SAS Assassin - Mission Certain Death & Somali Pirates: Phil Campion

literally looked [Music] we're in the zone it got called operation certain death in the end because the only real option we have is just to fly a helicopter strength in the middle of the camp jump straight on top of everybody and have it out with them this was the first major punch-up I'd ever been in really I've been blown up a couple times a couple of bullets down again but never never a full-on right I mean you can't here we go come and get it I mean Somali pirates are taking ships if these little boats come along right they've got all the guns they've got AK-47s I runs into the bridge to see if I've got anything left I can throw at this lunatic before he gets on and the captain used to have a little fridge you know those little travel for instructions I've got one chance with this fridge right so our leans on it special [Music] welcome to show mate that thanks for having me thanks for having me I'm very much looking forward to this one mate that would get it off let's get it out let's roll all those backfill where did you grow up and how did you become one of the most well respected people ever to be in the SAS well so it's a it's a long old story right so faster you sleep up because we're going to smack this one out right basically I was adopted as a kid um my my biological parents fell on Hard Times whatever um they they put me up for adoption I was adopted to a family down south now this family in Southampton they fought they were still like middle class but they weren't you know I mean they lived on the council estate they thought they were some they weren't I don't think they really got themselves into something they wanted because I got beaten mercilessly as a kid by the old man he sort of like turned on me lost his job and I think the week when I was moving down there lost his job and how old were you when he turned on you oh mate I I my earliest memories my earliest memories are of him hitting me you know they they you know and I had this sort of thing in my own head whereby if he would hit me I could I could I could take it for so long but if I screamed and wriggled then he would carry on and I've worked out that if I stopped screaming and wriggling and went limp and sort of like uninteresting he'd leave it alone like a dog like a dog with a bone and you know what right this is the first one my early members are thinking that's a result it's a honking result it's not a great result is it but it's a result and it's one step further than the being do you know what I mean so it was a positive step in my view but yeah yeah no growing up wasn't great not saying it was all bad but you know with them in the early years so did they did they did your parents know who though you were they were passing you on to no no no no no once once you go into that system once you go right there you go have him you literally and just and your kid over you do the off you never see him again and they get told don't even bother looking because you won't be able you won't you have the access to go and get him and where were you born then the ball in Lambeth and then you come down to Southampton then I'll come down to Southampton literally wow you know motorbike inside car yeah that's all yeah there's no car or nothing like that and what rough what year roughly were talking now 69 yeah 69 like to stay in hospital for quite some time because I had a thing called pyloric stenosis where I was born some on my stomach on the outside so once I stuff that away and put it all back and zipped it up then then they'd let me go like so I was a bit late to be adopted but it was like eight or nine months old straight down the road down to Southampton and then brought up bodies too but like I say the old man had major drink problems he'd lost his job he just wanted to smack me about started smacking her about as well eventually she threw him out yeah but then she turned on me she started smacking me about as well so it was like there's no wind yeah it was just it was so failing at school failing that just about everything I did um I ended up I got a bit of a Lifeline I got sent to this public school big Posh place in Oxford passed his past a test and they sent me off when I got there because they'd all been through the prep school system they were all boss kids like you know what I mean who's this lunately I was in they all had their tailored I had the flares I'm like oh no they used to call me Kevin they used to believe me I've got bullied there eventually he took no more of that beat someone up got sent out expelled second school have been expelled from ended up in the care system proper and from there it just sort of like went went worse and worse really a couple of years explain to me what the care system's like right so you're talking the care system in the 70s here late 70s early 80s we were talking early 80s yeah and it was you went to an assessment center now assessment centers were quite brutal and if you messed around like I was any opportunity to get out the door and I'd run away right every time down the road arrested in South see arrested it you'd get taken back of course the old building them days are slightly different you've got sent back they need to be locked up so in Glen house for instance I was locked up I was banged up all day do you know what I mean I just let out for dinners but it just it was a different world the other thing that was there at the time and something that took me a long long time to talk about I came across sexual abuse you know the people used to try and touch you and all that sort of stuff and it started off with people trying to touch it I've had someone expose himself in front of me all that sort of stuff and you were told quite categorically by these people that were grooming you you dare say anything about this you'll just come back in this Arrangement you know I mean you say anything about what's going on here and you're the one that's going to be in trouble because you're the one that everybody's looking at you're the one that can't keep themselves in check yeah I mean you had no chance you just had to buy yeah just had to shut your mouth take it and just try and get through it as best you can like you know I mean so there was no there was no like Ed Master at go to and tell them or something if one of them was a master the worst one I ever come across was it was a guy and he was the Headmaster what's his name his name was Houlihan he's dead now he's dead yeah he's dead um yeah he later on in life got done