A former London gangster is to speak to secondary school students and mass goers as part of Tuam’s parish mission which runs from October 8 to 14. Forty-five-year-old John Pridmore served two prison sentences in his teens and was a feared enforcer in the London underworld.
He underwent a dramatic life-changing experience after nearly killing a man outside a central London nightclub and became a devout Catholic. Since then he has travelled internationally speaking to more than 2.5 million people warning children about the dangers of the gun and drug culture.
Pridmore has just finished a tour reaching more than 7,000 young people in schools and prisons, and has just returned from Chicago and Florida after speaking at international conferences. Last year alone he spoke in 16 countries including a two month tour of Australia and a visit to Liberia where he reached out to former children soldiers who had taken part in the bloody civil war that left thousands scarred by the violence and divided the country for over a decade.
His biography From Gangland to Promised Land has been a regular on bestsellers list and his story is also set to be made into a movie with The Passion of the Christ star Jim Caviezel mooted to play the lead role.
