In his own words: how it all began ...
Sensei Grahame Hunter's truthful and absorbing account of his early years growing up in a northern industrial town and how the discovery of karate became a life-changing event.

Part 1 of 6

"We had the strongest Mum in the world ..."
I was born in Liverpool in 1977 where I lived with my mother and father, Pauline and Colin, and my older brother, Carl. We then moved to Runcorn and this is where my story begins. We lived at Kingston Close near the old town and I went to The Grange School.

By the time I was five, my parents had separated and my Mum was bringing us up on her own. But me and Carl were going to be ok because we had the strongest Mum in the world, working two jobs just to put food in our mouths. My Nan used to look after us a lot.

Growing up in Runcorn in the 80s was good  - apart from getting bullied.  Somebody was always getting bullied. I was bullied from the age of seven.  It was always the bigger kids in the school that would bully everybody.

I remember when I was being chased, I would be running as fast as I could, then just as I thought they would catch me, I would stop and roll up into a ball on the floor.  As they were bigger than me, they would go tumbling over me then I’d be back up on my feet and running the other way.

"She was off down the school like a screaming apache ..."
I used to think that I was on my own and I had nobody to talk to about it until I told my Mum one day.  And that was it!  She was off down to the school like a screaming apache, giving them all what for. This worked for a bit but, after a while, the kids had forgotten how scary my Mum was and I went back to being another kid that got bullied.

When I was 10, Mum met this bloke called Vic. He was about 6ft tall and I thought he was massive and scary looking, but he turned out to be this really nice guy who Mum really liked.  Eventually, he became my stepdad and we moved to Widnes.

I started a new school and I thought all my troubles were over.  I was wrong.  It turns out I was just an easy target and it was going to happen again.

Sensei Grahame: in his own words - Part 2 >>>