with his stepdaughters he announced them and ended up in Nick did a bit of time for it as well so one you know guys so the care room is in the 80s in the 80s which yes brutal they were everyone I've interviewed have been a care home has had a massive impact on them it did but it also you know the positive thing from that yeah was I was learning I was learning all these social skills you know pecking order all that sort of stuff were learning how to navigate yourself around some of this more honking stuff which isn't brokered by anybody anymore it's still there but people don't know how to approach it how old are you when someone was doing this 13 years old 13. are you at a size now because you're a big man absolutely tiny yeah you see photographs of me I'm I'm really small I was quite slight to be honest yeah and did you get to an age where this anger was building up where you know you're looking again I know what you're doing I'm 14 I'm 15. I know you're doing I'm going to clocked you I clocked two of them I hit one with a bed leg in um close with Glen House night Watchman came in I'll talk to you in Sunday night yeah we might want to hide a bed like one of those metal bed legs off the old black issued beds hit him I went out the window the mate that went out the window with me you broke his ankles he rolled it back in the dirt all right I dragged him off down the road we had to end but when we come back in the morning funnily enough oh oh what happened oh yeah they was nice as part of these two geezers so we never said nothing just kept our mouth shut just carry on do you like me yeah because they had this thing on you the whole time you open your mouth you're in the ship you know how many you're the one wow and how old were you until you actually left the krm system um I left just shortly before 16th birthday I ended up on that youth training scheme thing I lived in a trance again I listened as transport calf it was murder so I had a room in a transport Cafe and every night there'd be a different Lorry driver so I'd I had the bottom bunk in a just horrendous every night I'd be like what another truck yeah yeah yeah go to sleep am I honestly disgusting [Music] great thing for me I was teaching skiing to go to break down the yts are you trying to scream yes it was a scheme where I don't know who brought it in but you could you got 25 pound a week yeah you got it there's your Dole money but you had to do a job for it so you know people with bricklay and all that through the children's home I managed to secure me this thing teaching skiing down at a place called counteractivity Center it was the right result it was an easy job it was great fun things were going really well I thought no this is it I'm in for life here I'm a skiing instructor what more do I need to be like does that mean I've made it I skived it out for two years down there right I had a right laugh and then at the end of it the Giza who was employing people said well I can't really employ you so you've got no qualifications I mean I left school for cycle efficiency I took that twice so I mean I had nothing yeah so I'm like uh uh what do I do and he just said to me said have you ever thought about joining the Army and that was when I saw like I was in the CCF when I was in that public school the Posh school yeah and I thought yeah that was all right yeah everyone was the same and they pulled them green clothes on yeah and that was it so that's that that appealed to me I was look I've been done for I've clouted someone so I was just starting to pick up a few offenses yeah you know would punch someone I've been done for abh I had a gbh pending and all this sort of stuff and I'm like oh do you know what I mean so I really was on that sort of like on the balance of do I join up and probably save me skin for a little bit longer or do I just go down that road and take what's coming up do you have anyone around you did you have any sort of like fatherly figure or Mentor or or brother or an uncle or anyone or is it literally you on your own no just me and my own and I couldn't trust these men because the the people who had been in positions of power around me that were both abused him yeah yeah do you know what I mean and they weren't they weren't particularly good Role Models at all do you know what I mean they weren't my sort of people yeah you know as much as I'd like to have said that you know they would have cut but there wasn't there just wasn't anyone there do you know right now so it was yeah it was difficult and then what was your route then after the yts literally Griff who I mean Griff Griff was a father figure in a way Griff was in charge of this activity okay yeah right and he was but he wasn't he wasn't there how can I say he was a rock a posh man what are these like you know I mean he thought he had a map of England on his leg after three o'clock he's fallen asleep like you know what I mean he wasn't like me and you he wasn't a bloke he wasn't against it yeah yeah so although his intentions were on abroad he was a good man and he helped me out yeah I couldn't see him as a father figure because he was nothing like me whatsoever so he was the one who sort of like pushed me the walls right get him to the police office get it get him go on lunch I mean careers office I went sure enough 10 minutes later I'm I'm still on the line and I mean I've joined up do you know what I mean I've done all the Medicals I've passed all that take test infantry infantry infantry infantry where do you want to go how I'm off as soon as soon as good source that 18 19. um I was about 18 years old yeah because I'd acted I'd looked at it before and they told me to wait a year when I was 16 because I had these criminal these juvenile criminal things on me on my thing which were and did you find did you find straight away when you went into the army like like this is for me I liked it yeah I did like it yeah I'll be honest I struggled a little bit in basic training I've not you know I didn't take things on I was fit yeah now I always say this to young people now if you're fit yeah that's one thing you've not got to worry about yeah so I'll see people getting ready to go on runs and they're like oh God I'd soon to be running in the learning because I can run all day when it comes everything else but I can run all day that's right yeah where's the running stuff so that's all right so I'm happy with that yeah um funny thing so I I got got all the way through basic training and this is true so I've got best improved recruit but I only found out a couple