The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books)

O
VER TWENTY OR SO
years living in a tough and often violent world as a doorman, bodyguard and trainer of bodyguards, and then later as a writer, I have met and mingled with some real hard men. I don’t mean averagely tough men who are big fish in their relatively insignificant pond, but “
for fuck’s sake
” tough, hard bastards who would take on just about anyone in any situation, anywhere in the world, and who have certainly made me feel a wave of nervousness and trepidation at that very first meeting, and a few nervous gulps at the first introduction and handshake.

And I don’t get intimidated easily.

Whether a renowned martial artist, bare-knuckle fighter, doorman, bodyguard or gangster, I have found that there is
something
quite unique and unusual about a real hard man; he stands out in a crowd, he somehow looks different, he acts different, he has an air of self-confidence that “normal” men just don’t have. Of course, not all hard men look hard; not all have battered faces and missing teeth, tattoos and shaved heads, but from my experience most do have something very peculiar about them that oozes toughness, confidence and authority. The celebrated former British gangster Dave Courtney once said to me: “You can see naughtiness in a man; you can smell if someone is capable of it. Say you are gay and you go into a nightclub, you can usually spot another gay. If you are a heroin addict, you can pick out someone else who uses straight away. And if you are a naughty man, you can pick that out, too. You can pick up the mannerisms. They say the eyes are a window to the soul. I know if someone is fucking handy from their eyes. I know if they can hurt me, or if I can beat them, from their eyes – nine times out of ten. Some of the naughtiest men I know look as though they couldn’t harm a fly, but they have it in their eyes. And some of the scariest-looking fucking creatures you have ever seen in your life are like fucking kids.” And I can’t help but agree with Dave, there is definitely something unusual and unique about a real hard man.

I have, because of my work and the things I have done, also become good friends with some real hard men; mercenaries,
bare-knuckle
champions, Special Forces soldiers, bodyguards and, of course, some really fucking hard doormen. And yet surprisingly very few of these men have an “attitude”, very few boast or brag or bully. They know
who
they are and they know exactly
what
they are capable of. Cross them at your peril, but otherwise these tough men generally have respect and regard for those around them and they rarely have to prove anything with arrogance and bad attitude – unlike the thousands of “wannabe” hard men out there. For example, I remember working as a doorman at the Rectory, a pub in Wilmslow, a small upper-class town in the county of Cheshire on the outskirts of Manchester, England. It was an extremely popular posh venue that attracted the affluent and often extravagant “Cheshire set” of models and footballers, local young entrepreneurs and business people. On that particular Friday night the Rectory was full fairly early and we had a “one in and one out” policy and strict face control, with a queue lined up waiting to come in. Walking down the queue, chatting amicably to the customers while they waited, I noticed a local hard man with a few friends waiting in line, along with everyone else. He was a locally known gang “head”, a “main man” and someone you just didn’t mess with, yet he was queuing to come into my venue! I recognized him immediately, said “hello”, shook his hand and ushered him and his small,
tough-looking
entourage past the queue and straight into the pub. He knew who he was, everyone around him knew who he was, but he was still willing to queue up and wait with everyone else. He didn’t walk straight pass the queue and into the pub with a “do you know who I am?” attitude. People didn’t think he was a prat for queuing either; he respected those around him and because of that, people respected him. And the fact that I recognized him and let him in then made him a friend and someone whom I came to rely on in a rather difficult situation a few months later when a large pack of “wannabe” hard men stormed the door after I refused them all entry.

Real tough men rarely need to prove it.

It is a fact that some people are born great. Some people stand out in a crowd, some people look good and some people can “handle” themselves in aggressive confrontations with little or no formal training. The opposite is also very true; some people are definitely not great at all, disappear in a crowd, look pathetic and will run a mile at any confrontation. Yes, you can poke your arse with steroids and turn yourself from a 150-pound weakling into a 300-pound muscle-head, but if you are naturally afraid of confrontation, having strength and muscles won’t change a thing. Nor will learning a martial art make you into someone you are not; you may study for years and have great technique but on the streets in real-time
aggressive
and violent situations, even the most skilled martial artists can be quickly overwhelmed. This was also highlighted to me in Wigan, northwest England, when my friend “one-punch” Neil floored two boasting, arrogant black-belts with just the one punch on each (but what mighty punches they were!). These two idiots were playing up, boasting and bragging and causing trouble yet, even though they had trained in martial arts for many years, they quickly came a cropper against the mighty fists of Neil. At six foot two inches and almost 240 pounds of solid muscle, Neil is a monster of a hard man yet is humble, thoughtful and quiet and during the day works with people with mental disabilities.

