I was born in 1980 in Whipps Cross, Leightonstone, Waltham Forest, and I went to St Patrick's Catholic school — but I also spent time in the children's home and foster care system. I first went to prison in 1996 and have been in and out of the system since; this is me explaining how those pieces fit together, questioning the system that funnels young people in and trying to reach the next generation.
Growing up in Waltham Forest and the care system
I grew up around Whipps Cross, Leighton Stone — the borough of Waltham Forest. I had brothers and sisters, went to school at St. Patrick's and I came from what I'd call a good family home. But like a lot of kids in the 80s, I also found myself in the children's home and foster care system. That contradiction — good upbringing on one hand, the care system on the other — is where a lot of my story starts.
Street life, mistakes and prison
I spent the 90s, 2000s and into my 30s and 40s in and out of the prison system. I'm not trying to glamorise it — far from it — but it's part of my life and what I want to unpack. The first time I went to prison was 1996. I look back and ask myself why I moved into a life of crime; I can't pretend it's straightforward. A lot of us end up disturbed, with mental-health fallout and trauma, and some people lose their way badly.
What I want this for: talking to the next generation
This is for the young generation. I'm trying to teach, not preach. We need to question the system that funnels kids into certain places, and we have to change how we're thinking — me included. I write notes, discuss with other men, and I see intelligence everywhere, but luck and circumstances make a huge difference. My aim with this blog and podcast is to be raw and honest so others can try to avoid the same mistakes.
Family, relationships and responsibility
I've got kids and family and I'm trying to teach them straight. I admit my record isn't spotless and I apologise for mistakes — I'm not perfect. A lot of men I've known have tried things to support family; we're asking whether that's the right way. I'm trying to change direction and help my children, even if it's messy.
Community, race and where I'm from
Respect Waltham Forest — Himes Park, Chingford, Walthamstow, Leighton — it's a super community where everyone's kind of connected. We're multicultural, and I want to speak plainly about black identity: I'm black, I say it loud, and I respect everyone in my area. Relationships, race and community are part of the conversation here and I won't shy away from them.
Faith and the plan — a blog, stories and open conversation
I'm a Catholic. My relationship with God is personal — I believe and I've done my Holy Communion at St. Patrick's. Alongside the podcast, I'll be writing on my blog and sharing rare stories from prison and life. I want people to join the conversation, question things, and help us find better ways forward.
Adapted from my video with AI assistance. The video is the original account.
Read the video transcript +
Yeah, welcome everyone, Legion's Word. Yeah, well, let me start to introduce myself properly. Yes, I was born in 1980, Whipps Cross, 1980 Whipps Cross, Leighton Stone, which is the borough of Waltham Forest. And yeah, I've got brothers and sisters, and I come from a good upbringing, a good family home and that. But in the 80s, I don't even know, you might even be able to relate to this. A lot of kids went into the children's home and foster care system, because I come from a good upbringing. I went to a good school, Catholic school, St. Patrick's. And then in the early 80s, I found myself dying in the care system. And remember, I've got siblings. So we kind of went to school, you go home, you go to the care system, but we'll get back to that anyway. And then we're moving back to the early years in school, which was good. And then let's go into the 90s, when we started entertaining that little shit on the streets, but we still come from good stuff. And then we took back the 90s, I spent the 90s, 2000s, yeah, well, 90s, 20, 2000s, early 30s, early 40s, in and out of the prison system. And remember, I'm not trying to glamorize this, but I'm just going to have to give you a little insight into my story and my life and why I believe we're going to do a little change on this. And then we talk about family and relationships. I've got kids, children, family, that's all good. And then let's just delve a bit quickly into the early years. The first time I went to prison was 1996. So, I'm not going to talk about that now. But then we're going to talk about the other side of it, because a lot of people coming in, I look at little things online and I see little stories and I say, well, we're kind of glamorizing this to the kids, like, well, prison, crime, bam, why we do it? And then at the same time, I look at myself and I say, well, why did I even move into a life of crime? Remember, I forget the children's home that I came from. I met good foster kids along the way. And then we talk about the years I spent. But then I had a good family around me, kids and school. And then I look at it and I say, what's going on? But moving forward into the later years in my soul, I used to write little notes and little things and discuss things with loads of different men in here. I used to look at the team and think, we're all very intelligent. Everyone's intelligent. And then I think to myself, well, but we're not all that lucky then, because some of us come out and some of us come out disturbed, the mental health. And then we're talking about leaving people. And what are we actually chasing? We're chasing the money. We can't be, because I'm even looking at certain things. And I might be going a bit quick here. So sorry for the speed of me still, because I'm not dressed as properly and I'm not. And I'm new to this. And I have to repeat this because I'm coming from a structure as well. When I say a structure, for me, a structure is school, children's home, foster care, college, and then forget.
