HMO plan for Market Harborough's Bottom Club

Stop sniggering at this story from HFM News there. I shall explain.

 

Market Harborough used to have two working men's clubs in the town centre. The one that stood towards the top of the High Street was known as "Top Club" and the one on The Square was "Bottom Club".

Top Club is now a branch of Zizzi, while Bottom Club now houses a Waterstones and a Pret a Manger. They don't call Harborough "the Notswolds" for nothing.

The white building in the photo above was also part of Bottom Club. Its ground floor was where the club's snooker tables were to be found and where Market Harborough's British heavyweight boxing champion Jack Gardener once trained. This is the building for which a planning application for conversion to an HMO has been made.

When I was a lad, I sometimes played snooker there because one of our gang's dad was a member, so they let us use the tables if it was quiet and we behaved ourselves. In those days it was possible to enter the club on the Square and walk through it all the way to that white building, so there must have been some demolition when the front of the club was converted into the two shop units.

Market Harborough chess club met for a while in what is now the first floor of Waterstones. This was at a time when what had been the town's roughest pub, The Talbot, had just closed and some of its ne'er-do-well customers had taken to using the Bottom Club instead. The result was that the club lost its alcohol licence for a while over concerns about drug use.

So it was that, having won a county league game with a particularly outrageous swindle, I lent over the board after my opponent had resigned and asked: "Would you like a glass of orange juice?"

And The Talbot?  As this is the Notswolds, it's now a Hotel Chocolat.

Market Harborough's British heavyweight champion Jack Gardner

Before Martin Johnson came along, the boxer Jack Gardner was Market Harborough's most famous sporting son. He beat Bruce Woodcock in 1950 to win the British and Empire heavyweight titles, and for most of 1951 held the European title too.

When Gardner retired from the ring in 1956, he took up farming locally. He died in 1978 aged only 52.

A second local British heavyweight champion is seen in the film: Reggie Meen, who grew up down the road in Desborough and held the title from November 1931 to July 1932.

And the Colonel Symington who presents Gardner with a watch is a member of the Market Harborough soup-making dynasty.

Thanks to the Leicester Evening Mail for the next day, I can tell you that this dinner was held on Thursday 7 December 1950 in "Symington's recreation room". This was in the corset factory in the centre of town owned by the other branch of the family.

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Anthony Painter explains how Britain's weak economy is limiting Labour's room for manoeuvre: "What is the difference between the austerity state and the Brexterity state? There was a way out of the austerity state. And in fact, ahead of the EU referendum, things were starting to recover. They recovered enough to give the Conservative party a majority in the 2015 election. Sometimes you have to think we are cursed. That majority enabled them to follow through on an insane referendum. The rest is, well, not yet history."

"Due to the collapse of my country, which surrendered to Russia in full view of the world on February 28, 2025, I have been seeking out dissident voices from the past ... to help us figure out what we need to do in the present." Heidi Siegmund Cuda turns to Václav Havel’s dissident essays from 1978, The Power of the Powerless, to learn how people can find a collective way back from democratic ruin.

Taylor Noakes explains how Donald Trump has brought a divided Canada together - against him.

Are mental health conditions overdiagnosed in the UK? On The Conversation, Susan McPherson (professor in psychology and sociology) and Joanna Moncrieff (professor of critical and social psychiatry) have an enlightening debate.

"In a nation that often demands that Black people perform either rage or gratitude, George Foreman dared to be something else: complex." Bryan Armen Graham on the career of the twice world heavyweight champion.

Sheila O'Malley dissects the artistry of Joan Crawford: "Crawford was extremely smart in choosing material for herself once she was in a position to do so. She had to campaign hard for some of her best roles. She understood her own persona intimately. Acting teachers often say that self-knowledge is even more important than talent. Crawford knew which roles were 'hers' even before she had landed them."

EXCLUSIVE: Man, 21, turned 'downhill' life around and now goes viral for teaching grannies how to box

Well done to the Mirror for winning our Headline of the Day Award.

The judges have again recommended a video to accompany this post. It's not that it's a bad choice, it's the principle of the thing. This is my blog.

