The new heavyweight champion Tyson Fury is said to be related to a legendary figure called Bartley Gorman who was for decades the bare-knuckle champion of the world. I was at Gorman’s funeral in 2002, a day that lives long in the memory. This is what I wrote at the time.
Category Archives: Independent
Where do we look for heroes today?
Where do we look for heroes, today of all days? Not at the war memorial. They have almost all gone away. There used to be soldiers, sailors, airmen, Waafs and Wrens everywhere, even if they were mostly invisible. The elderly gent shuffling home from the supermarket with a budget meal for one, a survivor ofContinueContinue reading “Where do we look for heroes today?”
Rommel with ballet shoes: what it’s like to take tea with the man thrown out of the BNP
Richard Barnbrook, who won a seat on the Greater London Assembly for the BNP, is now being expelled from the party after an attempted coup, according to a report in today’s Guardian. I took tea with him at his home in Dagenham two years ago, for the Independent on Sunday, and it was a remarkableContinueContinue reading “Rommel with ballet shoes: what it’s like to take tea with the man thrown out of the BNP”
The Cost Of The Bloody Sunday Inquiry
On a shelf in a glass case, in a room in the Bogside area of Derry, there is a yellowing cotton Babygro covered in brown blotches. The stains were made by the blood of Michael Kelly, a 17-year-old boy who was shot dead in the street just outside. “We carried him into a house,” recalls hisContinueContinue reading “The Cost Of The Bloody Sunday Inquiry”
The Sun Has Set, Has It Not?
Sunrise on the south bank of the Thames, the morning after the election. This is where it all began for New Labour, all those years ago, with Tony Blair grinning like a preacher on fire. He saw the sky grow bright behind the Royal Festival Hall and told a gathering of true believers, ecstatic atContinueContinue reading “The Sun Has Set, Has It Not?”
Cole Moreton 