In 1975 I walked into former Mr Universe, Roy Perrott's, Estuary gym, in Southend, discovered bodybuilding and was hooked, spending the next 6 years pumping iron.
In 1981 I moved on to Progress House Gym, Hadleigh. Training under Roy Duval.

It was around this time that John King, an instructor at Progress house, invited me and my training partner, cousin, Steve Cook along to his karate Dojo, this was my first taste of Goso kempo.

I loved the adrenaline filled sessions, which always started with 30 minutes of intense sparring, which usually ended up with chairs around the hall being welded, eyes being gouged and if you didn't have a black eye or hadn't spilt at least a small amount of blood, then you felt as if you hadn't had a good session. And that was before the line work and pairs work had even began : )
Two years later in 1985 my cousin and training partner sadly died.
Feeling disheartened I stopped training and apart from the odd workout I had 5 years off.
In 1990 I started training with the NKA studying Wado Ryu. It was great to be back in the dojo, I trained with them for the following 3 years up to Purple belt level. Their style of
karate training was very sports orientated and I was steering towards a more street useful style of karate.
I did like the style of Wado Ryu karate. So looked at other Wado clubs in the area.

In 1993 I changed clubs and started training at the Tengu Dojo training under Sensei Anthony Newman, with a few of my training friends also from NKA, such as James Deegan, who is now an Instructor at Goso Kempo, also Mel and Martin Spicer, Who now run their own club, The Silver Dragons, in Hockley.

After an intense training regime and many hours of private lessons with Sensei Anthony Newman and some extra tuition with Sensei John King, on 19th November 1995
I gained my 1st dan black belt.
A year later, due to Sensei Anthony Newman retiring from teaching karate, due to work commitments. I was generously given the opportunity to take on the role of chief Instructor of Britka karate.
Its funny how things happen in life, I would never have imagined for one minute in those early days of training, that I would one day be teaching karate and running my own karate club.

Since that time Britka karate has grown from strength to strength, having clubs in Shoebury, Leigh-on-Sea,Hadleigh and Westcliff-on-Sea.