in all the major picture houses in Britain. The referee, an ex-heavyweight from Scotland named Eugene Henderson, signalled to the fighters to ready themselves, and Turpin drew himself to his full height knowing that there was now no turning back.

A little over an hour, and fifteen gruelling rounds later, Turpin slipped an arm around the American's shoulders and escorted him back to his corner in a gesture of respect. The fight was over and the 18,000 voices in the Earls Court Exhibition Hall were raised as one, singing chorus after chorus of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!'. The BBC's unashamedly patrician Raymond Glendenning, with his handlebar moustache and clipped received pronunciation, posed the rhetorical question to the whole nation. 'Who has won?' Those who were present at the fight had no doubt who had won, but Glendenning kept the whole nation, including the king, on tenterhooks. In the ring, Turpin congratulated Sugar Ray and his corner men, and a breathless champion patted his British opponent on the back muttering, 'Good fight. Good fight, kid.' Eugene Henderson saw that both fighters were in the American's corner and he knew that there was no need for him to consult his scorecard. He walked over and raised Turpin's hand, at which point Glendenning's words exploded across the beleaguered nation. 'Turpin has won! Turpin has won! Turpin, Randolph Turpin, twenty-three-year-old from Leamington Spa, is the new middleweight champion of the world!' George Middleton, Dick and Jackie Turpin, and Turpin's trainer, Mick Gavin, leapt across the ring and hugged the new world champion, while in the hall pandemonium broke out. The chorus of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!' increased in volume as Robinson climbed his way out from the ring and shuffled in the direction of his dressing room, leaving Turpin to bask in the applause and cheers of the Earls Court crowd.

Once he reached his dressing room, the new world champion showered quietly and then got dressed. His brothers were clearly far more excited than he was, and they pressed him to tell them what Sugar Ray had said to him. Turpin thought for a moment and then said that Robinson had told him, 'You were good. Real good. Just like everybody had said you were.' Turpin knew that he had fought well, his seventy-four-inch reach keeping Robinson at bay, his wide stance allowing him to maintain his balance, and his upper body strength enabling him to bully the American in every clinch and inflict a wound over the American's left eye that would require fourteen stitches. In between rounds Turpin had remained calm and relaxed on his stool, his legs spread out before him and his elbows resting up on the ropes, but each time the bell rang he sprang to his feet and his superior conditioning and unorthodox crouching style eventually left Robinson battered and exhausted.

Randolph Turpin was now the undisputed 160 lb champion of the whole world, but he seemed temporarily bewildered, as though this title was not what he had been seeking, and the events of the evening had been a strange, unsolicited, consequence of simply doing what he enjoyed. As the Turpin group left Earls Court, they could hear those inside the Exhibition Hall still singing 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!'. Outside in the car park, and in all the streets leading to the Earls Court Tube station, there was cheering and joyous celebrations the like of which had not been seen or heard since VE Day some six years earlier. However, Turpin seemed untouched by all of the exuberance, and he simply smiled as though unable to comprehend whatever forces he had just released in the soul of the British nation. Meanwhile, a chastened Robinson, having had his stitches administered in the privacy of his own dressing room, sought to avoid the press by seeking out a nearby Earls Court bed and breakfast. In the morning he would leave quickly on the first boat train to Paris, from where he would fly home to New York City. He left instructions that his entourage should make their own way to France as soon as possible.

In the morning a practically unblemished Turpin awoke in his hotel room bright and early, and he decided to go out for a short stroll with George Middleton and try to walk off some of the stiffness in his muscles. The country had partied hard and long on the previous evening, but Turpin had avoided the limelight and got his head down for a good night's rest. This morning it was not so easy for the new champion to avoid the crowds, but Turpin and his manager, with the assistance of the hotel staff, managed to sneak out of a back door. Predictably enough, the British newspapers were full of reports of Turpin's almost unbelievable victory, and triumphant stories were blazoned across both the front and the back pages. In the United States, reporters were aghast, not only by the fact that Robinson had been defeated, but by the manner in which he had been so easily outboxed, outjabbed and outmuscled by, of all people, a Limey. The only possible explanation was that Sugar Ray's constant whirl of European social engagements, his nightclubbing, golf games, exhibitions for money, and constant travelling, had taken their toll on the great man. Surely there would be a rematch?

Back in Leamington Spa, the mother of Britain's new sporting hero had listened to the fight on the radio. When reporters eventually beat their way to her door in order to secure a quote, she gathered her wits about her, looked them straight in the eyes, and, reluctant to distinguish between Randolph and her two other fighting sons, she told them, 'I am proud of my sons. A lot of people thought they were nothing. Well, my sons have shown them.' She knew that all of Leamington Spa, and the nearby historic town of Warwick, where Turpin had spent some part of his childhood, was abuzz with excitement. Turpin's mother assured the reporters that either later today, or tomorrow, her world champion son would be coming back home. Before the fight she had heard her son cautiously suggest that victory might mean a new car and a new house for him, but with a mother's instinct she sensed that it would probably mean much more than this for her son. She worried, for she knew that young Randolph did not possess the business acumen to surround himself with the right people, and he was by far the most sensitive of her children, but why worry about this now? Maybe when he came home she might talk to him about things, but her youngest son could be strangely reserved and moody, and she did not imagine that he was about to change.

On 12 July, 1951, less than forty-eight hours after his dazzling victory at the Earls Court Exhibition Hall, Turpin was back in the Midlands where the mayors of both Warwick and Leamington Spa, the two towns that could claim to have produced the boxer, organised a joint reception. Turpin was seated in the back of an open-top black Humber limousine, democratically perched between the mayors of both towns, and he began his victory journey in the narrow medieval streets in the centre of Warwick. He had never heard of these men, but they certainly knew his name and they continually pumped his hand, and slapped him on the back, and posed with him for photographs. A bemused Turpin understood that this was likely to be the way for some time, but this was not a life that he was eager to get used to. The car was twenty minutes late leaving Warwick because, having just arrived from London, Turpin had decided to take a nap and he had overslept. This delay meant that they would be late arriving in Leamington Spa for the official reception, but the mayor of Leamington let the new champion know that he should not worry for they would just tell the press that the car had suffered a punctured tyre.

The journey did not take long, and all along the way people waved and cheered as the Humber limousine glided by. A somewhat shy Turpin followed the lead of the mayors and waved back, and as the car eventually turned into the centre of Leamington Spa the crowds became denser, slowing the Humber's progress almost to a halt. Clearly most people had taken the day off work, for over 20,000 cheering people thronged the streets. Bright streamers and banners were hung from every available place, a brass band was thumping out music, and up above an RAF jet from the nearby base was doing victory rolls and loops in the sky. This was the greatest day in the town's history, and all of this was due to the success of one man. At the sight of their all-conquering hero the crowd began to sing 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!' and their overwhelming adulation finally brought a lump to Turpin's throat. Surely all of this could not be for him? The limousine drew to a halt outside of Leamington Spa Town Hall, and Turpin looked up and read the sign that was hanging from the balcony: LEAMINGTON SPA WELCOMES THEIR CHAMPION RANDOLPH TURPIN.

Turpin stared at the banner and had to be prompted to leave the car. He entered the town hall, where the first man to greet him was John 'Gerry' Gibbs, the police inspector who had founded the Leamington Boys' Club, and who first saw promise in the fourteen-year-old Turpin. The new world champion warmly shook hands with his old mentor, and then made his way up to the balcony.

Photographs of Turpin on this special day show a handsome man in a double-breasted beige suit, a smart blue silk shirt, and dapper white shoes. However, Turpin appears to be a little confused. In almost every photograph he seems to be avoiding full eye contact with the camera as though hiding from somebody, or himself. Perhaps the most disturbing photograph of the day shows Turpin flanked by the two lord mayors in a wood-panelled room in the town hall. The mayors pose stiffly in pinstriped suits, while Turpin has his right arm draped loosely around his mother and he supports his young son in his other arm. A feeling of palpable discomfort radiates from the photograph, and nobody seems entirely comfortable on what should be a joyous occasion. The modest new world champion eventually stepped out on to the balcony of Leamington Spa Town Hall, and the roar from the crowd was almost deafening, as was the high-pitched drone of cine and newsreel cameras. The mayor of Leamington Spa urged him forward ('Go on, son') and Turpin took the microphone that was proffered. For a second he looked at the sea of white faces which swam out before him in all directions, and then he began to read from a speech which his manager had prepared for the occasion. 'It was a great fight on Tuesday and I am naturally very proud to bring the honour of the middleweight championship of the world back to England and Warwickshire.' Then Turpin stopped and looked again at the crowds of people before him. 'I must tell you how grateful I am to my manager, my trainer, my family and others who have helped me so much throughout my career. .' Again Turpin stopped speaking, and this time he handed his speech to one of the mayors and addressed the crowds directly. 'Well, I'm not much at making speeches but you all know what I mean. Thanks.' He waved to the crowd and handed the microphone to somebody else. At this point George Middleton led an elderly Beatrice Manley, Turpin's mother, on to the balcony, and Turpin took her in his arms and gave her a kiss. Ailing now for some years, and suffering from a partial loss of eyesight, she was nonetheless the proudest woman in Leamington Spa and she had worn her best hat to prove the point. The coloured baby that, much to some people's disgust, she had given birth to twenty-three years ago in this very town was, on this day, the most famous man in England.

Randolph Adolphus Turpin was born in Leamington Spa on 7 June, 1928, the youngest child of Lionel Fitzherbert Turpin and Beatrice Whitehouse. There were already two older brothers, Dick and Jackie, and two older sisters, Joan and Kathy, but the cash-strapped family were struggling financially in a cramped basement flat in Willis Road. The new addition, who weighed in at 9 lb 7 oz, was the lightest of all Beatrice's children at birth, but he was still, by most standards, a heavyweight child. At a time when Beatrice and Lionel could barely afford food to put on the table the new baby was yet another mouth to feed and, to make matters worse, at the time of Randolph's birth Lionel was in hospital and ailing badly. The prognosis was not good.

Lionel Fitzherbert Turpin was born in Georgetown, British Guiana, in February 1896. He enjoyed a traditional British schooling in the sugar-rich colony on the northeast coast of South America, but the young lad had a yearning to see the world. He arrived in England as a merchant seaman on the eve of the Great War, and by the time Britain declared war on Germany in the summer of 1914, Lionel was ready to sign up. He was eventually sent out with the British Expeditionary Forces to the Western Front where he fought numerous campaigns, including the legendary Battle of the Somme. He survived the slaughter, but towards the end of the war he was badly wounded by a gas shell which burnt his lungs and left a gaping wound in his back. Lionel was shipped back to a hospital in Coventry, where they did all they could to help him before discharging the West Indian to a convalescent home near Hill House in the nearby town of Warwick. Although it was clear to the doctors that the mild-mannered coloured soldier was never going to fully recover, Lionel Turpin was eventually allowed to leave the convalescent home and he attempted to find work locally.

Lionel stood out in Warwick, for there were no other coloured people in the town, and he was regularly referred to as 'Sam', which was an abbreviation for the more pejorative 'Sambo'. He was equally exotic in nearby Leamington Spa, where the introverted West Indian veteran soon met a local teenager named Beatrice Whitehouse. Beatrice came from a rough, but tight-knit, local working-class family, her father being well known in the area as a bare-knuckle prizefighter who plied his trade at the local Woolpack Inn. Lionel wasted little time in proposing to Beatrice, and although times were hard for everybody, they settled down and tried to raise their mixed-race family in a social atmosphere that was not always friendly or supportive. Later in life, Jackie Turpin remembered that 'there was a time when nobody would cross the road to speak to the Turpins. We was just little black kids as used to run around Wathen Road and Parkes Street.' However, Beatrice prided herself on having come from tough stock, so nothing was going to deter her from protecting and supporting her children, who were often taunted as being 'dirty' or 'khaki-coloured'. Sadly, as the family grew, Lionel's condition began to deteriorate, and it became increasingly difficult for him to hold down a job. He moved back and forth between the family's Leamington home and a hospital in nearby Coventry, until it was clear that the coloured veteran required fulltime care and attention. He was eventually allocated a bed at the Ministry of Pensions Hospital in Birmingham, but on 6 March, 1929, nine months after the birth of Randolph, his fifth child, Lionel Fitzherbert Turpin finally passed away due to war injuries that he had suffered over a decade earlier. His funeral hearse was drawn by four black horses, with six soldiers as an escort, and the thirty-three-year-old former military man was buried in the Brunswick Street Cemetery, Leamington Spa, in a ceremony that was paid for by the Leamington branch of the British Legion.

At the age of twenty-five, Beatrice was left by herself to bring up five children: Dick, Joan, Jackie, Kathy, and Randy. She was entitled to a widow's pension of just under thirty shillings a week, which she could supplement with whatever she might earn cooking and cleaning for other people, but however hard she tried Beatrice could not make ends meet. As a result, she often sent her children to stay with different relatives; Dick frequently went to stay with his grandmother, while Joan spent time in Wales with her aunt. However, when circumstances allowed, Mrs Turpin would bring all of her children back together under one roof, but life was never easy for Beattie, and young Randy was particularly worrisome to her. As a three-year-old boy, Randy had contracted double pneumonia and bronchitis, and although he eventually recovered the diseases returned on two further occasions. On their final appearance, the doctor told Beattie that she should prepare herself for Randy's death, but she chose instead to sit up all night with her youngest child, sponging him down to keep his temperature under control, and feeding him to keep up his strength. Much to the doctor's surprise, and the family's relief, little Randy survived, and this served only to make Beattie all the more determined to keep her children together. She once again retrieved them from the relatives among whom they had been distributed and, having now decided to marry a local English man, in 1931 she permanently reunited her household.

