Leigh: British down to the bone...

Mention the word metric to butcher Dave Stephens and he almost snorts and paws the ground.

Europe is anathema, a red rag to a bull, to this rebel small trader who sees himself single-handedly taking on the might of Brussels by continuing to sell his goods in pounds and ounces.

Dave's stance in refusing to go metric may well earn him a £2,000 fine and possibly a prison sentence - Southend trading standards officers last week slapped a ban on the Imperial measure scales in his shop in Leigh Broadway, thereby making it a criminal offence for him to carry on using them.

However, the fine will be small beer for the man who made a fortune during the late '70s and early '80s, only to lose it all in by the early '90s.

This former boxer's obvious outrage at being told what to do by the suits has earned him the temporary fascination of the world's media.

TV stations from America, Canada, Holland, and even Russia as well as British broadcasters have covered the David-and-Goliath story and his distinctive features have also been plastered over every national newspaper in the land. He's even booked for a forthcoming edition of the Big Breakfast.

Dave, co-partner in Mandy's Chop Shop, looks like he can fight his own battles (particularly when in his butcher's coat smeared with fresh blood) but clearly relishes the attention his stance has brought him.

Proudly he shows me a thick sheaf of letters he's received from supporters, some of them addressed only to the "Butcher from Leigh-on-Sea who was on the TV."

Some of them, prompted by Dave's frequent assertions that he's English and proud of it, are from the flakier sector of society.

One admirer has enclosed a publication called This England, "Britain's loveliest magazine." Others come in envelopes adorned with such slogans as "England is behind you!" and "Rule Britannia!"

The UK Independence Party has also realised a valuable asset in this self-styled "beef bulldog of Leigh," and Dave says he hasn't ruled out giving up the meat cleaver for another knife-in-the-back trade - politics.

"If push comes to shove I'll do it," he says, folding his brawny arms across his barrel chest. "I think people like my type of politics - a tough guy fighting for real voters."

The father-of-three is no stranger to fighting his corner, and it's fair to say he has had his share of suffering.

Last summer his eldest son Terry died at 29 after a four-year battle against cancer which started with an enlarged mole on his back. The tragedy - about which he cannot talk without crying (somehow doubly pitiful in a man of his bulk) - followed hot on the heels of divorce from Dot, his wife of 33 years.

The couple had been through a lot together - from the glory days when he bought and sold butchers' shops all over the south east and had homes in Vicarage Hill, Benfleet, posh Point Hill, Clacton, (complete with swimming pool) and a £500,000 farm just outside Basildon - to the days when he was down to his last outlet.

"I'm the man who made and lost a million," he says, grinning broadly, the arms remaining tightly folded across the chest.

Nowadays he's co-owner of just the one shop - Mandy's - but things are happier on the domestic front. Last October he and Mandy were wed. "We thought there was no way we were going to end '99 on a down note," he explains.

No, his life hasn't been easy. Born and brought up in a tiny two-up-two-down in east London with an outside toilet and a tin bath, money was tight and Dave's destiny was either the Army or factory work.

It was, however, a patriotic household. As a child he always had to stand to attention when the National Anthem was played on the TV, he tells me proudly.

National Service - "they should bring it back; it teaches discipline," - was eagerly awaited. But, to his dismay, it was scrapped the year before he was due to join.

Boxing became a substitute and he became a member of the East Ham Boxing Club.

After a series of jobs, Dave started at a butcher's shop in Dagenham. As an underfed youth, he was initially overwhelmed by the perk of being able to eat as much meat as he wanted.

By 21 he was married, by 25 he was the father of three small boys (Alan, who works in computers is now 28, and Robert, a cocktail waiter, 27), and was district manager of a 12 butcher's shops, from Thorpe Bay to east London.

By his early 30s he had his own thriving business running several shops, but was also making a financial killing buying up and then selling on other meat stores.

He reckons more than 50 butcher's outlets have passed through his hands, one of which was the Broadway store, always his favourite.

Between 1988 and 1990, however, his empire collapsed and the houses and the lifestyle went.

Dave, former chairman of Leigh Traders Association says it's tough now anyway - the beef scare "these vegetarian type of people," (said with utter contempt) - coupled with out-of-town shopping and supermarkets, yellow lines, Brussels' directives meaning he'll have to buy new equipment he can't afford. . . we're back to Europe again.

He denies that his comments - that he's English and not to be pushed around - might be at seen as at best nationalist and at worst, potentially racist.

"I'm proud of being English and it's got nothing to do with the National Front," he says. "I've got nothing against the French, the Germans, the Europeans and the ethnic races and religions. But we never imposed the pound on the German nation, did we?"

The fight goes on . . .

Patriotic by the pound - Butcher Dave Stephens is determined to resist new legislation that insists imperial weights of pounds and ounces are replaced with metric kilos and grams

Picture:NICK ANSELL

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.