The Guv'nor: The Autobiography of Lenny McLean

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Because their bodies are vulnerable and their skills are pregnable and their hearts are breakable, they psyches must be impenetrable, and there’s only one way they can do that.

Tabitha Potts reviews My Dad, the Guv’nor, Kelly McLean’s autobiography about growing up as the daughter of Lenny McLean, the notorious East End wrestler and associate of the Krays.

It isn’t a misery memoir, and there are lots of funny stories as well as the darker ones, because the Guv’nor had a sense of humour and liked practical jokes. With his fame as an unlicensed boxer, McLean became known as "The King of Bouncers" around many of the clubs and pubs in London. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH).

John, although McLean by streetfighting standards was a very hard man, he would be easily beaten by a pro boxer of any class. When she was a small child, her father was a heavy drinker, and would often come home and shout and swear at their mother.If you've read a few, you won't be surprised that Lenny breaks the law frequently and about as frequently breaks jaws.

how much he enjoyed belting sixteen shades of shit out of ratbags, scoundrels, dickheads, grasses, slags, rapists, contenders, wankers, talkers and people who took liberties. In this extraordinary autobiography he tells how the Mafia flew him to New York to take on their greatest bare-knuckle boxer in a multi-million pound illicit challenge bout. In 1992, McLean was working as the head doorman at the Hippodrome in London's Leicester Square, when he ejected a man named Gary Humphries, who suffered from serious mental health problems and was reportedly on drugs, streaking through the nightclub, urinating on the floor and harassing women.After playing a brief unbilled cameo as a ringside spectator in the drama film The Krays (1990), McLean played gangster Eddie Davies in ITV's customs drama The Knock and had a small part as a police chief in The Fifth Element (1997). Lenny McLean has been a man who always appeared larger than life to me so I jumped at the chance to hear his story, told his way. Lenny Mclean was a hard bastard, he had a hard if not brutal upbringing in Hoxton - East End of London and emerged as the leading bare knuckle fighter of his time. However, as Kelly explains, unfortunately her father’s moods were not just drink-related, but stemmed from his unhappy and abusive childhood and possibly from undiagnosed mental health issues as well.

By 10pm I had finished it and was looking around wondering why I hadn't eaten dinner and why it was I had to be in bed when I was still taking in the details of his murder trial. The descriptions of the beatings his step-father gave him are graphic and go quite some way towards explaining how he came to be as he was. A further X-ray examination proved he was suffering from lung cancer, which had metastasised to his brain. I would recommend this book to anybody because the book is very very very very well written and I'll be honest it is a heartbreaking book to read.Fighting to prove his innocence against a minimum sentence of 25 years, Lenny never gave up - and went on to be found not guilty.