of years ago that meant he was a complete idiot when he turned up we got him over the line actually what was the route in there then for you did you feel like you were in a safe place so this was one of the things that really struck the minute I went through that camp gate those lunatics especially the one I mentioned earlier and he couldn't get me anymore yeah he couldn't come in the camp so I'm as safe as ours is in Camp there's no way on God's Earth he can get anywhere near me he can't contact me he can't because he'll have mobile phones or nothing like that in days if I wanted to speak to somebody like the queue with everybody else I know I got there before we got slung back to our pits so yeah I didn't I'd have to have anything with that it's the first time in life I've genuinely felt I belonged somewhere brilliant because I don't have any place there do you like me I belong somewhere and I yeah it was and I felt safe because this none of these people could come after me anymore so I couldn't do anything to do anymore which is great and what was the route like there from 18 onwards to the to the journey you took to get into the SAS that's right so and I had a great time with it in in in in the normal Army I did loads of cool courses I did my parachuting course I did my commando of course I did all these really we did both of them I've done them both yeah Commando yeah but a problem he said no I had a great time so just plug that just break that down then for The Listener what's the difference between going and doing your commando and doing your parachute right so if you join up as a paratrooper you naturally do p company move on if you join us Commando you do the command of course you move on as a royal marine or as a paratrooper right if you go infantry like I did you will sometimes get the opportunity to do your commando course and then you're what you called an army Commander yeah right you earn your green lid you do the Commando tests and the same with P company you do you do your P company you do your jumps you can wear the wings you can wear your red lid so I just ended up in a position where I ended up doing them both yeah which was good so you know I don't think as many people have done both right I don't know there's more than what you'd think you know I mean I know Middleton was banging on about being the holy Trilogy and all that was a shut up there's loads of us have done it the holy trilogy which one was harder oh yeah people ask me this all the time so P company really is like getting a plastic mug and smashing your own heading with it yeah for three weeks yeah the Commando of course you still got to smash your head in but you've got you've got to think a little bit too does that mean and you get gaps in between smashing your head yeah you see I mean so it's a longer course it's just as brutal but you get a bit of time off in between the brutality and you have to think your way through that course as well you do it you do have to actually do some soldering yeah I mean so they're both tough for different reasons and what did you do so you've got both you get to choose you said well I want to be no I finished my commander of course tried to transfer I thought right I'll join the Marines now and the officer no no you won't no no you'll go back to your units I literally didn't do anything with it um and then the P company we had a we had a so the pay company the parachute regiment yeah we had a platoon that had to be airborne trained for the period of time that we were we were in five Airborne Brigade as a normal infantry battalion and you like to have a whole platoon of you that were born trained so you know I've Got The Power I pay for those two years and that was it we moved on at the end of it but I didn't I ended up going on selection so so what made you how long were you in how long were you in that for before you went and done selection uh about 10 years okay about 10 years in the princess of wales's Royal regiment and the Royal Hampshire so infantry unit a good infantry unit I'm gonna say all right enjoy myself but it was lacking you weren't getting and I upset quite a few people I got busted from Full screwed down to Tom twice you know I mean I was always in trouble I was always I was all I ever wanted to be was the tip of the sword I had no interest in promotion yeah and I was getting my 10-year point I'm getting to the stage where they're going right you really need to be going on on a senior course now you want to be looking at platoon and I didn't want that yeah I genuinely want that so I tried to transfer to the parachute regiment um I went a slightly crooked route you're supposed to go through sort of like asking but I went straight to the top and after Brigade Commander which is a massive No-No yeah so got myself in a bit of trouble for that well you got in trouble for asking to go in yeah because I didn't go through the correct trainer command you're supposed to ask your line manager the next line manager I went straight to the top I've got a good screaming out for that then I fell out with my commanding officer over what had happened with that and I said they're not going to bang me paperwork in for special forces and so and he went well yeah not yet though he said you've got to do two years of Northern Ireland because he can stop you from going and so that's what I did I gave him his two years and at the end of it or halfway through it he said look there's nothing really happening here why don't you get training and off you go so you said you gave him your two years so you went to Northern Ireland for two years did you yeah well I I ended up just doing a year of it and what year are we talking here roughly oh dude that's 96 something like that so 96 now how old are you have been then okay and what was that like for you going from being back in England today and then going like you're going out to Ireland were you excited to go to Ireland or did you hear the best I've done it I've done a two-year tour I've done a six-month tour I've done another six so you're in a island all the time it was like it was it could be tough there you could have your worst day ever you know and the IRA summed up perfectly you know we've got to be lucky once you've got to be lucky all the time haven't you know I mean that was the deal it wasn't as kinetic as possibly Iraq and Afghanistan but I mean if you've got in a dust up you're going to dust up you know I mean the bomb blows you up whether it's in Afghanistan or Iraq it just wasn't those intense you know some of the lads that