But I shall have to make enquiries about the extent of their powers before I tell them to stick it up their wigs.

A full episode of The Basil Brush Show with Mr Derek

When Derek Fowlds was cast in Yes, Minister he was, as a secondary modern boy, apprehensive about playing a Whitehall highflyer, So he turned up for the first rehearsal with a pair of glasses and a posh accent.

"What are you doing?" asked Paul Eddington, "Just talk to me the way you used to talk to Basil Brush."

And this is how he talked to Basil Brush. Mr Derek was the best of Basil's companions, perhaps because he was stricter with him, which meant that they got through the story. There's a moral about parenting there somewhere.

This is, as far as I can recall, is a typical episode of The Basil Brush Show. It's one of several from the Mr Derek era on YouTube at the moment.

The Black Theatre of Prague was the sort of act you were supposed to like as a child, but perhaps didn't. Cheesy Peter Noone, only 24 in 1971, was already on the downward slope, having been huge in the 1960s. Jacqueline Stanbury worked throughout the 1970s in minor roles, including an uncredited one in The Day of the Jackal. She is married to a friend of this blog, David Wood.

But what made these shows special was the crosstalk and rapport between Basil and Mr Derek. Fowlds is on record as saying he signed up for a second series for the money, but somehow during the course of it the puppet came alive to him and became a real talking fox.

Here it's all very 1972. There are jokes about Jack Bodell, Fred Trueman (who had left Yorkshire by then and was turning out for Derbyshire on Sundays) and British Rail.

The scripts were clever, but what the audience of Cubs and Brownies the BBC assembled would laugh at was a lottery, judging by this episode. But I loved Basil Brush and his weekly shows were a treat.

Jack Bodell was a British boxer, perhaps the most notable of the 'horizontal heavyweights' that we went in for in those days.

When the greatest British heavyweight of the era, Henry Cooper, made a comeback to fight for the European title, an interviewer asked if he planned to fight another British boxer. He sounded doubtful: "if I beat Jack Bodell once more, they'll let me hang him over my mantlepiece."

But that didn't stop Bodell being promoted on the world scene. In 1971 he fought the leading white American heavyweight Jerry Quarry, only to be knocked out in 64 seconds.

Trying to salvage something from the wreckage, a British journalist asked if Bodell had been an awkward opponent. Quarry thought for a moment and replied: "Well he sure fell awkwardly."

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"We aren’t puritans. We aren’t miserable. We aren’t automatons. We are liberals. So why oh why is the party resorting to wringing its collective hands about 'unhealthy' Eat Out to Help Out discounts?" Judging by the reaction on Twitter, Max Wilkinson speaks for many party members.

Peter Franklin calls on the chancellor to repair the public finances after Covid-19 by introducing a form of land value taxation: "If Rishi Sunak introduces it, we’d be facing a truly remarkable moment in British politics: the first step toward a seemingly impossible political philosophy - Tory Georgism."

"A holistic approach is needed to get more people on their bikes, one that makes cycling desirable, accessible and fun. To truly make it safe, cycling in the capital needs to take priority over driving." Caz Nicklin says that if the prime minister wants to get us all on our bikes, he needs to look at what’s been stopping us for so long.

John Boughton looks at the history of council housing in Oxford, which includes a wall built to separate a private estate from the council houses next door.

Alwyn Turner looks at the strange fame of the Italian heavyweight boxer Primo Carnera.

"To get a sense of what it is like, think of an artists’ community in a near-desert of shingle, consisting of houses built from driftwood and old train carriages, all on a storm-battered headland in Kent, with a globally unique ecosystem, a tiny steam railway, and of course those two gigantic nuclear plants dominating the view to the south." Niall Gooch takes us to Dungeness.

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Caron Lindsay went on yesterday's march demanding a referendum on the final Brexit deal.

"At every stage of the Brexit process we have seen complete indifference to the fate of Northern Ireland. The “precious union” stuff is a gaudy orange garment borrowed from the DUP to cover the most nakedly obvious attitude: this Irish border stuff concerns a faraway people of whom we know nothing and care less." Fintan O'Toole says the Brexiters don't care about Northern Ireland.

