They fucked him up, his mum and dad …

From Walking Wounded – the Life and Poetry of Vernon Scannell

“Even as a young boy, Vernon was fascinated by the history of boxing, by the great names of both the past and the present. He knew their life stories, he could rattle off the statistics that marked out their careers, and he knew the names of every current national and international boxing champion at every weight. So when in September 1935 the Scottish flyweight champion, Benny Lynch, a rough, tough fighter from Glasgow’s Gorbals, was challenging Jackie Brown for the world title, it was natural that Vernon should have a view. With all the passion of a 13-year-old boy, he was rooting for the challenger.

Brown, like Vernon’s father, came from Manchester, and as a result the Old Man was a passionate supporter. When Vernon declared that he thought that Lynch would win, his father was dismissive: the champion would thrash him in a couple of rounds, he declared. In any other household it might have been an enjoyable argument, the sort of dispute that fathers and sons have had since sport began. But the next morning, when Vernon appeared for breakfast, his father was sitting smoking with Elsie over a cup of tea, in an angry, surly, sulky mood. He had listened to the fight on the radio he had recently bought, a fresh mark of the continuing success of his business. When his son asked excitedly who had won, he said nothing for a moment. Then, as if the words were being dragged from his mouth on chains, he muttered: “Lynch. Knock-out. Second round. It was a fluke.”

The young boy, of course, was cock-a-hoop. His favourite had won, he had been right, what he had predicted had happened. For most people, it would have been a time for some light-hearted teasing, good-natured banter, maybe an argument about the respective merits of the two fighters. But not here. Bain said nothing for a moment, then suddenly got up, stepped over to his happy, excited thirteen-year-old son, and punched him, once, as hard as he could in the face.

He walked out of the room without a word, and Elsie looked down at her son, lying dazed on the floor with blood dripping from his mouth. “You shouldn’t have taunted him. You might have known,” she said.”