Hi. As promised I thought I would take the opportunity before I head out for a Sunday morning run to catch up with you all. I’ve been thinking this morning about a family project to create a scrapbook about my dad’s life and my own writing project about my life and how martial arts helped me turn it around. That’s going to be called The Last of the Good Guys.

“The last of the good guys” is what my drama teacher at school called me with a smile in my last lesson just before my GCSEs. I think I got a C in drama and did a lot better in English and English Literature as well as other subjects. My dad was an English teacher. He had a Masters degree and he was a writer and stage actor. Some things carry over through the generations. People tell me I look just like him.

The book I intend to finish writing (and I’ve written a lot but not for some time so it needs revisiting from the beginning) tells the story of my life from the point I left school and ended up heading into the criminal justice system and got made an example of. It tells the story of how a twenty-something who was a shadow of himself walked into a Muay Thai gym one day and never looked back. It’s something when finished I hope inspires and uplifts.

I want it to be a story of hope because Muay Thai helped me change. I didn’t just prove myself wrong I proved the police wrong. I made those changes for me and that’s something to be celebrated.

If like myself you are someone who has been around a few corners in their life you’ll understand that we all make mistakes, but you should know it’s what we do next that counts the most. I often say when I speak publically about the police and criminal justice system that the law is not meant to punish you forever.

The mere existence of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 shows that the state claims to understand and acknowledge that people grow and change. Of course, what is said in writing is rarely put into practice by those who abuse their power and frequently target and harass their “problems” as if being in a position of law enforcement gives them justification alone.

My mum said something to me recently that I know my beautiful father would say if he was still with us. She said what the police put on me through abuse of stop and search powers nearly every day in my youth and racially profiling me was never about me it was always about them and that I am better than them. It was always about them.

Sitting here, writing this I can already feel the tears beginning but I’m currently navigating a lot of trauma created by that organisation’s abuse of data protection. A civil action has been underway to put things right since last year. I hope, if all goes well at least for this part of my journey it’s closure for now all I know is that I’m not the same guy I was before. Every day I’m stronger and never walk alone.

I’ve mentioned more than once in this blog how beneficial martial arts have been in navigating and recovering from trauma from my past and of late. That trauma surfaced last year in a diagnosis of PTSD, anxiety and depression. Muay Thai is helping me reclaim my power and understand my relationship with it. It’s helping me reclaim a part of me I thought was lost forever and in my return to a new me sometimes the resilience that emerges reminds me of how tall people said I walked when I first started training.

My book The Last of the Good Guys explains how I used to be bullied in my youth. In fact, at one point trouble seemed to find me no matter where I went. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly” some of my girlfriends and best friends would say in defence of me and in opposition to those who would be quick to label me a “bloody criminal”.

I’ve been through it more often than not coming out the worse for wear. I discovered to my surprise and I assume to those who would choose to bully me disdain that when I started training my abusers regardless of how many there were in number would often choose to cross the street.

As I often say to friends when I tell them about this part of my journey it is quite simply the aura you project that can be enough sometimes. Bullies and racists are cowards. Walking tall terrifies them. It’s why these days they often carry a knife and clearly lack positive outlets in their lives.

I found that when the bullies left me alone on the street, the bullies who used to stop and search me so frequently they knew my first name left me alone too. I spent close to ten years being stopped and searched by Hampshire Police. What they said about me was justification for their abuse of power just as with Avon and Somerset Police. In my volunteer role as a public speaker and caseworker I often encounter people just like me and so when I say I see you I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

There is a field beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing where you and I are free and safe from judgement and racial profiling and where people see us for our character alone and never the colour of our skin or past mistakes. I’ve learned that I am more than these things and my experiences have taught me how to help others.

They taught me how to walk tall just like Muay Thai taught me how to stand up and fight. Some days I’m not at my best but at times like now I can only hear my father’s strong voice echoing through my own. I think on that note I’m off for my Sunday run. Have a good week, train hard and just like the last time… I’ll see you on that road.