Penelope Gibbs on the rudeness of judges and why it matters.

"The article on ringcraft ... notes approvingly that former British and Empire champion Len Harvey ‘maintains that every boy should take up boxing’. The conclusion is as unremarkable in the 1951 book for children as it would be inconceivable today." Paul Saffer reviews Every Boy’s Book of Sport 1951, which was edited by Denis Compton.

"Few holloways are in use now: they are too narrow and too slow to suit modern travel. But they are also too deep to be filled in and farmed over. So it is that, set about by some of the most intensively farmed countryside in the world, the holloways have come to constitute a sunken labyrinth of wildness in the heart of arable England." Robert Macfarlane takes us into a secret landscape.

Tom Cox remembers the cold and isolated stay in Derbyshire that inspired his new collection of ghost stories.

The real Billy Elliot?

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With the fact that today has been World Ballet Day, I thought of this photograph.

Does it show the real Billy Elliot?

It is captioned:

June 1958: 12 year old John Ryder and his friend Trevor Briscoe play in a back garden in the coal mining area of Amthorpe, near Doncaster. Surprisingly, miner's son John wants to be a ballet dancer and shows guts as well as ballet talent, fighting any local boys who call him 'sissy'. He has also joined the school boxing team to prove it. 

Before you laugh or protest too loudly at the attitudes of the 1950, have a look at what I once wrote about the film Billy Elliot.

I complained of its "ludicrous sexual politics" and complained:

In order to show he is not gay Billy has to have a best friend who is not only gay but looks and dresses like a girl.

Welsh Lib Dem councillor takes on Anthony Joshua

Final prep for tonight’s #JoshuaParker bout - who’s your money on? @anthonyfjoshua or @joseph_carterUK pic.twitter.com/9X0Wm0fylb

— Principality Stadium (@principalitysta) March 31, 2018

Even though @joseph_carterUK is the Welsh Liberal Democrats' housing spokesperson, councillor for Pentwyn and Llanedeyrn, and Cardiff Lib Dems' housing and social services spokesperson, my money is on Anthony Joshua.

Lord Bonkers adds: Pound for pound, Joe Carter ("The Pentwyn Puncher") is the best Liberal Democrat boxer since Sugar Ray Michie.

Alan Shearer: Football, Dementia and Me

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He is a bit awkward, doesn’t have Gary Lineker’s ease and wit. But he’s serious, engaged and engaging, and proves he can make the step up from Match of the Day punditry and go it alone.

Sam Wollaston gives a fair verdict on Alan Shearer's presentation of the documentary Dementia, Football and Me.

The dangers of brain damage posed by boxing have long been known, and in recent years more attention has been paid to football, rugby and American football.

These have been highlighted by the news that several members of England's 1966 World Cup team are suffering from forms of dementia.

More research is needed - more research is always needed - but the pattern emerging in football is deeply worrying.

And if Shearer's documentary had a weakness it was that he rather backed away from the conclusions to which his investigations were leading him.

One of the saddest things in the programme was Shearer's meeting with Chris Nicholl, the former Northern Ireland centre back. Nicholl is clearly having serious memory problems.

When I lived in Sutton Coldfield for a year after university, I played for the town's chess club in the Birmingham league.

I was always being told how Nicholl had done the same when he played for Aston Villa between 1972 and 1977. In those days all the Villa players lived in Four Oaks, which is the expensive end of Sutton.

Lib Dem beats Ukip by a knock out

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Remember the chessboxing bout between Liberal Democrat activist and former Ukip MEP Jonathan Arnott that I mentioned the other day?

I have good news from the Metro:

A Ukip MEP has been punched to the ground in an epic grudge match with a Lib Dem activist – days after Article 50 was triggered. 

Billed as the main event of a ‘chessboxing’ match, the MEP for the North East of England was floored pretty early on.

All the more impressive, given how handy Ukip MEPs can be with their fists.

