Free Evil Relations by David Smith with Carol Ann Lee Page A

terrible thing to do,’ David admits, swallowing hard. ‘Dennis recovered fully, but it was an unforgiveable thing that I did. These people had looked after me ever since I moved to Gorton out of sheer kindness and compassion, and that’s how I repaid them.’ He swallows again. ‘Not good. Not good at all.’
    At the age of 11, David was brought before magistrates on an assault and wounding charge. He was put on probation. Ironically, it was his aptitude for fighting that sparked the interest of the headmaster at Stanley Grove, the secondary school he began attending in autumn 1959. Sidney Silver ran a boxing club – and saw David as a potential champion.

Chapter 3
    ‘He was to found to be a difficult boy . . .’
    – Canon Cecil Lewis, letter, 1968
    School uniform was compulsory at Stanley Grove, but on the number 53 bus up Kirkmanshulme Lane into Longsight, David got out a needle and thread to narrow the regulation brown trousers, and only put on his school blazer when it was time to disembark. He was medium height for his age, of slim build, and out of school he favoured skinny jeans, black or white T-shirts, and winkle-pickers. Occasionally, he was sent home for infringing uniform rules, but Sidney Silver was eager to harness David’s rebellious streak into something that would benefit rather than blight the school’s reputation.
    ‘You didn’t get on at Stanley Grove unless you were able to bring in medals and trophies,’ David recalls with a slight grimace. ‘It was that sort of place. The headmaster was obsessed with accolades, which suited me down to the ground for a while.’ Encouraged by Silver, David took up boxing and acquitted himself extremely well in a number of inter-school matches: ‘I liked it, though the Queensberry Rules weren’t my cup of tea. I just used to keep punching with my right fist until I brought my opponent down. But together with another boy called Willatt, I trained at Stretford Boys Police Club, in a room within the police station itself. We both got drawn in the Manchester Schoolboys Boxing Championships. I didn’t own a pair of proper lace-up boxing boots like everybody else – I wore galoshes. But Dad promised me some boots if I won.’
    The finals were held at Kings Hall in Belle Vue, home of countless amateur boxing matches. Jack Smith yelled himself hoarse among the roaring ringside crowds. ‘Dad wept like a baby with pride when I won,’ David recalls. ‘He grabbed my certificate and was straight down to the pub with it, bursting with pleasure that his boy had come out on top. When I saw him later that night, the certificate was full of beer stains from being passed around his mates. He kept to his word, though, and bought me some proper boxing boots.’
    Questioned about the relationship with his father as he was growing up, David struggles to find the appropriate words. Sensing the difficulty, Mary interjects. ‘Let me answer that. They loved each other to bits, without a shadow of a doubt, but they fought like cat and dog all their lives. Even then, after an
explosive
row, Dave would chase after his dad as soon as it was over, to apologise and make sure it got sorted quickly.’
    David nods, ‘That’s exactly it. We were all right, weren’t we, when it really came down to it?’
    ‘Very much so,’ Mary replies. ‘Very close, unbelievably close despite everything. Jack was always there for Dave when he needed him. Jack worshipped him.’
    Keen to clarify the relationship, David explains, ‘In all the books that have been written about the case, and in
See No Evil: The Story of the Moors Murders
, my relationship with Dad was only ever shown as abusive, but there was so much more to us than that. It wasn’t only physical fights and shouting. Did we love each other? Yes, of course. Did we cause each other a lot of pain? Without a doubt. Women caused the biggest ructions between us as I got older because Dad was an out-and-out misogynist and I couldn’t