MY grandad was a bare knuckle fighter. His casual work as a labourer as a navvy as they were called before political correctness was invented was never enough to feed his wife and seven children, so he supplemented his income.

He was brought up tough in Catholic orphanages from the age of four where a beating was as much of a daily routine as morning and evening prayers.

So when he finally escaped in his teens he knew how to survive with his fists. When work on the roads was scarce he would travel to fairgrounds and take on ‘all-comers’. My mother recalls how he would arrive home merry with booze, his face battered, swollen and bloodied with tales of who Tommy had pummelled that day.

But sadly, his aggression was not always saved for fights and my grandmother and kids took their fair share of beatings.

After those fairground bouts, my mother and her siblings would hide under the bed covers waiting for their drunken father to climb the stairs and could only breathe easy when they heard both heavy working boots hit the bedroom’s wooden floor.

There were occasions when they’d hear only one boot drop and he’d come racing down the stairs, fists flailing, determined to give someone else a battering. My mother was the only one whom he never hit.

An intelligent, thoughtful man when sober, my grandad was a victim of poverty and circumstance, but the consequences of his actions affected his family all their life. Tragically, he died alone.

So I feel only despair when I read that bare knuckle-fighting has become the latest trend in East Lancashire and farther afield. Violent videos showing men as young as 16 brawling in the streets have been posted on Facebook.

Police say cases of organised fights being filmed and uploaded are increasing. Indeed, I watched a video showing two young men slug it out among shoppers – including children – at the Trafford Centre and no-one, not even security, seemed to be making much of an effort to stop it.

The trend has been condemned by David Rogers whose son Adam, a football coach in Padiham, was killed after suffering a single punch to the head in July 2010.

I’m sure the lads who take part in this sickening sport are aware of the dangers. Some are probably excited by it. And if money’s changing hands there’s clearly a huge incentive. The Facebook video I chanced upon was in the public domain, so how long will it be before we see this behaviour re-enacted in the school playground? Brutality breeds brutality.

This is a tragedy waiting to happen.