MANUSCRIPT. - Harold LISTER. [Notes of the daily life in diary form of the heavyweight boxer Harold Lister. Bournemouth: N.p.:] 1938. 49pp., manuscript, 12mo (118 x 66mm.) Unnumbered pages in a single legible hand relating the daily activities and feelings of Harold Lister as he trains and begins his boxing career, several colour maps. (Toning, browning.) Original printed paper covers (marginal losses, minor soiling). Note: based in Bournemouth ('fed up and far from home') the young Harold Lister starts off the year fairly depressed, notes how often he goes drinking with or without others ('had a few convivial beers, solo'), but as the year goes on he trains regularly and goes to the pictures with Kathleen - during 'Mad About Music' there was an 'amorous interlude'- and while there are some trips to local sites (Studland Bay, Sandbanks, Corfe Castle) and an Evelyn Waugh novel ('Vile Bodies'), it's the training that matters. He has his first professional fight on July 1st, fights in Yeovil and the Isle of Wight and wins these first bouts. But on 9th November he suffers defeat, to Dick Weller, and notes that 'he felt down in the mouth' but vows 'I am going to train hard… [underlined]... I am going to get to the top'.