I was in prison, probation, I didn't have to go to prison. Probation, just living in a structure. Unfortunately, unfortunately, I went all the other way in it, all the other way. But I had a nice side as well in it, like I've got uncles, loads of grown people in my life growing up and I have to respect my mum for this because there's loads of, I've got loads of uncles, cousins. And even when they were seeing me growing up, they was giving me like the straight, the straight speech, yeah? Let me try and go somewhere else now. This is all important, we're trying to reach the next generation. We're trying to say raw. As much as there might be times when I can say raw, I enjoyed it, I was disturbed. I'm one of the disturbed ones where I was on the road and I don't know why I was on the road. Even today, sometimes I might have left the road now, but I think to myself, this ain't easy. But then you've got people who've come, lost it, had it, and it's not that straightforward. Because watch, we're all lucky then. Let's say we're lucky. I hope I'm not going too fast. But if you look at my blog, there's different chapters and we talk about religion, we talk about all the little things that's going on in everyone's day-to-day life. And it's not just about people going to prison, it's people that have been violated. Because there's legal people going through the same thing as me. People in relationships going through madness as well. We're going to discuss that. The reason why I talk about relationships, because I've left them. I've been in jail, in and out, disgusted. Not in where I'm a bad person or certain crimes we don't even discuss on this platform, 100%. So we don't even know them people. Let's get that straight as well. This is regret as well, but a lot of men have tried the thing, innit? To support their family, whatever, we're just trying to address and say, is it the right way? And even remember, a lot of what I'm saying, it's how I'm seeing it. So don't think my opinion is my opinion. It's not like I haven't got a million peers that think the same, and a lot of us do think differently, and a lot of our actions are different as well. And that's another thing I'd like you to get involved in. What I'm trying to say, if we go back to the children, the system's a bit of a set up as well. So we've got to question the system. We have to question the system. To move forward, we have to go back in it. It would be easy for me to sit here and remember, it wouldn't be easy, because I'm 46, and it's going to take 46, a lot of you need to understand me, and no one's going to stay on this long. But we're trying to just teach the next generation. But at the same time, my story's going to go on forever if you're here to listen to this. And you see my people around me, and I say people, peers, friends, and even now, we might even not all be around each other. We might not even still be, some might not even be in contact with each other. Thankfully, hopefully, I know still a lot of people that I'm in contact with. There's people that's been through trauma. This is another thing. And there's people that are in the mental health home. I mean, I've got friends in the mental health home, but they should be there, and it's the system.
Somewhere along the line, we have to lock heads and try and solve it. And we have to look at things. And this is definitely for the young generation as well. Remember, I've got my kids. They're at that age as well, so they're not young. You're wiping each other out under the basic rules, innit? Remember, I'm going to be guilty for not teaching. I'm trying to teach my kids. I'm so sorry. I hear this little narrative out there. The oldest, my oldest, told me to go and work nine to five. It's simple. You understand? The only thing I'm going to address, and I hope I can, and everyone do your thing how you do your thing out there. There's no way you should be asking children. I'm going somewhere else again, because it's all part of the whole conversation. How you can even take anyone's kids from the house and send them anywhere. And another thing, to have a knife and to carry a knife and to wake up in the morning, hear me out, and maybe you can, there's going to be a lot of people saying, yeah, but I can hear what you're saying to you, but you're going to have to be really making sense of what you're telling me when you can leave your house in the morning and see someone you don't know, or they've got a different jacket on, they're in a group, or they're a friend of a friend of a friend, or they're associated with someone, and then you can go and take their life and bring it in substitution. That's crazy. Yeah? But that's my opinion. Yeah? So moving forward again. I want you to join into this conversation anyway, yeah, on this blog. And as I said again, I'm not new to any other thing on my blog or anything I've been involved in. And I say this, unfortunately, I've got a lot of people that's going through, been through it, some of them are not even here today, rest in peace. Some of them made mistakes. And I know one thing I do know in the system with young kids, everyone I've been around, you know, it's rare where you can see a lot of people being in the place and say they've made a mistake. Yeah? And when I'm looking at my, if I go back, sorry again, I hope I'm not boring the whole, yeah, but when I go back, even the first time I sat in a room, after one second, I was sorry, I wanted to go home that day. Yeah, so let me get that straight, that room is not for me still. But how I managed to spend so many years in there is madness. So what I realised is there's a way around it, they're doing things where we're getting caught out, innit? I've read books, I've done regiment, and I was right, but anyway, moving forward, yeah? We have to change the way we're thinking. Yeah, me included. Yeah, and I need help as well. My record's not that good. But it kind of polished up looking good. If you know me and you're understanding it, yeah, and 100% I'm not promoting nothing on here where we're talking about what's done's been done, innit? Yeah, are we successful in what we've done? I don't know. Because a lot of us are trying to teach the kids through the internet, which is a good thing, because remember, I was always sceptical with this thing.
