September 2026 is ENGLAND AS IT WAS Month at the PorPor Books Blog
'The Guv'nor' first was published in the UK in 1998. This trade paperback edition (303 pp.) was issued by John Blake Books in 2017.
Lenny McLean was born in April, 1949, in the London neighborhood of Hoxham. McLean's father died when Lenny was four, and his mother married a man named Jim Irwin, who was physically abusive towards Lenny and his siblings. From an early age McLean was involved in various acts of street crime, and as a teenager he served time at the juvenile prison at Wormwood Scrubs, outside of London.
Also as a teen, McLean entered the world of bare-knuckle boxing, and as he grew to maturity, standing 6 feet 3 inches and weighing 280 lb, he became a formidable presence in the ring. Prohibited from fighting in licensed matches due to his criminal conviction, during the 1970s and 1980s McLean earned a considerable income (as much as 25,000 pounds sterling for one match, a great sum in those days) from matches with all comers.
McLean became a bare-knuckle superstar, with American celebrities like Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackmand attending his match against Roy Shaw. He once was flown by the Mafia to New York city, there to fight in "....a big warehouse on the other side of the Bronx" against a 6 feet, 8 inch black man named McCormack (McLean was expecting a white Irishman). Although McLean broke both of his hands in the bout, he won the fight.
Along with boxing, McLean did stints as a bouncer and bodyguard, with these episodes earning him gunshot and stabbing wounds. And a murder charge, when, in 1992, at a London nightclub called the Hippodrome, McLean ejected a streaker named Gary Humphries. Humphries died later that night after being apprehended by the police, who used a degree of violence to subdue him. McLean wound up serving 18 months in prison.
In the late 1990s McLean got his acting guild card, and got supporting roles in TV and feature films. Just as it appeared he had found a new occupation in show business, he developed lung cancer and died in July, 1998, just before the release of the film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, in which he had a role as Barry, 'the Baptist.'
'The Guv'nor' is a very readable autobiography, with co-author Peter Gerrard keeping a light touch and letting McLean, and his distinctive East London, gangster vernacular, stay front and center for the book's entirety. There's plenty of action in terms of boxing and street fights; collusions with underworld figures; McLean's observations on the sociology of the working-class neighborhoods in the greater London area; and the reality of imprisonment in the UK's various juvenile and adult institutions.
As with any autobiography there are some aspects of the subject's life and career that are obscured; for example, McLean spends little time recounting his two defeats at the hands of Cliff Fields. And for all of McLean's rosy allusions to being a good husband and father, according to his daughter Kelly, the household could be filled with tension due to McLean's (undiagnosed) bipolar disorder.
When all is said and done 'The Guv'nor' provides an engaging, at times disturbing, street-level look at working class life and crimes in the UK in the postwar era. Fans of UK crime cinema and popular culture will want to have their copy.
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