The man Bare Knuckle magazine dubbed “unputdownable” was laid to rest at a private ceremony in Hull, by a congregation harder than the assembled cast of Scum walking Phil Mitchell on a barbed wire leash.

 

Following a tearful retrospective on his life - from an early talent for ABH to teaching his own NVQ in spinal paralysis - biographer and fellow pugilist Pete ‘go on, punch me in the stomach’ Smith intimidated the choir into singing Fight the Good (Fucking) Fight, before decking the vicar in a gesture of goodwill.

 

A family friend said: “If you grew up in the ‘60s Nose Grinder was a true inspiration, regardless of whether casual maiming was your chosen career or merely a pastime. He was a trooper and a real gentleman. He also of course - like his father and his father’s father - maintained an ongoing cycle of vicious brutality toward his wife and kids, but only through a healthy respect for tradition.”

 

“People don’t want that type of entertainment anymore,” he went on to say. “The do-gooders have changed the world.”

 

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Violence said: “Youths these days are turned off by Queensberry rules in public house car parks. They prefer drawn-out sexual torture in underground cells, schoolchildren kicked unconscious on YouTube, snuff TV. A bit like Channel 4 in its heyday.”

 

Nose Grinder - who enjoyed starting on little blokes in pubs - also held the Yorkshire record for number of A&E nurses headbutted in a single session.

 

East-end gangster Mad Dog ‘Doberman’ McDog said: “Nose Grinder always reckoned that if he got to ‘eaven the first thing he’d do was take out the current ‘daddy’. I explained that God is an omnipresent animating principle the nature of which alters depending on the observing faith, but he still said he could ‘ave the ponce."

"He’s got a lot of arse’ole that boy.”