By Dave Sutherland
I have never gone much on Women’s Wrestling; to my knowledge it never featured in the remit of Joint Promotions and certainly not in the Morrell field therefore it never had a showing at St James’ Hall. To me it was the domain of a small number of the Independents and, as has been stated before, several Town Councils would not sanction it in their area. I considered it an import from USA and even then the subject only made the back pages of some of the American magazines that we got over here. In his book “This Grappling Game” Kent Walton described it as having more in common with Hamburg’s Reeperbahn than the Fairfield Halls, Croydon and his reply to those who questioned why it wasn’t shown on TV was to the effect “Would you like to see your wife in the ring then?” It was always a no-win situation; back in the Golden Age if you said that you were a fan you would be classed as “depraved” while these days should you declare that you didn’t like it then you would be dismissed as “sexist” or “misogynistic.”
However when it came to the women that frequented St James’ Hall then that was another subject altogether.
The easiest thing would be to break them up into those who were the characters of the Hall and those who ignited the youthful venery of us confectionery vendors.
Foremost among the former was Hannah of whom I was aware long before I ever set foot in St James’; she, along with her friend whose name I have completely forgotten, had the reputation of being the scourge of many a villain as they wielded their handbags indiscriminately. Although I have to say that they were more active against the more “popular” heel such as a Karl Von Kramer or Abe Ginsberg as opposed to the likes of Billy Joyce or Jim Breaks. However I do remember Tommy Kilmartin once grabbing the handbag from her following a bashing and emptying the contents all over the floor, and on another occasion Henri Pierlot giving them both a generous view of his backside. They were essential to the flavour of the Hall; “Part of the furniture” was the way that the announcer described them the night some poltroon from the opposite side of the balcony threw a coin into the ring, presumably at one of the wrestlers, which missed his mark and cut Hannah’s friend above her eye and she had to be taken to hospital. The following week before he had even got into the ring referee Gordon Smith went across to her to see how she was and when the same incident occurred a few weeks later at Middleborough Michael Bennett entered the ring to ask whether the perpetrator was brave enough to come on down and go a couple of rounds with him?
As vicious as Hannah was with her handbag so was Elsie with her vocal chords; she would sit behind us in the balcony along with her young daughter who was as silent as her mother was vociferous. Once that I had graduated to the trays and I was working downstairs Elsie still kept reminding me that she was up there. “Stick a pin in him and let the water out” was a favourite one of hers especially if some overweight, argumentative villain was protesting his innocence in the ring. Or should the (in)action be a bit slow and confined to the mat she would bellow “What’s up with these two; are they courting or something?” Without question she knew her wrestling and she had correctly identified The Professor as Cyril Morris from the way he stood in the corner in between rounds. “Cyril” she would call “What’s the matter Cyril, couldn’t you win a match until they put a mask on you?” To The Professor/Cyril’s everlasting credit he never looked up or made any indication of her remarks. Hans Streiger was another to come in for her treatment when he made a return to the Hall after a long absence and, ten years ahead of the fashion gurus, wearing his famous denim cut offs. “Hey Streiger, did you hitch hike to get here?” she questioned and from his response I gather that it had taken him two days to complete his journey. On the other hand when Johnny Allen made his first appearance following an incident on his farm when, while trying to eject an intruder, he suffered a shotgun blast and needed hospital treatment to have the pellets removed; “Johnny, Johnny you’re looking well” and his cheery thumbs up to her brought the house down.
Back in the halcyon days of the fifties British B movies the women who frequented twilight world of the wrestling hall were either gangster’s molls or prostitutes and we were supposed to have our own live version of the latter in our midst. She was a heavily made up lady with striking, Peroxide blond hair and a build not unlike that of Jim Hussey. She mainly attended on her own and sat ringside although sometimes she was accompanied by a brunet girlfriend; if she was a member of the oldest profession she was either not very popular or Saturday evening was not working hours as I never saw her leave with anyone (other than her friend). She would occasionally politely ask for either a choc ice or a tub of ice cream and I, with equal grace, would serve her making sure that I got a sly look into her handbag to see if there was any incriminating evidence that would connect her to whoredom; not that I had a clue what I would be looking for! One night while talking to Jackie, the lady who ran the sweet and cigarette shop in the Hall, prior to starting work, Alan Patchett and I mentioned the gossip surrounding this lady and Jackie immediately blew our theory out of the water by explaining that she did nothing more sinister than work at a bakery!