As a child, Turpin earned the nickname 'Licker', a moniker that he would carry with him into adulthood and beyond. Although most people assumed that the 'Leamington Licker' was so called because of his ability to beat, or 'lick', his opponents, according to his brother Jackie, the name had nothing to do with his fighting prowess. Randy, Jackie, and sister Joan were all born in June, on the 7th, 13th, and 19th respectively, and when the birthdays arrived young Randy used to assume that because his birthday came first that made him the oldest. Apparently, Joan would shake her head and insist that he was, in fact, the littlest, to which he would shout that he wasn't the 'lickerest' he was the oldest. Sister Joan would mimic his pronunciation, telling him that he was just a 'licker boy' and if he didn't behave himself she would spank his bottom. The fiery Randy would inevitably rush at his sister with his fists flying, insisting that he wasn't a 'licker boy', and the family pet name stuck and became eerily appropriate for a boy who would eventually grow up to become a champion boxer.

Randy was not an easy child for his mother, his siblings, or eventually anybody to deal with. Headstrong and capricious, his family struggled to both protect him and avoid his occasional outbursts of anger. With so many children to cope with it was difficult for young Beattie to exercise any real discipline, and it was particularly perplexing for her to know how to handle her youngest child towards whom she felt a special affection. To make matters worse, while swimming in a river young Randy was trapped by weeds and his hearing was permanently damaged. He was, for the rest of his life, very much aware of his partial deafness, but he did not like to dwell upon it and would become upset if it was mentioned. However, he was a fearless child, and was always ready to attack no matter how big or implausible the opponent. Young Randy Turpin was quite prepared to strike out with just his fists, but if there happened to be a weapon to hand then he would happily seize it. He once chased his eldest brother Dick with an axe, threatening to 'chop his bleeding head off ', but his weapon of choice was usually a knife. In one argument he actually stabbed his brother Dick, and despite Beattie's pleading with him to calm down it was clear to everybody that this child might well be on a collision course with trouble.

When he was five, Randy began to attend West Gate Council School, which was both understaffed and overcrowded. It was a school that was designed to provide precious little in the way of academic opportunities, being merely a place to hold working-class children until they could be processed out at the age of fifteen and enter the workforce. By the time Randy was twelve, the athletically gifted 'Licker' could beat any boy in the school with his fists, or with his feet. He paid little, if any, attention to his schoolwork, preferring to pour his energies into developing his well-earned reputation as both a sportsman and a 'tough nut'. He and his followers would 'persuade' boys to hand over money or sweets, and while his friends held their victim's arms 'Licker' would teach the poor lads a lesson by giving them a good pummelling. At home, his siblings were not spared his attentions. Joan remembers, 'He blackened my eyes for me twice. Once for my birthday, and once for telling my granny tales about him.' Sister Kathy recalls, 'If you didn't do what he wanted he'd clank you for it. He'd squeal to my mother if you hit him back and if you did anything he didn't like he came in and smashed all my dolls. I had some black celluloid dolls and he'd put his foot in them and break them.'

To some of the townsfolk of Leamington Spa, young 'Licker' Turpin was a bully whose mother clearly had no control over him. There were those who would not dare to make eye contact with him in the street, or even in the semi-darkness of the cinema, and nobody wanted to be in a shop when 'Licker' came in and demanded that you buy him something. Any challenge to his 'authority' might well be met with a torrent of verbal abuse, and it was also possible that the unfortunate person would be given a good kicking for their trouble. Many believed that being from the only coloured family in the town obviously informed the boy's delinquency. It did not occur to them that being the only coloured family in town meant that the Turpins, Randy included, had to be able to take care of themselves, and sometimes get their retaliation in first. In the thirties, most British people were unfamiliar with the novelty of living among people of another race, but given the evidence of the Turpin family, the novelty of living with coloured people was something that a number of the more narrow-minded townsfolk of Leamington Spa had concluded that they could do without.

In fact, black people have been present in English life since the time of the Roman occupation. There is very strong evidence that black Roman soldiers were stationed near Hadrian's Wall at the northern outpost of England, but the first really visible, permanent, group of black people in English life appeared towards the end of the sixteenth century. These Africans were brought to England in the wake of Sir John Hawkins' trading missions to Africa and the Americas, and were often treated as little more than exotic objects whose main function was to adorn the houses and palaces of the nobility and aristocrats upon whom the 'captives' were occasionally encouraged to serve. In 1601, concerned by the escalating numbers of coloured people in her kingdom, Queen Elizabeth I of England issued a proclamation ordering the expulsion of the 'blackamoors'. However, as the English trading mission transformed itself into the fabulously profitable business of slavery, hundreds of black people now began to find themselves adrift in England. By the late eighteenth century, England had a sizeable population of people of African origin, and these individuals were often able to form and maintain their own clubs and societies. In the nineteenth century, with the abolition of the slave trade, and the steady increase of instances of intermarriage, the black population began to decline significantly, and it was not to grow again in size until the late fifties and sixties with the advent of mass migration from the Caribbean. For most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were vast sections of England where a coloured face had never been seen, and the appearance of an African or West Indian would be a truly alarming spectacle. This is how Lionel Fitzherbert Turpin must have appeared to the townsfolk of Leamington Spa in the early part of the twentieth century. After his untimely death, Lionel left a legacy of five mixed-race children in Leamington Spa, who not only constituted a truly unusual sight, but who were regarded by some intolerant locals as a social problem which they were ill-equipped to deal with.

By the time young 'Licker' Turpin reached fourteen, he was seldom attending school and it was clear that his life was in danger of taking a turn towards lawlessness. At the local Leamington Spa Boys' Club, a boxing section had recently been formed under the guidance of a local policeman, Inspector John 'Gerry' Gibbs, and an Italian former amateur welterweight champion named Ron Stefani. They both loved the physical skill and discipline of boxing, preferring the purity and dignity of the amateur ranks to what they perceived to be the chicanery and exploitation of the professional world. In 1942 they persuaded the young tearaway 'Licker' Turpin to come into the gym, and it soon became clear that the coloured lad possessed an extraordinary talent. He was quick, aggressive, and keen to learn, and he was also strong and eager to develop his strength by lifting weights. This was an unusual method of training, for traditionally fighters worried that it made them less lithe and supple; it was also believed that the new muscles might 'confuse' the boxing muscles, but the stubborn youngster continued to build up his strength with weights, a regime that he remained loyal to throughout the full length of his career.

The day young Randolph Turpin stepped into the Leamington Spa gym, boxing was already in his blood. His eldest brother Dick had turned professional as a two-pounds-a-bout boxer when Randy was only nine, and he was now establishing himself as a serious fighter. Jackie was also handy with his fists, but Gibbs and Stefani knew that the jewel in the family crown, and the kid who had everything, was young Randy. The following year, in 1943, when aged only fifteen, Turpin won the British junior 112 lb championship. In 1944 he won the British junior 133 lb championship, bringing even further glory to the name of Leamington Spa Boys' Club. However, with a war raging across the globe, nothing was going to be simple, including making a career and progressing as a boxer. His older brother Dick had joined the army and was on active duty, while Jackie had decided to join the Royal Navy. 'Licker' had now left school and was working as a labourer in a local builder's yard, but he decided to join the Royal Navy where he was assigned to duties as an assistant cook. This gave him plenty of time to continue to box, and in 1945 he achieved a unique double by winning both the junior ABA 147 lb British championship and the senior ABA title, which made him both the youngest boxer, and the first black boxer, to win an ABA senior championship. He also won the navy title, the Inter-Services title, and the following year the ABA senior middleweight championship. Those knowledgeable about the sport recognised the 'Leamington Licker' as the outstanding amateur oxing prospect in the country and the boy was still only seventeen.

After the war, 'Licker' returned to Leamington Spa and continued to fight as an amateur, but to him it made little financial sense, although both John 'Gerry' Gibbs and Ron Stefani were keen for him to remain an amateur and compete for an Olympic gold medal at the 1948 games in London. His brother Dick had already resumed his professional career, and Jackie, a promising featherweight, was also now ready to join the professional ranks and start earning some real money. In September 1946, eighteen-year-old Randolph Turpin became the third family member to box professionally, like his brothers before him, he did so under the management of a modest local businessman with round scholarly glasses and a pencil-thin moustache named George Middleton. With an outstanding amateur record of ninetyfive victories against just five losses, all the London managers were clamouring for Randy Turpin's signature, but the teenager preferred to remain with a local man whom he knew and trusted, rather than sign with a bigname manager. 'Licker's' professional career began handily enough on 17 September, 1946 with a first-round technical knockout of a journeyman named Gordon Griffiths. The boxing press were convinced that the youngster had made a successful transition to the professional ranks and one of them wrote: 'The way Turpin leapt on Griffiths, like a bronze tiger devouring a tethered kid, battering him halfway through the ropes until the referee intervened in the first round, was enough to prove that a new middleweight menace had arrived.' Thereafter, young Turpin put together an impressive string of twelve victories in 1947, often appearing on the undercard of fights that included his better known older brother, Dick. His progress was extremely impressive, but at nineteen he was not yet old enough to fight for a British title. In fact, the rules had only recently been changed to allow a black boxer to contest for a British title, and both George Middleton, and perhaps more importantly, the Turpins' mother, wanted Dick to have first crack at a title fight.

Professionally, things were undoubtedly progressing well for Randy, but the teenager's personal life was beginning to show signs of considerable strain. The Turpin boys, Dick, Jackie, and Randy, known collectively in the boxing fraternity as 'the dark threats', all had an eye for a pretty girl, and they were tough, they were cocky, and they walked with a considerable swagger. Local girls found the boys attractive, particularly young Randy who, despite his youth, seemed to rule the roost. Among Randy's sparring partners at the Leamington Boys' Club was a young Irish middleweight named Mick Stack who, although he was destined to never make the top grade as a professional, already showed considerable courage inside the ring. 'Licker' Turpin was often short of sparring partners, not only because of his renowned skill, but because he didn't seem to know when to go easy on those of lesser ability. Any sign of weakness was likely to be met with a beating, but equally any sign of resistance was taken as an affront and the young fighter would begin to dish out punishment. In short, Turpin was as much a 'hard case' in the gym as he was in the streets, and beyond his brothers, Dick and Jackie, there were few who dared to tie on a pair of gloves and give him a workout. But not fearless Mick Stack, who could not only hold his own, but he sometimes extended Turpin in a manner that others seldom could.

The Stack family were immigrants from County Cork, and Mick's older brother Willie had already enjoyed a relatively successful career as an international amateur. They were a plain-speaking, working-class family, and it was the sister, Mary Theresa Stack, who really attracted Randy's attention. As he had begun to climb up the amateur ranks he had started to spend more and more time with Mary, looking to create with her the kind of domestic safety and comfort that was missing from his own turbulent upbringing. However, Mary Stack had grown up with two tough brothers, and she had learned how to raise her own voice and make clear what her own needs and demands were. In short, Mary Stack was no pushover, and while Randy may have intimidated some of the men and boys of Leamington Spa, Mary Stack had her own ideas on what she wanted and how she expected to be treated.

On 17 March, 1945, while still an amateur and on leave from the navy, and during his preparations for his first ABA final, seventeen-year-old 'Licker' Turpin was discovered in his mother's home collapsed on a sofa having clearly drunk some liniment. Beattie knew that her son had recently had a row with his girlfriend Mary Stack, but she tried not to get involved with his relations with girls. Beattie preferred to adopt the 'boys will be boys' philosophy and trust that in time all three of her lads would find themselves a nice girl and settle down. However, her youngest son was not only the most headstrong, she knew that he was also the most emotionally vulnerable. Seeing him lying semi-conscious on her sofa set off alarm bells that had been primed for years and she quickly called the doctor, and while she waited for his arrival she tried to revive Randy. Once the doctor arrived he realised that the patient was incapable of answering any questions and so he called an ambulance and had the young lad dispatched straight to the hospital. Questions as to how this 'accident' had occurred could be asked later.

Turpin was treated at Warwick Hospital, where they immediately pumped his stomach. However, once 'Licker' was left alone he sneaked out of the ward in his pyjamas and made his way back to his mother's house. The police soon arrived at Beattie's place to question her youngest son, but Turpin had once again 'escaped' out of a back window and into the night. After a short search, he was found hiding in a telephone box. Under interrogation 'Licker' admitted to the police that he had intended to kill himself by ingesting the liniment — 'I was fed up. That's why I took it.' The problem with his testimony was that prior to the Suicide Act of 1961 self-murder was a crime, and anyone who attempted and failed to kill themselves could be prosecuted and imprisoned. Irrespective of how depressed the young fighter might have been after a row with his girlfriend, he had, in fact, committed a serious offence. The following day he was charged at Warwick Magistrates' Court and remanded to appear the next week.

The few days' delay was absolutely crucial in terms of preparing a defence for the young fighter. His solicitor insisted that the first thing Turpin should do was to deny that there had been any intent on his part to commit suicide, and thereby effectively retract his confession. Thereafter, character witnesses were called to testify to the lad's stability and good nature. His former employer relayed how sorry he had been to lose young Turpin to the navy, while a representative from the Boys' Club insisted that success had not really spoiled the town's most promising sportsman. An officer from the Royal Navy, who travelled all the way from Portsmouth, was perhaps the most persuasive voice of all. He claimed that during his short service as an assistant cook, the young man had proved himself both reliable and modest. Furthermore, the boy was due to fight at Wembley in the ABA championships at the end of the following week. It made no sense that he would deliberately attempt to commit suicide when he had the whole world at his feet, and a bright and promising future before him. Mary Stack was neither called nor was she present in court, but despite the gravity of the situation Turpin felt at ease, for the pair of them had patched up their disagreement. Weighing all possible options, the bench decided that leniency was in order and, having issued a stern warning to Turpin, they bound the young fighter over to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years.