have done these Eric tours and all that they've been blah blah blah blah every five minutes they've been on the other end of it I mean Northern Ireland was a sort of like right okay you know you could go for days and days and days and days and months and years and possibly never with some people but when it did go off it went off like Chinese New Year you know what I mean so it could be you know it could it could go off properly like you know so yeah and you had that at the back of your mind yeah I mean you knew that was the hostility like towards you lot out there from the Irish depends it depends on who they were and this is what I always say to people you know there's good and bads on both sides of the coin so you know some of these people who lived in some of the harsher Estates they were you know they they put on a front if somebody was there like you know what I mean but they they weren't too bad they just wanted piece as much as any other yeah there was obviously people making a lot of money out of terrorism a lot of you know so there was a lot of stuff going on the background there were some horrible honking people there but there was people on both sides of the community were just as honking you're like me you know some of these people you know these so-called you know terrorists on on the on the Protestants right there's just as much honking suffers them so it was like you know you just got away up I tried I tried to read a bit of history of the place before I went so at least I had an understanding of what it was all about and if you do go back in history and you were Irish you could probably go and hang on a minute you swept us into the seat you know you connect all our potatoes what was the what was the day-to-day feel like at an island depends what were you carrying depends yeah it depends what you're doing all always SAA is in the normal role in the in the sort of like the the standard infantry roles of your sa80 with rubber bullets no no no no no so that's the just the normal assault rifle yeah which is the SAA you might have a bat and gun if you're in town there's no point in cow what a baton gun you know what that is a rubber okay you can bounce off of people all the good stuff um and then if you worked I did a thing called cop which was close observation platoon so again we'd have the same we'd hide in bushes and buildings and that sort of stuff and take photographs of people and that was my real introduction to Special Forces because they ran some of the training for you to do that you had to work in plain clothes sometimes because you'd be driving cars and blokes would be getting out the boot and into bushes and all that sort of stuff and it was good it was cool you're like this is this is probably not maybe you were learning there was more chance of you coming face to face with somebody who was actually going to get a tear up with so you were sort of like yeah it gave you that it gave me a little bit of a spark to say I'll tell you what that's good imagine what these guys are doing right you know what I mean so that was the bit that was the bit that got your ears picked up to go yeah that that definitely I mean I've seen them before we'd had a couple of instructors on a jungle course that I'd done in Kenya and so I knew that this unit exists but I didn't really sort of like paid too much attention to it until I went to Northern Ireland and then you knew if the troop turned up you know if a car full of lunatics with beards and long hair turn they'll be like wow you know you know look at them so when you landed back in England after that tour yeah what's the next steps for you I've got myself on the selection okay so I literally drive down the drive we're talking about 97 98 yeah about 97 I think yeah yeah so drive down to January 97 drove down to sunnybridge 300 level punters Master Menace more or less same camp day one sign up you know you're there you you get assigned your bed and you're bunk'd and gradually through a process of you know four weeks you do the hills phase they call it where you just walk every day over the hills and all that sort of stuff and the bed spaces become your Refuge you know why they just knock them off ding ding does it literally like knock off you sorry mate you're not you can't handle it or do they put their hands okay you know I can't handle this no more it's a it's a it's a combination of both you know you could if you when you get onto the stage where you where your marches are timed if you don't make one they'll probably give you a second chance if you don't make two you're gone okay but yeah I'll tell you what a lot of guys go not for me a lot of guys get injured like I mean it's it's brutal you know you're walking all sorts of weathers you know great big large packs on your back up and down mountains you're going to lose in Wales and breaking and on the penny fan and all that sort of stuff so it's a brutal course that first four weeks though is really only an aptitude phase because that's just for the for they don't even know who you are at the end of that for four weeks after that you then go to the Jungle so you spend another six weeks in a jungle and you start soldiering them properly you start you know but the weight's probably increased on your back you've you've tactical all the time and then you've got this thing where it rains rains for at least two or three hours every day you get completely soaking wet you've got all the animals and that want you to everyone wants you've done the jungle to let me and you've got this permanent thing whereby the staff are watching you all the time so you've got this like sword of diamond Clues over your head but the whole time that you're in the jungle do you know what I mean you could literally I've seen it happen I've seen somebody sort that lay there first thing in the morning the DS coming on right so I'm going off you go no no no no no you're not required anymore that's not you're like you've gone from 300 people in Wales how many does it go down to before you go to the Jungle roughly can you remember you've probably lost you probably lost over after that just about over half an hour and I thought they like to try and keep the numbers up because they've got to justify the flights yeah you know what I mean so but they do they do lose a good half of that absolutely you've got a ton of 50 going to the Jungle yeah and how long is that six week six yeah what are you doing in the jungle learning the soldier okay it's all the basics it's just all the basics what's the basics um basic patrolling