Between the wars, with the fighters often climbing through the ropes for a pittance, backstreet boxing brought a pretence of glamour to working class Bristol.
In the 1920s and 30s, pale, lean boxers, ever grateful for an extra fiver, frantically took on as many boxing bouts as they could find.Medical supervision was minimal. Little Tosh Parker once fought three times a day during the miners' strike.
Some of the better fights were at venues like the prestigious Colston Hall. Others were in more modest boxing halls or transformed pub sheds. Every fight night bulged with fans - and every supporter had his favourite.
Del Fontaine was one - a French Canadian who had come over in a cattle boat with the intention of establishing himself as a fighter. His style in the ring was all-action.
The trouble was that he had little or no defence. He took a battering in almost every contest but invariably grinned at the crowd as he stumbled back, bruised and beaten, to an improvised dressing room.
Del Fontaine wasn't his real name - it was really Raymond Henry Bousquet, a name too long to fit the billboards. But from the bell, his fists flailing, he was marvellous value.
Sadly, even his most loyal fans came to realise that he was on the slide. By 1934, he had lost 12 of his last 14 bouts. Those closest to him suspected that he was becoming punch-drunk.
He was a colourful personality - his dashing looks made him especially popular with Bristol girls. He also liked a drink. Back in Canada, he had a wife and children.
Between fights here, however, he spent more and more time with a pretty 21-year-old waitress, Hilda Meek, born in the city's Winstanley Street. The relationship became increasingly obsessional.
Hilda, described by her friends as flighty, had no wish to be tied down - especial by a moody prizefighter whose face and body were increasingly showing the bruises and effects of his last bout.
One day he heard her making a date with another man. The neurotic Fontaine suddenly pulled out a gun and fired - she died on the spot. Another shot injured her mother.
The West Country sporting public was shocked. At the trial, which as a crime of passion fired the nation, the defence called on welterweight champion Ted Lewis.
He looked across the courtroom at the crumpled, demoralised Fontaine and spluttered emotionally: 'Del shouldn't have been in the ring at all for his last fight. He wasn't in a fit state.
'As a boxer, he has received more punishment than anyone I have ever seen.'
The verdict was inevitable. Not that Hilda's distraught father helped the boxer's case. Sam Meek, of Barton Hill, was questioned about Fontaine's state of mental health. 'Do you realise that he was knocked out seven times recently ?' The reply was bitterly cynical, devoid of any affection: 'I don't know about knock-outs. The last one seemed to me more like a lie-down.'
The implication was that, by then, Del Fontaine, aware that any slender hopes of progressing in the ring had disappeared, was prepared to take a dive. It would have been the ultimate insult to a boxer so often acclaimed by Bristol crowds for his crash-bang approach.
By the time the date for the execution had been decided, the protests had started. They grew in volume as Fontaine's friends pleaded for a reprieve.
There were long lists of names on the petitions, asking for his life to be spared. How could the judiciary send a punch-drunk, deeply depressed man of unsound mind to the gallows?
But it did. Outside the prison gates, on the morning of the execution, religious figures led the hymns. Politicians made intense anti-capital punishment speeches. It made no difference. The prison bell tolled and the weeping crowds, including a few familiar faces from the world of boxing, strolled away.
Del Fontaine left a note. 'Hilda Meek broke my heart I spent my last cent on her. She turned me against my own wife.'
Al Harding, of the well-known local boxing family - he had persuaded Del to come to the West Country, and another brother, Percy, had been the promoter at the Gem Stadium - cycled to London to see Fontaine in the condemned cell.
For two outwardly tough characters, it had been a tearful experience
Back in Bristol, amid hoarse cheers and the Woodbine-fuggy atmosphere, the boxing shows went on - sluggers searching for unattainable glory.
At the Gem, that popular venue in Broad Weir, the fans continued to argue over the fate of the swarthy French-Canadian they had all taken to their hearts.
From the Gem to the gallows had been a short, poignant journey.
After the hanging, the wardens whispered to visitor Harding: 'He was the bravest bloke we ever saw go to the scaffold.'
It was the human quality Del demonstrated with such unfulfilled and misdirected zeal in the ring.
