Jimmy Wilde and Jack Scarrott...extract from new book

Jack Scarrott on Jimmy Wilde:

'Brutality ! mister, that’s what some people called it, when Jimmy Wilde started on my booth.  I remember I had him boxing for me at Taff’s Well when he was about 16 or 17 years of age.  Some gentleman came along and said it was brutality to put such a delicate little boy to box in the booth.  They got quite angry about it, and told me to take him away before somebody hurt him.  I said to them, “Now don’t you excited at all, gentlemen.  There’s no need to worry about this lad getting hurt.  You wait until the boxing starts and you’ll see who’ll be doing the hurting.  Up comes a mountain fighter about 30 years of age and weighing about 12 stone who was supposed to be the cock of the walk in the Pentyrch, Tongwynlais and Taff’s Well area.  I said, “I’ll give you £1 if you’ll stand three rounds against this little nipper.”  The people started shouting “Shame” because this chap looked big enough to eat Jimmy, but in the second round Jimmy caught him with a right on the chin and laid him dead out.  It took us nearly ten minutes to get him round....'

( Jack Scarrott speaking about his life in 1936 )

Taken from : Jack Scarrott’s Prize Fighters – Memoirs of a Welsh Boxing Booth Showman by Lawrence Davies
Published by Peerless Press, Cardiff

ISBN : 978-0-9570342-3-5
Price £14.99
Published : 31/8/2016
451 Pages, 56 black and white photos and illustrations