From the archive: Boxing clever

Last week I took my mother, who is 91, to visit her brother who is in his late eighties.

My uncle Roy studied medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital in London before becoming a GP, like his father.

My grandfather was, I think, doctor to the British amateur boxing team and Roy, who was a keen racing driver in his youth, also took an interest in the sport, eventually becoming chairman of the British Olympic Association Medical Committee.

Funnily enough, boxing was a contributing factor when I got sacked as editor of Freedom Today, The Freedom Association magazine, in 2002.

I had edited the magazine for two years when I decided to feature Jess Hudson, the first female boxer to represent a British university, on the cover of the April/May edition.

Hudson was getting lots of media coverage so I sent assistant editor Jo Gaffikin to Cambridge to interview her and this was the outcome.

FREEDOM FIGHTER

Jo Gaffikin meets Jess Hudson, the 23-year-old graduate who packs a punch inside and outside the boxing ring

"As soon as I threw my first punch I thought, 'I'm in love. This is brilliant.' The feeling when you sweep through the air, the reverberation of the smack. It was such a fantastic feeling. A real buzz."

Jess Hudson, 23, may have an unconventional paramour but she certainly doesn't lack passion or conviction. In a few short months the ability to punch a fellow human being has carried her, shoulder high, into the boxing ring, the media spotlight and the unforgiving world of gender politics. It also took her into the history books when she became the first female boxer to fight for a British university.

Cambridge, where she is studying for a PhD, has taken her to its heart. Everyone from the jovial student who directed me to the porter's lodge, where I am to meet her, to the middle-aged waitress in the coffee shop where we go for lunch is completely enamoured with her. It's probably her sassy good looks, easy laugh and confident manner. But Jess Hudson is a fighter and when we talk she adopts a brisk, businesslike manner.

Is she a good boxer? "I'm think I'm alright. I've excelled very quickly. My coaches are pleased with my progression. I'm very strong for my size and weight. Being short isn't so great because I have a shorter reach but I have been able to overcome that. It hasn't been a problem yet."

Until last summer [2001] she was a committed rugby player, training with the England squad for the second year in a row. Inspired by her brother, the Eastern Counties welterweight champion, and disillusioned after breaking several ribs on the rugby training ground, she took up boxing and had her first fight (which she won) a month later. Within four months she had fought the number one amateur female boxer in the country. She lost ("convincingly") but adds proudly, "I went three rounds with her."

She boxes "because I enjoy it". The idea that women should be banned from boxing appalls her. There are, she says, lots of people, men and women, who would hate to box. "But there are also loads of women who would love to give it a go. Equal opportunities are absolutely vital and something I strongly believe in."

Discrimination, she says, is something she encounters every day. "There are a lot of people who have the really old-fashioned belief that men and women are two fundamentally different species. It's completely macho and outdated." Opposition to her boxing is usually orchestrated by men who are "confused" because she's "blurring the gender barriers". Women however love the idea. "They think I'm feisty. They're like, 'Yeah, wicked, go for it.'"

Britain, I note, is more opposed to women boxing than anywhere else. Why? "In America," says Hudson, "aggression is seen as competitiveness, which is encouraged. In England aggression in females is seen as manliness. Other countries accept a person for their attributes rather than their gender."

The problem, I suggest, is cultural. To many people the idea of women hitting each other doesn't seem right. Hudson sees it differently. "They are two consenting athletes who are trained to do what they're doing. It has nothing to do with anything else."

Slowly but surely Hudson is winning the battle. "When you walk in [to the ring] you hear, 'Birds? Oh my God, I'm not sure about this.' Afterwards they come up and say, 'Bloody good show.' You totally change their minds. I'm very proud to be doing that."

The logical extension of her attitude is that if a man and a woman are evenly matched they should be allowed to fight one another. Given the chance would she compete against men? "Mmm." Giggle. "Yes."

The truth is – and I am genuinely surprised to hear this – Hudson spars with men whenever she can. "Last Sunday," she tells me, "I boxed this Armenian bloke, Arthur. He was only 16 and he was wicked. He was the only one in the gym who would actually punch me. He caught me on the nose and gave me a nose bleed. He was, like, 'Do you want to stop?' and I was, like, 'No, carry on. We'll only stop if it's gushing.’"