Two years later, in 1947, Randolph Turpin married Mary Stack. They were both teenagers, but their relationship had endured for some years and despite occasional irrational outbursts of emotion on both sides, to most locals they appeared to be well suited. After all, they had both grown up as 'outsiders' in the same town, they had many friends in common, and both families were familiar with each other. The Turpin-Stack white wedding took place at Leamington Spa's Catholic Church out of deference to the bride's family's beliefs, but Randy was so befuddled by the details of the ceremony that when the priest placed a small stool before him at the alter, he shifted it behind him and sat down. This caused his brother Jackie, who was seated in the front pew, no end of laughter, but Mary and her family were not amused. The priest took charge of the situation and leaned forward and whispered to the squatting bridegroom, 'You kneel on it.'

How well Randy and Mary were actually suited to each other was something that others, including Turpin's brothers, had their own ideas about. There was only one way of doing things to Randy's mind, and that was his way, and this had always been his modus operandi since he was a small child. However, as most people know, marriage involves both compromise and accommodation of the other person's views, but whatever else Randy felt for young Mary, he was sure that her first duty was to obey him. She soon became pregnant, and a son, Randolph Junior, was born in 1948, but by this stage things between the newly-weds had become increasingly ugly. Mary had already left her husband on a number of occasions, and fled back to her mother's house alleging assault and abuse. In June 1948, following a flare-up between Turpin and his mother-in-law, Mary left yet again and this time took a job at the local Marlborough Hotel, claiming that as far as she was concerned her marriage was over. After his wife's departure, training for professional fights, with all the focus and intensity that is necessary for success at this level, became increasingly problematic for Randy. He could dominate in the boxing ring, but outside of the ring he appeared to be just another voice among many to whom his wife seemed to pay attention. George Middleton and Randy's brothers worried that these days so much of 'Licker's' emotional energy seemed to be being spent trying to control Mary. It concerned them that perhaps this marriage might eventually cost him his boxing career, but they chose not to say anything to 'Licker', for any criticism was likely to be met with either silence, or abuse, or both.

A month later, on 12 July, 1948, Mary and Randy reconciled and she moved back into the family home on Wathen Road in Warwick. Her mother and her brothers, Willie and Mick, were disappointed with her decision, but they knew full well that their sister was as headstrong and difficult as any man and there was little point in arguing with her. Obviously it was her wilful personality that had, in the first place, attracted Turpin to Mary, however, as is so often the case, the very thing that drew him close to her eventually grew to frustrate him the most. Less than a month after their reconciliation, on 9 August, 1948, Turpin was summoned to appear at Warwick Magistrates' Court where Mary claimed that on 24 July he had viciously beaten her and caused her actual bodily harm. According to Mary's testimony, on that day the couple had attended a funfair in Leamington, but Mary had decided to catch an early train back to Warwick at 9:35 p.m. She then waited up for her husband to return, but she became increasingly concerned by his late arrival. According to her testimony, her husband eventually rolled in at 5:30 a.m, and when she asked him where he had been he took up a broom and beat her with it until the handle broke. Screaming that he should stop hitting her for she was pregnant with another child, his wife claimed that Turpin then began to kick her repeatedly in the stomach saying that he would 'soon fix that'.

The following morning the doctor visited, and having examined Mary Turpin he treated her for bruises to her stomach and groin. After the doctor's departure, Mary told the court that she did not immediately flee the house for Randolph Junior was unwell and she made a decision to wait until her son felt better. Once her son had regained his health she called a taxi and left Randolph Junior behind with a note which read: 'Dear Randolph, I am leaving you with the baby because you can look after it better than I can. I prefer being out at work and having evenings free. I can't be at work and looking after the baby at the same time.' According to Mary, the strange tone of the message can be explained by her claim that her husband had forced her at knifepoint to write the self-incriminating note before allowing her to flee the house. She characterised him as a habitually violent bully who never hesitated to use his fists upon her to settle any arguments that they might have. According to Mary Turpin, he was a man who might be the pride and joy of sports fans in the East Midlands, but behind that quiet, self-effacing exterior was a violent, insecure man who had never learned how to curb his temper or face up to any responsibilities.

When it was Turpin's turn to speak he told the court that he had once hit her, but he insisted that his wife had spent the greater part of their time together goading and baiting him. According to his testimony, she tried to make him lose his temper by accusing him of seeing other women, or by throwing things at him or, on one occasion, actually threatening him with a knife. Turpin steadfastly denied having had any affairs, although the evidence was overwhelming that he was a habitual offender, and eventually Mary felt that she had no choice but to produce a letter that was allegedly written by a girl named Pam. 'My own darling Randy,' it began, 'Just remember I love you and I will prove how much when I see you again.' It was signed 'Your ever loving Pam.' Turpin's solicitor claimed that although his client knew of the girl, he denied that Turpin had ever seen the letter. He then quickly changed the subject and claimed that it was a known fact that men who made their living hitting people knew how to keep their tempers in control out of the ring. He concluded that all the evidence pointed towards nothing more than a strained relationship between two young and inexperienced people. The magistrates, having examined the evidence, felt inclined to agree with Turpin's solicitor and they dismissed Mary Turpin's case against her husband.

Unfortunately, Turpin's victory in the courtroom was not matched by his performance in the ring. In the middle of this turbulence, in April 1948, having amassed an outstanding record of eighteen wins and one draw since his professional debut two years earlier, Turpin lost on points to a relatively unheralded journeyman named Albert Finch. The newspapers claimed that Turpin fought as though his heart was no longer in boxing, and they speculated that although his older brother Dick was his next logical opponent, it appeared as though there was some kind of agreement that the two would not fight one another. In fact, it was their mother, Beattie, who had drawn a promise from both Dick and Randy that they would never 'go at each other' for money, but his reluctance to fight his brother had not contributed towards Randy's loss of form. Those close to Turpin knew that the real reason behind the fighter's shocking capitulation to Finch was Turpin's frustration at his inability to persuade his wife to accede to his demands. In every other area of his life Turpin was able to insist that people follow his line, but there was something humiliating about his failure to control young Mary Stack, and it caused him anguish to the extent that he was incapable of fully concentrating on his boxing career.

The loss to Finch in April 1948 was followed by an easy victory over an unimpressive opponent, Alby Hollister, and then in September 1948, as the contentions court case with his wife drew to a conclusion, he turned in possibly the worst performance of his boxing career against a modest fighter named Jean Stock. To those who looked on at ringside it was barely conceivable that the man they were watching was the feared 'Leamington Licker'. For the first four rounds Turpin was continually bullied, beaten, and knocked over, and at the end of the fifth round, much to everybody's astonishment, he simply gave up and retired. As in the case of his shocking loss to Albert Finch some five months earlier, career obituaries were prepared for him, but most pressmen acknowledged that it was Turpin's fragile mental state, not his physical prowess, that was the source of the crisis. In fact, in the dressing room, before the bout against Jean Stock had even begun, Randy had told his eldest brother that he did not want to fight and he would not be at all surprised if he lost. Dick tried to pull Randy together, as did Jackie, but they both understood that the humiliation of Mary having been awarded custody of Randy Junior earlier in the day was weighing heavily on their brother's mind. As it transpired, the result of the fight was an even greater embarrassment than the earlier loss to Albert Finch and, for the first time in his life, Turpin decided to take a prolonged break from boxing in an attempt to make sense of his personal life and gain some peace of mind.

After a five-month layoff, Turpin returned to the ring in 1949 determined that he would avenge his two defeats and re-establish himself as a championship-class fighter. He fought and won convincingly eight times in 1949, and then four times in 1950, before being once again matched against Albert Finch, who had recently beaten his older brother, Dick, to become the British middleweight champion. On 17 October, 1950, a dominating victory over Finch established Turpin back at the top of the British rankings. Peter Wilson's report in the Daily Express reflected the general enthusiasm which greeted Turpin's victory. 'Turpin, shaven-headed, his sleek brown body gleaming, his blackgloved fists weaving a deadly pattern of destruction through the smoke-scrawl over the ring, looked like some coppercoloured warrior of the Frontier days. .' Just over four months later, on 27 February, 1951, in an astounding display of menace and brutality, Turpin defeated the Dutchman Luc Van Dam in only forty-eight seconds to become the European middleweight champion. The ferocity of Turpin's assault was such that the Dutchman was unconscious in the ring for a full ten minutes, and the doctor had to attend to him where he lay. Turpin then knocked out his former adversary Jean Stock in five rounds, thus avenging his earlier defeat, and he quickly followed up this victory with three more sensational knockout wins. It was clear that there was nobody left in Britain, or Europe, who was a match for the twenty-two-year-old from Leamington Spa, and talk now began to turn to the possibility of Turpin moving up in weight. However, before this idea could be seriously considered, the London promoter Jack Solomons hit upon the unlikely idea of the young coloured boy tackling the great Sugar Ray Robinson.

After the mayor's victory reception at Leamington Spa Town Hall, Randolph Turpin stayed 'home' for a few days. He and Jackie would often take a purposeful walk down to the Cassino Milk Bar, where crowds of girls would gather around to bask in the aura of the town's most famous son. Although to many, particularly some of the older townsfolk, Randolph Turpin would never be anything other than a coloured bully, his unexpected success meant that he now walked tall in Leamington Spa. The weekend after his victory he fulfilled a promise to a friend, Charlie Hickman, by putting in an appearance at his fairground boxing booth, which was visiting nearby Kenilworth. All three Turpin brothers had, in common with most fighters of the period, earned extra 'illegal' money taking on allcomers at the boxing booths. The heavy drunks provided smaller 'pros' with a chance to hone their evasive skills and practise 'dirty' tactics such as butting or elbowing, or hitting in the 'breadbasket' so that they could keep these bigger men at bay. When Turpin appeared at Charlie Hickman's booth the crowds were astonished, and could scarcely believe their luck that they were being presented with an opportunity to witness an actual world champion who, although he did not box, refereed two bouts. But Turpin's days of levity and indulgence, which revolved almost exclusively around casual encounters with 'birds' and triumphant public appearances, soon came to an end when George Middleton informed his fighter that Robinson had inserted a clause in the contract which guaranteed that, in the unlikely event of a defeat, there would be a rematch within ninety days. Having consulted with Jack Solomons, the two men had decided to honour the clause and had therefore signed to fight a rematch in two months' time in New York City. They could have simply ignored the clause and taken a few easy title defences in Europe before eventually agreeing to meet Robinson, but George Middleton felt duty-bound to honour the contract and the money being offered for the rematch was astronomical by any standards. It was proposed that Turpin would be paid $207,075, while Robinson, despite being the challenger, would receive the larger amount of $248,491.

Almost immediately, Turpin returned to train at Gwrych Castle in Wales where Leslie Salts quickly erected a new sign which read:

COME AND MEET A WORLD CHAMPION

AT SUNNY GWRYCH CASTLE.

HAVE YOUR PHOTO TAKEN WITH RANDY TURPIN

Visitors arrived in their thousands, and after long days working out, Leslie Salts sometimes had Turpin autographing photographs late into the night. Salts claimed that all of the money from the sale of Turpin's photographs was going to the Blind Institute, although both Jackie Turpin and George Middleton had their doubts. Turpin was a good trainer, and he was always out of bed early and ready to do his exercises overlooking the Irish Sea and, much to George Middleton's relief, it appeared that Turpin's relative isolation in Wales was enabling him to refocus his mind on the task at hand. Every few days the press would appear at Gwrych Castle and Turpin would tell them about how he had been relaxing by spending time in the petting zoo at the castle, or amusing himself with some knife-throwing or archery. He said that in the evenings he listened to music or went to the local pictures, or simply read his Tarzan comic books. What he did not tell them about were the young local girls with whom he amused himself, and the vast number of photographs that Salts encouraged him to sign. However, despite the official, and unofficial, distractions in the castle, Turpin remained an assiduous trainer and towards the end of July he even fought an exhibition bout in Portsmouth on a bill that was topped by his brother Jackie. After a month's intensive work, the Turpin entourage was ready to sail to the United States where Britain's middleweight world champion would make his first title defence.

On 15 August, 1951, the New York Times announced the departure of Turpin from Britain. 'Wearing a black beret at a rakish angle, the quiet, smiling champion waved goodbye to cheering crowds as he boarded a train for Southampton. Tomorrow he will leave England on the Queen Mary for New York. In an unusual outburst of oratory, Turpin told fans, "Well, I'm on my way at last and I will not let the British people down. I'm going to win."' The passage on the luxury ocean liner was largely uneventful, but because they were travelling in first class the Turpin party were made to feel extremely comfortable. Both Dick and Jackie Turpin were among the fighter's team, along with George Middleton, and Jack Solomons and his wife, but Leslie Salts had decided to fly to New York. Everybody, except Turpin himself, seemed to feel that things would be better if the irritating Leslie Salts had stayed at home in Britain, but fearful of upsetting Turpin's mental state nobody had dared to make the suggestion. The Queen Mary possessed a fully equipped gymnasium and so, after doing 'roadwork' on the deck early each morning, Turpin was able to keep up his training routine. Flying, of course, was not a possibility for Turpin, or any fighter, for since the tragic death of the French boxer Marcel Cerdan, as he crossed the Atlantic on an ill-fated flight to New York, promoters had insisted that boxers minimise all travelling risks. The afternoons on board the Queen Mary dragged, and formal dinners with evening gowns for the ladies and tuxedos for the men were an interesting novelty for the Turpin boys, and they took great care to make sure that they were always immaculately dressed. After seven days, on 22 August, 1951, the Queen Mary docked on the West Side of Manhattan and Randolph Turpin set foot on American soil for the first time.

