Pretty Boy - If I Come After You Beware 'Cos Hell's Coming With Me. Roy Shaw
the dress factory because I was boxing mad and I wanted to concentrate on becoming stronger and fitter. I got a job in a timber yard in Canning Town. I was 16 years old and weighed seven stone. From day one, I felt the other men in the timber yard didn’t like me. They’d sneer and say, ‘Bloody boys taking our jobs.’ They did their best to point out that I wasn’t good enough for the job, but I wanted to prove them wrong.
The barges laden with logs came up the river into Silver Town and Canning Town. My job was to carry each log on my back from the barges, walking along a 20ft plank which was only about 12in wide and 3in thick. Walking the plank, which linked the barge to the river bank, was a question of controlled balance. Two men would hold the log up while I got underneath it. If there was a heavy wind, I had to take care not to be blown into the river. It was bloody hard work, and the men used to try to break me by giving me the heaviest logs, but it was a matter of pride and I wouldn’t give in. At the end of the day, my back ached. When I first started the job, I’d go home and my back would be raw even to the point of bleeding. Mum bathed my sore back and urged me to pack the job in, but nothing would deter me.
At the same time, I continued with my boxing. I was never too exhausted for a fight. I persevered with my job, gained the respect of the other men and earned a good living. I took home £10 per week, which compared with my uncle who worked as a chauffeur and earned £7, and had a family to support. But best of all, I was growing in strength by the day, and was no longer a seven-stone boy with a good punch – I’d matured into an 18-year-old man with one hell of a punch.
‘I felt the adrenalin rush. It flared up inside me, starting from my feet, and surged throughout my body making me feel ten times stronger. There was a banging in my head this was no headache, it was an anger so raw, so uncontrollable, it erupted in violence …’
IN THE LATE SUMMER OF 1954, my letter of conscription into the army fell through the letterbox. I was called up to fight for Queen and Country. Some men dreaded National Service, but I had actually been looking forward to joining the Army. It couldn’t have been better for me because I was already training hard for my boxing and I knew the training in the Army would be even harder, but would be something I’d enjoy.
I arrived at the Army Medical Centre full of confidence. I didn’t think there would be any problem passing the medical. I was young and fit. I stood in line with the other conscripts, everyone in our birthday suits. Many were trying to get out of being called up by claiming they had flat feet. One even told me he was going to cut off his trigger finger – anything to get out of going. I was the complete opposite; I wasn’t looking for any excuses, I wanted to go even to the point of hiding my colour blindness.
The medical officer tapped my chest, I stuck my tongue out when I was told to stick my tongue out and coughed when I was told to cough. I passed the medical with flying colours and was officially 23040113 Private Royston Henry Shaw.
I thought army life was going to be a breeze, just running about all day with a rucksack on my back or in a gymnasium doing press-ups, sit-ups or swinging from ropes. Exercising wasn’t a problem, in fact it was perfect for me, but what I didn’t reckon on, or could have prepared myself for, was the discipline of being ordered when to sleep, when to eat, when to get up, when to go to bed and even when to have a crap.
The first six weeks in the training camp was a nightmare. I tried hard to tolerate being ordered about because I was learning to drive a three-ton supply lorry, which I enjoyed, but I was finding it increasingly difficult to take the orders that were being barked at me constantly.
The Sergeant was on my back all the time. He was a nasty bully-boy and seemed to be picking on me non-stop. Looking back on it now, he probably didn’t, but because of the bullying I’d suffered at school, I felt singled out. I realise now bullies come in all forms throughout life, often in the playground and particularly in the Army, and that Sergeant was the biggest bully I had ever encountered. He would come up close to my ear and bellow at the top of his voice, ‘Left, right … left, right …’
He did it to all the men. They didn’t seem to mind, but I couldn’t or wouldn’t stand for it. The restrictions, the routine, the very detailed planning of every minute of my day drove me mad. Six weeks of hell and I was just about ready to explode.
It was the crack of dawn. I awoke to a dim morning of overcast skies, and the barracks felt damp. It was a struggle to get out of bed. I shivered and pulled my itchy grey army blanket around me. I longed for five more minutes in bed, just five more minutes in the warm, but it wasn’t to be. The Sergeant marched into the barracks with his big shiny boots, squeaking on the highly-polished floor. All the spit and polish in the world would never have got my boots to shine like the Sergeant’s. He was like a robot. I don’t think that man ever slept, or ate or took a shit. At the top of his voice he shouted, ‘STAND BY YOUR BEDS.’
I was the last one out of my bunk. Quickly, I smoothed the covers flat and plumped my pillow, but it hadn’t gone unnoticed. The Sergeant had clocked me out of the corner of his eye. He tapped his baton on the side of his leg as he did his early morning inspection. One by one he walked in front of us. When he got to me he stopped, pushed his baton under my pillow and flicked it on the ground. I was annoyed and held my breath. He opened my locker and emptied its entire contents on the floor. My belongings rolled under the bed. I felt my heart start to pound. Fucking liberty, I thought, but managed to stay calm. On the outside I was cool, but inside I was a seething volcano ready to erupt at any moment. I just wanted the Sergeant to go away and leave me alone. Instead, he stood in front of me, the tip of his nose touching mine, his eyes gazed unblinkingly. He pointed to the floor at my scattered belongings.
‘Pick them up,’ he hissed.
That was it, he’d pushed his luck too far. I felt the adrenalin rush. It flared up inside me, starting from my feet, and surged throughout my body making me feel ten times stronger. There was a banging in my head but this was no headache, it was an anger so raw, so uncontrollable, it erupted in violence. I knew what was coming, but the Sergeant didn’t until he hit the ground. The other soldiers were stunned. One asked, ‘Fuck me, Roy, where did you learn to punch like that?’
I laughed. ‘It’s either learn to punch or eat shit and I don’t like to eat shit.’
Before I knew it, I was handcuffed and escorted by two Regimental Policemen to Colchester Army Prison. I had been sentenced to nine months in the Glass House.
Colchester was brutal. From the minute I stepped foot in the reception, I was confronted by tough, unrelenting, abusive Staff Sergents. They were absolute bastards. The first thing that struck me was their appearance. Everything about them was immaculate, from their peak caps shielding their vindinctive eyes to the shiny buckles on their belts. Everything at Colchester was done at the double, everything had to be quick, quick, quick.
I was marched into the reception at the double, ‘Left, right … left, right.’ I had no time to think. A Sergeant barked at me, ‘From now on you call me Staff, not Sir.’
Two more bastards stood either side of me bellowing in my ear in stereo, ‘You got that, Shaw? … Staff, not Sir. You got that?’
How dare they talk to me like that? I wasn’t a fucking kid.
In that split second all my pent-up fury at the Army exploded out of me. There was no way some army slag was going to take liberties with me, or humiliate me in public.
‘YEAH,’ I shouted. ‘I GOT IT. Now you get this.’ I whacked the closest Staff Sergeant and leaned down and bellowed in his face, ‘Now you call me Mister Shaw. You got that?’
The remaining Sergeants jumped on me and manhandled me across a courtyard to what was known as the ‘singles’. It was a brick building, 200 yards away from the rest of the camp and away from the other