| Boxing News 17th March 2011 |
In the 17th March 2011 edition of the boxing news Matt Christie wrote a wonderful article about Harry. The article describes the struggles Harry has gone through and is still going through since his stroke in 2009.
For anyone that missed the article, with the kind permission of Matt Cristie, it is reproduced here........
HARRY SENIOR is being held hostage by his own body. He sits on the settee in his South London home and gazes straight out of the window. Three metres and a pane of glass separate him from the grizzled streets he used to stride along. He wants to tell me how hard this all is. He wants to vocalise his feelings of helplessness but he can’t. Every time I ask a question he urges the words that dance in his brain to partner his speech but the memories and desires just clog his mind.
I wonder if the stroke he suffered while sparring Albert Sosnowski 15 months ago has injured his affection for the sport like it’s damaged him. Harry tries to tell me because the response immediately snaps into his brain. Does he miss boxing? But he can’t answer my question as he’d like to.
“Oh yes,” he says softly. “But no. Oh boy. But yes.” Sometimes he doesn’t need to say any more than he does.
Next to him is Andy Farr, a former fighter and Harry’s trainer when the strapping Londoner was a leading domestic heavyweight. From the moment that Andy heard about his former protégé’s debilitating demise, he has done all he can to be by Senior’s side.
“It’s a tough place where he is now,” Andy observes while looking at Harry. “He’ll remember everything that I’m talking about but not being able to get the words out is driving him mad. When you can’t actually interact with the conversation sometimes the frustration is unbelievable. I’m surprised he hasn’t hit out in anger.”
Harry agrees and nods. “Boy,” he sighs.
It is immediately obvious that Harry’s brain is sharp. He follows the conversation, answers questions when he can, laughs when things amuse him, shakes his head when things don’t. There is sadness in his eyes but no sign of hopelessness. Harry Senior is in the midst of a fight; a battle against himself. He wants his body to set him free but there’s a long road to travel before they can meet the ransom of recovery.
“Depression hits most people who have strokes,” Andy tells me. The 49-year-old sits on the edge of his seat and animates his points to enlighten the meaning. He won’t let Harry dissolve into morbid melancholia. “You’re not going to avoid that depression and it’s easy to understand why, particularly for someone like Harry. He was always as fit as a fiddle, a big strapping bloke and very confident and outgoing. When these sorts of things happen you can’t get up and walk about, you can’t talk, you can’t do things for yourself. It’s devastating isn’t it?”
Harry looks at his best friend. “Yes,” he whispers then turns his eyes to focus on the tiny portion of the outside world he can see from his seat.
Communication isn’t always as straightforward between them. It’s not always easy for Andy to grasp what Harry is trying to say. It’s even harder for Harry to hear the sentences in his mind being squeezed into single syllable words that don’t do justice to his intelligence.“We do laugh about it sometimes,” Andy sniggers. Harry smiles too. “He’ll be trying to tell me something and it’s like The Two Ronnies. We’ll go on for ages, back and forth, and in the end we’ll go, ‘Shall we give up? Yeah, we’ll give up’. Hopefully in the not too distant future the speech will come back.”
The initial signs are promising for Harry - or “H” as Andy knowingly calls him. Things are slowly improving. The right side of his body remains mostly paralysed although he recently managed to move that hand - once his most powerful weapon - when the physiotherapist promised Harry £100 if he could roll it over and expose his palm. As Andy tells that story, Senior chuckles to himself and looks at his curled up right mitt nestling on his lap.
Harry can’t see the funny side in everything, though. A sizeable chunk of his skull is missing.
It was removed when the 41-year-old’s brain began to swell. On the left side, just above his ear, his head sinks into itself like a football that needs inflating.
“It took a while before Harry would go out without wearing a cap because people take a second glance because the side of his head isn’t there,” Andy tells me matter-of-factly. “I understand that. But so much of Harry’s old confidence will come back once he’s had that operation. As soon as he’s got that protection back he’ll go from strength to strength.”
While he waits for the titanium plate that will reconstruct his cranium to be fitted, the lack of shelter plays on his mind. The aesthetics are now the least of his concerns.
“He walks in a defensive way,” Andy reveals. “The reason being if he falls over and bangs his head, well, I don’t know what the end result of that would be and I don’t want to think about it. You see, us healthy people take all these things for granted, but for Harry, it’s a major concern of his every time he stands up.”
Andy worries about Harry all the time but not like a mother would worry when she lets her first born out of her sight for the first time. Like an experienced parent, Andy encourages “H” to do as much for himself as possible. He knows what makes his buddy tick - he has for a long time now.
Andy, who had been working with Brian Lawrence to put some bulk onto Henry Akinwande’s spindly frame in the late 90s, met Harry when he was drafted in as a sparring partner for the giant. Senior had lost his early fights but the talent was there. He ended the unbeaten run of Michael Sprott and outpointed future British champion Michael Holden. At the close of the century, Senior was matched with Julius Francis for the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles. Francis pulled out to fight Mike Tyson but Danny Williams was quickly drafted in as a replacement.
Andy knew he had to make his charge work hard in training if they were to have any chance. “I wouldn’t say he was ill-disciplined but let’s just say he had dietary issues,” Andy remembers. Harry begins to laugh, his eyes light up and he rapidly withdraws sharp images of his peak from his memory bank.
“I took him out of his home and he moved in with me for six weeks in Kent. We used to get up at 5am and I tortured him every morning and I got some training partners to help me and we got him in the shape of his life. He was in unbelievable shape.”
Williams edged that fight on points but it was a terrific contest that, on another night, could have gone Senior’s way. As they sit together reminiscing about the old times, affection-laced respect anchors itself between them.