On reaching New York City, the Turpin group checked into the Hotel Edison on West 47th and Broadway, an acclaimed and opulent hotel close to the lights and glamour of Times Square. The art deco luxury palace, which featured an elegant marble and steel lobby, was a hotel that was familiar with the rigmarole of accommodating sporting celebrities. To Turpin's great surprise, it appeared that all of America wanted to know about this 'Limey' who had defeated the great Sugar Ray Robinson in London, and both radio and newsprint journalists immediately descended upon him with questions about how he had managed to beat Robinson in London, and how he regarded his chances in New York. Despite his convincing victory in their first fight, the bookmakers had Turpin pegged as a six-to-four underdog, but not wishing to antagonise his hosts, Turpin was careful to appear only modestly confident. 'The Battle of Nations', as the fight was advertised, would take place at Harlem's famous Polo Grounds at 155th Street, the home of the New York Giants baseball team, and a place that was also a popular boxing venue. In 1923, Jack Dempsey had knocked out Luis Firpo in front of 90,000 fans at the Polo Grounds, and the 61,370 tickets available for the Robinson-Turpin rematch had sold out almost the instant they went on sale. American interest was huge, and the projected gate receipts of $767,626 had already shattered the record for a non-heavyweight fight.

Jack Solomons and George Middleton limited the fighter's exposure to the press and Turpin soon settled into a disciplined training routine at Grossinger's training camp, where the public could pay two dollars and come and watch 'The Man Who Beat Sugar Ray Robinson' sparring. Grossinger's was situated about one hundred miles north of New York City, high up in the Catskill Mountains. It was a country-club-style hotel, with a golf course, a restaurant, and extensive acreage and outbuildings, including an airport hangar where a ring had been constructed. An impressive Turpin punished his four American sparring partners and it was clear that he was in first rate physical condition and, if anything, even stronger than he had been for the original bout. Despite the manifold temptations of New York City, Turpin appeared to be resisting the lure of the city's nightlife and applying himself to his work but, as the fight drew nearer, there were worries in Turpin's camp about the fighter's mental state and, once again, the main problem was women.

Relations between Turpin and his wife Mary had irretrievably broken down, so much so that they were barely on speaking terms. It was not just her allegations of Turpin's violence towards her that had driven a wedge between the couple, but she was unable to cope with the humiliation of Turpin's persistent infidelity. Her tight-knit family rallied to her side and opinions in Leamington Spa were polarised as to the behaviour of the 'hero' Turpin towards his wife. There were still some people who had not forgotten how young Turpin would occasionally harass any who crossed his path, and no amount of public glory or sporting achievement was going to change their low opinion of him. When his wife's allegations of violence became public, many people shunned both Turpin and his family. However, there were also those who regarded the Stack family with some suspicion, and although they knew that the Turpins, like all families, had their faults, they had no desire to see them vilified. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the situation, Mary Turpin had clearly taken all she could endure and Turpin had boarded the Queen Mary for New York knowing that at some point in the near future he was going to be faced with very public, and undoubtedly expensive, divorce proceedings.

That Turpin would be unfaithful to his wife was hardly a surprise to any who knew him. After all, he had not even been faithful to Mary Stack while they were courting, and his reputation as a fit, handsome man who liked to chase, and be chased by, the ladies was well earned. However, 'managing' women was something that a man with a controlling personality like Turpin's was unsuited to, for he could hardly expect to exercise authority over every woman that he was involved with. His manager worried about his interest in women for different reasons, for it had long been assumed that too much sex sapped a fighter's strength and made him vulnerable in the ring. Most fighters were encouraged to stay away from 'female temptation' for at least five or six weeks before a bout, the belief being that this pent-up frustration would result in a ferocious outpouring of energy when it was time to fight. However, Turpin's normal schedule of regular fighting, plus his inability to pass by a pretty girl, meant that this theory was never really tested in his case. Sugar Ray Robinson, on the other hand, not only believed in the theory, he practised it. In his autobiography he wrote, 'One of the big sacrifices in being a champion is sex. If you're a fighter, you need your energy. You can't leave it with a woman, even if she's your wife.' He believed that abstinence gave a fighter both a physical and a psychological advantage. 'In abstaining from it, you're not only stronger, but you think you're stronger. You're meaner because your nervous system is on edge. And when you walk into the center of the ring for the referee's instructions and stare at your opponent, you dislike him more than ever because he's the symbol of all your sacrifices. But for a weak one, a sneaker, as trainers call them, sex works the other way. When he goes into the ring, he's got a guilty conscience. He doubts his stamina. He believes that his opponent is better conditioned than he is. Mentally, he's beaten before the bell rings.'

George Middleton's biggest fear was that the alluring sights and sounds of New York City would prove an irresistible distraction for his fighter, for after all Manhattan was a world away from the drab, run-down, post-war East Midlands. Initially, Turpin seemed to be handling things with level-headed maturity, fielding journalists' questions and saying all the right things about the training facilities and his American sparring partners. However, as the fight drew closer things began to change. When they had initially checked into the Hotel Edison, the Turpin party had been greeted by a high society coloured lady who seemed to specialise in facilitating negro celebrities and making them feel at home. She informed George Middleton that the following morning there would be a reception in Harlem with food and entertainment where the negro 'smart set' would like to meet Randy. Although George Middleton cared little for such distractions, and would have preferred his fighter to skip the appointment, the Turpin brothers and, more importantly, Jack Solomons, were keen to oblige. Solomons feared the negative publicity if it ever leaked out that Turpin had snubbed coloured society, while the Turpin brothers were simply curious to see how coloured Americans lived. The following morning they arrived at the grand Harlem brownstone to discover that, even at this early hour, a party was already in full swing. The society host was keen to introduce the world champion to everybody present for, after all, he was the guest of honour, but she seemed particularly keen that he should make the acquaintance of a strikingly attractive young coloured woman in her early twenties called Adele Daniels, who, according to the hostess, was particularly excited to meet the world champion. Dick Turpin looked on and mentioned to George Middleton how attractive the young woman was, but Middleton's reply neatly summed up his concerns. 'A bit too good-looking,' was all he said. During the course of the next few days, Turpin appeared to be focused and the move to the Catskills took place without incident. However, George Middleton's concerns appeared to be well founded when Miss Adele Daniels began to appear whenever his fighter made a public appearance, and then, much to Middleton's consternation, Turpin began to leave Grossinger's and accompany her on private shopping trips when he had finished his daily training sessions.

On the evening of 10 September, 1951, less than three weeks after Turpin had stepped off the Queen Mary, hostilities with Sugar Ray Robinson began anew. After the first fight in London, Robinson had candidly declared, 'You were real good. I have no alibis. I was beaten by a better man,' but Robinson had absolutely no intention of allowing this to happen again. Having been bullied and outmuscled in London, Robinson weighed in 3 lb heavier for this fight and was determined to master the Englishman's strength and awkward crouching style. He remembered Turpin as being 'built like a heavyweight', and he never understood how a mere 160 lb were packed into his body. 'He should have weighed 190,' said Robinson. This time Robinson was prepared for Turpin's 'ruffian' tactics and, like the 61,370 people packed into Harlem's Polo Grounds, he was convinced that he would recapture the world title that he had 'accidentally' relinquished at the end of his gruelling European tour. His confidence was reflected in the bookmaking which, despite his being the challenger, made him a heavy favourite. As referee Ruby Goldstein signalled the fifteen-round championship bout to begin it soon became clear that, although Turpin was moving well, Robinson was now in first-class condition. His punching was crisp and his attention was fully focused on the task at hand. As the rounds unfolded it was apparent to George Middleton and the champion's brothers that Turpin's work rate was not what it had been in London, for his tempo kept dropping and he was occasionally taking breaks on the ropes and simply bobbing and weaving to avoid Robinson's precise punching. An early vicious left hook by Robinson had shaken Turpin to his boots and, unlike the fight in London where Turpin had continually pressed the attack, he was spending the greater part of this fight covering up and counterpunching.

As the fight moved into the tenth round, the bout remained even on the referee's scorecard with four rounds for each man, and one round drawn, but the partisan crowd were now beginning to show signs of worry for it was clear that this Limey's victory had been no fluke. Turpin was a hell of a fighter, and the crowd soon received further proof of this fact when midway through the tenth round a swinging right from Turpin caused a cut over Robinson's left eye that began to gush blood at such a rate that it seemed inevitable that the fight would soon be stopped and Turpin would retain his title. Sensing his chance of regaining the world crown slipping away, Robinson cut loose into Turpin's body with hard punches and then followed up with right and left hooks to the head. Instead of backing away and defending himself, Turpin unwisely tried to meet fire with fire and was caught by a swinging right cross which sent him spinning to the canvas. The crowd roared and the referee began a count which Turpin could clearly hear. He rose at seven and shook his head as he tried to regain his senses, but he was immediately pinned back against the ropes by another ferocious assault by Robinson, who slashed at a sagging opponent who was suddenly proving to be an easy target. Normally a referee might have allowed the fight to continue to the bell, thereby giving the champion time to have a breather and come out fresh for another round, but on this occasion — Robinson having hit Turpin thirty-one times in just twenty-five seconds — Goldstein waved his hands in the air and stopped the fight with a mere seven seconds of the round remaining. The ferocious baying of the Polo Grounds crowd, and the referee's awareness of the recent death in the ring of a fighter named Jose Flores, probably encouraged Goldstein to draw proceedings to a halt. Randolph Turpin's reign as world middleweight champion was over; it had lasted just sixty-four days.

After the fight an unhappy Turpin claimed, 'He should not have stopped it. With only seven seconds to go I was perfectly keen.' It is certainly possible that a revived Turpin might have emerged for the eleventh round and opened up more damage on Robinson's badly cut eye, forcing the referee to stop the fight, but the referee had made his decision. Randolph Turpin was no longer champion of the world, and Jack Solomons began to immediately negotiate for a deciding fight, insisting that this was something that both fighters would welcome. However, most fight fans knew that Sugar Ray Robinson would be in no hurry to once again risk either his reputation or his title against a warrior like Turpin, at least not in the foreseeable future. Back at the Hotel Edison the Turpin party licked their collective wounds, while in the streets of Harlem thousands of revellers celebrated long into the night. A few days later, as Turpin, with newly straightened hair, made ready to board the ship that would take him back across the Atlantic Ocean, those in Turpin's party noticed that a beaming Adele Daniels was standing at dockside eagerly waving off the former world champion boxer. Nobody said anything to Turpin about the woman's presence, although it was clear that not one among them either approved of, or trusted, this coloured American woman who may well have disrupted Turpin's preparations more than they had initially realised.

Before Turpin had left Britain for the rematch with Robinson, George Middleton had already arranged for his fighter to undertake a nationwide tour of music halls and theatres on his return home. There was no provision in Turpin's lucrative contract for the tour to be curtailed, or the money altered, in the event of Turpin losing his world title, so this was a piece of shrewd business on Middleton's part. When the defeated champion returned home, he was relieved to discover that his popularity had by no means been adversely affected by his recent setback. In fact, there was considerable excitement when both George Middleton and Jack Solomons announced that not only were they still trying to negotiate for a third Robinson bout, but there was the distinct possibility that in the meantime Turpin would challenge the American Rocky Graziano for a huge sum of money. American bouts aside, Turpin remained British and European middleweight champion and the British public were clearly still willing to spend money to see their sporting hero defend these titles.

Soon after their arrival, Turpin made it clear to George Middleton that he was not altogether keen on the theatrical tour, but he could not argue with a weekly income in excess of £1,000 for barely breaking sweat. The main staple of the 'performances' were exhibition bouts with either his brother Dick or Jackie, and perhaps a little work on the punchbag and a display of his prowess on the speedball. In each city an appeal was made to promising fighters to come out and spar a few rounds with the champion, but after a near-tragedy in Birmingham few took Turpin up on his offer. During the second performance on a midweek night at the Birmingham Hippodrome, a local lad went two rounds with Turpin, but on leaving the ring he suddenly collapsed. In the end the young man recovered, but members of the public were now very cautious about risking their health against Randolph Turpin. Moving from town to town, doing little more than shadow-boxing alongside singing and dancing acts, clowns, and even pet acts, the novelty of this way of making money soon wore off. Luckily, by the time December rolled around the tour was over, for most of the theatres needed their stages for pantomime season, and Turpin was once again free to turn his mind to the more pressing business of his boxing career. In June 1952, having decided to temporarily step up a division, Turpin won the British and Empire light-heavyweight title, stopping a gallant Don Cockell in the eleventh round despite the fact that his opponent outweighed him by 12 lb. However, by this stage, it was becoming evident to those close to Turpin that the fighter was experiencing serious difficulties managing his finances.