There are also many, many men that try to make themselves look hard and tough, and act as bullies and intimidators, but in reality are not and I have seen this time and time again; men that look really scary and as though they can handle almost anyone, yet
invariably
would run a mile in an aggressive or violent encounter. One so-called hard, tough giant of a doorman whom I worked with on the doors in Standish, a tough mining town in Lancashire, England, hid in the gents’ toilets while the mightiest of all fights was going off inside the nightclub. With a shaved head, tattoos across his neck and muscles where muscles didn’t really belong, he made himself look hard in order to try to intimidate, scare and bully. He may have thought that he was a hard man, he may have made himself look like a hard man and he may have liked the idea of being seen as a hard man, but in his heart he was a coward. And another time during the Balkans conflict when, for a short while, I was tasked to pick up international mercenaries from Zagreb airport in Croatia and transport them to the front-line for training, the
hardest-looking
, broken-nosed, tattooed, shaven-headed, boastful
braggarts
would fall apart at the first mortar shell screaming overhead or AK-47 bullet whizzing by. They would (quite literally) shit their pants where they stood – or rather cowered – and we would take many of these “so-called” hard-men back to the airport the
following
week, broken and embarrassed (and unbelievably many would then later boast to their friends back home that they worked as a mercenary in Bosnia!). However, there were calm, thoughtful ones who said nothing to nobody and sat quietly reading or doing
The Times
crossword on the coach as it slowly made its way towards the front-line, and would then silently go out into the field for months and months on end doing God only knows what. And they never said a word about it to anyone; they never boasted or bragged or lied about what they did or didn’t do. In my mind, these are the real hard bastards.

The simple fact is that you cannot change your genes and you cannot change who you really are; sure, you can change certain things about you, but not who you fundamentally are. It isn’t the technique or the skills you have gained, or even the knowledge that are important: it is who you are and, conversely, who you are not. Without doubt it is the people who are not particularly hard (but think they are) that tend to show the most disrespect, care little about those around them and who cause the most problems. These are the ones that are responsible for much of the violence in today’s turbulent, troubled and violent world. For sure, there are also a few really hard men who don’t give a fuck about the world around them, but thankfully most of them are either dead or serving long prison sentences. But generally I have found that the toughest of the tough rarely have to prove anything to anyone: many of today’s genuinely hard, tough men are humble, polite and modest, and show respect to those around them, and in return they get respect. However, show them disrespect and you get that too, heaps of it. And this book profiles some of these unique and undeniably
fascinating
men.

It is certainly true that a great many hard men are, or have been, gangsters and criminals, only because their lifestyle and upbringing has made them into who they are. Undoubtedly, many hard men come from tough backgrounds, often with dysfunctional families and tough, violent, callous fathers, and so they have grown up to be hard bastards themselves. Really hard men generally do not come from middle-and upper-class families. Hard bastards usually come from a hard world.

But not all.

What makes someone a hard bastard? I am not a psychologist or sociologist and so have not studied this phenomenon from a desk at some university somewhere; my experience, my perception and my understanding of this phenomenon comes solely from the streets, from working the doors and as a bodyguard, and from living in some of the most violent, aggressive and intimidating places in the world, places like Bosnia during the war, Russia and Africa. Having worked alongside and socialized with some immensely tough people, time and time again I have witnessed that the critical factors in defining real toughness are: firstly, the absolute willingness to fight anyone, anything and anywhere; secondly, the ability to be incredibly and uncompromisingly violent; thirdly, the lack of any real fear; and, lastly, the inability to give up, even when the odds are insurmountable and there is a real risk of serious injury or even death. It is a fact that we all have a basic fight or flight instinct. Most people flee in a difficult or violent situation. Some fight but
eventually
end up fleeing if the odds are too much against them. A very rare few will fight and fight and fight, no matter what the odds or the outcome. These few are undeniably the hardest of the hard.

Although I have worked and lived in a violent world, I am not a hard man – there are many, many people who are much tougher and much better fighters than me, and who could undeniably destroy me in seconds. However, I earned a bit of a reputation while I was on the doors and as a bodyguard, not because of my fighting prowess or my attitude, but because I always stood my ground, no matter how much the odds were against me. In all the violent
situations
I have come across I never once backed down. But would I battle to the very end and to the death if necessary? Would I give up this life and everything I love in order to have a reputation for being a truly hard bastard?

Definitely not.

But there are many people in this world that will, some of whom I have featured in this book.

While putting this book together I didn’t want to focus just on gangsters and criminals but to look closely at a variety of other astonishingly tough, hard men (and one woman) who inhabit this globe as well. I have tried to be as diverse as I possibly can and to profile amazing martial artists, reputed bodyguards, prizewinning boxers and wrestlers, notorious debt-collectors, respected doormen and champion bare-knuckle fighters, all of whom are (or have been) undoubtedly some of the world’s hardest. I have also included a couple of unusual tough bastards, including a regular citizen caught up in a life-threatening situation and a tough policewoman working on one of America’s toughest reservations. Moreover, I did not want to concentrate solely on the famous or “infamous” either – there is already plenty written about the more celebrated and
well-known
hard men – but instead have included many people that don’t particularly court publicity or infamy, that few people know about and who have kept their head well under the “radar”. However, just because they are not famous doesn’t mean they are not some of the toughest, hardest bastards on the planet.

This book is made up of previously published articles and book chapters, as well as many wonderful and fascinating contributions specially written for this publication. Where appropriate I have also included a brief introduction and/or biography of the person featured.

Although this book is not meant to showcase or condone violence in any way whatsoever, because of the subject matter I have
sometimes
had to include a violent period in a particular person’s life, or have focused on a particularly violent episode or incident. But in other chapters I have included a general piece about that person and what made them into who they are, and in a few chapters the whole piece is a short biography of the person featured.

I hope you find all the people featured and their stories as
interesting
and as intriguing as I have.

Stay safe,

Robin Barratt (www.RobinBarratt.com)