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Charlie Magri
Champagne Charlie
By John Blake Publishing Ltd John Blake Publishing Ltd
Copyright © 2013 Charlie Magri/James McDonnell
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-85782-814-6
CHAPTER 1
TC1[From Tunisia to Mile End]TC1
My name's Charlie Magri. Former British, European and WBC World Flyweight Champion, East End boy from Stepney Green. Well, that's what most people think of when they hear the name Charlie Magri at any rate.
In fact, the truth is a little bit stranger than that. I was born on 20 July 1956 to Andre and Rose Magri, but not in the East End. Although I'm well known as an East End fighter, I wasn't born in London, not even in England. In fact, I was born in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia in North Africa.
Both my parents were born in Tunisia, and their families were from there too. Apparently, they both had French-Maltese grandparents, though more on my dad's side I think. If you look up the surname Magri, it's quite a popular name in Malta, and there's more Magris in Malta than anywhere else outside of Italy. Magri supposedly comes from the Greek word Makri, which means tall – though, of course, not in my case, seeing as I'm only five-foot-three. My mother's name was Rose, or Rosa, but her friends called her Julia, which was a sort of nickname, because it was her middle name. Her family were apparently originally from Marseille somewhere way back, but nobody seems to know quite where. It's all tangled up somewhere in the history of the family.
My dad's side were a French-Maltese family too. Dad had two sisters and a brother; he had some family that had moved to London from Tunisia too, and there were others who had moved to Paris. The family on my dad's side had a business link with Tunisia way back in their history, nobody is sure just how far back it goes because it was so long ago, but, because of that, my great-grandparents had emigrated there from Malta and had eventually settled in Tunisia. Really, when you look at it, my family were all over the place, French, Maltese, Italian, Tunisian; everything but English in fact.
The reason we ended up moving to England was that things started changing in Tunisia when my mum and dad were still there. Tunisia was a French colony at that time, but the Tunisians had decided they'd had enough of that, and they separated from France. Now, like a lot of other people who lived there who had French in their family, my parents didn't much fancy what might happen to them now that the Tunisians had taken control, and they left. So, in 1958, when I was only 18 months old, my mum and dad came to England, crossing the Mediterranean on a long boat journey with a load of kids in tow – me, Walter, Georgie, Tony, Joey and my sister Rita. My youngest sister Mary was the only one of us who was actually born here.
It's funny, isn't it? Most people think of me as being English, an East Ender and a British World Champion but, if you look at my family, I'm a bit of a cross-breed really. But, as far as I was concerned, as I came here at 18 months old, and as all I ever really knew was England, that was it, I was English.
CHAPTER 2
So, What's in a Name?
Now that I've cleared up the myth about my East End roots, I have another confession. My real name isn't Charlie at all, or at least it wasn't to start with, because the thing is, like where I was born, there's a bit more to that than meets the eye. I was actually christened Carmel Magri by my mum and dad.
When I was about five years old, we were living right opposite the brewery on Sidney Street, and then we moved to Burdett Road, and to the Burdett Estate. That was one of my earliest memories as a young kid, of all our stuff being packed up and us moving from our old house to our new one. I was only about three or four years old, but I can remember being confused about what was going on because I couldn't really understand what all the commotion was about.
At that point, I'd only been to school for six months at St Mary and St Michael's School in Commercial Road. When we moved house, there was a school on the estate itself called Stebbon School, and so I moved there from St Mary and St Michael's. Anyway, when I joined that school, my real name, Carmel, was on my birth certificate, so I was registered at the school as Carmel Magri. At the other school I'd just been called Charlie. You see, the French-Maltese use Carmel as the same name as Charlie in English, so in England, Carmel is Charlie.
So, that first day at Stebbon School, I was down on the school register as Carmel, and I heard my name called out at registration: 'Carmel.' Compared to all the other names on the register – normal English names like George, John, David – it sounded a bit strange, and stood out compared to theirs. From then on, every time I heard that name, it frightened me because it stood out, and, not only did I have a strange name, but I was also very small. I was one of the smallest boys in the school; in fact, I was bloody tiny! To give you an idea of just how small I was as a kid, when I had my first proper amateur bout at the age of 11, I was 4 stone 6, only 62 pounds in weight! My own son, when he was the same age was over eight stone in weight, almost twice as heavy! In a funny way, though, being so small forced me to toughen up really, gave me a fighting spirit, and made me into what I became, a fighter.
