Born to Fight--The True Story of Richy 'Crazy Horse' Horsley (2 page)

To the unsuspecting, Richy Horsley could be just any old unassuming thirty-something character from
up North
. But in reality Crazy Horse, as he is better known, is part of the underbelly of the hard-man scene, hailing from an industrial area where the populous were rather bizarrely labelled ‘Monkey Hangers’ … Hartlepool.

This curious title was supposedly bestowed upon the close-knit community after a monkey was mistakenly identified as a spy and promptly hanged. The
monkey-hanging
incident is said to have happened during the Napoleonic Wars, and could be put down to the fishing community never having seen a monkey before. The fishermen of Hartlepool watched as a French vessel sank off the Hartlepool coast during a storm. The only survivor of the wreck was the ship’s pet monkey, apparently dressed to amuse the forlorn crew in a military style uniform. Fearing that this monkey was either a French
infiltrator or spy, the fishermen, so the story goes, questioned the monkey and held a makeshift trial on the beach. After a fruitless interrogation of the so-called Frenchman, the conclusion was that this monkey was, indeed, a French spy and was summarily sentenced to death by hanging. Quite appropriately, the monkey was despatched to its death at the end of a rope from the mast of a fishing boat.

As much as the story about the monkey is legendary, so is the story about Hartlepool’s living legend, Richy Horsley, Crazy Horse, but even more so.

With such a character as ‘Dodgy’ Dave Courtney, the Monarch of the Underworld, contributing the foreword to Crazy Horse’s book and tributes from the likes of Roy Shaw and Charles Bronson (UK prisoner), this shows how well known Crazy Horse has become. This popularity that Crazy Horse has within both the hard-man fraternity and their followers, north and south, reveals a true warrior.

Selected to play the film role of an American boxer who fights the former unlicensed heavyweight boxing champ of Great Britain, Roy Shaw, in the proposed biographical film about the late real-life hard man Lenny McLean –
The Guv’nor
– is a further indication of Richy’s popularity.

This is testimony to Crazy Horse’s current status, and lends itself to the thought that he should have his own story told in full … and here, in his own words, Richy tells it as it is.

Never judge a book by its cover. Take my childhood: judging by my present record of violence, you would think that I was brought up in an abattoir, but you would be wrong. I came from a happy home, where my parents lavished me with love. There was no family brutality of any sort. I recall being told from an early age that I was miraculously found under a gooseberry bush, which to some extent wasn’t as far removed from the truth as it may sound.

When I reached the age of five, I was told I had been adopted as a baby. At that time I was gun and holster mad, a bit of a lone ranger, as was the rage in those days. My parents, Tom and Brenda, told me that when they saw a number of kids for adoption, they picked me out as being special. They waited apprehensively for my reaction, but
I just looked up and chimed, ‘Did I have my guns on?’ That’s how life was back then … not so long ago!

My childhood memories are fond ones, which every kid should be able to experience. My mother always instilled a sense of self-worth and paved the way ahead by showing me what respect for my elders was all about. I remember, for instance, jumping up and down in a muddy puddle at the age of five, absolutely covered in clarts of mud from head to toe. An old lady from down the road walked past and saw the state of disorder I was in. She gasped, ‘Richard, look at the state of you, your mam will go mad!’ Now don’t ask me where my reply came from, but I looked at her and fumed, ‘Fuck off!’ Of course, Mam found out and took me to the old dear’s house and forced me to apologise. Mam always presented me to the world in a clean and tidy fashion … oh, and I always wore shorts! Not many hard bastards can say that about their childhoods.

