Frank Bruno
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 1993
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the boxer Frank Bruno.
He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about how he got into trouble as a young boy for fighting with his contemporaries and ultimately with one of his sports teachers, after which he was sent to a special school where boxing was to become his salvation. He'll also be discussing the vicious nature of the sport and the rigorous training programme he undergoes before every fight.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Going by Billy Ocean Book: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe Luxury: Picture of the family
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1993 and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a boxer. He was born and brought up in Wandsworth, the son of God-fearing immigrants from the West Indies. |
| 0:36.0 | Their strict discipline didn't prevent him from running wild, |
| 0:39.0 | and he eventually found himself in a special school, where an enlightened headmaster encouraged him in his appetite for boxing. |
| 0:46.6 | The result was that at the age of 18 he won the amateur heavyweight championship at Wembley. |
| 0:51.1 | He turned professional and by 1986 he was the European |
| 0:54.4 | champion. Now 31 his sights are still set on becoming world champion. |
| 0:59.7 | Beaten by Mike Tyson in 89 he's waiting to meet Lennox Lewis in September this year. |
| 1:05.0 | Despite his sense of comedy and gift for one-liners he disowns being a Mr Nice Guy. |
| 1:11.0 | In the ring he fights to win a peaceful man. He says in a violent sport. |
| 1:16.6 | He is Frank Bruno. |
| 1:18.0 | Frank, your life is a bit of a fairy tale really isn't it? I mean you left school with no |
| 1:22.2 | qualification saying |
| 1:23.3 | that you wanted to be the heavyweight champion of the world and you wanted to be a |
| 1:25.8 | multi millionaire right you're not the champion yet but you're presumably a |
| 1:29.6 | multi millioner I'm not too sure about a multi millionaire if you take the multi millionaire |
| 1:33.5 | into consideration of John Major's 45% of the top and you got to pay VAT and |
| 1:38.5 | live above board and all them |
| 1:43.2 | But I'm comfortable. I must say you don't want for a bit of death. Yeah, we're always all human being soon no matter what you do in life. We always want for a little bit more |
| 1:49.7 | The greediness and it is just a human being you always striven I think if you |
| 1:53.8 | just settle for this that you know I mean that you got to keep hungry and keep |
... |
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