Emmanuel 0:00

The blessing that he gave me was I now knew everything I shouldn't do to be a good parent, because I'm going to do the total opposite of everything he did. I'm going to listen. I'm going to be there.

Alex Melia 0:20

Welcome to stories of men beneath the surface. I'm Alex Amelia. Join me as we discover what it means to be a man in the modern era.

Today's episode is about the legacy of anger and violence that we can sometimes carry with us from childhood, and how one man is breaking the cycle with his own kids. Emanuel is the youngest of six, yes, five older sisters, and they were brought up in a traditional Nigerian household in London. Emanuel's parents were together. But his father was hardly ever around. Early on, he missed his dad, and wondered why he wasn't there. He can excited about his dad coming home. But later on, that excitement turned to fear.

Emmanuel 1:12

That was one night, my dad woke up, everybody in the house with all of us get up and come down to the kitchen. And this must have been one of the morning because my sisters that woke me up actually, he'd wake up like one of you and then come out that person to wake up everyone, and then tell everyone to come down the stairs. So a lot of rustling a lot of whispering to everyone wake up, come down the stairs. And we all sort of hurried, hurried down the stairs. Tired, disorientated, didn't know what was going on. And then he said, somebody has left a cup in the sink. And that was it. It was a cup. And I just remember thinking, so as a cup, I was so confused. And he was like, who's left the cup? I hadn't left the cup there. So I've got nothing to say. But no one's saying anything. But it took me a minute to realize none of my sisters was said anything. And I feel like it's because they knew what was going to happen. They were all older. But no one said anything. And he asked again, who's left the cap of the sick. And still no one said anything. And then he went to the drawer, they took out a wooden spoon. Anyway, everyone out there. And he started with my sister. At the far end of the queue. Somebody said, so did you leave the cabinet? And she said no. Any hitter anyway. Hector on the hat. I mean, it's the open palm of their hand. And they will stand I mean, remotely turn your hand over to get your get your vape. And it was shocked. Because she said she did it. And that didn't make sense to me. Why are you hitting her? If she just told you she didn't do it. And at that point, I knew that I hadn't left the customer scene. But I also knew that he was going to hit everyone anyway. So before I had a chance to move on, I stepped forward and said I didn't. I didn't. I knew he was if I said now that he'll stop hitting everyone else. And that did went to town. Up and down my legs. Literally he broke the wooden spoon on the leg and when I got another one. And it was like sort of running around the circle trying not to be hit. But he was III just went to town all up and down my legs on my back, backup my arms anywhere he could get a clean shot, punch, grabbed my arm, and then just hit it. And it became a bit of a blur at that point because I couldn't tell you how much he hit me that it was that day where he hit me is because when I was like I couldn't sleep at night, because I have actual welts on my leg from how hard like you've been burned. Like how hard it's been hitting me all over. And like nothing happened like it was there. You know, let's leave a cup in the sink. He'd done his job. And I just remember crying myself to sleep. I was thinking this guy. He's meant to be my dad and that that dads love their children. You don't do this to somebody that you love

Alex Melia 4:31

Do you remember after that situation when you were eight can you remember how long he stuck around before he went off?

Emmanuel 4:37

It was so sporadic that it could have been weeks could have been months was never years. I don't remember it ever being years. I remember him being away for years. That's the thing what that what that died. I couldn't tell you when because I got so used to him not being there. There my mind he was dead already. When he came back the last time I remember him coming back, I want to say I was baby 21. And I didn't, I didn't handle that very well at all. I didn't know how, because I just got used to him being not there. So my body was dead. Then all of a sudden is back, then we all went, right, we all went back to our house to see him. And I kind of just broke down. And then he sort of got to hug me, like we saw, we saw each other yesterday, and I lost my shit. And the bit because I used to smoke quite heavily. And the bit that made me sort of really turn as he tried to speak to me, and I just went outside for a cigarette, and he was like, Oh, don't smoke, smoke is bad for you. And I was like, now you want to give me advice. Because I will eat this, I'll eat the whole pack. So for the sake of doing it now. So you don't get to come back and tell me the smoke is bad. Where we used to tie with that when I started when I was 14, all the things that you missed, and they want to come back and start giving me parental advice.