Yet even though my parents treated me with the best care, it didn’t take long for me to discover the world of pain for myself. I recall an incident in the summer of that year when Bobbin, a good friend of my mam’s, took me to Crimdon Dene, a nearby holiday town, for the day. Bobbin’s real name was Anne, but I renamed her because she used to play a game with me called ‘Roll-a-Bobbin’. That name, Bobbin, has stuck – even after hitting sixty! It had been an exciting and tiring day, but when we arrived back home at teatime I still wanted to
be out with my friends. After thanking Bobbin and saying my goodbyes, I paused outside the door, stupidly resting my fingers on the door frame. But Mam thought I’d gone out and closed the door. My dear late mam, to her shock, heard the CRUNCH, followed by my screaming. When she prised open the door, she saw me stood there with my finger end hanging off, blood and gore everywhere!

This was my first introduction to real pain and it showed me that I could be hurt … a valuable lesson at an early age, but not one that I would recommend! I was rushed to the hospital and had the end of my finger stitched back on. This of course was in the days before microsurgery. The doctors did the best they could, a good job given the circumstances, but I was left with a disfigured finger end, a stark reminder as to how vulnerable we all are.

I was lucky, as my parents never overreacted when I got into scrapes. Take, for instance, my first drinking experience non New Year’s Day, 1970. There was a drinks table in the corner of the living room, full of bottles of sherry. Mam asked Bobbin to watch over me and to see to it that I didn’t touch any of the drinks when her and Dad went into the kitchen to cook. Of course, with the seasonal festivities, Bobbin was a bit tired and had a stonker of a hangover from the night before, and soon fell fast asleep on the couch. On seeing this, I edged closer and closer towards the table. Like the
male dancer in the Guinness advert, I contorted and twisted myself in order to avoid making any unnecessary noise as I slithered towards my prize. Eventually, after a few nimble moves, I reached my destination, and sat down contently at the table. I swiftly helped myself to a bottle of QC sherry. After guzzling most of it down, I was rewarded by becoming utterly and completely pissed out of my mind.

I started stumbling all over the place whilst laughing my intoxicated head off. On hearing this commotion, Mam came into the room, pointed at me and said, ‘What’s the matter with him?’ She spotted the half empty bottle of QC sherry on the floor at the exact same time as Bobbin was awakened by my shenanigans and realised what was happening. She pleaded, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’

Mam cried out, ‘He’ll have to go to the hospital now!’

But Dad calmly said, ‘Put him to bed and let him sleep it off.’

And that’s what they did. My mother was beside herself with worry in case I choked on vomit, and was constantly doing bed watch on me every ten minutes, but they never overreacted. When I came back down later on, I was rough and hung over for the rest of the day, but at least it gave me an appetite, as I ate all my cooked dinner, a miracle for me as I was a very bad eater. I was practically brought up on Ready Brek and Minodex multi-vitamins.

At that time, the Weegram family lived next door to us. They had a son called Donald who was also my age and a firm friend. He was a fellow explorer of the world of pain. One day in 1969 we were playing a game to see how high we could throw darts into the air. Well, Donald propelled one up high, forgetting Isaac Newton’s Law of Gravity. It shot back down, heading straight for me. The dart hit me like a bullet from a gun – not that I knew the feeling, at least not at that age! I ran into the house, a screaming human dartboard. I was in shock, painful shock, with a dart sticking out of my neck. I must have looked like the son of William Tell. I remember thinking to myself, was this it, was this how death was?

Another time, Donald and me were in my bedroom while his mam, Hilary, was having a cuppa downstairs. Normally we were very noisy, but on this particular day we were unusually quiet. When Hilary was ready to leave, she and my parents decided to come upstairs to see why we were being so quiet. They opened the door and were met by quite a sight: me and Donald standing with knitting needles in our hands, surrounded by the shreds of wallpaper which we had innocently stripped from half the bedroom walls! Oh heck! I thought I was in for it, but instead of going mad they just laughed their heads off … great memories. Not long after this little incident, the Weegram family moved to the other side of town and I was gutted to have to say goodbye to my pal Donald.

I suppose you could say I had been acquainted with pain from the beginning. I’d been suffering on and off with an earache and blocked-nose problem since I was a baby, but the hospital wouldn’t take me in for the operation until I was at least five years old. The problem went away for a while, but returned when I was six, so they thought it time to give me the op. By this age I’d been at war with a door and acted as a pincushion for a dart, nah … this wouldn’t hurt me one bit!