Another Peroxide blond was called Alma who along with her mate attended the Hall regularly and they were well into their wrestling as was depicted by their attire; baseball boots, bell bottom jeans and those knitted car coats that were all the rage in the early sixties. Only their car coats had their favourite wrestlers names embroidered into the wool and not the sort of names you would associate with teenage girls; I can’t remember them all but certainly Norman Walsh featured prominently.
By complete contrast there were two statuesque young ladies who would come each week dressed like a pair of fashion models always managing to arrive a few minutes before the doors opened so that they could parade in full view of those queuing to get in. Upon hearing Patchett and I expressing our approval of their sartorial elegance and presence a regular punter, a little chap from Ashington with an iron grey crew cut and who always smelled strongly of peppermint chewing gum decided to burst our bubble by eloquently informing us that the other week he “Hord them taalkin’ comin’ oot the piss – hoose and they soonded like a reet couple o’pit – yackers”
However the one who got my pulse racing and played havoc with my teenage hormones sat at ringside a few rows behind Hannah and always at the end of the aisle. I couldn’t begin to put an age on her but she must have been somewhere between late twenties and early thirties and if you can imagine an, even more, buxom Liz Fraser with a dash of Fiona Richmond mixed in then you will have a pretty good picture of her. I thought that she might have something to do with the medical profession as she often seemed to be in the company of three or four young Asian men who I fancied might be trainee doctors from Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary but I stress that was purely conjecture on my part. She would always greet me most enthusiastically when she made her purchase asking me had I had a good week and was I particularly busy that night before slipping me the killer blow, usually in the form of remark about her person such as “Oh dear, do you think that this skirt is too short for me?” or “Honestly, I didn’t realise that this sweater was so tight when I put it on tonight”. All of which was guaranteed to render me totally cross-eyed, knock-kneed and tongue-tied; although being the man of the world that I was naturally I could come up with the suave, seductive and sophisticated answer; the only trouble was it was usually around the following Monday lunch time when I had thought of it! If it was her intention to be my Mrs Robinson then I was certainly doing better than one of our more popular and personable heavyweights, who I stumbled on one night in the foyer as I came downstairs having replenished my tray, who was imploring her to come for a drink with him. “Just one drink, that’s all, just a drink” and the more he persisted the more she politely refused his offer. All the same I couldn’t fault his tenacity or his invitation.
More our age group and more our level, towards the end of 1965 I noticed a group of young ladies who had started to attend the Hall on a weekly basis and who had positioned themselves at the top of the stairs in the tiered seats. Not only that but whenever I ventured into their locality on my sales rounds I found them very welcoming and friendly to the point where I suggested to Patchett, and he didn’t need much encouraging, that we could do worse than watch the last part of the final bout once that we had checked in our trays from the same vantage point. Certainly what had originally piqued my interest was that one of the girls was a dead ringer for a young lady at work upon whom I had my eye, they could have been sisters; her name was Winifred, she worked in Newcastle and we got on ever so well from the word go. It became immediately apparent that they all liked the clean cut blue eyed wrestlers especially the likes of The Royals or The Cortez brothers while by then we thought that the heels were more fun and therefore with us shouting for the more rough hewn bad boys the repartee was cemented. They also liked Mike Marino and he seemed very proud of their affection so we were wise enough to know when to keep our mouths shut. For all our jolly chats and banter our relationship never got any further than Winnie coming for a drink at The Strawberry with us one night, an evening that was marred to some extent by the very girl from work mentioned earlier showing up at the Hall in the company of her current boyfriend, but future invitations were turned down as her friends were not keen; just as well because even back then my average 6/- commission wasn’t exactly going to fill the bar! Happily our friendship lasted beyond my finishing at St James’ mid 1966 and I occasionally bumped into her in Newcastle should I be taking an extended lunch time to mooch around the music shops; it was quite an ego booster to have your name shouted across Grainger Street while she was out in town with her workmates.
However the one young lady who totally won my heart I never knowingly met. Sometime during 1965 The Sunday Sun, as the name suggests the North East’s own Sunday newspaper and for whom I ended up writing music column for six years, did a feature on a Saturday night at St James’ Hall. Not some sleazy expose or a smug, world weary, smart arse piece denigrating the wrestling but a simple review of a typical Saturday night there with interviews from the audience.
The final couple of lines came from an interview with a young girl of eight or nine who came every week with her family; “Do you like St James’?” the reporter asked “Yes, I love coming” she told him. “Who is your favourite wrestler?” he asked “Wrestler? I don’t care about the wrestling; I come for the ice cream and hot dogs!”
Wrestling Heritage 