basic navigation living in a harbor area so a harbor area is where you live when you're in the field so you might have a you know dig a little pit if you're in the UK but over there you've got a little sort of like hammock thing in the trees have to be packed up every day and then you stand too and wait for the enemy to come and then you're wrong to get on with your day's work and everything they do is I'll say it's monkey see monkey do yeah so they do it they show it to you you do it and if monkey Keeps On Doing monkey monkey passes of course and there's monkey don't monkey goes simple as that and I'll say that to people now it's monkey see monkey do yeah and when monkey stops doing yeah hard is it to navigate around a jungle it must be it's all done on pacing and bearing yeah it's all done you know you've got to trust your campus right you've got to you've got to put that trust in in magnetism all right because it is going to face Northern you're not yeah right I'm not the Columbus that is that you'll be about he's having to go that's nice no mate no no no look look this has been thousands of years we've got the two poles it's called magnetism North [Laughter] so six weeks how brutal was the six weeks compared to the four weeks in Wales right so it is something that it's tough yeah because you are got increased weight on your back with all the kit that you've got to now carry your food for however all this sort of stuff so your kit has gone up yeah the terrain is like that it rains every day you've got wet kit dry kit it's horrendous but here's the thing right I genuinely enjoyed this phase because I was learning the soldier yeah and I'm doing all the stuff I've seen this is me now I've got a gun I've got the wow I'm actually I'm a soldier yeah I'm doing it so I was more sort of like focused on what I was learning and how much I was enjoying it rather than how much my skin tags were hurting on the bottom of my feet me but belt was chafing on me back and all that sort of stuff that pailed into insignificance the way it's run it's designed if you don't want to be there you won't stay they're not going to encourage you to stay they're not going to go come on come on they're just going to go you're right no yes go in staying that sort of thing I mean so it's not you will get found out if you do not want to be there you'll get found out so a lot of people that come off although they'll say oh I was injured or they said nah you didn't want to be there mate yeah okay because I can tell you now you know I had probably had a fractured toe I'd lost two of my toenails my backwards in pieces of the slots wanted me retinas so there was lots of things with me that said Phil stop but then there was all this stuff saying I feel carry on because I want to be that bloke in the card yeah yeah I mean so I'm like that's what kept me going I wanted to be that man you know what I mean so I was no super soldier I was not the fittest bloke you know they run a Sweepstake in the science matter so I think most of them said I'll be back within about two weeks you know what I mean probed them wrong yeah so obviously they saw a mental toughness and you obviously produced the mental toughness right I think some of that's maybe that you didn't know you had until you got the jungle ice that sort of stuff has been in me since I was a kid when the when I was underneath the beans yeah when I was working out that if I stayed still all that stuff was built me up yeah all that stuff I learned when I was being bullied all that sort of stuff is cemented inside me I've pulled nothing but positive out of there yeah I pulled nut from all these negatives I pulled nothing but positive so the jungle is extremely tough but I'm looking on the positive side I'm going this is good yeah this is all right we're learning here we're doing something possible this is great so I'm not thinking about oh God yeah you must have been at your Pinnacle of mental toughness then in that area right everything that's going on in your life to get to the jungle and go Nothing's Gonna nothing's going to phase me right now no everything that's happened in my past 28 years yeah okay you've drawn from all these experiences that you've had yeah to make you focused and guys must have different reasons for me to be there I wanted to be that man I want to be the man with a beard and a gun you know what I mean I want to be that man because obviously did you is there a lot of piss take do you get into other people's minds your Pal's Minds you're gonna fail you're gonna fail you oh you know I'll tell you what does happen when I see someone failure I thought maybe foreign [Laughter] [Laughter] what happens after six weeks then do you find out then or do you have to fly back and they tell you oh you we got told in the trees you go out there tonight we go out the trees and like literally they told you we'd finished in the trees and that's it you've done you know parts will fail now you're not going to do any more in the trees now get picked up by a helicopter I remember sitting on the skids on the way out okay the skids the side of the helicopter yeah the load is passed me a canopy and I've sat there coming over this canopy drinking this canopy thinking well there's nothing more I can do now do you know what I mean whatever is yeah because you go back to camp and they throw a bit of a piss-up for you all right so now you're gonna get to show them what you can do it plenty of time to let yourself down we had we had a proper steaming night that night on Sunday and like in the morning I'm letting me pick like oh upside down pickled like you know what I mean they're not gonna hear the company the the Squadron Clark coming around tapping people's bed frames right the DS want to see you I'm like oh my God so you just laid there pretending you weren't there and then it's less and less and less and less and less and less and less and then you worked out you'd pass like you know what I mean but then you've got this really bizarre thing where you fly back to the UK and after the planes failed and after the planes passed and you want you want to go hey especially if you didn't like something but you can't you've got to try to keep professionals yeah what country is this uh Brunei but it doesn't mean it's like to be Bruno it could be it could be anywhere that's got a decent honking jungle right okay so when you land what are the movements food you get moved into did you get straight back to your no you come back you then do the the course continues I think the officers go away and do