When you're that small, people tend to think they can take liberties with you, and people started on me at school quite a bit, taking the piss out of my name, or trying to push me around. They would take the mickey, and that would be it, I'd just go for them. I had a really bad temper on me when I was a kid, and I would fancy my chances with anyone, despite being much smaller than everyone else, or maybe because of it. You could say I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder, I suppose. I was very small and I had that name to deal with, and I guess in a way those sorts of things make you want to stand up for yourself. And, after a while, people stopped taking the mickey, because I'd have a go, no matter how big they were. I was pretty fearless.
A few years later, when I started boxing as an amateur I changed my name. When I was with the Arbour Youth Boxing Club, the club secretary Jimmy Graham wrote to the ABA for me, and asked them to change my name to Charlie Magri, and that was that. I never did it by deed poll or anything like that, I just contacted the ABA and they did the rest. So I guess, in fact, officially my real name is still Carmel, but, well, everyone calls me Charlie. I spoke to my father and told him that I was going to go to the ABA so I could box under the name Charlie Magri instead of Carmel, and he understood.
He said, 'Change it, go ahead and do it.'
I was 11 years old at the time. I guess like most people I just wanted to fit in and have what sounded like a normal English name, something that didn't stand out. Jimmy contacted the ABA and saw to it for me and that was that. I went from Carmel Magri, born in Tunisia, to Charlie Magri, East End boy and amateur boxer.
CHAPTER 3
Life at the Burdett
The Burdett Estate was, as it turned out, my home from then until I was about 20 years old. It was only then that I finally moved and got a place of my own, and even then that was my own flat on the same estate! So the Burdett Estate was really my home for all the years I was growing up. The Burdett was brilliant, I really loved it there. It was a real community back then, and everyone knew each other. I guess you could say it was a tough place, and there were a lot of hard men there, but my dad, God rest his soul, was the sort of bloke who didn't take any shit off of anyone; he didn't mess around, and he was well respected by the people in the area. Like a lot of people in the East End at that time, he was a tough, proud man, who worked hard to provide for his family, and, in his case, he had a lot to contend with, with five boys in the family, and two girls as well, nine people in all, all living in the same place! It was like a madhouse sometimes, especially with so many young boys in the house.
Yeah, I suppose you could say the Burdett Estate was a bit rough. There were little gangs associated with different areas of the Burdett, and if you crossed into their territory people would have a go. It was nothing serious, not like now when people are shooting each other all over the place. It was just kids giving each other a bit of ear'ole and the occasional clump, but it made you scared to walk across from one block to another sometimes in case you'd get it. I had quite a few mates on the estate who would go down to the Arbour Youth with me; Martin McGowan, Kieran McGowan, Johnny Fuller and David George were all my mates down the club. One of them, David George, lived on the edge of Burdett Road and, when I'd call for him to go to boxing, I had to sort of cross the estate to get to him. Now, because of my boxing, I never really got involved in any of the little gangs on the estate as such, but there was this one kid called Quinn, who always gave me a bit of ear'ole as I walked through the estate to meet up with David. This Quinn was only a little bloke, like me, but he'd shout out to me, 'Where you going? Boxing again, are ya, Magri?' Every day he used to heckle me on the way to the boxing club, until one day I decided I'd had enough, and I jumped over the fence and gave him a clump and shut him up.
There was always a bit of fighting between kids in those days, and I guess I got a lot of practice fighting before I ever started boxing. Having so many brothers, I had plenty of sparring partners, as all of us, except for Joey, were forever scrapping with each other, always sodding about. I can remember once the lot of us were all messing about in my parents' bedroom, and there was this old flimsy wardrobe in there. We were all laying into each other and suddenly there was this loud crash and we looked round and we'd totally destroyed the wardrobe, we'd gone right through it! There was this great bloody noise, and just then we heard my dad coming back from work. We were all terrified! Luckily for us, my mum got in before he got there, and she just started laughing! When my dad came in, he had this look on his face, and it didn't look like the face of a man who was too happy, but Mum turned around to him, and she just said, 'Boys will be boys, Andre,' and he saw the funny side, thank God. We were lucky she was there to make him see that funny side.
