As you'd expect from a book about a bare knuckle fighter, there is a lot of blood and violence but nevertheless you get a sense of the kind of man that Bartley was. Request Rejected This page is unavailable due to either geographic restrictions or other restrictions in place at this time. It would be trite coming from almost anyone else, but like a bare-fisted version of Muhammad Ali, Bartley Gorman has a way of taking what should sound like a nursery rhyme and making proper poetry out of it.

The feelings I got as the book progressed was a sense that the idyllic imagery of fairplay and the past in general was overtaken by violence, disrespect and the need for weapons, where as Bartley was true to his heritage, morals and faith which he kept with him to the end. Bartley Gorman's story is rich in images from a world hidden all around us, images which challenged the way I see things.NOTE: other restrictions can be a result of our security platform detecting potential malicious activity. Hard to reconcile the love of Christ and the immature drunkenness and cowardly violence the book portrays as dominant among modern travellers. He describes great fighters of the past like the infamous Uriah ‘Big Just’ Burton, the challenges he threw out to London hardmen Lennie McLean and Roy Shaw, and the brutal mob attack that almost cost his life on St Leger Day at Doncaster Races. The current lineal heavyweight champion of the world is a chap who dresses like Batman at press conferences and also chooses to live in a mobile home rather than a mansion, or even in a house.

During these years, he fought down a mineshaft, in a quarry, at horse fairs, on campsites, in bars and clubs, and in the streets.Steeped in the tradition of his Irish Traveller ancestry, Bartley Gorman also embraced its dangerous subculture: bareknuckle fighting.