This is a piece that I've titled "This Was England". I recently got hold of some old wrestling posters from 1977. Wrestling was a big thing when I was a kid, every Saturday at 4pm on ITV we'd watch a bunch of fat old leotarded blokes squashing each other on the canvas. I remember the patriotism of the whole thing quite vividly. That, and my dad getting into it as he'd had a couple of pints in the afternoon. Unlike big, pumped up and brash American wrestling, this was crap "seaside entertainment" British wrestling. There'd be a load of grannies in the audience prodding the wrestlers with their walking sticks and shouting obscenities just beyond the range of the microphones. My dad took me to watch it live when I was 11. I've never sen him so excited. Even as a child I appreciated that these guys were playing the part of working class superheroes. Unlike the oiled up toned monsters of today, these guys would probably be seen in their local pub on a weekend. They certainly had the build of heavy drinkers.
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