Our house was always packed and always lively. Joey was the quiet one of the family and he was the only one who had his own room. He was the sort who liked to keep himself to himself, and, in a way, he still does. He even had a telly in his own room, which none of the rest of us was allowed, because he spent so much time in his room, in his own little world. He was like the peacemaker of the family between the boys. When we were always scrapping and arguing, Joey would try to sort things out; he was almost like the second dad of the family, as he was the oldest and the most sensible, and the rest of us looked up to him and listened to him when he told us to shut up or calm it down. Thank God he was there, because the rest of us were always at it.
It was only a four-bed flat, bear in mind, and there were nine of us in that house when I was growing up! Mum and Dad's room was on the landing on the left-hand side as you came in the front door, and me, Georgie, Tony and Walter all shared a room. Then there were my sisters Rita and Mary, who shared their room. As you can imagine, there wasn't a lot of peace and quiet to be had in that house, because you were hardly ever on your own. Me, George, Tony and Walter were always in the sitting room watching telly, but Joey was pretty much on his own, and my sisters used to play together in their own room.
I wonder sometimes how my mum and dad coped with us five boys in the family. Walter was the scrappiest of the lot of us. I always thought that Walter had all the tools to have been a bloody brilliant boxer. He had fast hands like you wouldn't believe. When he would get in a fight, cor! He couldn't half handle himself. He was totally fearless as well, he didn't care if there was one or a hundred, he would fight absolutely anyone. I can remember him coming back home once covered in blood, and him telling me he'd got into a fight with three geezers on the train because they'd said something to him he didn't like. But, in boxing, you need to have the temperament to go along with it, and I don't know that Walter could have controlled his temper enough to have boxed, but he was a really hard man. He's calmed down a lot now as he's got older, but back then he was a right handful.
Tony was the joker of the family – always was and always will be. He was absolutely mental, he could have me in stitches just like that, because he had such a mad sense of humour. My sister Rita was another one with a mad sense of humour. Georgie was really talented, and he was mad about his football. When there are five boys in a family, well, everyone is going to give you a bit of respect because there's safety in numbers; you've always got back-up if things go a bit wrong. All the brothers looked out for each other. I was the youngest, Walter was five years older, Georgie was six years older, Tony was eight years older, and Joey was nine years older than me. We were like a little clan there were so many of us
My dad got a job as soon as he came over here; he worked at a butcher's shop in Stratford, called Passinghams, and my mum stayed home. I guess, in a lot of ways, it was a very traditional family set-up. My mum was a devout Catholic, and she stayed at home most of the time looking after the house and us. She certainly had her hands full anyway with so many of us round her all the time. She probably needed to pray to cope with it all. One of the things I really remember about Mum was that she was forever burning candles; she was always praying, especially later when I was fighting for a living. I tell you, if there'd been a blackout in our house, we would've never had to worry, because Mum always had a job lot in the house of those little thin church candles. Dad worked hard to provide for us, and she was a housewife, and that was the way it worked back then. My dad used to go down to Whitechapel sometimes at the weekends, because there was a little Maltese community around there, but Mum didn't go out and about much. I think that really my mum was a very shy woman; she felt comfortable around her family and in the house, but she wasn't someone who liked being in a lot of company, as she would get embarrassed.
Like I said, I didn't move out of that flat until I was about 20, when my boxing was going well, and I was with my girlfriend. I had a mate at the council – I won't mention his name in case he still works there, you never know! He told me he could get me a place on the Burdett Estate of my own, but that someone had died in it recently, which apparently was putting people off taking it. It didn't bother me really, so I took it and just did the place up. The flat was literally opposite my parents' flat; I was just over the road, so it's not like I was going far, but it meant I could get a bit of peace and quiet, because, when you're training all the time, well, you want a bit of time to yourself, don't you?
In fact, right now, I live less than a half a mile from Burdett Road, so I'm still close to where I lived all those years ago, in the area I knew growing up. It's funny, I've travelled all over the world fighting, but, at the end of the day, I've always come back home to the East End, Mile End, Stepney Green; the areas where I was brought up, the East End of London. I guess a place gets into your blood, and I'm still living in the streets that I know so well, even though the place has changed a lot since I was a kid. I'm an East Ender through and through at the end of the day.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Charlie Magri by John Blake Publishing Ltd. Copyright © 2013 Charlie Magri/James McDonnell. Excerpted by permission of John Blake Publishing Ltd.
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