GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

But at the end of the day, sport has been absolutely fantastic to me. I went to

an all boys school in Hackney. I do not believe in all boys school, all girls

school, because we just bunked off to go to the all girls schools, so you might

as well co-educate us. Teach, develop and nurture healthy relationships.

Whether they be boy/girl, boy/boy, girl/girl, I do not care, because it is nothing

to do with me. I think it is quite a private thing what you do in a very respectful

and loving relationship, even if it might be in a relationship of discovery. But life

is about discovery, so I believe that sport and the arts is a vaccine and antidote

and can give us a chance until those far better informed than me between their

ears can come up with a societal best use of young people’s potential.

So you win gold medals. Let me go back a little bit. The National Front who I

eternally credit, because without them when you ran and you stopped running,

and I was told I could not swim, blacks cannot swim, and I had a massive

culture shock when I went to the Caribbean and saw lots of kids who looked

like me fishing and swimming and all that nonsense they tell you, how much we

sow in the minds and we do not actually believe it. But, do you know, without

the National Front, a bit of all boys school rivalry for the girls’ affections, I would

not be here today and I believe so many challenges or opportunities are just

waiting to happen. That societal resilience that we had, because I got sacked

as an apprentice. That was not good for my mother on that Friday evening

when I went to tell her, it was one of the most frightening moments of my life. I

heard about unions then, but Tom was a teddy boy, did not much like me, did

not talk to me for the whole apprenticeship, for a whole year he did not talk to

me. Don who did not look like me, but was Asian, he talked to me, as youth

workers spoke to me, as Mr Kelham spoke to me at Brookhouse Secondary.

When everyone was telling me I would not amount to much, they always sowed

that positive seed. You have always got to find someone who will relate to you

and you can relate to. It is all about people, personalities and relationships.

We all know what the stats have done.

During the 80s there were riots. I discovered karate because it discovered me

at the Michael Sobell Sports Centre in Finsbury Park, Islington. Michael Sobell,

philanthropist, local authority partnership. That notion of partnership and

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