At Randolph Turpin's funeral, the Revd Eugene Haselden spoke loudly and passionately about what he believed was the principal contributory factor to the death of this man who, only a few years earlier, was Britain's most celebrated sporting hero. 'At the height of his career,' he began, 'Randolph was surrounded by those who regarded themselves as friends and well-wishers. But he was deserted by many as he lost his position and money. The fickleness of his friends and the incompetent advice must have weighed so heavily upon him that he was forced to desperation. Randolph was a simple man, a naïve man and he needed friends to protect him from the spongers. To our shame he was let down. The tragedy is not his failure alone, but the failure of the whole society.' At the conclusion of this blunt and unapologetic sermon there was silence inside Leamington Spa's Holy Trinity Church. The newspaper reports claimed that there were nearly 2,000 people present, but the truth is there were maybe 500 people inside the church. However, as the mourners began to spill out into the weak light of this gloomy day their numbers were augmented by passers-by, and by those who had decided to brave the rain and just come and pay their respects. Turpin's grief-stricken family were present, including young Randolph, his son from his first marriage, and many of the friends with whom he had grown up in Leamington Spa made an appearance. The promoter Jack Solomons sent neither words of condolence nor a note of apology for missing the funeral. Shockingly, nobody from the British Boxing Board of Control in London made the trip to the Midlands as one might have reasonably expected for a holder of a Lonsdale belt, and a former British, European, and World boxing champion.
Some time after the interment the Warwickshire coroner, Mr S. Tibbets, concluded his findings by suggesting that Randolph Turpin appeared to have been an impulsive and generous man who had given away a large part of his earnings in the ring, and in some way this had led to the present tragedy. Turpin's one-time business partner, Leslie Salts, went further, describing Turpin as 'intelligent in some respects but childish in others. You can tell people what is the best for them,' he said, 'but they don't always take notice.' This, of course, was somewhat ironic coming from a man who made a handsome profit from Turpin, and who had enjoyed the most successful and lucrative years of his life because of the efforts of the now deceased boxer. The coroner read aloud part of a note that Turpin had written and left pinned to a bedroom door before his death. In the note, Turpin made it clear that he felt that he was 'having to carry the can for money owing to the Inland Revenue'. He continued and insisted that his mind was clear and not disturbed. As it transpired, the verdict of the Coroners' Court agreed that this was most likely the case. The entry on the death certificate of Randolph Turpin records that the cause of death was as a result of:
Gunshot wounds of the heart
Self-inflicted (Suicide)
On 14 May, 1966, three days before Turpin's death, yet another letter from the Inland Revenue had arrived at the transport café in Leamington Spa, this one claiming £200 that was due as a result of non-payment of tax on the income from some of Turpin's wrestling engagements. The latest demand seemed unnecessarily harsh to Turpin and this news, together with the increasing likelihood that the local council was about to exercise the compulsory purchase order on the café, and thereby render Turpin and his wife and four daughters homeless, caused the former fighter to slip into an even deeper trough of depression. By now Gwen was used to enduring her husband's moods so she knew that there was little that she could do beyond wait and hope that his anxiety might soon subside. Three days later, on 17 May, Turpin was working in the café with his wife. After lunch the two older daughters, eleven-year-old Gwyneth and nine-year-old Annette, went back to school, while Turpin went upstairs to check on four-year-old Charmaine, who was suffering from a cold. After a few moments Turpin came back down and told his wife that the child was sleeping, and then he went back upstairs. Their youngest daughter, Carmen, who was almost two years old, followed her father. Shortly after 2:30 p.m. a curious Gwen went upstairs to check that everything was fine. She saw her husband on the floor between some packing cases and the bed, and she noticed bloodstains on the blanket. Her motionless husband looked as though he had tumbled from the bed, and her daughter, Carmen, was sitting on the floor beside her father, but the crying child was surrounded by a pool of blood. Gwen snatched up Carmen and ran with the child to Warneford Hospital where the authorities informed her that her daughter had been shot. Back at the café neighbours had already called the police, but the word on the street was that Turpin had shot himself twice with a.22 calibre revolver, once to the left side of the head and then fatally in the heart. He had used the same weapon to shoot his youngest daughter twice, and one bullet was lodged near Carmen's brain and the other had punctured her lung. Their local hero was dead, and his youngest daughter was fighting for her life.
Two weeks after Turpin's suicide, Gwen Turpin sold her story to a Sunday newspaper. Carmen was now out of danger, and it was clear that she was going to survive, but Gwen was still trying to find some justification for what her husband had done to their child. In the newspaper she said, 'I think he wanted to take her with him because he had begun to look on the world as a place not fit for her to live in.' But Gwen knew that this was a world that she and her children would have to continue to live in, and she was now determined to protect her four children from any scrutiny and, if truth be told, from the Turpin family with whom, Turpin's elderly mother aside, she wished to have no further dealings. Never wishing to set foot again in the transport café, and realising that she could only stay with friends for so long, once it was safe for Carmen to travel Gwen took herself and the girls off to Prestatyn in North Wales. Gwen went home, remembering that her late husband had told her that she should always try and visit the Great Orme, for that's where they had been happy. In many respects, it was her love and support, and Turpin's devotion to his daughters, that had enabled him to survive the years of debt and anxiety that followed his retirement from boxing. His love for his family had meant that he persevered even when he could see no future, but in the end life's pressure finally defeated this proud warrior. But in Gwen, who was anything but a shy, retiring Welsh Valley girl, he had found a sustaining love, and after his death she deeply mourned the loss of her beloved husband. Eventually, short of cash, Gwen sold her late husband's Lonsdale belt for £3,000.
In 2001, exactly fifty years after Turpin shocked the world and defeated Sugar Ray Robinson, an imposing 8'6'' statue of Randolph Turpin in boxing pose, on a five feet high stone plinth, was unveiled in the centre of Warwick. On the bronze plaque below his feet are inscribed the words:
In Palace, Pub, And Parlour
The Whole of Britain Held Its Breath.
And beneath this 'Celer Et Audax' — Latin for 'Swift and Bold' — the motto of the King's Royal Rifle Corps with whom Turpin's father served during the First World War. Thirty-five years earlier, in 1966, Gwen Turpin had already chosen her own memorial words and had them inscribed on her husband's headstone. Randolph Turpin may have ruled the world for an extremely brief sixty-four days, but whatever his troubles she wanted this stubborn, often naïve man to be remembered as an English hero.