Grapple fans

What rare personal memories were brought back by Aidan Smith’s article (14 April) on his early obsession with Allin Wrestling!

Way back in the 1940s, my father took me down to the Eldorado in Leith to see our famous relative Les Kellett – by then billed as from Bradford but descended from the pawnbroker branch of our family in Albert Street. Because of his age, the former World Champion was now “just” refereeing the fights.

I remember the stadium was absolutely packed and we found difficulty getting two seats together. But what astonished my youthful innocence was that the seats nearest the ring seemed to be monopolised by women, who were up on their feet from the start of every bout, shaking their fists at the wrestlers and calling constantly for ever more violence (I learned what “balls” were . . .).

Some decades later, after I had become Minister of South Leith, it was explained to me that these women must have come down from Edinburgh.

Now, it was commonly said that all the fights had been carefully planned and were fixed, and Aidan’s illustrious father was well positioned to know the truth about this. But I testify that one night when I was in Leith Hospital’s A&E area talking to Staff Nurse Alison Mathieson, one of the wrestlers was stretchered in with serious damage to his back.

With the advent of television,

and the enterprise of STV on Saturday afternoons, the ageing Les Kellett returned to worldwide fame as the cleverest performer of them all, forever being badly beaten and on the point of collapse, only to recover miraculously and have his opponent’s shoulders pinned to the floor for the full count of three.

(REV) JACK KELLET Dyers Close, Innerleithen