Kenny Webber

I have always found it difficult to meet someone for the first time and assess what they are like and I assume that is where the saying, ‘You can’t tell a book by its cover,’ was derived from.

It was about 1962 and I was twenty years old and still serving my apprenticeship at BIP tools a factory which was bordered by Tyburn road on one side and a canal on the other ( when the canal was drained many years later it was full of lumps of steel that had been machined incorrectly)

BIP was a contract toolroom employing some two hundred highly skilled people and all would have had their own stories to tell and some would have been more interesting than others.

Kenny Webber was someone I had barely spoken to but I did notice that he was exceptionally well spoken with a very relaxed manner. I never thought to consider what else he did in life but if pushed I would have guessed an office worker. If I had more awareness maybe I could have noticed several more things about his demeanour.

He was just under six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and late thirties. with dark brown hair, his face looked almost weathered. But I had no awareness and would never have worked what his special gift was in life and maybe it would have stayed that way except for one morning that summer.

It was about eight fifteen when the first stories started to circulate.  One of my friends Ray Danks came over and started to tell me what had happened. ‘Kenny Webber’s been involved in a fight on his way to work this morning. A car drove into the back of his car and crushed the back of it in. But you won’t believe this; there were four Irish motorway construction workers in it and they said it was Ken’s fault. when he protested and told them that he was stationary at the time and he would be getting his insurance company involved. They became aggressive and started throwing punches. Someone called an ambulance and the police.

‘Wow,’ I said ‘is he badly hurt?’

‘What do you mean?’ Ray asked. with a puzzled expression on his face.’

Well, you said that there were four of them and they worked as construction workers and Ken is really quiet and inoffensive. So, which hospital is he in?’

‘I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say.’

‘Well if an ambulance arrived he must be hurt badly.’

The friend looked at me mystified, ‘You do know what Kenny Webber does do you?’

‘He works in the top shop as a machinist.’

‘Ray smiled at me, Kenny Webber is the highest ranked martial arts exponent in the country’ he goes all around the UK coaching, he has spent a lot of time in Japan and can speak the national language.

Yes those guys picked the wrong person to crash into, he threw one over a hedge and another had a broken arm the other two backed off.’

‘You can’t judge a book by its cover,’ sometimes you have to look inside.