The first thing I was given to eat after I had the dreaded tonsils and adenoids out was a welcoming bowl of custard. An easy experience, I was beginning to think. But when I took my first gulp of custard, I immediately recoiled away from the spoon, feeling that someone had let loose a million wasps in my throat, with their stings coated with lemon juice for good measure! I was mollycoddled in hospital for four days. Nowadays they try to get you in and out within a day because they need the bed space.

Even though I was out discovering things for myself, I still learned a lot from my dad’s experiences, which he often told me about. When my dad was growing up there was a bully who thought he could take on the world. He used to pick fights and loved people cowering in his presence, getting satisfaction from intimidating people. There was one man he harassed in particular, who was always out exercising, jogging and skipping. Every time the bully saw him out jogging he would call him a ‘Big
Nancy’ and a ‘Fairy’ and tell him what he could do to him, but the guy just used to laugh and take no notice. So one day, on spotting the guy skipping outside, the bully decided it was about time he gave him a good hiding. Now those were the days when they used to fight inside a drawn circle, just using their fists like real men should. The rules were simple: you couldn’t step outside the circle unless you’d had enough or were carried out. The bully and the guy he had been abusing quickly drew a crowd around their circle as they started battling it out. The bully’s inflated ego dramatically burst as he received the whipping of his life. He was humiliated in front of everyone. He had been taught a double lesson: to stop bullying and never to judge a book by its cover.

Some people have never experienced violence, never had a fight in their lives, and couldn’t knock the crust off a rice pudding. I, too, was a fight virgin, but the time for me to lose my virginity was looming.

An older and bigger kid who lived around the corner was always intimidating me, my first real experience of being bullied. Don’t these bullies always live around the corner from you? I would often find myself running for home, crying my eyes out after being attacked by him. One day my parents gave me an easy solution to this dilemma when they said to me, ‘Stop running in crying all the time and learn to stick up for yourself.’ That was all very well for an adult but, to a child’s mind, this lad was the equivalent of a two-ton rhinoceros.

It was a lovely day outside, and I remember that Mam and Dad were sat on the doorstep enjoying the sunshine. I went back outside and walked up to the street corner where the bully was. From a safe distance and within the protective earshot and sight of my parents, I did what most bullied kids would do: I shouted and goaded him with a few choice names, which was like a red rag to a bull. As the bullying rhino charged towards me, I ran to the safety of my parents. When he saw my mam and dad sat on the step he stopped running and slowed to a walk. But as he loomed towards me something came over me, and for a change I was the one who saw red.

I don’t know if it was because I knew I had the Seventh Cavalry behind me in the form of my parents, but all fear left me. The tables had turned. The hunter became the hunted. I started walking towards him with an air of confidence in my step. As soon as he was in striking distance, I hit him with a haymaker of a punch, catching him right on the ear! I stood there with my fists clenched, ready for more, just staring at him with anger emanating from my eyes. I can remember the pain etched on his face and the tears of fear in his eyes as he turned away from me and traipsed off into the distance, holding his head to one side, a memory that still gives me satisfaction.

I was amazed at what I’d just done! I had slain my dragon and overcome my fear. Needless to say, he never bullied me again. I could have very well said that my
parents threatened me with a beating if I didn’t face up to my fear, but that wasn’t the case. I faced the bully myself … admittedly with a little help from Mam and Dad sat on the step. That was the first time I performed in front of a crowd, albeit a non-paying one. As I grew older and fought more fights, I became increasingly used to the watchful crowd.

The first day I met Tommy, he said to me in half English, half German that he was going to stab me. This, I thought, was strange behaviour for a five-year-old. Tommy’s family had just moved into one of the council houses opposite us.

