Malcolm Price - Street Warrior--The True Story of the Lengendary Malcolm Price, Britains Hardest Man

W e used to finish work on the Saturday around 12 oclock and wed go to what we had called the McShifters Arms, now the Great Western, in Merthyr. Wed get tanked up on a Saturday afternoon, Price and me. This particular Saturday, he decided he wanted to arm-wrestle me he did and he won.

I was determined to get one over on him. There was this young girl in the corner, so I said to her, Were going to have a kissing competition in a minute, Bev, Pricey and me. Were going to practise on you and you are going to be the judge. Whatever happens, Im going to be the winner and Ill buy your beer all afternoon.

So, the kissing competition started and it lasted quite a while. And, at the end of it, I was judged by Bev to be the winner. Poor old Pricey, the square-jawed blond, he couldnt believe that he was the loser and I dont think to this day that he knew that I bought Bev beer all afternoon so I could be the winner! There was no way he was going to win, no matter how good a kisser he was and it dented his manhood somewhat and evened the score for me losing at arm-wrestling.

Although Price lost the kissing competition, he still had his image intact, as he was always surrounded by a bevy of beautiful girls. I remember Price was living with one of his many girlfriends at that time; I went to call for him on a Christmas morning so we could go out for a seasonal drink.

I remember the exact words his girlfriend said, as she said them directly to me: Now Im warning you, if you dont get him back here by two oclock for his Christmas dinner, this goose that he nagged me for, for weeks and weeks, goes in the bin!

I said, Ill get him back in time.

Out we went and Price had two, three, four, five and Im looking at my watch now and its ten minutes to two and I had promised to get Price back by two or his goose would be well and truly cooked, in more ways than one!

I said, Price, weve gotta make a move now.

He was well over the top! He just pushed me out of the way, Dont tell me what to do. I could tell he was turning then so I left him.

I went back up to the house to tell his girlfriend that Price wouldnt be there for Christmas dinner and, with that, she threw the goose straight into the bin like she had promised! A fully cooked goose straight in the bin!

That Christmas day, I last saw him when I left him in the pub just before two oclock, and that very Christmas night he got locked up. He went from the Express pub to a pub called the Morlais Tavern. Price, tanked up, rolled into the pub at about seven or eight oclock in the evening and there was this English chap there, sitting on a high stool by the bar. He didnt know Pricey. When Pricey got to the bar, he fell up against this English bloke who was none the wiser about who Price was.

The bloke told him where to get off; Price whacked him and headbutted him straight away and the landlord called the police. Price, as well as not getting his cooked goose, was locked up on Christmas night!

That wasnt the end of the story. She, his girlfriend, had had enough and left Price and went to stay with her mother. By the following week, she was still there and wouldnt go back to Price. Out of anger, he went round to her mothers house with an airgun and shot all of the windows out! They didnt get back together after that.

We were in the Express pub one night; we were in there until about three or four in the morning. We came out, and Price jumped straight into the car and he gave three of us a lift. There was no breathalyser back then so no one worried whether theyd had too much to drink. Down the road we went and Price drove straight into a lamppost and knocked the bumper off the car, which was hanging on by a thread and dragging along the road, sending a shower of sparks up into the air.

I said, Price, lets get out and pull it off and chuck it away.

Oh, bollocks! Fuck it, well keep going, Price said.

So there we were going up the High Street with the bumper dragging alongside us, sparks were flying everywhere and there was this copper in the middle of the road waving his lit torch about wanting Price to stop!

Did Pricey stop? Did he hell! Straight around the copper and away he goes with the bumper still dragging along. He got away with that as well.

The amount of stories still going around about Pricey is nobodys business and they just make it up about him as they go along, but I have worked with him and was a drinking pal of his for many years. A lot of these stories people invent are derogatory, but what I am saying here is true.

As much as stories are going around about Price, it was the same with another Merthyr hard man. This man had an equally colourful reputation as Price, but was around long before Price came along. This man was called Redmond Coleman and he was around in the early 1900s. He was a bare-knuckle fighter and stories were still going around about him well into the 1960s.

As much as Price is a hard man, equally so, he is also an honest man. Price and I have been in all sorts of scrapes together and he and I might have gone into a shop on the way to work somewhere and, perhaps, the owner of the shop had to pop somewhere else and had left the shop unattended, which in certain parts of Wales was common, and Id say to Price, Look at all the fags there we could have! And, you know what? He wouldnt touch anything that didnt belong to him thats how honest he was. He wouldnt pinch a pound if it was lying on the floor hed rather find out who owned it and hand it to them. If he even suspected that something was stolen then he wouldnt have anything to do with it.

I dont know if he had this honest streak bashed into him as a child, but, even though Price was physically bashed about by his old man, if his old man said to Price that he was getting abuse from so-and-so, then Price would go around and sort it out. Thats just the way he was, a very selfless person who would always be giving himself to others. I think that right to the very end Price was still trying to get into his fathers good books. He didnt disown his father, even though he had a difficult time at his fathers hand.

Price wouldnt disrespect his father; hed still call his old man Pops right up until the end. All that his father had done to him didnt seem to dissuade Price from what he did for his father. For him, blood was thicker than water. His father didnt deserve to have him.

My wifes cousin lived next door to the Price family and his story was that Prices father, Les, would kick Malcolm around the room like a football! Nobody dared interfere. Les Price was almost as hard as Malcolm was when he was young.

I worked with Les as well, and everyone at work was afraid because Les was a bully. While Malcolm wasnt a bully, he was very aggressive. But Les was a bully even when he was sober; he would bully young kids and young men up on the opencast site where we worked, so everybody would be shit-scared of him. Malcolm was never like that, though. He was only aggressive when he was drunk.

Theres no doubt that people used Malcolm for their own gain. I dont want to name names, but he had lots of hangers on. I think people who had a bit of a feud going on with someone else would sort of drag Price into their company so that they could use him if need be.

We were in the Horse and Groom pub one day we called that the McShifters Arms as well. Whatever pub us earthmoving boys congregated in, we would christen it the McShifters Arms. We were in there one day and Prices best friend, Mike Mahoney, was in there. Now Mike was dressed immaculately he always dressed like that. He always looked like a million dollars. He was already in there well before Price was, and this fellow, who Ill call Joe Bloggs came in, and he didnt like Mahoney.