Alex Melia 6:02

Even though this is obviously a tough period in your life. I think we English guys can almost bring comedy out of a difficult topic or a difficult situation. So

Emmanuel 6:12

Oh, because now it's not that was not tough anymore. Yeah, that's the thing. Now, it isn't tough. Because I've processed it. I've dealt with it. It's, and I think the the positives that it gave me, because when we when we go back to the question of what does it mean, for you to be a man? I never had that question. Because I grew up with all women. So my thing was, what does it mean for you to be an adult? What does it mean for you to be a parent? Because even now think about what people say to me, what do you think it means to be a man? I was like, Well, that depends on the man. For me, I never think what does it mean to be a man I think what does it mean to be a parent, it just happens to be that my role as a parent is a father.

Alex Melia 7:03

So the gender thing is not a big thing for you don't really, I don't

Emmanuel 7:06

really care, all the things that I think a man should be, are actually the things that I think a parent should be, that does my role, the role that I play is father in this house. So for example, when we had our first I went back to work, she did it. And the only reason that that was the decision is because I earn more than her, I'd have quite happily been the stay at home parent, that's actually really hard. Because there's so many things that I have missed, just because I'm at work. But that's the role that you take. And for me that I, I feel it was, it's my responsibility to look after my household. And that's what it is, for me to be a parent, and that's financially that's emotionally that physically, those to me are the three pillars. If all those three, three things are in good places, that model is easier to sustain. I look at everything in the model of a triangle. And I do that with everything. So even just life generally, I go friends, family work, if any one of those is off, that triangle won't can't be balanced.

Alex Melia 8:25

I find it interesting that you're breaking down misconceptions about about masculinity. And that the idea of the fact that you're happy to be a stay at home dad, because people could look at you and they see this huge guy, masculine guy, alpha male, whatever you want to call it. And they they might have a particular idea about the way you are, maybe it's a patriarchal family, Nigerian background, so on and so forth. But you're breaking down those, those stereotypes,

Emmanuel 8:53

because I think more than I ever used to, and that's a thing growing up growing up, I grew up angry about everything, that anger I would never speak about. And I said to people, now you can only fill up a cup until it's full than whether you were gonna be the nicest cup, it's gonna spill. And then anything that's around it is going to get affected. And that's what would happen. I wouldn't talk about anything. Then somebody could say something that just sets me off. And we're fighting because that was the year that we grew up it. It was if you if you have an argue with someone, if you didn't agree, you went outside justified. Very, very simple. And in some ways, I do think it's better because there was never gang fights. There was never group fighting. If me and you don't agree on something, we're ever going to let it go or we're going to go outside and have a fight. Either way. It's done after that. And there was no repercussions. So it wasn't you're going to come back with 10 of your friends with a knife about 10 of my friends. There was none of that. You had a fight One you lost, simple. And there was times when that would have been warranted. But there were times where I have to share anger, somebody would say something to me. And I bypass all of that, and I would just lose my mind, I'd see when there's times I don't really remember exactly what's happened, you just sort of Blink and there's someone lying on the ground.

What are those triggers for you? And where do they come from? Is it stuff with your dad,