I don't know why I expected anything else from a girl who does 200 press-ups a day. But surely, I protest ... She interrupts. "I respected him much more than any of the others because he was boxing me as a boxer. That's the ultimate compliment and I just thought, 'Oh, you're gorgeous, you're great, I love you.'"

Arthur however is unusual. Men hitting women is a difficult subject, if not taboo. Even her coach's conscience is pricked when it comes to striking his protege. "He has to spar with me so had to get over his 'I can't hit a woman' thing. I like being hit and I smack him back as hard as I damn well can." She is frighteningly focussed and obviously relishes a challenge. "I need to do a sport where I am totally physically involved and one that takes total commitment."

But boxing, surely, is nothing more than legalised violence. Hudson hotly refutes this. "Amateur boxing," she protests, "is based on point scoring. There's a referee and a doctor by the side of the ring. You also have coaches in each corner who pull the boxer out if they're in danger. Amateur boxers throw in the towel all the time. Amateur boxing isn't even in the top ten most dangerous sports. No-one has ever died. I'm putting myself in much more danger playing rugby than I am boxing."

Professional boxing is something else and even Hudson admits that it is not a pleasant sport. "It is brutal but I like watching it and I can totally understand why someone would want to do it. So I don't approve of it but I do approve of it at the same time. I am very ambivalent. There are a lot of problems but I'd hate to see it banned because it would just go underground."

Would she like boxing to be taught in schools? "Well, I love it but it's not for everybody. Boxing is a very, very personal thing. If you don't like getting hit you can't force it on someone."

I mention that I've seen the film Ali and suggest that the real life person is more of an accidental hero than the character portrayed in the film. I've touched a nerve because she vehemently disagrees. "I think he's an exceptional individual. He was incredibly strong and did lots of things that people said he shouldn't do."

Now, who does that remind me of? Hudson laughs nervously. "That is the massivest compliment anybody has ever given me, I think. Ali had a massive impact and changed people's minds about race. If I could do for gender what he's done for race I would die a happy person."

While I am considering a suitable riposte (a verbal uppercut, perhaps) the waiter comes over with some chocolate biscuits. "I know you're watching your weight," she says to Hudson in a strong Italian accent, "but these are for you."

Jess is dieting because she has to stay as lean as possible for her next bout. Her preparation also involves a gruelling training regime. "I really love that – coming away from a session and being so sweaty that your socks are wet. That's when you know you've worked really hard."

Who, I wonder aloud, is her hero? Long pause. Finally, and rather poignantly, she says, "My grandpa. And I'm quite keen on my brother. And I'm very keen on Venus Williams. I just think she's incredible. She's just, you know, so muscular, so powerful. Her serves go over a hundred miles an hour. I love that. I love what she represents."

The words spill out. I'd like to ask more about her grandpa or her brother or even Venus Williams, the Amazonian goddess and twice Wimbledon champion. There's a vulnerability here I can't quite put my finger on. But there's no time. We leave the coffee shop and she thoughtfully directs me back to the station. As she crosses the road we're still chatting about her forthcoming fight. "Knock 'em dead," I call out. "Don't say that,” she chides, good-naturedly.

As I'm taking my foot out of my mouth I watch her walk away and try to reconcile the poised student returning to her studies with the pictures I have seen of a tough little featherweight throwing (and receiving) punches that would frighten the life out of most of us, men or women.

People, she tells me, have asked her why she isn't “off having babies" or why she doesn't have a boyfriend. It has been suggested that she scares them off. If it's true then Britain really is a nation of wimps.

Interestingly, when I asked my uncle (a former Olympic doctor) about women and boxing, he didn’t seem too keen on the idea. Perhaps it’s a generational thing because I know my own views changed but only after I read this and other articles on the subject.

As for being sacked as editor of Freedom Today, it would be wrong to say the Hudson article was wholly to blame but it did seem to test the (new) chairman’s tolerance in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

If I have time I’ll post a fuller explanation of my downfall in the next day or two.

Watch this space!

Update: see 'Sacked!'.