The Giant triumphant
GIANT HAYSTACKS - IN MEMORIAM
One man dominated heavyweight wrestling in the mid 20th century
Not very long after its arrival in these islands from Asia my family bought its very first television receiver. It was a medium sized black and white affair and I used to watch it in our first quarters in South Kensington.
Of course, as is to be expected, my parents criticised me for watching the telly a bit too much; but then with no other siblings for distraction, what else was there to do?
In those days, the early 60s, there was a British institution which was the Saturday afternoon television wrestling programme in which about half the nation, it seemed, participated as audience. Those days! Quite apart from the actual bouts themselves there was the crowd atmosphere as captured by the motion picture cameras and the remarkable performances of the extrovert referees.
At any rate, not having much of a juvenile social life, the Saturday afternoon wrestling programme gave me an introduction of sorts to the culture of the British working class. My parents, in their wisdom, had opted to send me to a rather swish preparatory school in Knightsbridge (yes, Knightsbridge!) where I became the resident ugly duckling in short order.
Therefore, for me, the Saturday wrestling programme was the gateway to the emotions and ways of the “white” working class from which the family had decided to separate me, but knowledge of which was indispensable for anyone wishing to make the United Kingdom his home.
In one or two respects the television wrestling served the purpose of ridding me of some of the preconceptions and assumptions which arise from a politically subordinate role in a former British colony.
For example, one day my mother’s Oxford educated first cousin came over to visit and said that if one looked carefully at the live audience in the programme there was a “lady” sitting in the first row shouting: “Kill him! Kill him!”
Some other people around, my other relatives, told him that English “ladies” do not behave like that and there must be a mistake. So the matter was put to the test: When Saturday afternoon next rolled around the whole family party settled down in front of the goggle box and studied the audience which was difficult because of the panning of the cameras.
However, there could be no doubt about it, in the end. Right in the front row under the ring there was the little old “lady” yelling: “Kill him! Kill him!” fit to burst. She was a thin person and was filled with passion and fury to exploding point.
Well, man does not live by wrestling alone – unless one is a professional wrestler of course - and other matters arose to take me away from the Saturday afternoon wrestling, although a hostile teacher of French in that prep school sometimes referred to it by way of making offensive remarks. To me.
Eventually, the TV bosses axed the programme anyway and television wrestling became a rare event, a sort of occasional feast as opposed to a regular repast.
When those occurrences took place and I was watching (I am writing of the '70s and '80s) the star attractions were a great hulk of a brute calling himself Giant Haystacks and a slightly smaller giant calling himself Big Daddy.
By then I was a near civil servant (working in a statutory institution which was partly under the Privy Council) and the two dominant forces in the department where I worked were a couple of women who set the tone for my working days, between the two of them.
When they spoke about the wrestling (they were conspicuously working class by the way) it was with force and conviction. The larger and the more dominant of the two (and consequently the bigger problem for me) used to say that Giant Haystacks was afraid of Big Daddy. She appeared not to have realised that the emotions as well as the fights were prearranged even to the point of deciding who was going to win, and how.
She also said as a matter of certainty that “all wrestlers” were successful with women. While I am not in a position to confirm or gainsay that statement there is no doubt that the level of female participation in the audience was high.
Surprisngly, quite recently I found a channel called TWCfight on our family’s cable television menu and learnt therefrom that as far as wrestling and other fight events were concerned I was back to the sixties, almost 24/7.
My biggest surprise is that after all these years Big Daddy is still around and not looking very much older. What of Giant Haystacks? What indeed.
A quick Google search on the Internet yielded the sad answer: The Giant is no more.
The web site http://www.britishwrestling.cwc.net/ gives the Giant his epitaph thus:
GIANT HAYSTACKS - IN MEMORIAM
One man dominated heavyweight wrestling in the mid 20th century
Not very long after its arrival in these islands from Asia my family bought its very first television receiver. It was a medium sized black and white affair and I used to watch it in our first quarters in South Kensington.
Of course, as is to be expected, my parents criticised me for watching the telly a bit too much; but then with no other siblings for distraction, what else was there to do?
In those days, the early 60s, there was a British institution which was the Saturday afternoon television wrestling programme in which about half the nation, it seemed, participated as audience. Those days! Quite apart from the actual bouts themselves there was the crowd atmosphere as captured by the motion picture cameras and the remarkable performances of the extrovert referees.
At any rate, not having much of a juvenile social life, the Saturday afternoon wrestling programme gave me an introduction of sorts to the culture of the British working class. My parents, in their wisdom, had opted to send me to a rather swish preparatory school in Knightsbridge (yes, Knightsbridge!) where I became the resident ugly duckling in short order.
Therefore, for me, the Saturday wrestling programme was the gateway to the emotions and ways of the “white” working class from which the family had decided to separate me, but knowledge of which was indispensable for anyone wishing to make the United Kingdom his home.
In one or two respects the television wrestling served the purpose of ridding me of some of the preconceptions and assumptions which arise from a politically subordinate role in a former British colony.
For example, one day my mother’s Oxford educated first cousin came over to visit and said that if one looked carefully at the live audience in the programme there was a “lady” sitting in the first row shouting: “Kill him! Kill him!”
Some other people around, my other relatives, told him that English “ladies” do not behave like that and there must be a mistake. So the matter was put to the test: When Saturday afternoon next rolled around the whole family party settled down in front of the goggle box and studied the audience which was difficult because of the panning of the cameras.
