Another one of those voices that just conjour up happier times when you here it.
Good man and a war hero I seem to remember, in fact I think he lost a leg in the war.
I happened to leave the TV on BBC2 this morning and when I went back to it there was some Ice Skating on, commentry from the GREAT Barry Davies, what waste of a talent when we on the BBC have to put up with Motson and Green.
"Given what was to happen to him during the Second World War, it was perhaps just as well. Having joined the King's Royal Rifle Corps in 1942, Gutteridge was taking part in the Normandy landings when he jumped out of his Sherman tank (known to the Germans as "Tommy cookers" because they were so easily blown up) and landed on a mine, losing his right leg.
He was only 20, and it was the end of any residual ambitions he had to excel in the ring. "It could have been a hell of a lot worse," he later reflected. "When I woke up in hospital I thought my balls had gone as well, but after they took the dressings off I discovered I had taken a small blast burn in the groin. I'm not bitter about it; it happened during wartime and war is a terrible, terrible thing. My father and his brother both died young through heart trouble brought on by being gassed at the Somme. They were gassed on the same day because as twins they went everywhere together."
Alledgedly, when the Krays brought over Joe Louis for a visit in the 60's they, including Reg were having dinner, The Krays and Louis did not know about Regs wooden leg, anyway the talk got on to tough guys, Reg said you think you are tough I bet you cant so this and stuck a fork into his leg, Joe Louis nearly chundered there and then. And that boys and girls was Reg's party piece, must have got through a hell of a lot of strides!!!
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RIP
RIP Reg.
Good man and a war hero I seem to remember, in fact I think he lost a leg in the war.
I happened to leave the TV on BBC2 this morning and when I went back to it there was some Ice Skating on, commentry from the GREAT Barry Davies, what waste of a talent when we on the BBC have to put up with Motson and Green.
He was only 20, and it was the end of any residual ambitions he had to excel in the ring. "It could have been a hell of a lot worse," he later reflected. "When I woke up in hospital I thought my balls had gone as well, but after they took the dressings off I discovered I had taken a small blast burn in the groin. I'm not bitter about it; it happened during wartime and war is a terrible, terrible thing. My father and his brother both died young through heart trouble brought on by being gassed at the Somme. They were gassed on the same day because as twins they went everywhere together."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/4339954/Reg-Gutteridge.html
RIP Reg