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early. But every sportsman needs a break some time, a chance to unwind, and one of the favourite places to do that in the East End was the Bow Civic dance hall. It was there that I met a stunning blonde who lived in nearby Poplar, the youngest of four sisters and a very talented dressmaker. She was two years younger than me and we hit it off immediately. We soon started going out seriously together.
    Her name was Dorothy Moore and we felt we were destined to get married.
    Mum and the old man approved of Dolly, and wedding bells rang out for us on Christmas Day 1948. Mum solved our housing problem by dismantling the gym in Vallance Road and redecorating and furnishing the room for us. We spent our honeymoon there. A week later I was in the ring at Leyton Baths, cruising to a points win in my first professional fight.
    After that, I was much in demand and picked up between five and ten quid a fight. I trained hard and took everything that came my way, hoping to catch the eye of a leading promoter. The twins came to watch me fight at Hoxton, Stepney, West Ham and the famous Mile End arena, eager to pick up tips that might help them in thering. I gained a reputation as a useful and reliable fighter, and although I didn’t have that extra touch of class that makes a champion, I was proud of my skills and my considerable local fame.
    Certain necessities were still rationed, but life had more or less got back to normal after the horrors of war. We ate and slept well, and the family atmosphere Mum created for us all at Vallance Road was warm and cosy and very happy.
    It seemed too good to last. And it was.
    One evening in March, the old man and I came home after working in Bristol and found Mum dreadfully upset. There had been a nasty fight outside a dance hall in Mare Street, Hackney, and a boy had been badly beaten with a length of bicycle chain. The twins had been arrested. Mum couldn’t believe it; neither could the old man and I, because the twins had never once needed to use anything other than their fists to settle an argument.
    The case went to the Old Bailey. The twins were innocent of the offences with which they were charged and they were rightly acquitted. But they had come face to face with that uniformed authority which they neither respected nor trusted. Just seven months later there was to be a more far-reaching and damaging confrontation.
    It was a Saturday evening in October. There had been a fight near a youth club in Mansford Street, off Old Bethnal Green Road, and Police Constable Donald Bayn-ton wanted to know about it. He went up to a group of youths on a corner outside a restaurant. Picking one out, he asked if he had been involved in the fight. The boy shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
    PC Baynton went up to the boy and pushed him in the stomach. The boy told him to leave him alone; he said again the fight had had nothing to do with him. The officer poked him in the stomach again.
    It was a mistake. The boy was Ronnie. He didn’t like the PC’s manner one bit.
    And he lashed out with a right hook to the jaw.
    It wasn’t a hard blow; PC Baynton didn’t even go down. Ronnie ran off, but not very fast, and Baynton caught him. There was a brief struggle and Ronnie went quietly to Bethnal Green police station.
    What happened inside that station during the next few minutes almost certainly changed Ronnie’s life for ever.
    Reggie heard about the incident from one of Ronnie’s friends. Immediately, he went to the police station and waited outside. After a while, PC Baynton came out. Spotting Reggie, he grinned mockingly. ‘Oh, the other one now,’ he said. ‘I’ve just put your brother in there and given him a good hiding. He ain’t so clever now.’
    Reggie sneered. ‘You won’t give me one,’ he said. Then he darted into a side street, but not too quickly.
    Thinking Reggie was running away, Baynton chased after him. It was his second mistake of the evening. When he turned the corner,