Fighting Men of London: Voices from Inside the Ropes

Fighting Men of London explores the lives of seven former professional boxers who fought in the capital between the 1930s and 1960s. Set around a series of interviews with the fighters, it resurrects a golden age when boxing was as popular as soccer in Britain, and when leading fighters were working-class heroes. Dramatic, poignant, inspiring, and at times funny, the book covers such subjects as booth fighting, exploitation in boxing, East End poverty, World War II London, fame and success, prison life, encounters with the Kray twins, Great Train Robbers, and Britain's most infamous inmate, Charles Bronson. Fighting Men of London journeys through a lost era of smoky fight halls and ramshackle boxing arenas. Its subjects include 1950s boxing star Sammy McCarthy, Bethnal Green knockout specialist Ted Berry (who helped his father train the Kray twins), and Sid Nathan, one of Britain's last surviving 1930s boxers. Read more