Although Turpin had recently made plenty of money by appearing on stage, in addition to the large sums that he was earning from boxing, the fighter was spending his income at a reckless rate. After the Robinson defeat in New York, Turpin had informed a surprised George Middleton that in future he wished to take total responsibility for his own financial affairs. Up until this stage in Turpin's professional life as a fighter, George Middleton had countersigned all of Turpin's cheques and made sure that the boxer's accounts were kept in order. When Turpin informed him of his intentions, Middleton was alarmed, but he knew that he was dealing with a grown man and the last thing that he wanted to be accused of was being overly interfering or, even worse, stealing from his fighter. George Middleton knew that he had done his best to instil in his charge the idea that a boxing career is relatively short, and that it can all be over with just one punch, therefore Turpin should be prudent with his money. And Turpin had listened, but Middleton was unconvinced that his words had done little more than pass in through one ear and out through the other. George Middleton agreed to Turpin's demands, but he once again suggested to Turpin that he save his money in the bank, or invest it properly, but he chose to say nothing further and simply made the arrangements for his fighter to take charge of his own financial affairs.

After the Robinson rematch Turpin suddenly realised that he was a rich man. Unfortunately, with his new-found wealth came friends and hangers-on who fed Turpin's ego and whom he, in turn, was able to help out by allowing them to share in his fortune. If a virtual stranger needed a car, or a 'loan' to escape from pressing debt, or money to buy a pub or a business, Turpin was able to put his hand in his pocket and oblige. His own family were given houses and cars, and he bought himself a pair of pet monkeys and a big house in Warwick. If he felt like a break in the south of France or Spain, he would take family and friends, paying for their flights and accommodation, and picking up the bill for everything. His sister Joan, who was a frequent recipient of his generosity, often warned her younger brother to be less extravagant and to remember that it was his money and not anybody else's. However, casually tossing handfuls of banknotes into the air, 'Licker' would remind her that yes, he knew that it was his cash, which was why he would do with it exactly what he pleased.

Turpin did make one investment with his money, but it was hardly one which made George Middleton feel any sense of comfort. In the autumn of 1952, Turpin went into partnership with Leslie Salts, and the two men paid £7,500 each and together purchased a nine-bedroom hotel set on fifteen acres of land situated on a windswept, and somewhat isolated, headland just outside of the town of Llandudno in North Wales. Originally constructed as the Telegraph Inn, from where messages were relayed to Holyhead and Liverpool announcing the impending arrival of ships, it had later been rebuilt as the Summit Hotel and had served as the bar for those who used the Great Orme Golf Club. The golf course had closed in 1939 and become a sheep farm, while the hotel had been allowed to languish and fall into disrepair. The two men had the idea of transforming the hotel, which during the war had been requisitioned by the RAF and utilised as a temporary radar station, into an international sporting centre and tourist attraction and cashing in on the seaside trade. Neither man could have been thinking too clearly, for not only was there little in the way of public transport to the venue, known locally as the Great Orme complex, there was just one, woefully inadequate, telephone line. The view from the summit was undoubtedly panoramic, and the steep slopes flowed down from the hotel on all sides like an attractive green cape. But, in truth, the place offered the visitor little more than a laborious climb on foot, or an ascent in a lumbering tram, to the view. The hotel still sprouted a dense forest of aerials and antennas from its signalling days, and the building appeared to be permanently in transition. Visitors quickly surveyed the rolling hills, wide open sea, and the sumptuous scenery, before realising that it was time to return to Llandudno and, of course, the only way to leave the Great Orme was to descend on foot or by the same inelegant tram. George Middleton had little faith in Turpin's investment, and he had, by this time, conducted a private investigation into Leslie Salts and his business practices, and uncovered a whole series of wrongdoings. Once again he had made clear his reservations to Turpin, but Turpin's mind was made up.

The Great Orme complex opened on Easter Monday 1953 in a blaze of publicity, with telegrams of good luck and congratulations from British sporting heroes such as Dennis Compton and the boxer Freddie Mills; even Sugar Ray Robinson sent a telegram to his old adversary. Turpin's sister Joan and her bricklayer husband, John Beston, were put in charge of the complex, but they had no experience of running such an enterprise and the place was soon leaking money. The situation was not helped by Turpin's habit of turning up with friends from London or the Midlands and insisting that nobody should pay any bills. The Welsh boxing champion Jimmy Wilde, who between 1916 and 1923 held the world flyweight title, and who was popularly known as 'the ghost with a hammer in his hand', opened Randy's Bar at the centre. However, despite Turpin announcing that he would be spending a good deal of his time at the centre training for his next fight, in the hope that the fee-paying British public might therefore be persuaded to put their hands into their pockets and pay to see him going through his paces, money continued to flow out of, as opposed to into, the venture. An advertisement for the Great Orme Holiday Centre in a 1953 programme for one of Turpin's fights suggests the scale of Salts' and Turpin's ambition. 'Visit Randy's Bar. Fully Licensed. The most unusual bar in Britain! Snack bar, Music, Sports, Exhibitions, Miniature Railway, Little Theatre. See the British Crown Jewels in replica.' The bottom of the advertisement proudly reads 'Owned by Leslie T. Salts and Randolph Turpin (the famous boxer)', and just in case one is still unsure, there are two large headshots of both men smiling intently. However, Turpin was soon asking George Middleton for a loan, and then he turned to Jack Solomons, and although both men were alarmed by Turpin's spending they agreed to help him out knowing full well that there was little point in talking further to the boxer about his cavalier attitude to money.

In the early summer of 1953, the two biggest British news stories were the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and the triumphant ascent of Mount Everest by a British expedition led by a New Zealand mountaineer, Edmund Hillary, and his Nepalese guide, Sherpa Tensing Norkay. Most people were also excited because television, or the 'goggle-box', had become the latest status symbol and the new invention was beginning to change family and social life. However, the vast majority of the British public still got their 'visual' news from the cinema, and the third story that would have gripped British audiences at cinemas up and down the country during the summer of 1953 was the news of Randolph Turpin's triumph over the Frenchman Charles Humez before a sell-out crowd of 54,000 at White City Stadium, London, in the final elimination bout for the now vacant world middleweight crown. Despite having trouble making the weight, Turpin comprehensively outpointed Humez, but not before disappointing a huge number of his own fans with his lacklustre performance. Everybody in Britain knew that Turpin carried a potential knockout punch in both hands, yet for much of the fight he had done little more than flick out timid left jabs, much to the audible dismay of the crowd. Nevertheless, he had beaten Humez, and Turpin would now be returning to New York City, this time to fight the Hawaiian American Carl 'Bobo' Olsen for the undisputed world title in a bout that most boxing cognoscenti confidently expected Turpin to win. Two years after his close rematch with Robinson, Turpin and his party once again found themselves sailing across the Atlantic Ocean towards a New York City that Turpin claimed he was eager to revisit. He told his brothers that he missed the twenty-four-hour excitement of the city, and the attention that he had been paid, but he did not confess to them his ambivalence about having to rekindle his association with Miss Adele Daniels.

Shortly after Turpin's arrival in New York City in October 1953, it soon became clear that, unlike his previous visit in the summer of 1951, when Turpin at least maintained the appearance of being eager to train for the Robinson rematch, this time he was preoccupied and disinterested in applying himself to the task at hand. Frequently absent from the training camp that George Middleton had established in the Catskill Mountains, and distant and sometimes abrasive to those who tried to talk with him, Turpin alienated the press, his camp, and particularly his brothers. It was obvious that Turpin had no desire to fight Carl 'Bobo' Olsen, nor did he wish to be in the United States and away from 'home', and his sulking and temper tantrums quickly wore on everybody's nerves. On the night of the world title fight the inevitable ensued, and what should have been a night of glory for Randolph Turpin and British boxing ended ignominiously with a humiliating defeat at Madison Square Garden. Untrained and out of condition, Turpin nevertheless began strongly enough, taking the first three rounds against Olsen, but in the fourth he suffered a bad cut under his eye. For the remainder of the fight he was off-balance and he constantly soaked up punishment, and in both the ninth and tenth rounds an ordinary-looking Olsen pummelled him to the canvas. Clearly Turpin's mind was elsewhere, and the sell-out crowd witnessed the British middleweight take a terrible pounding before losing a unanimous points decision.

So badly was Turpin beaten that, back at his hotel, his seconds covered him in ice cubes and wrapped him in a bed sheet in order to reduce the multiple swellings. Turpin knew that he had let himself and others down, but he was acting as though he could not care less. 'If I had been in my natural mental state,' said Turpin, 'I could have stopped him about the eighth round.' Nobody said anything in reply. Boxing News summed up the mood of the times: 'If ever a fighter went into the ring mentally unprepared it was Turpin. The undeniable fact is that Turpin has gone back a long way. He has things on his mind more important than boxing and when that happens a fighter has "had it", to use a wellunderstood expression.' Britain's Daily Sketch, under a headline that blared 'He's let us down!', seemed to be clear about what had gone wrong. 'Now it has been exposed — the myth of the boxer who can train himself. Randolph Turpin made a pathetically heroic effort to justify his unorthodoxy in the Madison Square Garden ring last night.' Turpin's fans on both sides of the Atlantic were clearly dismayed by the fighter's behaviour both before, and during, the fight. But things were about to deteriorate even further.

On the morning of 2 November, 1953, the day before Turpin was due to board the Queen Mary for the return journey to England, the 'Leamington Licker' was arrested by New York City police officers in a milk bar opposite the Hotel Edison on West 47th Street. He was listening to the jukebox when the police stormed in and handcuffed him and then took him to the Seventh Precinct for processing. Shortly thereafter, Turpin appeared at the Upper Manhattan Magistrates' Court to answer a serious charge which had been brought against him by a Miss Adele Daniels, who was described in the court papers as a 'Negro Clerk in the State Department of Labor'. Miss Daniels testified that her relationship with Randolph Turpin had begun two years earlier when the fighter was in New York for his rematch with Sugar Ray Robinson, and she insisted that the boxer had promised to marry her. In the two-year interim she asserted that the couple had exchanged many love letters and were planning a shared future, and that when Turpin had recently returned to New York for the fight with Olsen their relationship had picked up again from where it had left off. However, she claimed that Turpin had changed, and that even before the fight, when he should have been in the Catskill Mountains at his training camp, this newly 'troubled' Turpin was spending time with her at her apartment on Riverside Drive at 125th Street in Harlem, but she grew to be frightened of him. She alleged that Turpin had assaulted her on a number of occasions, kicking her and striking her around the face. In fact, after the Olsen contest, in which the British fighter had been badly beaten and was in need of attention, Miss Daniels claimed to have 'loyally nursed him' and in return for her troubles she was again beaten and kicked by this 'maniacal and dangerous person', so much so that for a short while the left side of her face had suffered temporary paralysis. Miss Daniels' lawyer, Mr J. Roland Sala, wanted Turpin held in custody so that he might be properly examined, for Sala claimed that Turpin was 'definitely mentally ill, psychopathologically'. He continued: 'This man is bestially primitive.'

Turpin's lawyer, Saul Straus, argued that if Miss Daniels had received the beatings that she claimed to have done, then there would be serious marks on her body. In fact, there were none. George Middleton had already instructed Turpin's lawyer that the key issue here was to get Turpin on the boat to England, and so Straus arranged with the judge for Turpin to be released into his custody with the payment of a $10,000 bond, and a promise that Turpin would eventually return to the United States for the full hearing. In the meantime, Miss Adele Daniels withdrew the assault charge, insisting that she had not been offered money to do so, nor had she been threatened. Mr Sala remained determined, and he made it clear that a civil suit would soon be launched against Turpin, whom he described as 'anti-American'. He continued, claiming that Turpin 'should be everlastingly grateful to our American system of democracy — a system he has maligned and defamed openly and notoriously'. On the following day, the eight members of Turpin's party were able to board the ship and begin their journey back to England.

On his arrival home, Randolph Turpin was greeted by scores of reporters who wanted to know the full story of what had transpired but, at least initially, Turpin was reluctant to speak with them. News had already reached the pressmen that Turpin had been temporarily banned by the New York State Athletic Commission from fighting in the United States, and this seemed to represent a serious professional blow, but when Turpin eventually spoke he was keen to play down the gravity of the situation. He confessed to being shocked by Miss Daniels' charges, for she appeared to him to be a quiet and friendly girl, but he admitted that he had met her before the Sugar Ray Robinson fight in New York, and confirmed that over the past two years they had written to each other. He went on: 'We certainly did discuss marriage but when I came out to the United States the last time I told her it was over. I said, "Forget about me."' But Turpin could not keep his story straight. Sometimes he claimed that she had wanted to come back to England with him, and that's why she brought the charge. On other occasions he denied ever having spoken to her about marriage. However, what was undeniable was the fact that his fractious disputes with Miss Daniels had contributed to his lamentable mental state and ultimately to his losing the Carl 'Bobo' Olsen fight so disastrously. Even more disturbingly, the charges that Adele Daniels had levelled against him were, to those who knew of Turpin's past, suspiciously similar to the charges which Mary Stack had brought.

The Empire News was eager to get Adele Daniels' story, and they ran it soon after Turpin's return. She declared that she had 'enjoyed the confidence' of all in Turpin's camp, including his manager and brothers, but it was just Randy himself who had become difficult, strange and moody. According to Miss Daniels, Turpin would often snap at her, and she was continually taken aback by the severity of his mood swings, but those within his camp advised her to say nothing and not to challenge him. Nevertheless, she insisted that she continued to worry about him. 'I begged them to have him examined by a doctor because I thought he was a sick man. I still do. After his fight with Olsen he was worse.' Adele Daniels never explained exactly what sort of sickness she imagined Turpin to be suffering from, but she evidently regarded him as being in the grip of some kind of mental breakdown. She said that on their shopping trips together she would buy the items, for Turpin had no idea of how expensive anything was. On one of these trips, much to her surprise, he purchased a crossbow. She also claimed that she had previously sent Turpin a pair of 'I love you' nylons from New York to England, for he insisted that he had promised his sister, Joan, a present. Some time later she saw a press photograph of Turpin leaving for New York and the Olsen fight, with a girl by his side who was wearing the very same 'I love you' nylons. When she challenged him as to the identity of this girl, he maintained that she was nobody and that things between himself and the girl had finished a long time ago.