a couple of bits and pieces slightly different to you and then you've got to do some heavy weapons and uh you've still got combat and survival to do you've got to do your interrogation phase and I can't go too much into that because yeah 100 sure how much I can talk about that but all the rest of the stuff's out there but you've then got a parachuting phase you've got a phase where you're in all the black kit and all that sort of stuff so they build these phases in okay and then sort of like at the end of it all after you've done your parachute jumps you get badged yeah and you you know you burying all that sort of stuff but you still want to use probation from there so once you've passed you've still got to use probation there's a use probation from when you've passed yeah well you did in my day it might be slightly different now I don't know but you know you did in mind that you got to use probation and once you've passed tell me about the interrogation phase uh is it the same as what you see on telly bragged about stress positions lots of screaming lots of shouting lots of waiting around to be interrogated lots of methods I used interrogating you you know get naked you get searched you get all that sort of stuff you know what I mean a bit of humiliation all that sort of stuff yeah it is tough but when he got to that stage of your training I'm thinking to myself well hang on a minute I'm nearly there now yeah I mean you ain't gonna bust me now I mean you've got to really smash me up if you want to if you're gonna want me to come off this course now you know what I mean but blokes did Blake's put around enough so what's this 98 97 97 97 98 and how many years were you in the ss4 I was out by the end of 2001 I got out I should have four four years yeah four yeah four four five probably five yeah and what tours did you go on um we did a bit of stuff over in Bosnia we did stuff in Sierra Leone we did stuff yeah we got around like we weren't as busy as what they are now nowadays are insanely busy they've got work all over the place I can't even begin to imagine what they're up to now do you know what I mean they're getting more trick and tired than John Wayne they're always in a scrap somewhere in my day it wasn't so much you know I left at a period where it was just all that was just about to start so you know but the Sierra Leone was a massive job for us you know we went over there and rescued those Royal Irish Lads that was you know that was a that was a good punch-up and you know they thoroughly tested myself and what happened that day with the Irish Lads uh well it went it went on for quite some time they got taken on about the 25th of the Where'd I get tiger Nickelback title of the 25th of August I think and it went on about this went into September sometime September the 10th We rescued him but I got taken by these you know Savage lunatics from Africa um I got you know taken back to their Camp all the normal you know mock executions and all that sort of stuff but we you know there was negotiations on from the very start with that job so there's stuff coming out you know they managed to we had it's a proof of life for existence you know Arlo said now we want to see that they're alive so they came out that one of them shook around and handed over a map all that sort of stuff it was it was it was proper stuff like you know what I mean but it went on for quite a bit and then like I said the final thing was we went through all these options could we get down the river could we could we walk down there and and it got called operation certain death in the end because the only real option we have was just to fly a helicopter straight into the middle of the camp jump straight on top of everybody and have it out with them that's what we did if you if you'd have been on one of your promotion courses in the Army and it just said well I'm gonna do that they'd gone like no no right next yeah but here we were thanks for that and I don't laugh because you know all this time this was the first major punch-up I'd ever been in really I would blown up a couple of times you know I've dodged a couple of bullets down again but never never a full-on light I mean you can't here we go come and get it I mean so and I remember coming out the back of the chopper and thinking to myself right here we go and just in the back of my mind you know you'd always sort of like figured yourself finding a lovely piece of cover to get behind and yeah I'll be I'll do everyone for me a lot you know what I mean no I'm in the middle of a football pitch okay here we go how many men went in for something like that I can't remember roughly helicopters well so you must have been 20 probably 25 come out the first one 20 I'll come out of R1 and then it drops them on the other side of the river and that sort of stuff but there wasn't many blokes in the village you know talking 60 blokes 70 blokes top sort of thought actually having it out in the village so yeah it was a full-on day house we just done we just done at what time of day first light so we had an observation team which had been sort of on the edge of the village so they pushed right up on them we done a bit of a cheeky one on them the night before so where we was doing all these negotiations they kept asking for more and more well he'd asked for a couple of boat engines right so we thought right the night before we go we'll give them the boat engines because we'll get them back in the morning anyway right yeah they dropped they dropped these two boat engines off and as a Good Wheel gesture it gives them about 50 cases of lager so the first thing I do is boat engines go straight and straight on the soil outside of the track they take these 50 cases of lager back and I guess so you know now that you know good morning [Laughter] and then when you come what's that feeling like being on Chopper you've set yourself up you've got to switch in mind on these two helicopters coming in you're flying low down are you grabbing them are you fighting are you grabbing the Irish so the team that went into the Irish the the the chopper ride itself right I always remember we're going back to the chopper and the start major give this big rousing speech about killing everybody in the whole of Africa like wow you're under no Illusions now you're going to go and have a punch up right at the back of my mind I'm still thinking well this could get cooled off at some size because we've been cooled off so many times before like okay all right yeah whatever as we were up in the helicopter we flew flew out over