Hard Road to Glory - How I Became Champion of the World. Johnny Nelson
Only my real dad calls me Ivanson now.
Because Theresa was the first of our family at the school, everyone assumed Oliver and I were named Smith too. Instead of Ivanson Ranny Nelson, I’d become Johnny Smith. It was difficult to try to explain that my name was Nelson. It seemed quite natural to me that our family all had different surnames and at that age I probably didn’t really understand how it had come about, but it used to upset me when my school mates teased me. If I told Mum, she would just say, ‘It’s none of their business. Tell ’em to come and see me, I’ll sort ’em out.’
It was at St Vincent’s I first became aware that having black skin might be a problem. By this time, I was in Mrs Rigby’s class, and at Christmas we were told we were going to create a nativity scene. One group would make the stable, another the wise men, some would be in charge of shepherds, others the animals and so on. Mrs Rigby’s daughter, Bernadette, and I were given the honour of making baby Jesus in his crib. It was all going well until I started to paint Jesus’ face brown.
Bernadette freaked. She was crying and protesting and, as much as I pointed out that Jesus wasn’t from Sheffield but from a hot country and so would have been brown, she wouldn’t have it. Her mother called us to the front of the class and demanded to know what was going on. I hated any kind of confrontation and was already gulping back the sobs but my stubborn streak wouldn’t let me give in.
‘But Jesus was brown,’ I protested.
Bernadette got even more upset and Mrs Rigby scolded me. I don’t know if that was meant to quieten the situation but in reality it just meant there were now two kids howling.
That night I went home and told Mum what had happened and she went ballistic. She stormed up to the school the next morning and, in front of the whole class, yelled at Mrs Rigby. I thought I’d be in more trouble now but I guess the school didn’t want it to come out that a teacher had shouted at me over Jesus and nothing more was said, though I was never partnered with Bernadette again.
Overall, I really enjoyed St Vincent’s, even though I can still recall the pain that another of the Sisters could inflict with a slipper or a punch to the chest. Her way of sorting out a fight was to hit whoever had started it and then hit the other one for good measure. The peace of God certainly moved in a mysterious way at times. Still, I felt sad when I had to move on to a new school in the posh part of town. I knew hardly anyone there except Theresa and a few of the other kids who were also sent from St Vincent’s. It didn’t make me feel any more comfortable that, not long before, it had been one of the top girls’ schools in Sheffield.
Notre Dame had been exclusively for girls but a change of policy had seen it turned into a comprehensive by the left-wing Sheffield council and we were the second ‘guinea pig’ group of boys allowed in. It was across the other side of town, so I guess we were chosen to show there was no discrimination. As I got older, I realised how lucky I was to go there, not because of academic excellence but the ratio of girls to boys. Truth to tell, though, my early love life was nothing to write home about because most of the girls I fancied were friends of Theresa and saw me as just her little brother.
Looking back, I spent far too much time messing about and getting into minor scrapes and not nearly enough effort studying. I wasn’t thick and I really enjoyed being at school but I didn’t have much interest in the academic side of things. I don’t think the teachers disliked me or thought I was a bad lad. I think they saw me more as a loveable rogue and wondered what on earth I would do with my life. As it turned out, I became one of their more famous former pupils but I still think I was a fool not to work harder.
There were only four black kids in the school: Theresa and me, a lad called Ricky, who was mad about football, and a really posh kid named Phil from the best part of town. While being black was seldom a problem, it meant you stood out and that could be a distinct disadvantage as I found out to my cost. As we boys got a bit older and too much to handle even for the fearsome nun we called Sister Mary Bulldog, the school added Mr Grant and Mr Lawrence to the staff to help control us. It was Mr Lawrence who pointed out that being a tall skinny black kid made identification easy, even in a crowd.
It came about because a group of white lads and I were bored at being confined to the playground at dinnertime. We decided to go into the nuns’ carefully cultivated garden next to the playground and have a look round, maybe nick something to eat. Things started to go wrong when we happened to go into the shed and found the motor mower. At first it was all a bit tame but, as we egged each other on, it got wilder and that mower tore through the garden like an unguided missile. We were ripping up rhubarb, trampling over vegetables and having a high old time. We must have been making quite a racket because very soon we were aware that one of the nuns was coming, so we scarpered into a nearby wood.
I was confident no one would suspect I’d been part of the carnage because I was wearing a second-hand camouflage coat over my blazer. I dumped it in the wood and made my way back round to the other side of the schoolyard as nonchalantly as I could. But we’d been spotted by a couple of prefects and I was soon summoned to see Mr Lawrence. I protested my innocence and asked him how he could possibly imagine I would be involved in anything as dreadful as ruining the nuns’ garden. He smiled and pointed out there had definitely been a black boy in the gang. Gender eliminated Theresa, Ricky was always playing football in the playground at break and Phil went home for lunch. He smiled and said, ‘QED, there is only one person in the frame.’
I wasn’t sure what QED meant but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to talk my way out of this one.
The nuns wanted to call the police, which would have meant our parents being summoned to the school, so it was a no-brainer when Mr Lawrence gave us the option of owning up and getting the cane. I chose the beating straight away because I knew I’d get a much more painful punishment from my mum, especially when she found out the garden I’d helped to wreck belonged to nuns. My friend Desmond was first in for the cane and, though his face was a bit red when he came out, he refused to cry. Then it was my turn. It hurt like hell and, of course, at the first whack, I blubbed like a baby. As if a stinging bum wasn’t bad enough, I then found out we had been betrayed. When I came out of the office, Mum was sitting there. She just grabbed me and said, ‘You dare to disgrace me in front of the whole school – just wait until I get you home!’ and, sure enough, her punishment was worse.
I always felt Mr Lawrence had a bit of a soft spot for me, perhaps because I was so naive that I found it impossible to hide my misdemeanours. My short career as a cigarette entrepreneur was a case in point. When Benjie was working, we were given £1 a day to cover our bus fares and dinner. I quickly realised that, if I made sandwiches at home and smuggled them out in my bag, I would have money left over. I didn’t smoke but I would invest 52p in a ten-pack of Park Drive cigarettes to sell to other kids. I used to hang on to them until the final break because, by then, they had smoked their own supply and were willing to pay 10p each for mine. That way I would go home with more money than I’d set out with. Richard Branson would have been proud of me.
My downfall came about because, as a non-smoker, I wasn’t used to concealing cigarettes and didn’t have the usual elaborate hiding places. Sure enough, one day Mr Lawrence noticed the tell-tale oblong bump in my trouser pocket.
‘And what, may I ask, is that?’ he asked.
I realised I was in trouble and said, ‘But, sir, you don’t understand. I don’t smoke. Honest, sir, I don’t smoke.’
He was unimpressed and marched me off to his office, demanding I hand over the cigarettes and give him an explanation. I admitted I was selling the cigarettes and added, ‘I’m doing you a favour, sir, because if these kids climbed over the wall to buy cigarettes they might be involved in an accident.’
He considered that for a few seconds, smiled, picked up his cane and