David Essex - Faded Glory

Danny had always felt empty without a father, but looking now at his dad’s photo, his war medals and some letters to Rosie, it felt more like a deep-seated ache. He missed his father so much. And he hated the stream of “uncles” and “dads” his mum had entertained over the years. He loved his mum, but not her philandering.

Danny had tried to ask his mum questions about his dad many times, but Rosie gave him very few answers. Maybe she felt too much pain talking about her late husband and preferred to put the past behind her, trying to forget. And forget she did. Within two months of the death of her husband and childhood sweetheart, she had married Danny’s stepfather, Bill Watson. This had outraged her parents-in-law, who saw Rosie’s actions as a serious lack of respect for the memory of their dead son. They’d broken off all ties with Rosie and young Danny, and the deep family rift still remained.

The whirlwind marriage to Bill Watson didn’t last long, probably due to Rosie’s wandering eye. After the war finished, Rosie and Bill went their separate ways and Rosie and Danny moved from Canning Town to Poplar, a couple of miles away.

“Bloody stupid war,” Danny muttered as he closed the tin box.

The clock in the hall struck seven o’clock.

“Wendy,” Danny said aloud.

Putting the tin box safely under his bed, he headed downstairs and grabbed his bike. With a quick look in the hall mirror to check his dark brown hair, he was out the door. Wendy was Danny’s first and only girlfriend. Their friendship had begun when they were just eight years old at primary school. As a redhead, Wendy suffered many anti-ginger antics from the other pupils, despite maintaining that she was not ginger but strawberry blonde. Wendy now worked in a local sugar factory: a pretty girl, petite but strong, with twinkling green eyes and a freckled face like sunshine.

As soon as he left school, Danny had put his name down for the Royal Docks. Working at the docks was a family affair. You had to have a family member working there to get a look in, and as Danny’s late father had been a docker before he joined the army, Danny was hopeful. In the meantime, waiting to be accepted, he did casual work on building sites.

Danny and Wendy would meet up after work, sometimes staying in at Wendy’s house. Wendy’s parents were part of a privileged few that owned a television: a modern black-and-white miracle in an oversized cabinet that would flicker away in the sitting-room corner to be watched in wonderment. Sometimes, Danny and Wendy would take a trip to the local flea-pit cinema the Imperial, if and when they had the money. But most times, just being together was enough.

Riding past Lenny’s garage now, Danny thought of his recent encounter with Albert and Lenny. He decided to mention Albert’s suggestion of taking up boxing at the Live and Let Live gym to Wendy and gauge her reaction.

Wendy’s smart semi-detached house backed on to a cemetery, which had always worried Danny a little.

“I met that black bloke,” he said, kissing her as he entered the warmth of the house. “You know the one with the garage that the others smashed up? He’s friends with an old bloke that my mates pushed into the duck pond at the park.”

Wendy looked shocked. “Why did they do that?”

“They shouldn’t have done it,” Danny agreed. “I helped him out.”

“I should think so,” said Wendy.

“Anyway,” Danny went on, “they’re all right. Lenny the black bloke fixed my bike and the other bloke, Albert, used to be a boxer. He reckons I should take up boxing, you know, to get off the streets and away from bad company.”

Wendy’s face filled with concern. “Boxing? What if you get hurt?”

“I’m only thinking about it,” Danny said.

The truth was, Danny was starting to think seriously about Albert’s suggestion. He was sixteen now and searching for something to break the same old scenario of hanging round street corners with his wayward friends, looking for trouble.

To clear the air and get back into Wendy’s good books, he suggested they go out.

“Where to?”

“We could go to a pub,” said Danny. “There’s a good one in Canning Town called the Live and Let Live, we could go there. I’ll buy you a Babycham,” he added hopefully.

On the bus, Wendy told Danny about her day at the sugar factory, and something about a married foreman asking one of the girls out. Danny tried to seem interested, but was thinking about change, the possibility of getting something new in his life to break the old routine.

As the trolley bus turned the corner, Danny could see the coloured light bulbs that hung outside the Live and Let Live.

“This is us,” he said.

Wendy looked at the pub doubtfully as they stood on the street.

“It’s supposed to be all right in there,” Danny reassured her.

“I don’t know, Danny.”

“Come on,” Danny said. “We’ll go in, shall we?”

They found a table in one of the quieter corners. Danny went to the bar to order. As he made his way through the busy clientele, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“How’s that bike of yours going?” asked Lenny.

“Yeah, going good,” Danny replied. “Listen Lenny, have you seen Albert?”

Lenny thought for a moment. “I think he’s upstairs in the gym. Anything to skip working. Who you here with?”

“My girlfriend.”

“Nice,” said Lenny, registering Wendy, who looked younger than her years, “but I reckon you’re both underage. I’ll buy her a drink, save you breaking the law. Go take a look upstairs, I reckon that Albert’s up there.”

Danny tried to look indifferent. Deep down, that was why he was here.

“Sure thing, Lenny,” he said. “I’ll just let Wendy know where I’m going.”

“Danny!” Wendy exclaimed. “Look who I bumped into.”

Danny recognised the two girls sitting at their table. Wendy worked with them at the sugar factory. He felt a rush of relief.

“You’ll be all right for a bit then?” he asked Wendy.

Wendy was already sipping the Babycham bought for her by Lenny and chewing over the latest gossip with her workmates. From the sound of it, the romantic antics of the foreman were high on the agenda. Leaving Wendy happily engrossed, Danny followed Lenny upstairs.

He could hear new sounds coming from above him. Punch bags being hit, ropes skipped, and orders being barked by a raucous Irishman. Danny felt a rush of adrenaline laced with apprehension.

The gym was heavy with the smell of leather and sweat, and full of shadowy figures dedicated to the noble art. Something about the place lit a spark in Danny. He was struck by the dedication, the fitness, the power.

Watching two likely lads from the corner of a well-used ring stood Albert.

“Hey Albert,” shouted Lenny. “I’ve found your boy.”

Albert turned. “Hello son,” he said with a smile. “You made it. What do you think?”

Danny gave an impressed kind of nod.

“Come and meet the boss, Patsy, he’s the trainer here,” said Albert.

Patsy, huge and blond and hairy, assessed Danny. “If you can punch like this old champ, Albert,” he said, “you could be a contender.”

“I’m just looking,” said Danny uneasily, well out of his comfort zone. “You know, out of interest. My girl’s downstairs so I’d better go.”

“Fair enough,” said Albert. “Maybe come back some other time.”

“Yeah maybe,” said Danny.

He went back downstairs. Wendy was still chatting away to the girls from the factory, something about so and so and someone getting engaged because they were pregnant. Danny’s thoughts were all of the boxing gym. Perhaps it was a way out.

But first there was work to do. He knew Wendy would not be keen on him taking up a sport that could damage him, or dedicating himself to something that would mean they would spend less time together. But something about this new horizon, this different world, was attracting him like a bee to honey.