surprisingly, not. It was just, it could be anything, I just might not be in the mood that day, it might be, it'd be things like I could have been having a conversation or seen pictures of a dad or it could be just life around you. The frustration of not having things that I saw other people have the frustration of working hard and not getting anything for it. The frustration of no having no one really there to make any sort of direction. And then someone would say something stupid. I remember someone says something about my mom, maybe 1314. And it was the kind of stupid shit that that boys will say to each other, your mom. But that was enough of that day specifically, for me to lose, lose my bike. And then as you get older, that sort of lifestyle isn't sustainable. And then you realize that you actually can really hurt people. And then as we got older, we started doing more things like boxing, for example. And then, as I got to my late teens, early 20s, I'm doing door work. And I'm getting bigger, physically, I wasn't always the size, the more that I realized that I could do, the less I wanted to do it. Like when I was sort of younger, any argument on the front of that nightclub ended in a fight. And it would probably end with me Knocking someone out. And it's all very well and cool is considered cool. If you're not like a threat, one punch, you're the one not to mess with, you're getting that respect from the peers of their area, you're now what's considered a face in your local area. And then I remember and annoyingly, this was probably one of the times where it was actually warranted. I was working at a club, we'd flown this guy and we actually throw about nicely he was he was drunk. We walked him out. We sat down on the wall. He tried he had been arguing. And the night I think we have like 15 minutes left of the club. So I was like, just and I said to him very calmly, just just sit here. Your friends are going to be out in a minute. And then the club's over, everything you're doing right now is pointless. He's too drunk to hear it. He wants to fight. I turn around to walk back into the club. He picks up a pole that was on the floor. The crack three, Beckett ran back and ahead of it. And I'll tell you what, it hurt like it's sent me flying forward. And it's yeah, it's like you turn around, you're thinking what the hell was that. And then I see him charging towards me with the pole to hit me again. So I hit him first approach approach that goes straight to the face. But the problem was I didn't hit him. I didn't hit him necessarily hard. I hit him right? connected at the perfect spot. And this guy was out cold before he hit the floor. And he hit the floor hard. And I've seen and he's on the floor now and he's not moving. He's literally his eyes are open. He's not moving. And I'm saying is why I just swell up and close, as is on the floor. And in my mind, I thought I've killed him. And at that point, forget near death. At that point, your life flashes, because I'm watching that, but in my head, I'm going right? You're about to get nit. I know that that's gonna be a GBH charge, and if he hadn't killed him, that's going to go down to manslaughter unless you're looking at at least eight years. For what 15 pound an hour. And all the other dogs are like you need to leave and I was I can't leave until he moves. I was I've never been so scared in my entire life. Because that's life changing. What do you like sort of cake turned blue? That's the most relieved I've ever felt. It was It was horrible. Even even that night as a friend of mine, who was a police officer, I've got home I've got him on the phone straightaway. I was like, Look, this is what's happened. Like, what do I do? What do I say? And I explained to him everything that happened. He was like, if I was you go out and for police, because at this point, they definitely have your name. Just go down to wherever the police station is that was local. And answer the questions exactly what you've said to me because what you've done, that's fall in the line of reasonable force. Because he's, he's hit you once, and then he's charged with a poll. And all of this is on CCTV as well. And quite luckily, what turns out that guy went to the police and lied, he told them that I dragged him down a flight of stairs, kicked the shit out, and then threw him through said double doors, and then beat him up with a pole. And as soon as I said that, as well, I've got nothing left to say, because his injuries don't match what you've just told me. And I say that all of this is on camera. So this conversation now, it was completely pointless. And it took a while. But then it all got it all got dropped, they had all the evidence to see what he'd actually done. But at that point, if he had, unless the thing he could have fallen slightly differently, and died, then none of that evidence would have mattered. Scary.

Did you ever see that viral video of Julius Francis who fought Mike Tyson back in the early 2000s. And he just one bomb, this guy just knocked him out cold, it reminded me that I get really worried now at the thought of punching someone and then falling awkwardly and dying, rather than the fear of actually being punched myself, because I've been involved in a couple of situations. I'm from Wigan. So I remember being in a nightclub in Wigan. And I remember speaking to this girl, and in my peripheral vision, I just saw this guy walking towards me. And he had his hands up ready to punch me. So I punched him twice in the face. And at that point, I'm worried that the bouncers are going to kick the shit out of me. So I said to my mate, come on, we better get out here. Pretty sharpish. So we got out of there. But I was about 2122 at the time, but now I'd be trying whatever I can to avoid a physical confrontation happening. Because like you say, you know, you can just get sent down for that stuff and your life's over.

I don't go to clubs anymore, I can't be in a nightclub, I only see the bad now, I'm always on guard, I'll go to a nice bar, I can sit down, have a drink. I don't do clubs. So the way we were actually brought up if you'd like was, if you can walk away from a fight, walk away, do whatever you can to walk away from that fight. But if someone puts you in a position where you can then lay him out, if anyone hears of me punching anyone, other than they deserved it, because that's a very much a last, a last resort for me. And even now, I remember arguments that I've had over the last five years, where I've said to people, like I'm walking away, I'm thinking about, I'm gonna walk away for your benefit, not for mine. Because I know exactly how this is going to end.