Turpin's many relationships with different women had for him always been problematic because, unlike some men who are able to put domestic disputes out of their minds and continue with their lives, Turpin smouldered internally when things did not go exactly the way he wanted. He was still preoccupied with Mary Stack, who had made it clear that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, for he felt that his former wife had tried her best to poison people's opinion of him. After the Robinson rematch, Turpin had bought Randolph Junior an expensive gold watch back from America, and he ran into Mary and Randolph Junior outside the Cassino Milk Bar in Leamington Spa. She was holding his son, but when Turpin showed the child the watch, the child spat at his father and Turpin's brother, Jackie, led Randy away. 'It ain't the lad's fault,' he said. 'It's only what they've been saying to him' — 'they' being the Stack family. Soon after this incident, the bitter divorce proceedings between himself and Mary reached court, with Mary alleging cruelty on the part of her husband, who in turn claimed that his wife had condoned his alleged cruelty. It was all an extravagant waste of time and money, but finally, on 12 June, 1953, Turpin was divorced by Mary, but Turpin was dismayed to discover that the whole sorry proceedings had cost him almost £10,000. He was granted 'reasonable access' to his son, but the reality was that there would be virtually no further contact at all between father and son.

The divorce settlement may well have cleared up some of the complications of Turpin's relationship with his former wife, but it did little to address his ongoing problems with a number of different women. Turpin liked to keep two or three different women as his 'girlfriends', and most of these 'girlfriends' understood that they were nothing more than temporary entertainment. They were generally happy to bask in the reflected glory of a champion prizefighter, but there were some who wished to be more than this. A week before Turpin departed for the United States and the Olsen fight, he was named as the co-respondent in a divorce suit being brought by the policeman husband of a twenty-four-year-old blonde woman named Pamela Valentine. The woman worked at Gwrych Castle and claimed that their relationship began there, and then continued in London. Turpin, for his part, insisted that he thought the woman was single, and it was only when she asked him for money to buy a Christmas present for her child that he realised that she was married. He was ordered to pay the costs incurred by Mr Valentine in bringing the suit.

On his arrival back in England after the disastrous Olsen fight, a bruised and battered Turpin was met by a twentyseven-year-old Welsh hill farmer's daughter, Gwyneth Price, who was better known to him, and her friends and family, as Gwen. She was the young woman who Adele Daniels had spotted in the American press photograph wearing the 'I love you' nylons. A few weeks earlier Gwen had waved a hopeful Turpin off at Southampton, having willingly accepted his argument that it was better for them both if she did not accompany him to New York on this particular trip. However, as planned, she was there to welcome him back to England after his shocking defeat, but she was astute enough not to wait for him in plain view of the press. The Turpin party disembarked and prepared to head straight back to Warwickshire, Dick Turpin having answered the journalists' somewhat probing questions about what exactly had gone wrong in New York. Randy took a taxi to the Royal Hotel to rendezvous with Gwen whom he had first met the previous year, in March 1952, when he was training at Gwrych Castle. Her sister Mona had persuaded Gwen to come with her and get the boxer's autograph. A grinning Turpin had charmed the girl into a date in exchange for his signature, and throughout the course of the subsequent year they had both tried to keep their 'friendship' reasonably discreet. Turpin's family cared little for this fiercely loyal Welsh girl from Axton, Flintshire, but Turpin was happy for he seemed to have finally found somebody who he thought understood him. The following day the young couple left Southampton and hid away from the world in a hotel in Devizes, for Turpin was clearly in no frame of mind to submit to the judgemental scrutiny of the world, nor was he ready to resume his responsibilities as a boxer. A vulnerable, and emotionally scarred, Turpin began to increasingly lean upon Gwen for support, and a few days later, on 15 November, the couple checked into the Greyhound Inn in Newport, Wales, and decided to marry without inviting any of the Turpin family to the ceremony, or even informing them of their intentions. Turpin's mother, in particular, was hurt, all the more so as she had still not come to terms with the fact that her youngest son had divorced Mary Stack and, if rumours were to be believed, possibly mistreated her.

However, the biggest cloud hanging over Turpin's head, and one that was potentially far more damaging than his mother's disapproval of who he had married, was the ongoing situation with Adele Daniels. The case was not only proving to be prohibitively expensive in terms of legal fees, but there was also his reputation to defend and the fact that until this dispute was resolved he was effectively banned from fighting in the United States. Adele Daniels' civil case against Turpin reached the courts in late 1954, and the serious allegation of rape was added to the assault charges. Turpin's American lawyer led the fighter to understand that should Turpin lose the case then the settlement was likely to be a payment in excess of $100,000, and this would effectively ruin Turpin for life. Eventually, in November 1955, a somewhat worried Randolph Turpin returned to New York City and began to tell a slightly different tale. He conceded that, back in 1951, if it were not for the fact that he was still married to Mary Stack, then he would have married Adele Daniels at the time of the Sugar Ray Robinson rematch. He admitted the existence of a substantial number of love letters between them, which included proposals of marriage on his part, but he was adamant that on returning to New York for the Olsen fight he had made it very clear to Adele Daniels that marriage was no longer a possibility. Miss Daniels did not dispute Turpin's claim that he said he no longer wished to marry her, but she insisted that one moment he said that this is what he desired, and the next he would retract his statement. Clearly his deep ambivalence about marrying her had served only to inflame her anger. Miss Daniels' attorney, Mr J. Roland Sala, asserted that Turpin was clearly unstable, angry, and out of control. He characterised the defendant as 'a jungle beast in human form, and a dangerous killer' and said that Miss Daniels had wondered if his condition had been made worse by the beating that he had taken. Miss Daniels repeated, and stood by, her claim that she had suffered blows from Turpin's fists and boots that had left her psychologically scarred.

On the fourth, and last, day of the trial, the case was eventually settled after a long discussion between the two sets of lawyers. Turpin insisted that he had paid Miss Daniels money for food and rent, and he furiously denied ever raping or assaulting her. Miss Daniels was adamant that he had not only done so, but he had said that she was like all Americans, 'trying to push me around'. She insisted that Turpin had continued and told her in no uncertain terms that, 'I am the master, and in England when I say move they move.' According to Miss Daniels he once assaulted her and then said, 'If you make one step to call the police I'll break your neck and if I don't others will.' When she pressed him as to what exactly he meant, he pointed to his connections in the boxing world. The lawyers listened to their clients' claims and counterclaims, and sensing that these unsupported allegations could go on being made and denied for a long period of time, the potential six-figure settlement was reduced to $3,500 which a frustrated Turpin quickly agreed to pay, thus accepting culpability for some wrongdoings. Miss Daniels had decided to settle for this lesser amount against her lawyer's advice, but like Turpin she too was tiring of these proceedings. Turpin's lawyer quickly attempted to seize the moral high ground, and he issued a statement suggesting vindication for his client. However, a relieved Turpin was by now totally indifferent to any more legal posturing, and he was simply happy to be able to finally put the United States, and the memory of Miss Adele Daniels, behind him.

But what did he have to return to in England? The truth was, in 1955 Turpin was facing serious problems both in the ring and out of it. Two years earlier, after he had returned from the Olsen debacle, George Middleton had encouraged his fighter to undergo a full medical check-up. The doctors soon discovered that not only did Turpin have an enlarged liver, his hearing had grown worse, and his eyesight was deteriorating. In fact, during the voyage to New York for the Carl 'Bobo' Olsen fight, his brother Jackie had noticed that while they were doing their roadwork running around the upper deck of the Queen Mary, Turpin had a tendency to drift a little and sometimes even run into him. A medical examination soon determined that Turpin could see straight ahead, but his peripheral vision was restricted, which could have serious consequences for a fighter as he would not be able to see some punches coming. On 2 January, 1954, Turpin was fined two pounds at Abergate Magistrates' Court for being in possession of a rifle without a firearms licence, and the gun was confiscated. It was extensively reported in the press that during the court proceedings the fighter's hearing appeared to be impaired, for Turpin was often struggling to hear what was being said in the courtroom, but the British Boxing Board of Control, who could easily have withdrawn his boxing licence, chose to do nothing. In late January 1954, Turpin was charged and convicted of dangerous and careless driving and fined fifteen guineas, but his driving licence was not confiscated and he continued to drive recklessly. In fact, during the two years between his return from the loss to Olsen, and the Adele Daniels trial in New York, Turpin experienced great difficulty holding his life in order. His worries over his deteriorating relationship with his family, the impending court case in the United States, and his increasingly desperate financial situation, continued to trouble him. But what concerned others was not only what they considered to be his increasingly erratic behaviour, but his declining abilities in the ring.

After the loss to Olsen, Turpin began to lose to men who he should have comfortably beaten. In May 1954 Turpin suffered a first-round knockout in Rome and lost his European middleweight title to a light-puncher named Tiberio Mitri. This was a bout he should have won with ease, and this shocking loss marked the end of any further world title aspirations. Turpin's heart seemed to have gone out of fighting, and on those few occasions when he did muster the energy and focus to take a fight seriously, the press observed that this was clearly not the same fighter who, only a few years earlier, had fought so gallantly against the great Sugar Ray Robinson. His brother Jackie, who during this bleak period continued to spar with Randy, noticed that one moment his brother could be jovial and ready to joke around, and the next moment he could become extremely angry. These sudden and unexpected mood swings were now often accompanied by blinding headaches, but Turpin refused to seek any medical help. The defeats became embarrassing, particularly a fourthround knockout loss to a 'nobody' named Gordon Wallace in October 1954, a man who managed to floor Turpin four times and embarrass him so badly that Turpin temporarily retired. However, although Turpin's box office status began now to rapidly decline, he needed to fight to make money. In November 1956, Turpin did manage to defeat Alex Buxton and retain his British light-heavyweight title, and he was eventually able to claim a Lonsdale belt outright when he defended his light-heavyweight title for a third time in June 1957, winning a turgid fifteen-round decision over the little known Arthur Howard. But even this no-hoper managed to knock Turpin to the canvas three times during the course of the fight. There was little further glory in 1957, or during the first half of 1958. The halfdozen victories that he was able to accumulate were all achieved against woefully inadequate opposition, yet the cost of these 'triumphs' involved Turpin taking a great deal of physical punishment. The end came in Birmingham on 9 September, 1958, when Turpin was pummelled by a Trinidadian named Yolande Pompey who easily knocked him out in two rounds. The correspondent for the London Evening Standard summed things up. 'No doubts now — Turpin is just another fighter. . the whiplash punch and the split-second timing that once gave him world supremacy have gone. And Turpin must not blame us for noting their passing — with infinite regret.'

It was clear, even to Turpin, that in order to protect his health, and his dignity, he should hang up his gloves. The business of boxing had begun to eat into his body, and although he remained a handsome man who had avoided the hammered spread of a boxer's nose, there was no longer any point to his continuing for he had no title to his name and there was little hope of his ever winning one again. His eyesight was damaged, his hearing was in danger of deteriorating even further, and he no longer had the stomach for the rigid discipline of training and preparing for top-class fights. His professional record of sixty-four wins (forty-five by knockout), eight losses, and one draw was something that he could be proud of, but Turpin was financially destitute, and he had no idea what had happened to all the money that he had earned in the ring. With no other sources of income open to him, he reluctantly accepted George Middleton's offer of employment in his Leamington Spa scrapyard. Turpin began working a nine-to-five shift, driving around picking up old car engines and bits of metal, then taking them back to the scrapyard where he would let loose on them with a sledgehammer. His take-home pay varied between two and four pounds a week, which was a world away from his days of first-class travel, five-star hotels, and custommade clothes and shoes, but it enabled him to make some kind of a living and afford a small house and a car. But there remained huge debts to the Inland Revenue, and Turpin had no idea how to begin to deal with these issues. He had survived twelve years as a top-class fighter and all he had to show for it were arrears that day and night weighed heavily on his mind. However, one thing he was sure of was the fact that he was finished with boxing. A few years earlier, while trying to forget yet another shocking defeat at the hands of a lesser man, he had written a poem for his manager, George Middleton, expressing his feelings about the sport that had both made him and was now breaking him.

THE COMEBACK ROAD

The comeback road is hard and long

The boys I'll meet will be hard and strong,

But my patience is good,

And my willpower strong.

I'll hear the bell

Which means time to go

But I'll do my best, and I'll have a go

Cause I've got someone to back me.

The manager I've got

Is the one for me

As I know he'll stick

In a real rough sea.

They say I've finished

But I'll prove 'em wrong

And I'll have a go

Cause my patience, willpower, and heart are strong.

If I make the grade,

On that one big day

We can look at them all

With a laugh and say,

We've done our best

For the game we love

Now there's no more kicks

And that's real good.

So we'll leave this game

Which was hard and cruel

Then down at the show, on a ringside stool

We'll watch the next man, just one more fool.

