Lloyd Williams found a boxing club in Berlin

Lloyd Williams found a boxing club in Berlin where he could do an hour's training for a few pennies. It was in a working class district called Wedding, north of the city center. He exercised with the Indian clubs and the medicine ball, skipped rope, hit the punch bag, and then put on a helmet and did five rounds in the ring. The club coach found him a sparring partner, a German his own age and size – Lloyd was a welterweight. The German boy had a nice fast jab that came from nowhere and hurt Lloyd several times, until Lloyd hit him with a left hook and knocked him down.

Lloyd had been raised in a rough neighborhood, the East End of London. At the age of twelve he had been bullied at school. 'Same thing happened to me,' his stepfather, Bernie Leckwith , had said. 'Cleverest boy in school, and you get picked on by the class shlamer.' Dad was Jewish – his mother had spoken only Yiddish. He had taken Lloyd to the Aldgate Boxing Club. Ethel had been against it, but Bernie had overruled her, something that did no t happen often.

Lloyd had learned to move fast and punch hard, and the bullying had stopped. He had also got the broken nose that made him look less of a pretty boy. And he had discovered a talent. He had quick reflexes and a combative streak, and he had won prizes in the ring. The coach was disappointed that he wanted to go to Cambridge University instead of turning professional.

He showered and put his suit back on, then went to a workingmen bar, bought a glass of draft beer, and sat down to write to his half-sister, Millie, about the incident with the Brownshirts. Millie was envious of him taking this trip with their mother, and he had promised to send her frequent bulletins.

Lloyd had been shaken by this morning 's fracas. Politics was part of everyday life for him: his mother had been a Member of Parliament, his father was local councilor in London, and he himself was London Chairman of the Labour League of Youth. But it had always been a matter of debating and voting – until today. He had never before seen an office thrashed by uniformed thugs while the police looked on smiling. It was the politics with the gloves off, and it had shocked him.

'Could this happen in London ? He wrote. His first instinct was to think that it could not. But Hitler had admirers among British industrialists and newspapers proprietors. Only a few months ago the rogue MP Sir Osvald Mosley had started the British Union of Fascists. Like the Nazis, they had to strut up and down in military-style uniforms. What next?

He finished his letter and folded it, then caught the S-train back into the city center. He and his mother were going to meet Walter and Maud von Ulrich for dinner. Lloyd had been hearing about Maud all his life. She and his mother were unlikely friends. Ethel had started her working life as a maid in a grand house owned by Maud's family. Later they had been suffragettes together, campaigning for votes for women. During the war they had produced a feminist newspaper. The sodier's wife. Then they had quarreled over political tactics and become estranged.

Pg 23 From the book “Winter of the world” by Ken Follet