There's a lot of power in that isn't that you've not allowed your emotions to override your logic. Because some people might think if I walk away, then that other person will think I'm a coward. And it's definitely not like that.

I'm never gonna say it again, I don't really care. I remember there was once we were in Prague for a stag do. And there was like, I want to say maybe 15 of us. There's a

recipe for disaster all over this.

We're out. And now we're there for a good time having a drink. And we're in this one bar, keeping ourselves to ourselves as well. There was another statue in there. And there steg that we love. We got them involved with us as well. So right now, all of us are having fun. But then the other steak that that guy is best Ben. Johnny, big bollocks has come over. And now he's the king of the party. So he wants to do the drinking challenge. So there we've done it, I believe but he starts getting more and more aggressive. Because we're playing sort of very much rugby drink and there was like bets going on. So one of the bets was if you can't net that pint in five seconds, I get to rip your pants off. And we did that we did that to each other. And then this guy, he came over and he was just he just started you could feel that his tone was becoming more and more aggressive. To the point where I was just like, I'm done with this dude because I can see where this is going. Either these characters means that less arm wrestlers that want to arm wrestle, because they saw wrestle for a pint. I'll tell you what, you've won the arm wrestle. Let me buy you a drink. I'm not going to get at this because I know what you want you. You want this luck. And that's something you'll get from being this sort of size. People want to prove themselves. And when you've got nothing to prove, they will just keep going and going and going. And I was just like, there's no point at this time. as well. So look, let's get you a drink, have the three of them with them. Because you've dropped my drink in your drinking game. And so that's why I don't get your drink all the time. And when they go in, and he just there was nothing left for him to get angry about. And then it was that as I said to him, I was like, let's just go to the next place.

So you've just removed everything that he could possibly have against you in terms of like a challenge. You're just removing all these things. So actually, defusing the situation, essentially, what a 21 year old and Manuel have said the same things.

Oh, God knows. And that's the thing. I know that 21 year old Emanuel would have grabbed him and throw them through the first thing he could have, whether it was a door stairs, doesn't matter. I would have felt threatened. And I would have left out first,

what is it about men issuing challenges to each other? What is that? Why is it? I'm going to go and find the biggest guy in this group. And I'm going to prove myself in some way, whether it's an arm wrestle whether it's a drinking game, whether it's women related, what what is it as men that we have to do that?

I don't know. But we've done it with a lot of stuff. Think of how many Olympic sports are based on it. I can run faster than you I can jump higher than you I can throw this further than you. There's something about bloodsports as well. Like we still got boxing, MMA, and I don't even like to watch remember, ground and pound someone that pause never sat well with me because again, the rules we were like, if someone's on the ground, you'd let them you don't you don't put someone on the ground. I don't like watching never made rugby. I love playing rugby. And one of the things I love about playing rugby is it's controlled aggression, you get all of your anger out on the field. But rugby as well comes down a lot of the time. So who wants it more? How hard? Are you willing to fight to get that to get that goal. And I don't know what it is about that competition, or feeling like you've got something you need to prove. And that's something I'll be honest with I do, I will struggle with. Because I have to constantly tell myself with things that you don't have anything to prove.

controlled aggression is an interesting one. Because it seems like you've really evolved over time where you were, you told the story about being a bouncer, and you know, other physical altercations you've been in, it's not controlled, is it? You're just reacting in that moment. Whereas now you're putting your logic first, and you're able to really, like you say, control that situation. And it's not just lashing out at someone, it's really thinking about the situation at hand,

even when we finished being bouncers. So the last club that I worked at, even then it was still controlled aggression. Whenever I lost my temper, I didn't have to punching someone is one thing that you can be punished is a lot scarier. So if I hit you, you're gonna get really angry. If I put your arm lock, well, you think my wrist is about to be snapped, all of a sudden you're compliant. Because there's that risk of vulnerability, that right there, there's nothing you can do about this. And it's that kind of that side of it, where you become a lot more effective. They don't have to punch in the face for you to do what I need you to do. I can walk you out of a nightclub, or I can just talk you down. Because a lot of the time when people are angry in nightclubs, they just want to be heard. They just want to vent out why they're angry. And then you let them

just a catharsis thing for them. Yeah. You've talked a lot about anger in this conversation today. And I want to go back to your dad, is there any situations that you have now or you had in early adulthood, where that anger was related to what happened to you as a child with your dad?

