Yes, it was our old friend Pat Mills. He still had plenty of fight left in him and these were bread and butter days. You could get more fights under different names. Unlike the modern boxer, who has two or three fights a year, the old fighter never had time for training. They were too busy boxing.
Pat eventually settled down in Oxford, became coach to
the university boxing squad, and produced some fine winning teams. He
was also a top referee for the British Board of Boxing Control.
Somehow, in his busy life, he found time to marry a lady named Clara, and
produced a lovely daughter Carla, who made him a proud grandfather in later
years.
I must emphasize that Pat Mills was not a punch-drunk, slap-happy type of
chap. He was a thinking man. He could be as cutting with the pen
as he was with the fist and, in fact, penned many articles for national
periodicals. He was at his best in letters to the local press, championing
the cause of the underdog.
One of his campaigns concerned a road junction in Oxford that he felt was
dangerous. He warned that it would only be a short time before a small
child would be killed there. Ironically it was not a small child that
proved the point, it was Pat himself! One day in 1969 he was cycling
by that junction when he was knocked down by a car and killed.
Doctors stated that his body was in superb physical condition for a man of
his age. But you cannot fight a car, and so ended the life of one of
Gosport's most colourful characters.
By courtesy of Ron Brown