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‘Go on, Gould! Hit back! Hit back, man!’ I still remember vividly that
exhortation, despite the fact that it entered my ears and mind some 60 years
ago. I was a small boy – indeed, a rather small small boy – temporarily
and unwillingly corralled within a boxing ring erected in the gym of my
school (founded on Christian principles), and I was being chased around
the beastly space by a similarly small but much more aggressive infant who
was punching me.

So far as I now remember the occasion, my response to this assault was
to cover my face with crossed arms and to foxtrot backwards. Hence the exhortation.

What made matters worse was the fact that I was taking part in an exhibition
match. Well – sort of. The occasion of the deadly encounter was some kind
of open day at which loving parents were allowed into our semi-monastic
institution, given a meagre ration of cucumber sandwiches and weak Earl
Grey tea, and the opportunity to observe how well their money was being
applied to the task of turning their savage sprogs into civilised and educated
gentlemen. Part of this expensive effort involved teaching us how to bash
each other up.

So the ring was ringed by chairs for the convenience of voyeurs, among
whom were my parents (dammit) and (dammit even more) my headmaster, and
he it was who voiced the exhortation.

Now, he was a gentle man. He was an aesthete and Greek scholar, and
the youngest person ever to have been given charge of one of those perversely
named ‘public’ schools, and was famous for his perceived ‘liberal’ approach
to education. So what was in the mind of this cultured fellow (he should
never have got himself involved in the crudities of school life and, indeed,
soon went to a more appropriate post at Oxford) when he shouted out ‘Hit
back! Hit back, man!’?

Mercifully, I don’t now remember the conclusion of the bout, or whether
my parents were as embarrassed as I was, but I do remember my great resentment
at being forced to exhibit my incompetence at an activity for which I had
no enthusiasm and at which I was no damned good. I just didn’t get a kick
out of hitting people, let alone being hit. I preferred peace to war, and
still do.

Not that I’m an uncompromising pacifist, mind you. I willingly joined
the Navy during the conflict with that wretched Mr Hitler, and, given half
a chance, would happily do something really nasty to Saddam Hussein. But
to start laying about a fellow being for no possible reason except the sheer
hell of doing it? No way! Rubbish! And brutal and brutalising rubbish to
boot.

I’ve never forgiven my late headmaster for that ringside exclamation,
despite the fact that he has long since joined the angels. His muscular-Christian-type
intervention made me feel more of an awkward miscast than I was already
acutely aware of being. And big important men shouldn’t say things that
humiliate insignificant small boys.

Anyway, the recollection of that painful scene is part of the reason
why I was moved to emit loud wailing noises of sadness and despair upon
reading remarks attributed to a Mr Robert Atkins, who is, I understand,
Her Majesty’s sports minister. Showing the kind of insensitivity which politicians,
purblind in their artificial world, seem so readily to acquire, and in the
wake of the dreadful damage done in the ring to Michael Watson, our Robert
is reported to have urged schoolboys to take up boxing because it encourages
self-discipline and physical confidence and helps to turn them into ‘good
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Twaddle! Whether or not the so-called ‘sport’ inspires ‘physical confidence’
depends, I suppose, on whether or not you find that you can usually hit
other people harder and more often than they can hit you. But self-discipline?
Good citizenship? Is a self-disciplined good citizen someone nurtured in
the belief that the ideal solution to a dispute is a disabling straight-left
to your opponent’s jaw?

I am not too concerned about the practitioners of the ‘noble art’. If
they are pleased to accept the destruction which their activity inevitably
does to their tiny brains, then good luck to them. But I do think young
persons should be legally discouraged from a premature indulgence in the
vice, just as happens in the case of other dangerous hobbies such as smoking
and drinking and making love. And I do think that boxers should have to
take out private health insurance so that the rest of us don’t have to pay
to repair their self-inflicted injuries.

No – it’s the spectators, the voyeurs (including ringside headmasters),
who are most corrupted by the game.

Mary Whitehouse has gained an almost saintly status in some eyes by
her vigorous attempts to rid the nation of publications and television programmes
which suggest the fun of sex. But sex is fun. Sex is glorious, and a bit
essential to the future of the race. Violence is not. Violence is what may
wipe us out long before the Sun dries up. So why doesn’t Mrs Whitehouse
have a word or two to say on boxing?

When I’m Prime Minister I’m not going to ban boxing. I’m going to leave
it legal, but only when practised between consenting adults in private.

Then, I believe, we shall soon hear no more of the ‘noble art’.