Partly, but then the thing that I've I've really had to deal with is, the one thing that I used to hate people saying to me, is, you look just like a bed. You are just like your bed. And I used to hate it because it's true. I have the same short temper. And he did. We've got this, a lot of the mentality was like build, look, attitude is I am my father's son. I am very authoritative. And again, the older I get, there's a lot of that sort of my Nigerian heritage that plays a big part of my character. But the nice thing is because I know all of that. I've now not that the blessing that he gave me was I now know everything I shouldn't do to be a good parent, because I'm going to do the total opposite of everything he did. I'm going to listen more, I'm going to be there. It's not so much telling you what to do. It's the question of giving you that lesson, and then letting you decide and being there for the consequence. And that's the biggest thing that I've showed my kids is that you have to live with consequences. I think a very important thing is learning how to deal with emotions and owning your emotions. So I find a lot of power in saying things out loud, like 20 years ago, you and I are not ever having this conversation. Because we just wouldn't, I don't know you. There was I'm not gonna talk this openly to anyone about any of this, because it's none of your business. Whereas now, I know that there are plenty of other people who do have a lot of anger related issues. And a lot of time, you're not angry. This is another thing. So especially to comedy, and I'm a competitive person. I'll give you an example. So this year, when they were filming Live at the Apollo, I found myself getting really jealous that I wasn't on that line up, even though I've already done it. Which is, which is completely illogical. You've done it, you've already done it. But in my mind, I and I had to sit there and say out loud, I'm jealous. And it forces me to go, why? What are you jealous off because you've done it? And the more I thought about it, it felt like, because this is the new season. I felt like old news. I felt like because I'm not at this season, I'm not going to be relevant anymore. And I go, right, that's how you finish. So what are you going to do about it, because you can sit here and moan about it. Or you can do something about it. That's your choice. So I chose to get out. And literally, I got the phone to my agent. What have we got covered up? What can we do next? Go Let's go through a diary, who we're going to visit the shows what to do, let's play the how to do it. And we started doing that. And since then I've done a few TV shows. And it's what I found the big strength is understanding like, even if I'm angry, what am I angry about? Why is it affected me this way? And what am I going to do about it? How angry am I? So sometimes I'm like, I need to go to the gym with my boxing gloves, and just punch it out. Because it might be just a few things that are all on top of me. And I need I need I need it. Sometimes I just need to go for a walk. But a lot of the times what I need to do is remove myself from that situation. And calm down. Because anger is a human emotion it's going to happen. So my all my kids play rugby. And that was got to the age where he now he now tackles. It's physical now. And there was one game where this kid kept pushing him. And he was just being a hot this kid has been a horrible little prick. I wish I wish I could say it out loud on this for you. I didn't like this kid. I wanted to hit this kid. And he just pushed it too far. And now I went to lose his temper. And I quickly grabbed him. Right? Can't have it can't just look at me and calm down. Take a breath. And he was really sad. Yeah, but he's doing this. I was like, that's fine. He stood there. Because that's what he knows, you know better than that. Put it in the game. If you want to tackle him, then tackle it. But don't be angry. Because then both of you will get hurt. And he just called down for the next time that kid got the ball now we're talking about it was a completely clean tackle. And what I liked it, he didn't gloat about it. He did, she tackled him stood up, because the boardroom passed off, helped the kid out and gave him back his cable back his tags. I think what it means to me to be a good parent is to set that example that they can live from and do better. I think the best thing you can give your kids is time. I want them to be able to be self sufficient, and to allow them to have choices. That's why I'm really big on education. Only so you have because I think the more the more you know, the more choices you're going to have later on in life.

Did your dad give you the things that you're giving your kids now?

Absolutely not. There's none of this from him. All pieced this together from making mistakes from seeing my friends, dads and how they were With, I've pieced together from having conversations with with my mom, as these were all of these things have have come from it, it has been, it has been putting together that jigsaw to finally get a piece a picture that I'm happy with,