The money that Turpin was earning driving around looking for old cars and engines, and then cutting up the debris for George Middleton in his scrapyard, was barely enough to support Gwen and their growing family. Already there were two daughters, and Gwen was pregnant with a third child. Turpin was also finding it difficult to deal with the humiliation of such a public fall from grace. On 15 February, 1959, the New York Times ran a story entitled 'Turpin: A Story of Riches to Rags'. It reported that, 'Today, the one-time world champion, who earned more than $500,000, is a junk man. He drives about little Leamington Spa in an old truck picking up scraps of iron, derelict motors and hunks of metal nobody else wants. He takes the collection to the junkyard, batters it and sells the scrap. Turpin, now thirty, does not own the sledgehammer, the truck or the business. But once he was paid $200,000 for a single fight. In those days Turpin wore Savile Row suits and bench-made shoes. Today he wears grubby work clothes. At the peak of his career, he traveled around Europe and America living in the best hotels. Usually he had a few hangers-on. Now his home is a small house on a backstreet of an unlovely section of Leamington.'

Being a relatively fit coloured man, who was still a household name in England, there was one profession that would welcome Turpin with open arms — the burlesque of wrestling. The bouts were fixed, often crudely so, and the fighters divided into 'good' and 'bad', heroes and villains, with the coloured wrestlers — who fought under pseudonyms such as 'Johnny Kwango' or 'Masambula' — little more than novelty ring-fodder to be thrown around for the comic entertainment of the masses. Turpin began to travel around the country and 'fight' for cash payments which averaged about twenty-five pounds per bout. The money was not great, but the risk of injury was, and Turpin soon began to pick up leg and back injuries, which only added to the ignominy of his present situation and began to depress him even further. By the early sixties, the former world boxing champion began to develop a reputation in wrestling circles for being late, or sometimes forgetting about engagements altogether, and there were rumours that he had started to drink. Friends and family began to notice that his speech was sometimes slurred, and that he was beginning to display a number of signs that he might be growing 'punchy' from his many years in the boxing ring. However, given Turpin's current difficulties, his income as a wrestler was important to him and so, despite his own reservations and his evident discomfort, he persisted with the charade knowing that at some level at least these fight people were 'his people', and wrestling was certainly preferable to making pennies labouring in George Middleton's scrapyard.

Turpin continued to be hounded by the Inland Revenue for taxes that were payable on money that the authorities claimed he had earned at the height of his boxing career. In July 1962 he was formally declared bankrupt with assets of £1,204 and liabilities owing to the taxman of £17,126. This was a sum that had already been considerably reduced from a figure nearer to £100,000 by the tenacity of Max Mitchell, Turpin's accountant. Mitchell had detailed the unorthodox accounting procedures of the promoter Mr Jack Solomons, and he had drawn the Inland Revenue's attention to the fact that his client had assumed that income tax was being paid by his promoter and his manager. Furthermore, the sums that the Inland Revenue claimed had been paid to Turpin were, according to Mitchell, nowhere near the amounts that Turpin actually received. While Mitchell could not deny that Turpin had made a series of spectacularly bad investments, including the property at Great Orme (which, following an unpleasant split with Leslie Salts, had now been purchased by the Llandudno Urban Council at a loss to Turpin), he pleaded that the Inland Revenue should take into consideration the fact that Turpin was both naïve and somewhat innocent. For instance, everybody knew that Leslie Salts was a con-man, and Turpin was the last to realise that the staff at the Great Orme complex, including John Beston, his brotherin-law, were 'on the take'. In fact, Turpin's belated discovery that Joan's husband had been swindling him prompted him to break the man's nose. Part of Max Mitchell's plea to the Inland Revenue contained the following statement: 'As time goes on, the punching power of a boxer is enfeebled the longer he pursues his profession. His brain through constant pummelling becomes bemused. His eyes are affected. Deafness overtakes him. And in effect he is lucky if in the prime of his manhood he doesn't turn into a two-legged vegetable.'

Aside from bad investments and questionable payment practices, it was apparent that the main reason for Turpin's financial hardship was his propensity, at the height of his earning powers, to give away his money to people who were almost complete strangers. He helped those who claimed that they wished to start taxi companies, or buy pubs, or pay off their mortgages; almost any hard-luck story might well be concluded by a soft-hearted Turpin putting his hand into his pocket and pulling out a bundle of cash. But despite his almost reckless generosity, a part of Turpin remained practical, and after his bankruptcy hearings, Turpin, together with a few friends, began to search out those who had 'borrowed' money from him. He threatened more than one man in an attempt to retrieve his cash, but while some fearfully agreed to reimburse him with a weekly payment, most claimed that they had either lost the money, or it had been stolen from them. Somewhat bitterly, Turpin reflected, 'It cost me bleeding money every time I shook hands with somebody, didn't it?' Keen not to compound his present circumstances by ending up in jail on assault charges, there was little that Turpin could do beyond threaten, but by the mid-sixties most people were no longer in awe of the 'Leamington Licker'.

Back in 1959, Turpin had bought a run-down café in Russell Street, Leamington Spa, called Harold's Transport Café. The place was in a terrible condition, and most people could not understand why Turpin would want to invest in such a low-class, and decidedly unglamorous, business. However, they knew enough about Turpin to know that whatever reservations they might have about this venture would be ignored by him. What made Turpin's acquisition all the more puzzling, and illogical, was the fact that the property had already been condemned for demolition to make way for a car park. Obviously there was no long-term future to this purchase, but Turpin nevertheless went ahead. He renamed the café for his loyal wife, Gwen, and his mother joined the new Mrs Turpin, the two of them working behind the counter serving mixed grills, bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea to lorry drivers and labourers, while upstairs there was a room to rent out should anybody require lodgings. Although his mother was by now almost blind, she enjoyed the work, but her son soon grew to despise Gwen's Transport Café. The income dribbled in as loose change, and the money did absolutely nothing to alleviate his debts, while the customers were often rude, abrasive, and had stopped by merely in the hope of achieving a glimpse of the once famous fighter who had now fallen on hard times. There were those who wished to arm-wrestle him, or even challenge him to mix it up in a fight, but Turpin generally made his excuses and withdrew to the family's small flat above the café where he would read one of his comic books. The half-dozen plain tables were seldom full, but at least the place kept Gwen and Mrs Turpin busy. Sadly, Turpin's mother aside, the rest of his family did not feel welcome in the café. Their relationship with Gwen was, at best, cool, and should any of her husband's brothers or sisters wander in then it was more than likely that Gwen would charge them for their cup of tea. She sensed that as an 'outsider' from Wales they somehow held her responsible for taking Randy away from his close-knit family, but to her way of thinking they were, at the height of his fame, as happy as anybody else to accept his money and exploit his success. She felt that now, when he had little left, they should be made to pay like everybody else. On the wall of their transport café, Randy and Gwen hung a sign which read: 'That which seldom comes back to him who waits is the money he lends to friends.'

Between his wrestling, the meagre income from the café, and labouring, Turpin managed to earn a living in the early sixties, but he continually worried about his mounting debts and his unpaid bills. He was also tormented with concern about the effect that his predicament was having upon Gwen and his daughters, who formed the loving centre of his life. He worked hard to hide his distress from them, and he was largely successful in maintaining the image of a trouble-free, happy, loving father and husband. However, his anxiety over his debts was compounded by the frustration of knowing that he had foolishly allowed others to take advantage of his generous nature and, to some extent, the present situation was entirely one of his own making. Turpin was well aware of the fact that he was hardly the first boxer to fall into financial hardship once his career had concluded. He knew that his own hero, Joe Louis, was struggling with similar problems in the United States, and that he too had taken up wrestling as a way of paying his bills. Joe Louis' wife, Rose, once commented that 'watching Joe Louis wrestle is just the same as watching the president of the United States wash dishes,' to which her husband replied, 'Well, it ain't stealing.' But these problems were not confined to the United States, for back in Britain there were countless examples of once well-known boxers who were now destitute. However, no British boxer had ever risen to the financial and professional heights of a Randolph Turpin, so his fall from grace was spectacular for others to witness, and for Turpin it was excruciatingly painful to endure. In a state of desperation he made two brief, and somewhat embarrassing, returns to the ring, winning a sixth-round knockout over Eddie Marcano at Wisbech, Norfolk, in March 1963, and then a second-round knockout in Malta in January 1964 over Charles Seguna, but neither opponent could really box, and Turpin collected mere loose change for a fee. Both fights were an exercise in humiliation, but at least Turpin finally acknowledged that he could never again fight seriously, for his eyesight had deteriorated to the point where it would be utter folly to fight even an exhibition bout.

In December 1965, Turpin was invited to New York, with all expenses paid, to be part of the extravagant celebrations at Madison Square Garden marking the retirement of the five-time middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson. Together with Carl 'Bobo' Olsen, Jake La Motta, Carmen Basilio, and Gene Fullmer, the other men who Robinson had beaten to claim his five titles, Turpin had the opportunity to enjoy one final night in the spotlight. A photograph of Turpin in the ring with the other fighters that evening tells its own story. While everyone gazes at Robinson, Turpin's face is frozen in a half-smile and he stares into the middle distance. His mind is elsewhere, perhaps wondering why he is even present, and he stands awkwardly to one side as though not really a part of this celebration of boxing history. This is particularly ironic given the fact that Robinson made no secret of his admiration for Turpin the man and the boxer, and went to great lengths to make sure that his old adversary would be present on this special occasion. Later that evening, Turpin joined Sugar Ray Robinson and the other dignitaries, including the mayor of New York City, John Lindsay, and a young Muhammad Ali, at a sit-down dinner at the famous Mamma Leone's restaurant on West 48th Street. This would be Turpin's last glimpse of the glamour and celebrity that a decade earlier had been an integral part of his life.

Late in 1965, a now financially desperate Turpin wrote to Jack Solomons and asked the promoter to help him sell his cherished Lonsdale belt. Turpin hoped that the belt, plus his other trophies, might raise somewhere in the region of £10,000, but Solomons was either unable or unwilling to help. Early in 1966, Turpin turned to another promoter, Alex Griffiths, and he begged Griffiths to help him sell his Lonsdale belt, but although Griffiths tried to attract interested buyers nothing ever came of this effort. The sense of anxiety was palpable in Turpin's actions, and photographs of the former fighter from this period show a man who has visibly aged and whose face is tramlined with streaks of worry. Some thirteen years earlier, in May 1953 as he prepared for the Charles Humez title eliminator fight, the London Illustrated News had run an extensive feature on Randolph Turpin and the opening of his Great Orme complex. It began, 'When Randolph Turpin ducks under the ropes at London's White City stadium on 9 June, he will be the first big-business man to fight for a world title. . The all too frequent story of the ex-champion who dies in poverty, or falls on hard times, is not likely to be applied to Turpin.' Sometime in the spring of 1966, Turpin changed his mind about selling his Lonsdale belt and his boxing trophies, and in a letter to his wife he wrote, 'They are yours. As long as you keep them, you have a part of me. Don't ever sell them.' Those around Turpin, including Gwen, could see a quiet desperation beginning to descend upon the 'Leamington Licker' as he withdrew into introspective silence.

At Randolph Turpin's funeral, the Revd Eugene Haselden spoke loudly and passionately about what he believed was the principal contributory factor to the death of this man who, only a few years earlier, was Britain's most celebrated sporting hero. 'At the height of his career,' he began, 'Randolph was surrounded by those who regarded themselves as friends and well-wishers. But he was deserted by many as he lost his position and money. The fickleness of his friends and the incompetent advice must have weighed so heavily upon him that he was forced to desperation. Randolph was a simple man, a naïve man and he needed friends to protect him from the spongers. To our shame he was let down. The tragedy is not his failure alone, but the failure of the whole society.' At the conclusion of this blunt and unapologetic sermon there was silence inside Leamington Spa's Holy Trinity Church. The newspaper reports claimed that there were nearly 2,000 people present, but the truth is there were maybe 500 people inside the church. However, as the mourners began to spill out into the weak light of this gloomy day their numbers were augmented by passers-by, and by those who had decided to brave the rain and just come and pay their respects. Turpin's grief-stricken family were present, including young Randolph, his son from his first marriage, and many of the friends with whom he had grown up in Leamington Spa made an appearance. The promoter Jack Solomons sent neither words of condolence nor a note of apology for missing the funeral. Shockingly, nobody from the British Boxing Board of Control in London made the trip to the Midlands as one might have reasonably expected for a holder of a Lonsdale belt, and a former British, European, and World boxing champion.

