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Jack Phelps from Whitehall - the voice of Bristol boxing

Jack Phelps is the authentic Voice of Bristol Boxing. He has been in his time trainer, second, manager, friend and confidant to many West Country fighters. No-one has more conscientiously researched and documented the careers of scores of local boxers, most of whom only dreamt of topping the bills. He had a kindly rapport with them, understanding the restrictions imposed by the poverty in which many of them grew up during the years of the Depression.

He encouraged them to view boxing and physical fitness as a form of social therapy —and maybe a means for some to supplement breadline wages and a dole queue pittance. Jack chuckled over their earthy humour and, with loyal discretion, kept the more slanderous stories to himself Never once did he lose his enthusiasm and affection for the sport.

He was born in the Whitehall district of Bristol and there was boxing in his blood. His father, a stud groom who looked after six horses at the Co-op stables, was also a lightweight booth fighter with personal experience of bareknuckle contests at Purdown. Jack was one of nine children — six girls and three boys — in a tight-knit family. But any hopes he cherished of becoming a boxer himself were cruelly dashed because of a tubercular condition affecting his right knee. He needed crutches for the first 10 years of his life and went on to have two major operations. “I’d have loved to be a champ” he confides. Instead, after starting work with a coal firm, he became a barber from the age of 20. High court judges, leading civic and sporting figures and members of the aristocracy were among his customers at Trowbridge’s in Broad Street.

Physical culture emerged as something of a new fashion for boys and young men in the pre-war years. Jack believed in looking after the body and he started giving body-building lessons in his front room. His letter-headings and visiting cards referred to the Art of Self-Defence and advised potential pupils to “learn to box without punishment”. He went on to operate from nine different gyms in the city. His first club was a room at the back of the Paxton Arms in Easton Road. Others included the Prince Albert, Two Mile Hill, while at the Rock Tavern, Olly Lodge, Speedwell, he had an improvised ring marked out on the cobbles. “I used to put down sawdust!”

But at a time when there were too many signs in working class Bristol of empty stomachs and hollow cheeks, Jack Phelps provided a sense of purpose for boys with no money and no job. He started his popular Speedwell Boxing Club in 1933. Three years later he took out a second’s licence — and a manager’s from 1938 right through to 1975 Today in his bachelor flat in a tower block overlooking Barton Hill, he remains sprightly; he never goes to bed without his obligatory 15 minutes of exercises, even though he is now in his mid-70s. His home is stacked with memories: cuttings, faded photographs, letters from exfighters. “Mr. Boxing”, as he is known, will never be a lonely man.

Yes, of course I’d have loved to be a boxer myself. The old knee stopped that but I never spared myself when it came to sparring. I’d take on six or seven, one after the other. I told the boys they could have a penny if they hit me on the nose, a shilling if they could make it bleed! But they never managed to hit me. My boxing was self-taught, in front of the mirror. I knew the third button on the waistcoat was the solar plexus. I watched the experts and read avidly. And I really did spar hundreds of rounds. Boxing had to be my life. And it still is.

I applied for my second’s licence and it cost me five bob. All the kids I looked after were so game. You didn’t throw the towel in. The manager’s licence two years later set me back two guineas. So now, the obvious question is which of all the boxers I handled was the best. It has got to be Jimmy Jury, the mild-mannered taxi driver from Barnstaple. They say when he had a fare in the taxi he was an object lesson in charm and good manners. You should have seen him in a ring.

Jimmy was well known as a booth fighter for Sam McKeowen and I can still picture him performing on Horfield Common and Fishponds. He travelled all round the country with the booths and it was sometimes difficult to run him to ground. I used to get hold of him by sending a telegram c/o the fairground. Do you know, Jimmy invariably turned up, complete with his kit. He was always reliable. He had 21 fights in the four years I handled him and he nearly always came out clearly on top. A cool customer was Jimmy — he never wanted to know his opponent. Only the amount of the purse, and no-one could blame him for that!

Jury, who was to become West of England champion, fought as both a lightweight and welterweight. He really was an incredible bloke. He was so easy-going and calm in some respects. Before a fight, he’d go into, the little dressing room and immediately fall asleep. We’d have to wake him a

If you are the sort of individual whose spending power remains blissfuly unaffected by the global financial crisis, and are on the lookout for a country pad in which to park your helicopter, you're in luck. For ?8.5 million you can own a grand house in Wiltshire, a short hop over Salibury Plain from Madonna and Sting, with the combination of period charm, high-tech luxury and lavish international decor that you are doubtless looking for.

Compton Bassett House, near Chippenham, is extremely pretty, and stands next to the 11th-century church of St Swithun's. A great house dating from 1674 was demolished by a reckless owner in 1929, who decided that he would prefer to live in the stable block. The latter is, however, quite something: 150ft long and built in 1700. Recent owners include Lord Foster of Thames Bank, but the house has been properly modernised only by the current owner, Paul Cripps, and his wife, Selene.

The genial Mr Cripps explains how he came to be here: “I sold my printing business when I was 40, invested in commercial property, and went to live in Bermuda.” Ten years ago he returned to England and bought the house, commissioning Michael Phillips, an architect for the chic Malmaison and Hotel du Vin group, to smarten it up. “It was supposed to be a six-month project costing half a million and ended up taking three years and ?3million”, he says.

When water appeared each morning in the hole he had dug in the basement for a new pool, he had to fit a new drain at a cost of ?35,000. The house used so much power that Cripps was forced to install a new electricity substation, this time for ?350,000. The black-and-white stone floor in the lobby by the pool (lined with Doric columns), is copied from a film. “I saw it in Pierce Brosnan's house in The Thomas Crown Affair”, Cripps says, “and immediately rang with instructions for it to be copied.”

Husband and wife have separate bathrooms. His in Jerusalem limestone and African red granite, hers with an island theme, with arched Japanese-style bridges leading to the shower. “I had it tanked so fish could swim round the island,” Cripps says, “but then I thought ‘what happens if we go away?'.” He also spent $12,000 (?6,100) on American fridges, “but they made such a noise I ripped them out.” The latest flourish is a formal garden with fountains and temples.

When Selene decided she “didn't like white walls”, her husband employed two pavement painters, “very good artists”, and installed them in his house for 18 months while they painted his son's bedroom with a Treasure Island theme, promising him they would replace the pirates with topless women when he was older.

Cripps did sometimes go to great lengths to save money. When the price for English limestone for the pool came to ?200,000, he sent three lorries to Portugal and had the stone cut there for ?20,000. When the bill for the new woodwork, floors and doors began to look steep, he bought a local joinery company so that he could get the best deal. So why sell? “I'm going to downsize”, he says. “I already have a house in [Knightsbridge] and a lovely new home in Bermuda. And I get fed up having to get in the car for a paper or a pint of milk.”

FACT FILE

WHAT YOU GET: 18th-century mansion with seven bedroom suites, sauna complex and swimming pool, gym, two staff flats and helicopter hangar.

WHERE IS IT: Wiltshire. Calne four miles, Chippenham nine miles, M4 13 miles.

AREA: 19,913 sq ft; 71 acres of grounds.

PRICE: ?8.5 million. Knight Frank, 020-7629 8171; Savills, 020-7499 8644.

Time Online 22/2/08