Friendships can spring from the most surprising of places and situations and, as I said, never judge a book by its cover. We became best of friends and even started our first day at school together at Grange Primary. Our mothers also became best friends. One day they dropped us both off at school before going off to the local shops. Assured in the knowledge that we were safely in school, they shopped to their hearts’ content, until they got home and spotted Tommy and me sitting on the front doorstep. We had done a runner from school, but hadn’t
been too bright by running straight home instead of off to the local park. To this day, I still see Tommy and we remain friends. And he hasn’t stabbed me yet! When I think about it, I feel old because we have been friends since the 1960s. What started out as confrontation ended up as a lasting friendship.

Tommy’s sister Donna came into the world in 1969. Her mam told me that, one day, when Donna was about four months old, she was in her pram and I put my finger in her hand. She squeezed it so tight, I couldn’t get it free. She wouldn’t let me go and I had to call for her mam, who prized my finger out from her clenched fist. I think she was trying to tell me something. We’ve always been very close – you could say we were soulmates. I was at her Christening and she was a bridesmaid at Mam’s wedding. She is an absolute diamond.

My inspiration for boxing must stem from my Granda Morris, my mam’s father. Granda was an ex-boxer, known in his time as Sonny ‘Kid’ Morris. I remember one occasion when I visited his house and started fun fighting in the garden with my cousin Michael, whose nickname, as it happened, was Tank. Well, Tank was older than me, and I guess he wanted to play rough. I got on top of him and he said, ‘Do you want a real fight or a fun fight, it doesn’t bother me.’ Whether he said it to make me think, No way, I don’t want a real fight with you, you’re the Guv’nor, or whether he just had a rush of testosterone, I don’t know. I started hesitating,
saying, ‘Er … em,’ and looked at my dad, who was also in the garden, laughing.

Tank started repeating, ‘I’m not bothered, I will, it doesn’t make any difference to me.’ Then, in a split second, my mind changed. I focused in on the target – his head – and shouted, ‘REAL FIGHT!’ I released a burst of about ten punches, all of them slamming home into Tank’s face with the precision of an Exocet missile: left, right, left, right. Now Tank was a bleeder – he could bleed for England. He was always having nosebleeds and today was to be no exception: there was claret everywhere! We both got a telling-off and were told make up. But when I looked at my dad, he was grinning from ear to ear.

A couple of years later, Tank got into trouble with a friend of mine called Anth. Now Anth was a boxer and a tough kid: he could take care of himself. When Tank told me he was going to fight him, I thought to myself, He is underestimating Anth and is in for a shock. I watched the fight and within seconds Tank’s nose was bust! Anth was getting the better of it. Tank changed tactics and took him to the floor. As they were grappling on the deck, Tank started scooping up the blood from his nose and rubbed it into Anth’s eyes so he couldn’t see; that’s when they got split up. Both claimed outright victory but nobody actually won. Anth was in five national boxing finals as a junior, only one of which he won, but he had some bad decisions given against him.
Years later he was my corner man at some of my fights, but I never bled on him like Tank did!

There’s something quite different about fighting at school that can bring the worst out of kids. Whether it’s showing off to your peers or just bravado, it sure is different compared to any other type of fighting. My first fight at school was with a lad known as Smiler. He was a big lump of a lad with short hair, who was much stronger than me and had the look of a Rottweiler in his eye. The fight resulted from a fun fight turned serious – as usual, it started when none of us would back out. I remember the lad rushing me like a raging bull. Each time he got close, I would unleash a barrage of punches at him to keep him at a distance. He was stronger than me and if he got me down to the ground I probably wouldn’t have been able to get him off. My heart was pounding as hard as a bongo drum trying to break out of my chest. This was for real, with the result that fear had turned my legs to jelly with the adrenalin rush. He kept charging, I kept throwing punches back. Eventually a vigilant teacher in the playground broke it up. There was blood all over my hands and legs, all of it from the raging bull’s nose. Not that I had it all my own way: I sported a black eye for the next week, and received a severe ticking-off from the Head. But at least I didn’t spill any of my own blood!