Lib Dems vs Ukip at chessboxing

I have never been convinced that chessboxing is a thing, but I cannot resist this story from Politico:

Forget Brexit, the big British battle takes place Saturday as a UKIP MEP and a Liberal Democrat activist take each other on at chessboxing. 

Jonathan Arnott, who has represented UKIP in the European Parliament since 2014, will take on Toby White, a Lib Dem activist and Remain supporter, in a bout in East London. Arnott is a club-level chess player but has never boxed before, whereas White has competed in two chessboxing matches ... 

Chessboxing sees competitors do battle in alternating rounds of chess and boxing.

When I showed the report to Lord Bonkers, he suggested that Toby White should "give opponent one up the snoot early on". And that was just in the chess.

BREAKING... Chris Eubank's Missing Trousers: Man Held

The greatness of Muhammad Ali and the decline of boxing

In his pomp Muhammad Ali was just about the most recognisable man on the planet. Supreme as an athlete, he risked everything that had earned him to stand up for his people and for what he believed to be right.

One reason for his extraordinary fame was that he was a great athlete in a sport that enjoyed a popularity it hard to imagine today.

Heavyweight boxing was the blue riband event. In the years of rationing after the second world war British men like Bruce Woodcock, who were really no more than middleweights, had to take on American heavyweights so we had someone to compete in it.

When I was a small boy the great heavyweight bouts were global events of extraordinary significance. I have a clear memory of listening to them on the radio late in the evening.

So much so, that when I was in New York I went to look round the foyer of Madison Square Garden, where so many of those great fights were held, just so I could say I had been there. (Admittedly, the recent Clapton and Winwood concert there may have had something to do with it too.)

Time moves on and sports lose popularity. In the first year of this blog's life I wrote:

Thirty years ago the British heavyweight boxing champion was just about the biggest name in sport - think of Henry Cooper. Can you name the current holder of the title without using Google? I can't.

That would have to read 42 years ago today. There are several credible British heavyweights around today, but I have not idea if any of them is British champion.

I fell out of love with boxing when Michael Watson suffered brain damage in a bout with Chris Eubank. That had been an era when there were great British middleweights - Watson, Eubank, Nigel Benn - and their clashes made for wonderful fights.

It was magnificent when Eubank got off the canvass and from God knows where found a punch to knock Watson out and win the fight. But the damage it caused convinced me that professional boxing was insupportable.

I did watch Eubank's son Chris Eubank Jr fight Nigel Blackwell. The younger Eubank is clearly a very talented fighter, but I found the proceedings sickening.

Not just because Blackwell ended up in a coma and almost died, but also because of the dishonesty of the commentators.

It was clear almost at once that Eubank could unload combinations on Blackwell's head at will and that Blackwell lacked the weapons to stop him. Yet the commentators talked up the idea of Blackwell fighting back right up until the point that the fight was stopped.

The nearest equivalent to Muhammad Ali today in talent and personality is Usain Bolt. It is hard to see how a boxer could ever achieve that sort of fame again.

Until things change (and they will), you have to put your money on the next sporting figure to matter beyond sport in the way Ali did being a footballer.

Harry Potter, martial arts and lesbian and gay psychology: A reminder

Dr Martin Milton is giving a free public lecture on the links between courage, creativity and mental well-being in Leicester this Saturday (14 July).

His lecture forms part of the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society's Division of Counselling Psychology. It will see Dr Milton drawing upon the Harry Potter stories, boxing and mixed martial arts, as well as lesbian and gay psychology.

Dr Milton's talk will launch his book Diagnosis and Beyond: Counselling Psychology Contributions to Understanding Human Distress. Tea and cake will be available afterwards.

The lecture takes place at the Mercure Leicester City Hotel in Granby Street  (you know, the old Grand Hotel) between 12 and 1 p.m.

You can book in advance or just turn up on the day.

Harry Potter, martial arts and lesbian and gay psychology

Dr Martin Milton is giving a free public lecture on the links between courage, creativity and our own mental well-being in Leicester on 14 July.

The lecture forms part of the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society's Division of Counselling Psychology. It will see Dr Milton drawing upon the Harry Potter stories, boxing and mixed martial arts, as well as lesbian and gay psychology.