Freetown um and out the sea so that they couldn't hear us like because we wait for these guys to call us in at the best times with the best amount of Lights anyway we're going around his own pad and at this stage I'm thinking we can still probably get called off here so I'm not really that bothered you know what I mean orders I know what I'm doing I'm just sat on well stood against the thing I've got my hand on the rope and I'm like yeah all right and then we get the old thing in our ears it's like right yeah zero Alf has controls now and now we know it's on yeah it's on Don Juan we're going now this is this is actually this is proper and I remember that like before I turn around to have a look at me mate to say this is good yeah these helicopters were whoop and just like fell out of the sky to get into its like attack pattern to come down [Laughter] remember coming down this Riverbank and at first I was stepping on my mate and I'm banging around here come on come on and I'm screaming I'm like yes yes you know what I mean and as it as we've got a two minute warning we got the the load is screaming two minutes two minutes everyone's got two minutes two two minutes stop thinking about what I'm doing and literally look you're in the zone and that's it from that minute on you'll remember every last thing you've been told you you you're concentrating on nothing but what you need to do when you get out of the helicopter and we've got a helicopter and ended up facing the wrong way complete you know everything there's a sign in the army that uh a contact will only uh only the contact survives the first five minutes I mean now it's just it's kind of yeah because it was like it just didn't get a plan so no plan survives the first Contact yeah and we literally got out this helicopter and where the Ops team had moved up the gaps had filled with someone and they were shooting at us from here and we're like oh we never expected that so we end up facing the wrong way we're in a line that we shouldn't I should have been there but I'm not I'm hearing there's people here and we're shooting this way and that sort of like dies down a bit and I remember me mate Jim he's a he's a he's a Jordanian he went way uh way we're fishing the wrong way Lads yeah nice ones look at this bizarre things yeah right we're ready here wait come on then and off we went again quite an intense fight getting in and out and you know it went on for quite a bit and now thing panned out you're saying intense fight what's an intense fight mean and how long did it last for do you reckon oh do you know what the top man I couldn't tell exactly I like last before it's 20 20 30 minutes wow it's all about getting to the edges waiting for buildings to be cleared and then we sort of like went silent on the place and then they're sort of like pulling dead hands but I'm picking you know casualties up and you know a couple of one of ours have been here so he's been taken away and all that sort of stuff and it kicked off again so the the locals have obviously run out of the village and some of them where we've gone so quiet when we they thought we'll go back in and see if we can do I'm not going start it again on the edge of the village I had a cup of tea by this stage and I'm sort of like oh behind me weapon oh my god oh they're coming I haven't had another bit of a bit of a shootout with him there so then we called a helicopter in and it made sort of like a car park of the whole area around the whole of the forest like you know what I mean and after that there was nothing else they weren't bothering anymore and how easy was it to get the iris LEDs we knew roughly where they were they had a fair idea that we were coming from the last negotiation so they were literally under control within seconds of the first place coming down the Rope so the first helicopter came in they roped on yeah ours landed on the football pitch so we were sort of like supporting each other but they went straight in and the guys that were already on the ground who had been watching it were they're covering the helicopter in so anyone who come out to take the helicopter down well they'd gone already like you know I mean so literally that that piece of there they were on that building they were in there and those Lads were safe and then I'll say that you had to make sure everything else was clear and it just like I say it took I don't know it's funny I can't even remember it was just it just from the time hitting the ground to the time getting back off it again you know what I mean and just what's that feeling like when you've done a job you've taken what you had to do what you have to do you got your you got your men back on them and when you get back you go through so many emotions in one day yeah on something like that so there's all the build up obviously you're going to be a bit nervous you're going to be sort of like thinking there's going to be anticipation there's going to be a bit of worry it was my son's birthday that day so I'm like oh be typical I've got done numbers boys but so you've got all this stuff going through your mind you've then got you've then got to have extreme Focus for what you're about to do you can't let all this other nifnav and trivia Side Track you you've got to think about what you're doing then when you're on the ground and I remember getting told that Brad had been killed Brad was a very good friend of mine I got told sort of like 10 minutes after we'd finished the first lot of fighting proper you know Brad's dead Furious yeah absolutely Furious think myself give me another one just give me anyone just give me one of them and I'll do them with my hands like I'm it's absolutely mad angry I call it Battlefield angry have you got that angry and service Street you get locked up for a very long time I mean proper angry and then like it calmed down again and then it was like you're on the helicopter you're on your way back out of there and you get this like feeling of it's like the glad to be alive it's like wow wow I'm here I've survived it in the knowing that other people probably haven't failed as well as you have so there's a little bit of guilt in there as well do you know what I mean so there's all these emotions you must go through every emotion the human body possibly has in one day you know that night and we've we had a few beers on one of these RFA ships it's just incredible experience the whole thing was you know this thing that was just one firefight somebody's allowed to have been doing Afghanistan right doing that almost every day