Not long after that, a relation of mine called Tina, who was also a Horsley, started getting picked on by a
lad at school. Why lads want to pick on girls, I’ll never know. I mean, it’s not a macho thing to do. In fact if there’s one thing I hate more than bullies, it is men who abuse women. One playtime Tina asked me if I would tell this lad to leave her alone, and pointed out the coward to me. In a flash, I grabbed hold of him, pointed towards Tina, and spat out at him through gritted teeth, ‘She’s my cousin, so leave her alone.’ To finish the matter I then gave him a taste of his own medicine: a few well-aimed punches and kicks, something for him to remember. He certainly never touched Tina again, but then again, he’s probably ended up married to some punch bag of woman with no-one to stick up for her.

Dad was also a good fighter in his younger days. He had his own tag, ‘Blood Horsley’. He kept many of his friendships from his fighting days throughout his life, such as ‘The Battler’, a street fighter of yesteryear who was Hartlepool’s first bouncer. He had 19 pro fights as a heavyweight boxer back in the early 1930s and was said to be some character. Back in the thirties, times were really hard for the working classes and many people had to fight just to put food on the table. Pubs were full of people who were down on their luck and drowning their sorrows so it was no wonder they had people like The Battler minding the door – trouble was often only a whisper away. Bear in mind that Hartlepool was also a dock, so we had people from all over the world docking here and drinking in the pubs. You had to be tough to survive.

Fighting, though, wasn’t my only preoccupation in those days. I was also embedded in family life. I had a step-brother and two step-sisters for a start. Dad had originally married a girl called Lil from West Auckland, with whom he had three children: Helen, John and Ruth. She had also been pregnant with twins, but had miscarried when she fell down the stairs. She later died tragically of TB. As a result, my dad’s mam, Granny Horsley, brought up Helen, John and Ruth as Dad was away working. He grafted all over the country. That was back in the days when you could start a job in the morning and piss off at dinnertime if you didn’t like it – you could go and find another one the next day. After a while, though, he took a permanent job at the local paper mill so he could be with the kids more.

In late 1970, Mam found out that she had cervical cancer. She went into hospital for a biopsy and didn’t get out until Christmas Eve. They had wanted her to stay, but she wanted to be home for Christmas so things could be as normal as possible. Three weeks later, Mam went into Newcastle General Hospital to have intense radiotherapy treatment. She was in there for a full month. I can remember going up there on the train with my dad and my mam’s sister, Auntie Ellen, to visit her. One time after seeing her, Dad was sick in the street. Mam then got transferred to Hartlepool where she stayed for two more weeks and had a full hysterectomy operation. After that, she had to go for regular screening
every six weeks for a year, until it lessened to a screening every six months for two years. Eventually she got the all-clear. And I thought tonsillitis was bad! Pretty hard times, but it goes to show that there can be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of despair … my mam proved it, a tough lady to the end.

As bad as this episode was, it did get me closer to Dad’s other kids, as I used to stay at Granny Horsley’s house when Dad went to Newcastle to visit Mam. My older step-brother John lived at Gran’s, and he used to take me to the park a lot to feed the ducks and the geese. We also used to take out Gran’s mongrel dog, Kim, for long walks. She lived to the good old age of 16. I used to tell Kim to ‘STAY’ while I walked halfway round the block before shouting at the top of my voice, ‘HOWAY, KIM, HOWAY!’ I would then run as fast as I could to see if I could get back to Gran’s first, but Kim always caught me. That was also a period in which I became obsessed with Donald Duck. Out of all the Disney characters, he was my favourite and I had a big sticker of him on my headboard, and Dad had bought me a cap gun and a football imprinted with his picture. You might say I was a bit quackers! I still watch the odd cartoon, but what really takes me back to those days is music. Gran used to have the wireless on, and there are some records that always take me back to those days when I hear them. Records like Marc Bolan’s ‘Ride A White Swan’ – who can forget that classic? And George Harrison’s ‘My
Sweet Lord’, which was Number One at the time and was forever being played on the radio.