IN Morley’s Book of Sporting Heroes (1938) Morley devotes several chapters, as one might perhaps expect, to the great cricketers, including W.G. Grace and K.S. Ranjitsinhji, whom he describes as ‘the supreme batsman of all time’, though his own personal all-time cricketing favourite, who doesn’t get a mention, was his good friend the fearless wicket-keeper Les Ames; Morley was scrupulous about being even-handed and avoiding even the slightest hint of favouritism. (In Morley’s personal opinion, however, which he was often keen to express, Ames’s achievements were nothing short of astonishing: the only Englishman ever to score more than a hundred runs before lunch in a Test; the most stumpings and the most dismissals in an English county cricket season; and one of the few people to emerge from the famous Bodyline tour of Australia with his dignity intact.) Morley also devotes chapters, perhaps rather more surprisingly, to Jack Johnson, John L. Sullivan, Jesse Owens – a ‘man of unimpeachable integrity’ – and an entire chapter to the ‘big five’ English billiards players of the 1920s and 1930s: Walter Lindrum, Clark McConachy, Willie Smith, Joe Davis and Tom Newman, ‘the baronetcy of the baize’. Miss D.D. Steel, ‘the incomparable Miss Steel’, the lady croquet player, enjoys a chapter to herself in the book and, more eccentrically, so does Mick the Miller, ‘England’s first great racing greyhound’. But perhaps the most surprising entries in Morley’s sporting hall of fame are for those he describes as ‘God’s wrestlers’, a group of Cumberland and Westmorland clergymen who ‘wrestled not only with God but with human souls – and with human bodies’, including the Reverend Abraham Brown, one-time rector of Egremont and one of the great wrestlers of the nineteenth century. Morley loved nothing more than a good old-fashioned Lakeland wrestling clergyman.
There were, alas, as far as I could tell, no clergymen wrestling on the afternoon we attended the Egremont Fair, but then there are presumably no requirements for them to wrestle in clerical collar and robes. Everyone was in fact wearing the traditional Westmorland wrestling garb of white vest, long johns, dark embroidered trunks and dark socks, a get-up that made them appear like nothing so much as giant babies rolling around on the greensward under Dent Fell. It really was the most extraordinary sight. There were multiple bouts taking place at once. The wrestlers stood facing one another, legs apart, bent over, chins resting on each other’s shoulders, hands clasped behind their opponents’ backs, and then the referees – dressed in flat caps and suits – would cry ‘Hods’ and the bouts would begin, with the men attempting to slide their arms up to somehow up-end their adversary. I had no idea about the rules and regulations of the sport, but I had to admit it was rather fascinating – a bit like high-speed human chess.
‘How does this work exactly?’ asked Miriam.
‘The person to touch the ground with any part of their body rather than their feet is the loser,’ said Morley.
‘Right. Is that it?’
‘Best of three decides the bout.’
‘Hmm. Not exactly a game of skill, then, Father, is it?’
‘On the contrary,’ said Morley. ‘Au contraire! It is not only a game of skill, Miriam, it is a game of strength and speed and – as you can see – an extraordinary spectacle.’ At least in this last regard Morley was indubitably correct: as well as the dozens of contestants there were, to my astonishment, hundreds and hundreds of spectators, all of us crowded round in a vast circle, with many children on their father’s shoulders and others perched atop cars and lorries, creating a kind of impromptu tiered amphitheatre. ‘The great combat sport of the English countryside,’ continued Morley, ‘hunting, shooting and fishing notwithstanding. A sort of combination of street theatre and the enactment of ritual violence. Might be worth an essay, actually, Sefton. “Fighting on the Fair Field Full of Folk: Ritual Violence in the World of Rural Wrestling”. What do you think?’
‘Very good, Mr Morley.’
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? Good. Make a note.’
There was, thank goodness, no time to make a note.
‘Oohh,’ the whole crowd gasped as one, witnessing a particularly tough fall.
‘Ouch,’ said Morley. ‘Don’t fancy that, eh, Sefton?’
It was Miriam who spotted Gerald Taylor first: he towered above his opponent and easily toppled him. We shuffled our way around the edge of the crowd to get a closer view and had almost reached him by the time the bout was over and he was shaking hands with the referee. As he modestly raised his arms in triumph and the crowd applauded, I spotted our old friend the chief inspector making his way through the crowd.
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I think it might be time for us to get back to Appleby, Mr Morley. We’re not actually meant to be here, you know.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Morley, who had been deep in conversation with a local about the current state of Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling. ‘You don’t want to see the final?’
‘I have a feeling Gerald Taylor might not make it to the final, Mr Morley,’ I said, pulling at Morley’s arm and pointing out the chief inspector, and the other policemen. The crowd fell silent as the chief inspector at first approached the referee and then Gerald and spoke quietly to him. It was impossible to hear what was said but we knew, as no one else at that moment knew, that Gerald Taylor’s world was about to change for ever.
At first, he simply shook his head, disbelievingly. The chief inspector then said something else quietly in his ear and Gerald pushed him away from him.
‘I don’t think he’s taking it very well,’ whispered Miriam.
‘No,’ said Morley. ‘But what did you expect?’
I for one did not expect what happened next.
Gerald let out a roar of pain that echoed around the field and beyond Egremont and which could probably have been heard as far away as the Isle of Man. It was a pitiful sound and a terrible sight – this giant of a man, all done up in his bright white wrestling finery, brought suddenly and publicly so low.
‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson,’ sighed Morley quietly; this was one biblical allusion that even I could follow.
The chief inspector put a hand out to try to calm Gerald, but it was no good.
‘She’s not dead!’ he shouted. ‘Do you hear me? She’s not dead!’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Taylor,’ said the chief inspector.
‘Do you think we should do something?’ said Morley.
‘Definitely not,’ said Miriam, too late. We certainly should have done something, before something happened to us.
‘Mr Taylor. Gerald, please,’ protested the chief inspector.
‘How?’ roared Gerald. ‘How did she die?’ This was the pharmacist in him speaking, obviously. The whole crowd was silent, but was also asking the same question.
‘You need to come with us, Gerald,’ said the chief inspector.
‘She is not dead till I say she’s dead!’ yelled Gerald, placing a heavy hand on the chief inspector’s shoulder. He was still in wrestling mode and the chief inspector had become his opponent.
‘Gerald – I’m sorry.’ The chief inspector caught my eye. He was clearly desperate, looking to deflect Gerald’s rage – and he found in me a way of doing so. I didn’t really blame him. I’d have done the same. He pointed at me. ‘In fact it was this gentleman here who found her. Mr Sefton, do you want to explain to Gerald …’
Gerald took one look at me standing at the front of the crowd and before I could even shake my head he came charging at me, demented – like a bull at the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas in Madrid, according to Morley. (‘You were magnificent, Sefton,’ he congratulated me later. ‘Oe! Oe! Oe!’) All I recall is that Gerald had me by the neck and was doing his best to throttle me, yelling, ‘She’s not dead!’ again and again. This was most definitely not a bull-and-matador move: it was not an elegant move; and it was not a wrestling move. It was an act of rage and grief – which is probably what saved me. Of all the moves I learned to defend myself against over the years the attempted choke is perhaps the easiest to counter, and a man lashing out in sorrow is always easier to defeat than a man acting in anger or in fear. In the face of such a reckless attack, survival is an instinct rather than a skill, and all my instincts came into play. As his grasp tightened around my throat, I stamped on Gerald’s feet, raised my fists to strike him directly under the chin, flipped his arms over, got him in a quick armlock and eventually managed to wrestle him to the ground. There were oohs and ahhs from the crowd as the chief inspector rushed forward to pull me away.
‘Enough!’ shouted the chief inspector. ‘My God, man! What do you think you’re doing?’ He was talking to me.
‘I’m trying to protect myself from him!’ I said.
‘You might have broken his jaw!’
‘I haven’t broken his jaw,’ I said. I might have broken his jaw. He was certainly holding his jaw as if it were broken.
‘We’ll take it from here, thank you.’
‘Be my guest,’ I said, stepping back and holding up my hands in the traditional sign of surrender. ‘Look! He came at me. I made no attempt—’
‘Shut up!’ said the chief inspector, helping Gerald to his feet.
Members of the crowd also came forward to assist; people were patting Gerald on the back, offering their sympathies. His white vest was stained with blood. He looked punch-drunk and bewildered. ‘Come on, Gerald,’ people were saying. ‘It’s all right, Mr Taylor.’ But no one spoke to me: I had instantly become the scapegoat.
‘I’ll be talking to you later, Mr Sefton,’ said the chief inspector, jabbing a finger at me. ‘And I can tell you now, you’ll be lucky if I don’t charge you with assault.’
‘What?’ I said.
‘No, no, no, Officer,’ said Morley, shaking his head and wagging a finger, speaking loudly above the hubbub. ‘I don’t think so, do you? Self-defence, plain and simple, sir. In front of – what?’ He looked around at the stunned crowd. ‘A thousand witnesses?’
‘He’s right,’ said Miriam, defiantly crossing her arms.
I wasn’t so sure we could rely on the goodwill of the crowd: it seemed to me that everyone was looking towards us with more than a little hostility. We had effectively spoiled the Egremont Fair. We had ruined the spectacle: we had brought real violence to a scene of holiday theatre.
‘Well,’ said the chief inspector, who was rather struggling to keep on top of events, and who clearly sensed the crowd’s hostility also. The last thing he wanted was a riot on his hands. ‘I think we’ll all just have to … sort this out back in Appleby.’
‘Exactly,’ said Morley.
‘Absolutely,’ said Miriam. ‘Good idea.’
‘I’ll see you back in Appleby then,’ said the chief inspector.
‘Of course,’ said Morley.
‘That’s all, folks!’ the inspector called out to the crowd. ‘Get about your business. Move along now. Plenty more to see and do at the fair.’
We made a very hasty exit through the crowds, leaving Gerald in the hands of the police, and it wasn’t until we were safely back in the Lagonda and on the road that any of us spoke.
‘Wow,’ said Miriam. ‘That was really very impressive, Sefton.’
‘Wasn’t it!’ said Morley. ‘You know you are really quite … unexpected sometimes. That’s what I like about you. You know Gerald was the winner of the wrestling this year at Grasmere?’
‘Mmm,’ I grunted. I felt a headache coming on.
‘I wonder perhaps if I should consider giving up on the County Guides and becoming your manager? I’ve always rather fancied myself as a boxing or a wrestling promoter. We could tour the fairs. “Swanton Morley Presents Stephen ‘Jawbone’ Sefton, in the Fight of the—”’
‘Maybe once we’re finished with Westmorland, Father?’ said Miriam.
‘Yes,’ said Morley. ‘Yes. We should finish with Westmorland first.’
As far as I was concerned we couldn’t be finished soon enough.