The only thing that makes me sad about my new work as a writer and motivational speaker is that my parents aren’t here to see it. In my book, Kickstart Your Life, I pay tribute to both my parents. I talk about all my dad and mum did for me. I tell the story of how patient my dad was with my early struggles to find the right path in the martial arts. When a former national boxing champion of Jamaica sees his son drop out of boxing – that must be a testing time for any parent! Then, when he saw my success later on, it was a wonderful moment. My mum’s influence was a bit different. Basically – she was an amazing woman, There’s just no other way to describe her. I was lucky to be her son and I miss her every day. Her influence made me a fighter in a different kind of way.  She started a campaign called OSCAR: the Organisation for Sickle Cell Anaemia Research. Nowadays the illness is taken very seriously and has lots of campaigning and fund-raising going on. But historically, as a disease which primarily affects non-white people, that hadn’t been the case and this awful illness had tended to be overlooked.

My mum had inner strength, courage, dignity, self-respect

My mum wasn’t having it. She knew her campaign needed a celebrity, so she got in touch with the comedian and actor Lenny Henry, and signed him up. Her reputation as a charity campaigner spread far and wide. Desmond Tutu, the world-famous South African anti-apartheid campaigner, came to our house to meet her. I’ll never forget the day because the police closed off the road. The writer and black rights activist Maya Angelou came to see her too. She could draw these big names to her because of the qualities she had which they recognised: inner strength, courage, dignity, self-respect. And of course, indomitable spirit, one of the five principles of taekwondo. When I stand on stage this weekend and take my message to a whole new audience, I hope and believe that I’m making her proud.