“We have always got on well,” explains Andy. “I’m only eight years older than ‘H’ so although I was training him we’re sort of the same generation and we have a lot of things in common. We bonded pretty early but you do go through a lot, clashes and things, but he’d always listen to my voice in the corner. If I was outside the ropes and Brian [Lawrence] was in it and I spoke, ‘H’s head would turn every time. I think he relied on me and trusted what I said.”
Through no fault of his own, Andy wasn’t around when the most turbulent of disasters ripped a hole through Harry Senior. They had parted ways when Harry retired in 2000 but “H” kept himself in shape; playing rugby as well as sparring until 2007. The catalyst for catastrophe arrived when Harry was made redundant from his job in a paper mill. Money had dried up and he was approached to make a return to sparring.
I ask Harry if he remembers those three days at the beginning of December 2009.
“Yes,” he sighs gently while reflecting my gaze.
“That’s taken a bit of time to come back bit by bit though,” Andy explains after asking Harry if he could take over the story. “The first day he sparred the doctors say he got hit on the neck and it damaged an artery. ‘H’ came home that day and lay on the settee to relax because he didn’t feel very well but he didn’t think it was anything important. He just thought it was the rigours of being back in the ring.”
It wasn’t just that, though. The punch to the neck had deposited a gruesome grenade inside of him. It was only a matter of time before it exploded.
“Apparently Harry got dropped on the second day of sparring,” Andy continues.
“That never happened. I saw him dropped as an amateur by Charles Shufford but apart from that, it never happened. I’ve seen him take monstrous punishment but he never went over. If he did go over on that second day then it should have been a sign that he shouldn’t have been there.”
But by day three, all seemed to be well in Senior’s world as he leapt on the back of his old pal Mark Rowe and joked around in the gym. Beneath the serene surface, though, tremors rippled gently through him and prepared to strike.
“The blood that should have been flowing in one direction was flowing into the brain cavity,” Andy describes. Harry stares straight ahead, locked in the memory of the day he nearly died. “The bleed had been there, all the time, after that first day.
Harry didn’t know it, but the clock that began counting down when he took that punch to the neck two days before, was about to reach zero.
“He warmed up and got into the ring and as the bell went, Mark and Brian spotted that his right hand had dropped down to his side and he was just stood still. Brian jumped in and that’s when Harry had the first stroke, there and then in the ring.”
As Senior’s system quaked under the strain of the trauma, he was airlifted to hospital. It was there that a severe aftershock blasted through his body with such force he wasn’t expected to recover. Harry’s family were told to brace themselves for the worst.
But as life tried to bolt out of him, Senior, ever the fighter, defiantly refused to let it escape. Outwardly, Harry is not the man he was but you can tell he’s in there, battling every minute to be reunited with himself. The mischievous twinkle in his eye garnishes any laughter to prove his humour remains. Since the accident, Harry’s condition has improved daily and he’s had the support of the glorious boxing fraternity to help out. Dave Walker, a former light-middleweight Southern-Area champion, has been a tower of strength throughout, helping Andy whenever able. The BBBofC have been amazing too.
“There’s people around who make you feel good about the game, they really do,” Andy tells me about the incredible fight community before singling out one member in particular. “Audley Harrison, and Christ he’s had some stick, quite rightly for that performance against David Haye, but his generosity has been unbelievable. He’s a lovely man. The money he’s sent has been great but it’s not just that – he’s always making time for ‘H’.”
Pictures of Harry’s fighting days sit on the mantelpiece and tease the prisoner about his days as a free man. But he’s tired of looking back. Harry is moving slowly, but he’s moving forward with the help of those within the Hardest Game. I ask if he’s optimistic about the future.
Harry turns and looks into my eyes. “Yes, yes, yes,” he whispers with a smile.
Anyone wishing to monitor Harry’s progress or make a donation should visit www.harrysenior.com, or call Andy Farr on 078534208390
SENIOR MOMENTS
AUDLEY HARRISON
“Harry Senior and I boxed two times as amateurs and both were tough, close contests. Harry was a tough, no-nonsense fighter who made you work and never made it easy for us boxers to hit and move. I always admired Harry’s toughness and knew he would be the perfect guy to come to Australia and work with me for the Olympics. In Australia, I bonded with Harry and found him to be funny, kind-hearted and genuine. I wish him renewed strength to fight his predicament and my love goes to him and his family.“
JULIUS FRANCIS
“We boxed as amateurs but in the pros I avoided him. Not because I was scared, but because he was a great friend. When his accident happened I was overwhelmed with concern but I couldn’t bring myself to go and see him because it would have done me in. I wanted to remember him as before. I see him now and it hurts; it can make me wonder why we are fighters, why we love the game. But anyone who knows him will tell you he’s a fighter through and through, and that will always be his way. He’ll give this everything he’s got. “
SCOTT WELCH
“He’s a great, great fella. He was a very tough guy but always happy to help. He’d turn up from work to spar me in his dinner break and then go back to work. There’s not many people like that. I went to see him after the accident and his eyes are still alive and it told me he’s still there; everything about him wants him to come back and recover. If it’s possible, he’ll find a way back.“
DANNY WILLIAMS
“Harry nipped me on points in the amateurs and it was always my intention to get him back! We had that fight for the Commonwealth title and it was so tough. He was just coming all night. It doesn’t matter what you do, he just keeps fighting, he’s a complete nightmare! He’s a really cool guy, though. If you saw Harry Senior when it first happened, you’d have thought he was going to die, but look at him now – he can walk, he’s making massive progress. I believe he’ll make a full recovery.”
DANNY WATTS
“He’s a funny, nice bloke. There’s so much fight in him that he’s not just going to sit back and waste away. He’s a battler and he’s got his missus and his kids to think of. He’d never give up in a fight, he’d be fighting to the end. He won’t lose this one.