Some time after the interment the Warwickshire coroner, Mr S. Tibbets, concluded his findings by suggesting that Randolph Turpin appeared to have been an impulsive and generous man who had given away a large part of his earnings in the ring, and in some way this had led to the present tragedy. Turpin's one-time business partner, Leslie Salts, went further, describing Turpin as 'intelligent in some respects but childish in others. You can tell people what is the best for them,' he said, 'but they don't always take notice.' This, of course, was somewhat ironic coming from a man who made a handsome profit from Turpin, and who had enjoyed the most successful and lucrative years of his life because of the efforts of the now deceased boxer. The coroner read aloud part of a note that Turpin had written and left pinned to a bedroom door before his death. In the note, Turpin made it clear that he felt that he was 'having to carry the can for money owing to the Inland Revenue'. He continued and insisted that his mind was clear and not disturbed. As it transpired, the verdict of the Coroners' Court agreed that this was most likely the case. The entry on the death certificate of Randolph Turpin records that the cause of death was as a result of:

Gunshot wounds of the heart

Self-inflicted (Suicide)

On 14 May, 1966, three days before Turpin's death, yet another letter from the Inland Revenue had arrived at the transport café in Leamington Spa, this one claiming £200 that was due as a result of non-payment of tax on the income from some of Turpin's wrestling engagements. The latest demand seemed unnecessarily harsh to Turpin and this news, together with the increasing likelihood that the local council was about to exercise the compulsory purchase order on the café, and thereby render Turpin and his wife and four daughters homeless, caused the former fighter to slip into an even deeper trough of depression. By now Gwen was used to enduring her husband's moods so she knew that there was little that she could do beyond wait and hope that his anxiety might soon subside. Three days later, on 17 May, Turpin was working in the café with his wife. After lunch the two older daughters, eleven-year-old Gwyneth and nine-year-old Annette, went back to school, while Turpin went upstairs to check on four-year-old Charmaine, who was suffering from a cold. After a few moments Turpin came back down and told his wife that the child was sleeping, and then he went back upstairs. Their youngest daughter, Carmen, who was almost two years old, followed her father. Shortly after 2:30 p.m. a curious Gwen went upstairs to check that everything was fine. She saw her husband on the floor between some packing cases and the bed, and she noticed bloodstains on the blanket. Her motionless husband looked as though he had tumbled from the bed, and her daughter, Carmen, was sitting on the floor beside her father, but the crying child was surrounded by a pool of blood. Gwen snatched up Carmen and ran with the child to Warneford Hospital where the authorities informed her that her daughter had been shot. Back at the café neighbours had already called the police, but the word on the street was that Turpin had shot himself twice with a.22 calibre revolver, once to the left side of the head and then fatally in the heart. He had used the same weapon to shoot his youngest daughter twice, and one bullet was lodged near Carmen's brain and the other had punctured her lung. Their local hero was dead, and his youngest daughter was fighting for her life.

Two weeks after Turpin's suicide, Gwen Turpin sold her story to a Sunday newspaper. Carmen was now out of danger, and it was clear that she was going to survive, but Gwen was still trying to find some justification for what her husband had done to their child. In the newspaper she said, 'I think he wanted to take her with him because he had begun to look on the world as a place not fit for her to live in.' But Gwen knew that this was a world that she and her children would have to continue to live in, and she was now determined to protect her four children from any scrutiny and, if truth be told, from the Turpin family with whom, Turpin's elderly mother aside, she wished to have no further dealings. Never wishing to set foot again in the transport café, and realising that she could only stay with friends for so long, once it was safe for Carmen to travel Gwen took herself and the girls off to Prestatyn in North Wales. Gwen went home, remembering that her late husband had told her that she should always try and visit the Great Orme, for that's where they had been happy. In many respects, it was her love and support, and Turpin's devotion to his daughters, that had enabled him to survive the years of debt and anxiety that followed his retirement from boxing. His love for his family had meant that he persevered even when he could see no future, but in the end life's pressure finally defeated this proud warrior. But in Gwen, who was anything but a shy, retiring Welsh Valley girl, he had found a sustaining love, and after his death she deeply mourned the loss of her beloved husband. Eventually, short of cash, Gwen sold her late husband's Lonsdale belt for £3,000.

In 2001, exactly fifty years after Turpin shocked the world and defeated Sugar Ray Robinson, an imposing 8'6'' statue of Randolph Turpin in boxing pose, on a five feet high stone plinth, was unveiled in the centre of Warwick. On the bronze plaque below his feet are inscribed the words:

In Palace, Pub, And Parlour

The Whole of Britain Held Its Breath.

And beneath this 'Celer Et Audax' — Latin for 'Swift and Bold' — the motto of the King's Royal Rifle Corps with whom Turpin's father served during the First World War. Thirty-five years earlier, in 1966, Gwen Turpin had already chosen her own memorial words and had them inscribed on her husband's headstone. Randolph Turpin may have ruled the world for an extremely brief sixty-four days, but whatever his troubles she wanted this stubborn, often naïve man to be remembered as an English hero.

TO

THE DEAR MEMORY OF

RANDOLPH ADOLPHUS

TURPIN

DEVOTED HUSBAND OF

GWYNETH

AND FATHER OF

GWYNETH, ANNETTE,

CHARMAINE & CARMEN

WHO PASSED AWAY

17 MAY, 1966. AGED 38

World middleweight

boxing champion 1951.

*

Annette is the older of the two Turpin girls sitting before me. Both Annette and Charmaine are now in their forties, and there is a joy to their faces and demeanour which immediately challenges any notion of seeing the story of their father as a tragic one. Charmaine's eleven-year-old son Ieuan sits to her side. Opposite him, and next to me, sits sixteen-year-old Rachel. She is Carmen's daughter, and both she and her cousin are quiet and conscientiously polite. It is now forty years since Randolph Turpin died, and on this hot July afternoon we are having lunch at an Italian restaurant on London's South Bank, only a few hundred yards from the National Film Theatre where some twenty-one years ago I watched a poignant documentary film about Randolph Turpin. Annette smiles. She informs me that she too was in the audience that day, and she liked the film about her father. But that is all that she says; that she liked it, nothing more. We decide to order lunch.

Annette lives in South London, where she is a psychiatric nurse working with children and adolescents in a hospital outpatient department. Charmaine has travelled down with the two children from Prestatyn in North Wales, where she is employed by a company that manufactures military equipment. She is planning on spending the weekend with her sister. Carmen was due to accompany her, but she has recently found another job and so she has decided to stay behind in Wales. Gwyneth, the oldest sister, died of Hodgkin's disease in 1987, and their mother Gwen died in May 1992. She never remarried. As Annette and Charmaine study the menu, I look closely at the sisters and can see that they both have something of the Randolph Turpin twinkle in their eyes. They lay down their menus and then break into charismatic smiles which remind me of the film footage I have seen of their father being interviewed as he prepared to board the Queen Mary and sail to New York for the first time. However, it is the young boy, Ieuan — the grandson — who is truly blessed with his grandfather's features. I wonder how much he knows about Randolph Turpin, or if he is even interested. 'HMS Belfast and the Imperial War Museum,' says his mother, 'that's what Ieuan likes to visit when he comes to London.' Did Ieuan know that his grandfather, and his grandfather's brothers, served in the military during the Second World War? Did Ieuan know that his West Indian great-grandfather was wounded in the First World War and suffered wounds that later killed him?

Having ordered lunch, the children now begin to talk to each other. Suddenly I feel the pressure to pose a question to the sisters, but it is Annette who asks the first question. 'Do you think my dad would have got proper recognition if he wasn't black?' I have to think for a moment for this is a somewhat blunter version of a question that I was hoping to pose to the sisters. 'Although,' continues Annette, 'somebody told me that there are only two statues to black men in England. One is just along the river here, the one for Nelson Mandela, and the other is of our dad. The one that's in Warwick.' For a moment it occurs to me that in a sense she has answered her own question, but she continues. 'But there should be more recognition for black people, shouldn't there? And the one in Warwick has happened relatively recently.'

Two days after winning the world middleweight title, twenty-three-year-old Randolph Turpin found himself on the balcony of Leamington Spa Town Hall with a microphone before him and being asked to make a formal speech. He began, but clearly he was not comfortable with the situation he found himself in and so he departed from the text and decided to thank the crowd in what he called 'me own language'. There was nothing pretentious or affected about Turpin. He was a working-class kid who was neither overly proud of, nor ashamed of, his roots. He was not hoping to secretly ascend through the ranks of the class system and become 'accepted' by the middle or upper classes. I suggest to the sisters that a combination of race and class probably operated against their father being fully recognised, and I ask them what they think he would be doing now were he still alive. Both are sure that he would still have something to do with boxing, probably working with youngsters as a trainer of some kind. 'How about media work?' I ask. They think for a moment, but I quickly continue. 'His face wouldn't have fit, right?' Charmaine nods. 'Yes, that's probably right.' In England issues of race and class frequently operate hand in hand, and had Randolph Turpin lived it seems clear to me that he would undoubtedly have 'suffered' as much for his class as for his race.

Annette steals a quick glance at Charmaine. 'You know, our grandmother had to deal with a lot of racial abuse after her husband died. She got it because she had black kids. Five of them, but she always stuck by her children. Mum told us that. Mum never told us anything about anybody that was bad. When we were growing up she just let us make our own minds up about things.' Charmaine nods, and then takes over from Annette. 'But if we wanted to know then she would tell us her opinion, but only if we asked. After our dad died we left Leamington Spa, but we would sometimes come back and see people. Our mum would bring us from Wales, but she didn't badmouth anyone.' Annette's eyes light up. 'For instance,' says Annette, 'I idolised my Uncle Dick.' She stops abruptly. 'Mum never said anything to me until I started to ask questions about what had happened with the family, but even then it was just her opinion. You know, you should see pictures of her back then in the fifties. She was beautiful and glamorous, just like a film star. But when it came to family and questions about our dad she just let us make our own minds up.'

Shortly after her husband's death, Gwen took her four daughters back to Wales where she once again became part of a Welsh-speaking community. But none of her daughters can speak Welsh, which leads me to wonder if they consider Wales to be home. Charmaine casts a quick glance at the two children, who are now listening carefully. 'In a sense, yes, of course, but Leamington Spa is also home. Maybe it's really home.' Annette looks across at her younger sister and picks up her cue. 'When we go there we always take flowers for the grave, and the last time we were there we went for a walk down the street we used to live on, and it felt strange. Of course, the café is no longer there as it's now a car park, but the place is full of emotions, both good and bad. It's still home, though. At least to me.' She pauses. 'Mum told us that towards the end she would have preferred to sell up and go back to the Great Orme. This was when they still had both the café and the Great Orme, but for some reason Dad made his choice and he chose the café and Leamington and Mum went along with it. But when we did go to Prestatyn after his death we were never made to feel like outsiders in Wales.'

After we have all finished eating we pause for a moment and think about ordering dessert. It transpires that only the children are interested and Charmaine begins to guide them through the choices. Annette is deep in thought, and then she looks up. 'You know what my mother's father said to my dad when he told him that he was going to marry Mum? He said, "Just take care of my daughter." That's all he said. "Just take care of my daughter." My dad was the only black man around that part of Wales, and maybe the only one some people had ever seen, but in Wales everybody accepted him for what he was. They were friendly and generous, and he didn't get any abuse. They didn't care that he was famous, and they didn't want anything from him. For the first time in his life he was free, and he was also among nature. He liked to work on the hay in the fields and do farm work on my granddad's farm, but when he was in Leamington if he had a fiver in his pocket they'd want £4.50 of it and you know he'd just give it to them. In a way he could be happy in Wales because he could just be himself, and for him it was really a big change from Leamington. I reckon things might have been different if they'd left Leamington and gone back and took over the Great Orme again like Mum wanted. But that's not what they did. They stayed in Leamington.'

Having finished their dessert, the two grandchildren run off to play by the water's edge. Annette is the more talkative of the sisters, but being five years older her memories of her father are undoubtedly stronger than Charmaine's. We order coffee, and Charmaine keeps glancing anxiously over my shoulder in order that she might keep an eye on the children. Annette remembers that when she was a girl there was another black family in Leamington Spa. 'Dad used to leave the café at the end of the day and take plates of food, stacked up high, to other poor families in Leamington, including this black family across the street. He'd still feed them even when we had nothing, but he was like that. He looked after loads of people in Leamington, poor people, old people, and he didn't make a fuss about it.' Annette pauses. 'But there was this black family, and years later I met a guy who was a kid in the family and he remembered my dad bringing them food. I think my dad made a lot of black kids in England realise what it was possible to achieve, so his story isn't just gloom. I'm always meeting people who remember Dad, and whenever they talk about him they always smile. Nobody has a bad word to say about him, isn't that right?' Charmaine nods her head somewhat sadly, and then she picks up the thread of what Annette has been saying. 'You see, Dad lost a lot, but he always had dignity and he was good to people.' Suddenly Annette remembers. 'He made that trip to New York near the end, and Mum said that it made a big difference to him because he was really down.' I mention to them both that Muhammad Ali was a fan of their father, and he talked extensively with Turpin at the dinner that followed the Sugar Ray Robinson celebrations at Madison Square Garden in December 1965. Both sisters' faces light up. The children have now returned from the river and Charmaine turns to them. 'Did you hear that?' They both look blankly at her. 'About your granddad and Muhammad Ali.' The kids have not heard. 'Don't worry,' says Charmaine, 'I'll tell you later.'

Randolph Turpin's story does not end in 1966 in tragedy. His proud daughters still love and revere the great fighter, and in time the grandchildren will too. For Annette and Charmaine, their father's life can never be reduced to the cliché of the naïve boxer having been ripped off and then committing suicide. To them, Randolph Turpin will always be a happy, loving father who used to be a boxer. Unfortunately their father's situation was such that he had little choice but to carry the accumulated hurt and frustrations of his boxing career into what should have been many happy years of retirement with Gwen and the children. As we wait for the bill, Annette pinpoints the heart of the story as she sees it and as I have grown to understand it. 'He felt betrayed.' This has to be true; Turpin's inner turmoil towards the end cannot have been simply fuelled by anxieties over a lack of money, and anger and frustration at having allowed himself to be used by people. There must have been a deeper, and in the end a far more destructive, hurt that was engendered by knowing that those who were closest to him had actually double-crossed him. He lived with this hurt for many years, carefully keeping it from his immediate family, and the great mystery is how he survived for so long while shouldering this oppressive burden of betrayal. Looking at his children I now know how. After years of turbulence, both private and public, he finally found in his Welsh girl, Gwen, the sustaining love of a loyal and devoted wife, and four daughters whom he adored. He persevered for them, but in the end the mounting debt, the crushing sense of abandonment, and a profound heartache that he was somehow failing the family he loved, proved too much for him. To the end, he was Beattie's most sensitive child. Annette continues. 'But he never hated anyone. In that sense he was just like Mum. He just let people make up their own minds.'