Former champion boxer delivers knockout performance

This year’s black-tie awards dinner, held in the Imperial & Trafalgar suite at the NCC, began with a short welcome address from DIMHN chair, Jenny Gill, who noted that the 2016 Awards had attracted the highest number of entries to date. After the dinner, and a charity ‘Heads & Tails’ game which raised over £2,000 for the President’s Sporting Club and The Essex Disabled Sports Foundation, the evening’s compère, David Davies – who runs a sports representation company, and is also the former boxer’s agent – introduced guest speaker, Frank Bruno, dubbing him ‘not only a boxing champion, but also a champion of people’s hearts’.

Following a rapturous reception, the pair then took part in a forthright 25-minute question and answer session, during which David Davies quizzed Frank Bruno about his highly successful boxing career, on how he broke into the sport, and about his personal battle with mental ill health. With what he felt was the media’s tendency to characterise celebrities who had suffered mental ill health even years after they recovered, the boxer’s agent told the audience that, 13 years after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he reckoned Frank Bruno looked in excellent shape. Touching on the former boxer’s well-publicised ‘breakdown’ last September, David Davies asked him how he was now. He replied: “I am actually feeling very, very good, with a lot of things happening for me; my children and I are healthy, and everything is nice and rosy, but that’s not to say that in a couple of months I might not be a bit low.”

Describing his childhood, Frank Bruno explained that he was the youngest of six children, and, while the other five all secured good jobs, he felt initially a little hampered by dyslexia, which made him ‘a little bit down’. He said: “I also got myself into a bit of trouble doing crazy things, and, while I have no criminal record, aged 11 I was sent to a posh borstal. I thus had a mixed upbringing – very happy at times, but clearly being sent to the borstal was not a pleasant experience. “However,” he told dinner guests, “I now realise it was the best thing that could have happened, because I never listened to my mum.” Asked if he himself had perceived any signs of mental ill health in himself as a youngster, Frank Bruno said: “One of things I remember was buying two or three of a particular item in shops, when I really only needed one, which may have been a sign of bipolar. I also experienced mood swings.”