MEMORIES of GARY

BY DENNIS MARTIN

[This was first published when Gary died in 2001]

            The fond farewells have been said, the tears wiped, the lumps in the throat swallowed. Gary, the great fighting man, has gone. We are all still in shock. As I write this, I still can’t believe that  “The Digger” has died. Logically, we understand that everyone dies, but as I gave the sad news to those who knew Gary, both here in Liverpool and further afield, the universal reaction was shock. Gary was larger than life and his death was totally unexpected. Gary had been rushed to hospital, in the early hours of Saturday 17th February, where he died from Pancreatitis. We were all terribly upset, but Terry O’Neill  was devastated. Gary had stayed with Terry for his first couple of years in England, and they were close friends. As those of you who read the My articles, in Terry O’Neill’s Fighting Arts Magazine, and elsewhere,  will know I trained and worked with Gary quite a bit during that time, and remained a mate ever since. I really wanted to share some reminiscences of those times with you through my column. This is not a biography of Gary. Lots has already been written, more will, no doubt, be coming. I just want to share a few memories, tell a few tales.

Gary was always surrounded by myth and rumour … he served in Vietnam, worked for the CIA, was a mercenary soldier, a Triad enforcer. All nonsense, and irrelevant because the truth was impressive enough. For over thirty-five years Gary was involved in professional violence, more precisely, in the profession of stopping violence, in some of the most dangerous places around. Over the years he established himself as a legend in a business where we are not easily impressed. Alongside this “frontline” work Gary also taught others how to look after themselves in a violent confrontation. Again, his work in this field was acknowledged by his peers as being top rate.

I spoke of how I first met Gary in a recent interview; “I first met Gary on the first day he arrived in England in 1971. He’d turned up at Terry’s in the middle of the night having travelled from Japan, via Russia overland. Terry and I were scheduled to take the train to London the next day and Terry turned up with this guy who I took to be a Yank. He had a crew-cut, a big camelhair overcoat and a Hawaiian shirt on.“ Terry had met Gary while on the British Karate Team, in Tokyo for the first World Championships. Terry stayed on after the team went home, and Gary put him up and took him to various dojo. Gary dropped in on Terry in the middle of the night, originally intending to spend a couple of weeks looking around England. In the event, he stayed for the rest of his life.

 

TRAINING

            Gary had trained in Goju-kai under Bobby Jones and Tino Ceberano in Melbourne, so it was natural that he initially trained in Tokyo under the famed Gogen “The Cat” Yamaguchi. Already established there were Steve Morris and Brian Waites, from England.

[A lightweight Gary in Japan]

Towards the end of his stay Gary moved to Okinawa Goju-ryu under Morio Higaonna. I was already doing Goju-kai, having met Steve and Brian when they performed a terrific demonstration at the Crystal Palace. I invited Brian to Liverpool, and started a Goju group. Naturally when Gary arrived I was eager to train with him. Straightaway I realised that what he taught was not Goju-kai. I later found it was not the Okinawa style either. Gary really taught his own system, based on what he’d learned in Australia and Japan and heavily influenced by his considerable practical experience. I called it “Ga-ryu”. Later it became known as Applied Karate and looking back it was better for the street than any strictly traditional style. Recently Gary characterised his system in the clerihew “Do-it-ryu…before they do it to you!”

KNIFE FIGHTING

            In our early training Gary taught me some very practical knife techniques. In recent years I’ve done a lot of knife work under top instructors here and abroad, but that initial grounding has served me well. One favourite move is virtually unstoppable and is a good item in your trick-bag. Actually Gary’s’ knife skill came, not from the martial arts, but from working as a butcher. As a young man he had travelled Australia in the migratory meat industry, cutting and boning large animals on a piece rate basis. Commercial pressure was intense, your crew only made their bonus if every member pulled his weight, so speed, skill and dexterity were pre-requisites. Also, in an all-male transient community, disputes were common and often settled with the tools to hand, the knives. Gary was knowledgeable about knives and could discuss Bowies and Fairbairns, but he always recommended butchers knives as they were quite cheap, easily available and were designed to cut meat.