Dr Milton's talk will launch his book Diagnosis and Beyond: Counselling Psychology Contributions to Understanding Human Distress. Tea and cake will be available afterwards.

The lecture takes place at the Mercure Leicester City Hotel, Granby Street, Leicester (you know, the old Grand Hotel) on Saturday 14 July between 12 and 1 p.m.

Places are available on the day or you can book in advance.

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SomeBeans refuses to be outraged at the proposal to allow NHS hospitals to obtain up to 49 per cent of their income from private patients.

David Cameron's proposal for a minimum price for alcohol is defended by Labour blogger Representing the Mambo.

"Miliband cannot see that he is taking a profoundly ideological position here - the idea that centralised leadership can find solutions even though it hasn‘t done so in the past." The assumptions behind Ed Miliband's new year message are unpacked by Stumbling and Mumbling.

Somewhere I have an old London Underground map showing an extension of the Bakerloo to Camberwell under construction. It was never built, but now it may be. More details from James Barber.

"I've stumbled on a wonderful documentary film made in the 1960s that in an odd way does help give some kind of perspective on today. It's about two brothers called Billy and George Walker. Billy was a boxer and George was a gangster who became Billy's manager. The film is a beautiful record of the way two brilliant chancers were manipulating British society and the media at a moment in 1964." A fascinating post from Adam Curtis.

Katyboo1's Weblog gives us the 10 best books she has read this year.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Thriller in Vanilla

Saturday

As an enthusiast for the Noble Art, I was naturally distraught at the death of Smokin’ Joe Frazier. How well I remember his trilogy of battles with the great Muhammad Ali! The greatest of these, of course, was the ‘Thriller in Manila’, and it was about then that I turned my mind to the revival of heavyweight boxing here in Rutland.

With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps my ideas smacked too much of the circus, but audiences had dwindled to an alarming extent. So it was that I first staged the Heavyweight Championship of Rutland in a large brown envelope, promoting it as the ‘Thriller in Manila’. This was followed by a return bout in an enormous ice cream bowl – the ‘Thriller in Vanilla’.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Rogered by a past winner of the 2,000 Guineas
• Sending a Jeremy Browne to China
• Meet Eva Vestoff
• Remembering John Maynard Keynes
• Bob Willis on Portland Bill

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"Football like boxing or rowing is a game where the team that is leading at the first stage isn't always the winner at the end. As Kris Akabushi said when he appeared at a Yes2AV event even in the 100m at the Olympics there are the first and second round and semi-finals. It is rare that the eventual champion will have won every round of that race. What is important is that they win on the final round." Stephen's Liberal Journal has little time for the sporting analogies being deployed by the No2AV campaign.

Eric Avebury visits Rolls Royce in Derby, where he worked 60 years ago after leaving the Army.

The Blairite group Progress is publishing its Purple Book in the autumn. (I wonder where they got that idea from?) Writing on Liberal Conspiracy, Don Paskini cannot decide whether to be intrigued or outraged.

Under a Watling Street Tree believes public libraries have lost their way: "Our local libraries appear to be stacked with CDs, cheap paperbacks, celebrity cookbooks and other publications, that are, in many cases, of dubious educational value. Many such items could be bought in local charity shops at give-away prices."

The prospects for the campaign to restore Leicester's Braunstone Hall are examined by Mr Black's Blog.

Silent UK has some marvellous photographs of the disused Post Office railway under London. (I am sure I used to have a Blue Peter book with an article about it.) You will see that I have appropriated one of those photographs.

Swadlincote is sinking

"The ground may be subsiding under part of the town, but the citizens of Swadlincote have unshaken faith in the future," says the rather Soviet commentary on this newsreel from 1954 (Click on the picture to view it on the British Pathe site.)

Unfortunately, that faith may not have been well founded. A report from BBC East Midlands this week showed that subsidence caused by the coal industry remains a huge problem in Swadlincote.

Swadlincote was the birthplace of the British heavyweight Jack Bodell - follow that link for a favourite anecdote.