In 2017 West London still felt bruised. Grenfell Tower had burned only months earlier and the shock hadn’t settled. Dale Youth Amateur Boxing Club had lost its gym inside that building and the community around it carried the weight every day.

That summer they held a fundraiser in White City, just down the road from the BBC studios. The sun felt too bright for the mood, yet people still gathered. Coaches, parents, kids, locals, fighters of every level. Everyone wanted to do something that helped.

Then Charlie Edwards arrived. Back then he was already one of the sharpest flyweights in Britain. A year later he would become WBC world champion. On that day he walked straight into the crowd with easy confidence, shaking hands, checking gloves, asking names. He didn’t act like a star. He acted like someone who understood loss and wanted to lift the room.

That was when he spotted the eight-year-old bouncing near the front.
Tommy Machine Kennedy.

Skinny arms. Big grin. Gloves slightly too big for him. He never stopped moving, never stopped watching the older lads on the pads. Charlie clocked him and nodded, as if he’d found the one kid he wanted to work with first.

Tommy stepped in.
Charlie raised the pads.

And the whole fundraiser paused.

Tommy fired a one-two that wobbled his own stance. Charlie laughed, steadied him, and told him to go again. This time he landed cleaner. Then again. Then faster. In less than a minute the crowd circled round. Phones out. Cheers rising. A champion giving a kid a moment he’d never forget.

It felt like hope grew right there on the pavement. A small space between the BBC buildings and the estate, filled with noise and sun and people who refused to let tragedy steal everything. Dale Youth had lost its gym, but it hadn’t lost its fight.

Watching Tommy hit those pads with Charlie guiding him made the day feel different. Lighter. The sort of moment that doesn’t fix the world but reminds you it can be built back.