            Gary usually had a knife on him, which he routinely used for cutting his steak and any other flesh that needed slicing. In a forerunner to the scene from Crocodile Dundee there was an altercation in a restaurant Gary was looking after and an irate customer picked up a table knife to threaten The Digger. Gary produced his own knife saying “I’ve got one of those myself, and love all that stuff” The punter legged it.

            Brian Waites told me while at the Goju Kai he came into the dojo one day to find Gary practising “stabbing the bag” He was using a training knife to work slash/thrust combinations on the kick bag. Brian found this weird, but such training is now accepted in the blade-based systems. In many ways, Gary was ahead of his time.

 

THE OUTLAW

            Readers will have realised that Gary didn’t take much notice of rules, regulations and laws. However, Gary was not a criminal, he didn’t live on the proceeds of crime, it was just that he had his own rules, his own values, his own concept of right and wrong; and he determined to live this way, rather than by the law of the land. He was, essentially, an outlaw. If Gary decided he needed to carry a knife, or some other tool of his trade he did so. He despised the police, not individually, but as an organisation. Gary believed that the strong should look after the weak and he believed the police failed to do this. Strangely, he didn’t have much in the way of legal problems, mainly because he didn’t start trouble. If you left him alone, if you behaved yourself, you would never have any bother with The Digger. If you started trouble though, watch out. Gary had a Biblical (some would say Medieval) outlook and “an eye for an eye” was just the warm up!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v712/DenCQB/Gary/Garyfrontkick.jpg

            By the way, I’m not encouraging readers to follow Gary. What worked for him won’t work for everyone. I don’t break the laws on carrying illegal weapons and I don’t encourage others to. This is just about how Gary saw things, and agree, or, disagree he stuck to his guns and you must respect that.

DOORS

            Back in Melbourne Gary had trained with, and worked for Bob Jones, who now heads a form of Goju called Zen-do-Kai. Bob also ran door crews, and these guys used to train in the dojo specifically for door situations. Furniture would be placed on the gym floor to relocate the typical nightclub environment. Training drills included placing a partner in a full nelson hold and getting him to the door through the gauntlet of the rest of the class grabbing, kicking, punching. Bob Jones had the door scene completely sewn up; you couldn’t have wedding there without his lads on the door. Gary wanted to use this model over here, but Liverpool wasn’t ready for it at the time, the lads were too independent. Gary did, however, take the idea elsewhere and successfully ran the doors in Southport, Blackpool, Wrexham, the South Coast resorts and finally, Chester. Again, The Digger was ahead of his time as now large, organised security firms are now the norm, even in Liverpool.

[Den, Terry and Gary on the door]

Working with Gary was always a laugh. His dress sense left something to be desired. On one smart club he stopped a gent for having no tie, the punter looked down and said “you’ve got no shoes on!”

            We were always training, and Gary would be showing me a Kata, or, we’d be rolling round the floor grappling. God knows what the punters thought, seeing a massive bare-foot scarfaced Maori doing Karate as they paid in!

 

            Gary had encounters with numerous guys, including two of the most feared men in Liverpool. He had only been here a short time when he was visiting a mate who worked on an after hours drinking club. A fight erupted and Gary picked up one of the guys and simply carried him outside. It turned out he was one of the most respected doorman in the town, and he and Gary became friends after this. Less friendly was when a noted heavyweight bully and brawler, who Gary called “Mr Farmer” started throwing his weight about in a club Gary was fronting. As Gary started to tell him to behave “Farmer” launched a sneak attack, “stealing it” on Gary as we say, with a punch to the jaw. The Digger took the blow and launched one of his own, levelling the bully and putting him right through a partition. Gary could take it as well as give it.

[Gary on the cover of FIGHTING ARTS. His series was the most popular the magazine published]

SHOOTING

            Back when it was still legal Gary, Terry and I were pistol shooters. Like many martial artists Gary and Terry were good shots, but they were always at it, always joking. At one session on an outdoor range the three of us got lumbered with target changing duty in the butts. You are in a trench, with the shots going over your heads. Terry threw Gary’s ear defenders onto the backstop then, as Gary bent to retrieve them, pushed him onto the impact area. Gary was scrabbling his legs like a cartoon dog as bullets hit the sand all around him. Terry was laughing like a drain… I could only shake my head.

