A man forced to watch as his best friend was shot and killed has opened up on the experience.
Sam Jalloh grew up in Sierra Leone in West Africa where each day in the war ravaged country was a fight for food and survival.
Sam tragically watched as his best friend was shot and killed next to him, changing his outlook on life completely.
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The dad-of-two, who now lives in Southport, is set to share his story with people at The Atkinson theatre next month.
He said: "The show will be a message to humanity of peace and love.
“I saw my best friend killed in front of me during the Sierra Leone civil war. I vowed to get away from the violence - and tennis was my way out.
“Seeing my best friend dying in front of me was a turning point.
“I took things a little more seriously after that.
“Before that happened, I thought I was invincible. After my best friend got shot, that really changed me.
“When it happened, I looked at my Mum and she looked at me in a way that said ‘I don’t want to see that happen to you’.
“To this day, I ask myself ‘what if’? What if we had been standing just 10 yards away from where we were when he was shot?
“I want to tell people at my talk in Southport that violence never pays. When I was growing up, I suffered many beatings from my adopted family, and then saw the brutality of the civil war in Sierra Leone, where a quarter of a million people lost their lives.
“Sierra Leone has only just started to get back onto its feet now. Imagine where we could have been now as a country without that war?”
Sam, a dad to 16-year-old twins Sierra and Sahara, explained how tennis saved his life.
Before ending up in Southport, Sam lived in Freetown in Sierra Leone where he was the first boy in his family to make it to a second birthday, unlike his three brothers before him.
At the time his dad had two jobs whilst his mum had four and had to survive in his younger years without shoes and with just one meal a day.
The civil war began when he was nine, and would go on to wage for 11 years.
When he was young, Sam was captured on various occasions by Nigerian soldiers, brought in to expel rebels from the Sierra Leone city of Freetown. But they didn’t know who were rebels and who wasn’t, and the enemy had snatched and trained thousands of child soldiers.
One day Sam was stopped - but fortunately by a soldier with who he had formed a friendship through tennis.
He said: "I was lucky. I knew one of the soldiers, called Julius, and he let me go.
“We had trained tennis together, and also taekwondo. I didn't recognise him at the time because they all had helmets with black glass on their heads, and they didn't speak much either, they just used their guns to hit you and tell you where to go.
"He came behind me and said, 'You have to run; you have to go.'
“He risked his life for me. I never knew what happened to him after that."
Sam went on to play tennis for Sierra Leone, playing tournaments against players from around the world.
In January 1999 he was playing against a competitor from Israel on a day he would never forget.
Each time he looked across to the sidelines, his coach was quiet, his ear glued to a radio listening to the latest news.
Sam said: “I was playing, looking at my coach for help, but he wasn't saying anything. He had a little radio in his ear, listening to the news. Then he just burst into tears and said, 'Everyone in the city of Freetown has died; I've lost my wife and family.'
The news sparked Sam’s concerns for his own family, who he would later discover had also been victims of the massacre.
He said: “Back then, my Dad never owned anything electric other than a radio he had before I was born, and it took him two hours just to tune it, so I couldn't phone my parents. I didn't know where my family was, and I couldn’t sleep.
"Everyone with us was very supportive. They were hugging us, trying to tell us that everything would be ok.”
The rebels had destroyed Freetown, murdering tens of thousands of people. Had it not been for tennis Sam could well have been among the victims.
Instead, he and his coach found themselves as refugees in Ghana for the next few weeks before they could return to Sierra Leone.
Sam continues to have an outlook on life that embraces forgiveness and tolerance.
He said: “We must be kind to each other, and learn to tolerate our differences, whether that is through politics, religion, sexuality, or anything else.
“We are all one human race, we are a human family.
“I have travelled all around the world and I have known nothing but love.
“Violence doesn’t pay, racism doesn’t pay. In the 21st century, we shouldn't be talking about whose lives matter, we should be talking about being one big family.
“Humanity is given to us all, and we should cherish it.”
Sam moved to Southport 18-years-ago and has used his home as a base whilst he travels the country meeting tennis stars past and present.
He said: “One of the things I am always grateful for has been meeting Virginia Wade at the Liverpool International Tennis Tournament, and becoming great friends with her.
“When I first spoke to Virginia, she said ‘your story is amazing. Why don’t you get your story out!’ I could talk to her all day.
“Mansour Bahrami has also become a good friend, we have worked together a lot.
“I have been around a lot of very talented tennis players, coaching people including Gianluigi Quinzi, who won the 2013 Wimbledon Championships junior boys' singles title; Sachia Vickery, who has been in the top 70 players in the world; while a good local player I have worked with is Natalie Wall, who has been a County Champion.
“I enjoy tennis a lot! I enjoy hitting with top-level players and coaching players.
“I love encouraging children to play tennis too. When the Liverpool International Tennis Tournament is on, we do a lot of promotional work with young people. I love to see children playing tennis and engaging with them in doing something so positive.”
Sam, an international tennis player and a professional tennis coach who loves living in Southport, is the author of a number of books, including the exceptional ‘How Tennis Saved My Life’.
He is the winner of the BBC Inspirations Awards 2020, a Tedx Speaker and has featured on shows including BBC One Breakfast, BBC One Sunday Morning Live, BBC Radio Four Saturday Live, BBC World Service TV and Radio, BBC Africa and many more.
Sam will be hosting a show at The Atkinson theatre on February 24. For more information or to book tickets, click here.
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