However, there could be no doubt about it, in the end. Right in the front row under the ring there was the little old “lady” yelling: “Kill him! Kill him!” fit to burst. She was a thin person and was filled with passion and fury to exploding point.
Well, man does not live by wrestling alone – unless one is a professional wrestler of course - and other matters arose to take me away from the Saturday afternoon wrestling, although a hostile teacher of French in that prep school sometimes referred to it by way of making offensive remarks. To me.
Eventually, the TV bosses axed the programme anyway and television wrestling became a rare event, a sort of occasional feast as opposed to a regular repast.
When those occurrences took place and I was watching (I am writing of the '70s and '80s) the star attractions were a great hulk of a brute calling himself Giant Haystacks and a slightly smaller giant calling himself Big Daddy.
By then I was a near civil servant (working in a statutory institution which was partly under the Privy Council) and the two dominant forces in the department where I worked were a couple of women who set the tone for my working days, between the two of them.
When they spoke about the wrestling (they were conspicuously working class by the way) it was with force and conviction. The larger and the more dominant of the two (and consequently the bigger problem for me) used to say that Giant Haystacks was afraid of Big Daddy. She appeared not to have realised that the emotions as well as the fights were prearranged even to the point of deciding who was going to win, and how.
She also said as a matter of certainty that “all wrestlers” were successful with women. While I am not in a position to confirm or gainsay that statement there is no doubt that the level of female participation in the audience was high.
Surprisngly, quite recently I found a channel called TWCfight on our family’s cable television menu and learnt therefrom that as far as wrestling and other fight events were concerned I was back to the sixties, almost 24/7.
My biggest surprise is that after all these years Big Daddy is still around and not looking very much older. What of Giant Haystacks? What indeed.
A quick Google search on the Internet yielded the sad answer: The Giant is no more.
The web site http://www.britishwrestling.cwc.net/ gives the Giant his epitaph thus:
“One of the most recognised British grapplers ever, Giant Haystacks died on Sunday 29th November, 1998 after a 2-year battle with cancer. Born in Camberwell Green, London, he stood 6'11" tall and weighed well over 45-stone at his heaviest. Most remembered for his long-standing feud with Big Daddy, Haystacks was frequently watched by 10 million viewers on a Saturday afternoon, hauling his massive bulk into the ring and making very short work of his opponent.
“Having started wrestling in 1967, he became a household name in the mid-70's when he was one of the biggest wrestlers in Europe. He would do his thinking during hours of driving - 120,000 miles a year was only average!
“Among his friends was Sir Paul McCartney who asked Haystacks to be in his 1984 film Give my Regards to Broad Street and would often go to wrestling shows with his son in Sussex when the big man was top of the bill.
“In 1996, Haystacks appeared in the USA under the W.C.W banner as "The Loch Ness Monster", fighting many of America's top wrestlers.
“As a youngster, Haystacks' parents, who came from Co. Mayo, Ireland, wanted him to be a musician and he started to learn the piano, but with his huge hands and fingers it soon became a futile task! Over his years of wrestling, he wrestled all over the world, most notably in the German tournaments and East Africa. He was actually made an honorary citizen of Zimbabwe.
“After a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Frank Sinatra claimed that he had seen the Giant on television that afternoon and stated that he thought that British wrestlers were the best in the world.
“Although one of the toughest, roughest opponents of all time on the British wrestling circuit, Giant Haystacks will be sorely missed by grapple fans not only up and down the British Isles, but all over the world.
“Rest In Peace.....GIANT HAYSTACKS.”
Not surprisingly, I was a tad upset on learning of the Giant’s demise. I wanted to speak to someone who knew of him. I was honoured to be able to converse by telephone with Andre Baker the head of training at the National Wrestling Association in Ashford, Kent who had fought with Giant Haystacks - in person.
He says: “He was big. Very big. Very tall. Very powerful. He was very experienced. He could do a lot without doing a lot.
“He was a great attraction. He used to be called Luke McMasters before he changed his name.
“Years ago he used to be Big Daddy’s tag partner. Then they fell out. I have no idea why they fell out. Anyway, they became enemies. Whether real enemies or to up the box office I don’t know.
“He (Giant Haystacks) knew all the tricks. I was surprised to know he had passed on. It was not long since I had seen him last and he seemed all right then.
“He was not particularly talkative. He was pleasant to me.
“I do not know if he had other fighting skills. Nowadays most people are pure wrestlers. Wrestling here (in the UK) has gone down but not so in the States. There is big money there.
"Time was that in this country there was work and money every day of the week.
“In those days (the '60s and '70s) there were multi-skilled fighters. There were judo black belts in wrestling. Not now.
“I approve of the Sky channel (the cable service we get).
“Cancer? That took him off in the end. Yes and no. You have to go one way or the other.
“Wrestling is a good career in Japan and in the States but not this country any more.”
“Women interested in wrestlers? That used to be the case in the past but not now. Wrestling is on a low here.”
The really significant thing in Mr Baker’s resume of the Giant’s career is his statement that he did much without seeming to do much. A bit like Mifune, the judoman who starred in a previous feature article of mine.
Anyway, I will carry on watching the new channel and will never ever forget Giant Haystacks.
THE END
This article was published in the 15th February issue of the Bangla Mirror, the first English language weekly for the United Kingdom's Bangladeshis - read everywhere from the Arctic Circle to the sub-Antarctic.
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