            At a pistol competition we watched as one shooter, a police officer repeatedly fumbled and dropped his pistol. Gary approached him, “You’re a policemen  aren’t you,  in London, right?….jeeze, the next time I’m in trouble down there I’ll call a postman!”

            Travelling with those two was another story. I’ve mentioned before  about when we went to Denmark by train in 1972, together with Steve Cattle and spent the time wrestling.

[Den and Gary training together in Denmark, 1972]

Gary, Terry and I regularly travelled to Manchester or London for training. On one journey Brian Waites was with us and three of us ganged up on Gary and tried to immobise him. Terry had a necklock, Brian had one arm, I had the other, and we were all lying on him too. We’d tried to do this before but he had always been too strong. This time we wore him down and had him pinned. Unable to move a muscle Gary thought for a second then “snotted” us, snorting mucus all over us, and causing immediate reflexive release. What a player. As I’ve said before he had a superb brain for combat.

            So, that’s a few memories of The Digger. I asked Simon James, my training partner, to set down his memory of meeting Gary, because I think you will find it shows a side of Gary which those of us who knew him well remember.

 SIMON JAMES’ STORY:

            “One Christmas day in the early eighties, my Mum was terminally ill in Fazakerly hospital, Liverpool. I called a cab to take me down there and Gary Spiers turned up.
At the time he used to drive a cab occasionally as well as working the
doors. I recognised him – he was already a hero of mine in the martial arts – but
this was the first time I’d ever met him.

            I felt dwarfed sitting next to this huge man, and I was in awe of his reputation, both as a martial artist and as the most fearsome streetfighter around. EVERYONE knew his name. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. But Gary was friendly and warm.
The drive down to the hospital took about 45 minutes, and Gary talked non-stop about cars, travel, taxi-driving… he’d decided to work Xmas day because it was double or triple rate, he was after buying a new car. Eventually the subject turned to martial arts, which of course Gary was passionate about. When we got to the hospital he asked me how I was getting home, because cabs were hard to get that day. I said that since it was Xmas day I’d be about three hours, so I’d just have to hope I’d be able get a cab later. Gary says, “Don’t worry about that, Digger. I’ve got a mate round the corner, I’ll go round there and
pick you up later”

            I stayed more than 31/2 hours, but sure enough, when I left the hospital
Gary was waiting there looking like a huge bear jammed into a this old Austin Princess. He’d been there half an hour. I was amazed he’d waited and told him I was very grateful.
He dismissed the thanks and carried on the conversation about martial arts as
if we’d never had a break. When we got back to my house he pulled into the drive and we talked for another hour or more in the car. As anyone who knew Gary will tell you he was a great storyteller! I listened in awe of the great man as he recounted many tales about
training abroad and violence in the pubs and clubs of the NorthWest. I asked Gary why he worked doors, why he would put himself in such situations. He told me about an incident which had occurred recently. He’d had a big fight in the town centre with a gang of blokes who were harassing a young girl – she was trying to get away and Gary pulled her into the doorway of the pub where he was working, trying to shut the doors
behind her. The gang pushed through, though – nine of them. Luckily Gary was
able to ‘put them away’. Gary was known as a violent man because of these kinds of incidents, but few people saw the full picture. Not many men would risk fighting nine men to protect a young girl they didn’t even know.
            Gary then told me something that has always stuck with me. He said that it
was a shame that so many people train to a high level in martial arts but never use those skills to protect other, less able people learned a lot on that day, and I saw a side of Gary I guess a lot of people didn’t see. What he told me shaped my attitude towards martial arts and towards people, and it was a prime motivation when I began doorwork myself many years later. You see I was only a kid at the time, maybe 14/15 years. old, and I hadn’t been training long. Yet here was a guy who’d travelled the world, a personal student of  Yamaguchi himself, a legendary fighter and martial artist, and he still took the time to talk to me and cheer me up. He’d spent the whole of his Christmas day, when he could’ve been out earning money, talking to me.”
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There are countless other stories, such as Gary clearing a packed pool hall with a pair of cues, which I’ve included in Working with Warriors. Until then, Sayonara Digger.

[Memorial plaque at Gary's resting place in New Zealand]