AGAINST ALL ODDS Paul Connolly John Blake Publishing 15th March £7.99 As a celebrity fitness trainer and creator of the hugely popular Boxerobics™ Paul Connolly exhorts his clients to enjoy the physical and mental gains of regular physical exercise. Yet for him this has even greater resonance: his career as a boxer and successful trainer has allowed him to escape the mental shadow cast by growing up in the infamous St Leonard’s Children’s home in East London. Abandoned at two weeks old (all seven of his siblings were also rejected by his parents) he was taken into care but his mother perversely would not allow him to be adopted. Vulnerable already, “every child in care has the realisation at an early age that they are utterly alone in the world and nobody even cares whether you live or die because the world is indifferent to the child who nobody loves” worse was to come when at the age of 7 he was moved to St Leonard’s. In 2001 house parent ‘Uncle Bill’ was found guilty of rape, buggery and indecent assault on children in his care and the Principal of the home, Alan Prescott guilty of indecent assault during their time in charge of the home. Shockingly Paul was told by the police prior to the trial that, of the eight children in his dormitory, six were dead (“several by slow suicide in the form of heroin abuse and at least two by faster means”) and that his best friend at the home, Liam, had jumped under a train. While Paul suffered physical abuse and a near starvation diet worse for him was the ceaseless verbal abuse (“you’re rubbish, you Irish lowlife scum. Prison fodder from the day you were born, nobody ever loved you” ) which was repeated so often like a mantra that he began to believe it was true and to react by becoming aggressive and violent. For Paul salvation came in the form of boxing. While other contemporaries from the home were in trouble for mugging and street violence he was ‘beating up’ people in the boxing ring and getting praise and medals in exchange. It also meant he had no interest in alcohol or drugs and via the club had the beginnings
of a support network. He became an amateur boxing champion winning local and national titles. Unfortunately an accident on a building site that almost severed his right arm put paid to his hopes of becoming a professional but, while doing rehabilitation, he found he had an aptitude for fitness training. After becoming a trainer at a top London club he devised Boxerobics™ which quickly became hugely popular. Paul was invited to be the boxing expert on the pilot for the video, Elle MacPherson’s The Body which is still one of the best-selling exercise videos of all time. Paul was featured across the media including The Sun and Cosmopolitan. Life had certainly changed, “it seemed surreal to be writing for magazines when just a few years earlier I had to submit myself to the embarrassment of an adult literacy course”. Most recently he has been training Chantelle Houghton who has already lost a stone in body fat, drastically changed her eating habits and says she is feeling the best she has in years.
Paul is currently working with Sweet Science Fitness who are taking boxing coaches into schools in London to teach non-contact boxing with the aim of improving physical fitness but also, hopefully, reducing knife crime and bullying by teaching the benefits, via boxing, of hard work, discipline and self-reliance. Paul lives with his partner and two sons in Essex.
Further information: Ailsa Macalister 020 8671 6615 or ailsa@colmacPR.co.uk Paul’s website: www.esssextraining.com