You know what? I see people every day, and hopefully there's a million men in prison still serving prison, so I have to respect the man behind the door in it. Because I was a frequent visitor, unfortunately. And I don't say that with any... I remember I've got people watching me that mean loads to me, and we don't even have to question who they are. So what I'm saying is very important. My actions have spoken to themselves over many years, innit? So I'm sorry for that anyway. Let me just make my apologies. Because I'm not perfect, yeah? That's what I'm saying. Man them, the crew, mark the kids, they're losing direction. And another thing I have to talk about, I have to speak, because I'm not blind, innit? I wasn't born for this, innit? But I'm not blind. I've been watching and learning, I've read my books. There's black people out here today, 100% remember, let me tell you something, my thing is Waltham Forest. Yeah. And the whole of Waltham Forest, respect Waltham Forest, and that comes under Himes Park, Chingford, Walthamstow, Leighton, Leightonstone. Someone correct me if you can correct me. And I've been veteran, because I've got family and friends, and it's like a super community, Waltham Forest, it's a rare community you can live in, and if people can relate to that, you'll understand, because if you really connect the dots, we all know each other, and everyone's kind of connected through some form of thing in itself. Respect the whole of Waltham Forest. But we're multicultural over here. Not saying you're not anywhere else. Every community is involved. Turks, whites, blacks, pinks, blues, for instance, I didn't even need to say, but why I wanted to say it for my race, because I've got black people, I'm saying black people, they don't go to black women. What are you, are you losing your marbles? What do you mean you don't go out with a black girl? What do you mean? I don't understand. My mum's black, your mum's black, your dad's... No, no, it's very important now, because remember, you can have preferences, yeah, you can have preferences, yeah, but there's no way, I'm not saying, yeah, your first choice is black, standard, you're a black person anyway, and it's not about racism, it's not, right, remember, I've got bare white people, big up my, as I said, we're Walthamstow, so if no one knows, everyone knows what I'm saying, yeah, because I'm 100%, 100%, yeah, and what I mean by 100% is, I would like every race, innit? So, but more to the point, I'm black. That's it, that's, and fuck, thank you, yeah, we're black, innit? It's not, we're black, okay? That's the reality. So do not, please, wash your mouth in the morning, and I don't wanna hear they're ignorant and they're hard, and they're hard to deal with, they're not hard to deal with still, I've never met no hard dealt with black woman, they're fine, and I love them to pieces, so big up my sisters, big up the white girls as well, big up the Asians, pinks, blues, 100% of you guys, come on, wakey, wakey, man, and your mum, come on, just play the game, but let's not go too much into it, but we can discuss relationships and the religion, because the religion's, a quick one on religion as well, yeah, because I believe in God, innit? And yeah, and I've been, as I said, I went to St. Patrick's, and I'm a Catholic, yeah, talk to them, I'm a Catholic, yeah, I've been to Christian Church here and there, I remember my kids,
I'm a Christian. I'm a Catholic. And remember, people can say what they want to say and I'm a Catholic. My relationship with God, you see the man above, that's my relationship with God, innit? We can have this debate about running to the building and who goes to the building, who's the priest. Listen, listen again. We're not talking about the priest. My relationship with God, okay? And that little thing with me and God, I walk in St. Patrick's Church today, 100%, and I get a good energy. And I deal with me and my man. That's it, yeah? So that's my little thing to say what I believe in God and I've got my faith. I've done a Holy Communion at St. Patrick's. It was a good one for me. I did mine this morning. Yeah, but not making jokes or nothing like that. I'll take it seriously. So we can have this conversation, yeah? And yeah, I just wanted to introduce myself today, you know, seriously. So I'm not really timing thing, I don't know, because I've been fidgeting for a minute. Yeah, but this is the off, this is the little podcast. And then, yeah, there's going to be a blog and I'm going to be sending a little writing on my blog in it. And another thing, I'm writing rare stories when I was in prison. And you know why prison keeps coming back for some reason? And only rightly, because I've done half of my, a long time in and out of the system, innit? So once again, that's a big topic. We'll have to discuss it just for change. And just to see why we believe this, yeah? Man, I'm happy for listening, seriously, and I look forward to speaking to you all soon.
