wiganworld   (Feedback, help, your ideas for new content.)

I don't know who the "hardest" man in Wigan is now, but way back in the 1920s my grandad was the undisputed hard man of Wigan. I'm not proud of this, but he was champion porrer. For those who don't know what that is, it's a man who clog-fights. The object of the exercise was that two men would agree to fight wear clogs with irons. They would hold onto each others shoulders then kick their opponents until one dropped to the floor. Once someone hit the ground, the one standing was the winner and that was the end of it.

My grandad participated in this "sport" not because he was a thug, but because he could win money in order to put food on the table for his family. As a miner, his wage was a pittance, and he had four kids to feed. He never lost a match and folk were in fear of him, but he was the gentlest soul with us, his grandchildren, and his hobby was keeping budgies and canaries which he looked after and handled with great tenderness.

Whenever there was a problem in the streets, folk didn't threaten to call the bobbies; they threatened to go get old Tom to sort them out!

He was hard because he had to be, not for glorification, but his kids didn't go without food in those desperate times. It was what he had to do to keep his family from starving, and I'm damned proud of him for that, but not for what he did to achieve it. He died of emphyzema of the lungs in 1955 from working down the pit.