Chris Eubank: The Autobiography. Chris Eubank

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      They were harsh on me, but actually I realised they were also harsh on themselves. Later, as an adult, I still loved them but no longer needed their acceptance. However, this background has obviously had a deep effect on me. I find myself looking for acceptance as an adult, even though professionally I was world champion and personally I contribute, I am kind, I teach by example and I help people. However, the omnipresent desire to be accepted was deeply ingrained in me from my childhood and would indelibly colour the course of both my career and my life.

      My primary education was at Northwold Infants School in Stoke Newington. Other children didn’t play with me. I was told this was because I was too rough, but I didn’t have a problem with that. I was never a kid who played with toys and games, not least because we couldn’t afford any. I never liked that, I was more into stealing crisps and sweets.

      I was sometimes bullied because of my broad nose. They used to call me Hoover and Shotgun Nose. It used to bother me and I would wish for a slimmer nose. Now, as a man, I like it, it’s a beautiful African nose and the only one I have. It also works very well. My feet are like dragon’s claws, but they are the only two I have. I have a gap in my teeth but that is just me. As for the nose, it is actually a superb shape, it has made me a great deal of money. Why? Because when you hit my nose, it simply goes flat rather than breaking.

      We moved to south London when I was 11 and went to Bellenden Junior School before moving on to Thomas Carlton Secondary. Unfortunately, by now, I had a somewhat boisterous reputation and was suspended 18 times in one school year for misbehaviour. I used to get into fights all the time over marbles. If it wasn’t marbles, it was protecting smaller kids from bullies. As a kid, I watched movies like The Three Musketeers. I still love watching films. Back then, I wanted to be just like the characters I saw on the big screen. Take D’Artagnan – I was going to grow up to be that guy, swinging into battle from a chandelier, taking on and beating anybody while still being utterly chivalrous and stylish. I modelled myself on characters like that. That is one of the reasons I got suspended from school so many times, going to the aid of bullied kids. I was a loner and drew little influence from my peer group, instead looking towards those sort of movies for my inspiration.

      Occasionally, however, it was my short fuse that caused the problem – when you don’t know how to express yourself, your feelings manifest themselves in a fashion that is immature and angry. One time, for example, I said to this kid, ‘You are chewing your gum too loud,’ and that was that – bang! I dropped him. My build was only average but I was always ‘extra’ – namely I was a showman. I have never been a show-off, that is a negative word. My intention was always (and still is) to be a showman, to entertain.

      I wasn’t powerful so I lost as many fights as I won, but I was righteous. I fought at least three days a week with bullies and at least four days a week with my brothers. I then moved to Peckham Manor Secondary School, where such behaviour continued and I was expelled after only one month.

      When I was 13, I grew dreadlocks and became a rasta. I smoked a lot of weed too. I eventually cut the locks off, because my father stopped talking to me. He was a Jamaican who wasn’t into the rasta lifestyle, so he was very disapproving. However, he loved Bob Marley. The album Exodus was on my Dad’s record player all the time. I think at one point it was the only record he actually had. Despite being on constant rotation, I never tired of hearing that album, it was my homely feel cut into vinyl. Still today, whenever I hear the record, it brings back floods of memories. Marley was a great musician, and that style of music is in my soul. He has also been a great motivator for me – his words are all about strength of character, rectitude, correctness, righteousness: being an earth man.

      Back then, I had so much energy. However, I did not always do the correct thing, I still had a lot to learn. This energy carried over into my behaviour outside of school as well. If someone wanted to steal some sweets, I was always the first in the queue. And, I didn’t just take a single Mars bar, I would grab five. I would take the task in hand and do it.

CHAPTER TWO

       DESIGNER THIEF

      One day my father came back from work and said to my brothers, ‘Where’s Christopher?’ No one knew. At 9 o’clock that evening, there was a knock at the door and it was the police, who informed my father that I had been taken into care. I don’t know if the authorities can do that without consent, but they certainly did it with me. I’d had a social worker assigned to me for some time at Peckham Manor. He was called Mr Lord Okine, an African fellow who drove this little white Datsun. I didn’t even know what a social worker was, I didn’t understand.

      Peter was the first brother to be taken into care, then David, then me. Simon stayed at home. It was not my father’s fault: he didn’t give us up to care, the authorities took us away. It wasn’t a complete shame for me because it had become boring at home with Dad. I couldn’t stop misbehaving, it was in my nature. I remember thinking, why is this man beating me so much? I realised it was because I was getting caught . . . so I stopped getting caught.

      The first care home I went to was The Hollies in Sidcup. It was a massive complex made up of 36 different homes, each named after trees, and one called Reception Centre where I was. My brother David was in Larch. I was met at Reception Centre by a member of staff who took me on a tour of the building. He showed me a room which had a table tennis table, a pool table and a communal eating area. The tour continued, revealing a tuck shop, a storage room and the staff room, before finally ending up at my dormitory. They sat me down in there and gave me my briefing.

      Being taken into care was almost like winning the lottery. Can you imagine my sense of bliss? The fridge was full of food – beefburgers, sausages, everything. I could play pool. I had a dorm with new friends to meet and, most fantastically of all, my own warm bed – no more four to a mattress! The whole place was even heated! It was such a wonderful experience meeting these kids from Scotland, Manchester, all over the UK, seeing their different attitudes, hearing their different tales. That first term at The Hollies was one of the best experiences of my life – I had three meals a day, table tennis, pool, and there were girls. Heaven! We used to climb down the drainpipes to get into their dorms: it was such good fun.

      But just as at school, however, I found myself getting into trouble and was shifted between care homes several times in four years. In 1979 I went to Yastrid Hall in North Wales, which I now know to have been in the midst of the sexual abuse scandal that did not come to light until the mid-90s, when it was revealed that a network of adults appeared to have been involved in abusing children across the country. I wasn’t abused sexually or otherwise, I didn’t even know there was a problem. It has transpired that certain children were being abused, but at the time I never knew. Admittedly, I was engrossed in my own little world but, fortunately for me, that whole terrible saga passed me by.

      From Yastrid Hall, I went to Stanford House in Shepherds Bush for seven weeks in a lock-up for assessment. From there I was sent to St Vincent’s in Dartford for a month, before being expelled and taken to Orchard Lodge in Crystal Palace, for another seven-week assessment in a secure unit. From there, I went to Karib, a care home for ethnic minorities in Nunhead, SE 15, was expelled again after only one month, then sent to Davy’s Street in Peckham.

      All this time I was a highly unruly boy. I still had a short fuse, I was a very fast runner (ten miles in 72 minutes when I was 13), quite clever, and my sleight of hand wasn’t too bad. I took full advantage of my skills, always breaking into staff rooms and tuck shops or the newsagents down the road to pilfer cartons of 200 cigarettes. Such petty crimes later progressed to shoplifting and repetitive absconding.

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