Against All Odds: The Most Amazing True-life Story You'll Ever Read

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He then attended lessons to learn how to read and write in his 20s, because he felt it would aid his career as a boxer. His latest book, Not Normal , was released earlier this month and Paul says it is even more detailed than the first. Read More Related Articles When Paul Connolly was just two weeks old, his mother put him out with the rubbish. “one of the neighbours heard me crying and called the police. They came and got me, and I was taken away by social services.” Born the seventh boy of eight children to an Irish Catholic family in Stratford, in london’s east end, he spent his earliest years living with nuns in a convent. The confrontation, which happened when Paul was 13 years old, meant that the abuse towards him stopped. Learning to read and write as an adult

After being abandoned as a baby, Paul Connolly grew up in a very poor and abusive children's home. Throughout his childhood, he was told he would amount to nothing, and probably end up in prison, or dead. For most of the kids he grew up with, this proved to be true. St Leonard's Cottage Homes was built around 1890, and began with trying to house 'pauper' children away from the workhouses. Most cottages were looked after by a house-mother and a house-father. With no real schooling and no positive male role models, Paul gained a reputation as a violent schoolboy, which at least protected him from the attentions of his potential abusers. When he was nine, he joined a boxing club. Here, he fi nally found a group of men who took him in, trained him and fed him. Paul was transferred to St Leonard's Children's Home in Hornchurch, which use to be situated between a bus garage and a park.The home was made up of several dormitories where the children would sleep, with up to 12 beds in each building. Read More Related Articles The boys were subjected to horrific assaults from a gang of paedophiles who would enter the dormitories at night.

Paul has spoken of how the children would not go to school as they would be bullied following the abuse at the children's home, and instead would go and ride horses. I got into boxing and the trainers were the first role models who didn't want to rape us," said Paul. That’s no revenge; your life is over, your revenge should be to go on and have a happy family and to be a successful man and prove these people wrong.” One of his trainers threatened his house-father over Paul's abuse and the harrowing torture stopped.Where to begin with reviewing this autobiography? I feel like I may need to repeat the word autobiography to myself often, just to remind myself that this really happened and that it wasn't just some gritty fictional novel that I was reading. These were the first sort of serious role models that I found weren’t trying to bugger me or beat me up.” he recalls. He left school at 14 and started work on a veg stall in Romford market. He looked set to become a professional boxer and was about to sign a contract at the age of 18, when a severe accident meant that he technically died from loss of blood. The next few years were a struggle.

A third social worker, Hayden Davies, 79, who was convicted for buggering a teenage boy in 1981, faced 37 charges of indecent assault, rape and buggery, had proceedings dropped against him after the loss of evidence meant a fair trial was not possible. It came out, after certain reporting restrictions were lifted at the Old Bailey, that St Leonard's was not just a home for children without a place to go, but paedophiles.

Is Big Boys Don't Cry based on Paul Connolly's life?

Fascinating ! i was thinking at the beginning of this book what shall i do with it when ive finished ? do i give it to a friend? a charity or do i Burn it so nobody ever see's the information again !? But people need to know whats gone on in the world dont they to make sure it never happens again ! keep your eye's closed and nothing changes ... and the beginning part of this book is HORRIFIC ! however it then becomes such an eye opener i feel like ive had an education on wallks of life that i didnt know about ..... i dont normally write this much on a review.