like you know I mean it was a phenomenal experience did you enjoy that buzz I did enjoy the bus yeah I did I did enjoy it that day was a phenomenal day you know I'll be honest you know some of it is some of it's some of it you wouldn't wish on people you know I don't want I don't want it to have to get that angry with people you know I didn't enjoy that side of it you know finding out that you know Brad wasn't going to be coming back was all that sort of stuff but the actual buzzer came through had a buzz of all the hype and you know coming off the back of that Chopper straight into that firefight yeah even though we're facing the wrong way I don't care I don't care just I'm gonna fight we're doing it do you know what I mean crazy how long were you in Sierra Leone for ah probably about 10 days I suppose yeah not long in and out to do that job in and out literally in and out job done going we literally uh we've been within half a day of coming out that Village I'm on a flight going back to the UK do you like me within a day I'm walking around Sainsbury's you know what's that feeling like though there's no there's no decompression you're going straight back that was civvy street that was strange and I remember going into these trash and this was before mental health was a massive thing of course and I remember going into the interest room and one of the one of the Trope staffies just turned around and said something like anybody got a problem with that no I don't think so you know I mean it was almost like I felt there was a little bit of lip service being paid to people who potentially could have had a lot of problems with with what happened in that Village and there was some unpleasant stuff happened in their life you know what I mean so I don't know it was a little bit it was a little bit Brash a little bit a little bit too old school for me if you like that was and I say the feeling of the feeling of them walking around just walking around sayings please yeah after having been sort of like you know weighed him through the honking Village you know I mean seeing the stuff you'd seen and all the rest of it and thinking uh salted beans or what what beans am I having today that was quite a strange one and I mean if you came back one of those long tours you would probably I would get some sort of decompression but that was such a job that it was like just only going back on whatever you were doing right back to work man yeah and then what you do when you land back and you're back in Civic street again are you waiting for a call again yeah there is a there is a standby Squadron I mean I don't know how it works now I'd imagine it's fairly busy because they've got stuff on her other place but in my day you sort of like went back on the stand and if you weren't if you're on standby you did a bit of training so you turn up on the ranges in the morning do a bit you just keep the wheels rolling keep yourself greased up and ready to go like all the times I mean and if you're lucky enough to get a shout you got the shout you went and did your bits and pieces you can't sometimes it'd be a shout and summer go and others to stay behind that's an horrible morning like all your mates are out there guts and glory and you also like Saturday going I wonder when they'll be bad I hope nothing happens I hope nothing happens what was tell me what Bosnia was like um I didn't do a massive amount of time in Bosnia but in and out again it was it was a civil war type thing there was some disgusting stuff going on war crimes you know people being executed kids being killed we heard all sorts of stuff going on behind the scenes some disgusting horrible creatures and what wolf zones do throw up is disgusting horrible creatures like you know what I mean and they thrive in these places and they become the Warlords and all that sort of stuff so you know what I can't go too far into it but one of the things that we used to go was we would go and arrest we'd call them pithwicks purses persons indicted wanted for war crimes so we were picking up the worst of the worst we were going in there to get them out do you know what I mean and arrest them but we we'd do it in a number of different ways I mean I thought I'll tell you they would always be set up they'd always be taking where there was minimum exposure to us they would be snatching them off the side of the street or at their bed at night or or whatever it happened to BJ I mean we'd line them up tee them up properly first and then go and get them so there was less exposure to us so we didn't get in too much trouble doing that you know what I mean you know we did you know one of our Lads got shot doing it but no no I don't think we haven't lost anybody doing those they were really you know just getting get them get out and you'd do it at a time and choosing of your convenience you know the old saying you know a world time prepared and planned Ambush gives the enemy maximum opportunity to die currently for his country and that's what we would do we'd team up properly and what was that what are the rules about shooting someone I'm not shooting someone depends again it depends where you are but the the sort of like Baseline rule is if because they'll always be like they had cards written in Iraq with all the rules and Northern Ireland had the yellow card and that sort of stuff but the basis premise will be if somebody's using a weapon in such a way that endangers you or others and and to not do something about it would put other people's lives in danger then obviously we're up and we're rolling like do you know what I mean so you got you've got to use it who's going to prove that well nowadays everybody in those you know what I mean there's more cameras than that nowadays so you know I mean guys are even some some guys I would imagine nowadays are wearing cameras so yeah what was the what was Iraq and Iran like Iraq and Afghanistan I did but as a city so I went out there when I got out of the regiment and I got out under a bit of a cloud you know I had a bit of a row downtown I had a couple of bits and pieces going on and I bought my way out I paid my way out and I went bearing in mind that year we'd come back from the year before we come back from Sierra Leone I didn't think it was ever going to get any better than that I didn't know that that lunatic was going to fly planes into the towers and it was going to be War for 10 to 15 years to come I got out and I literally got in the city street and it was like a proper hope for me like you know let's just rolled back here a minute ago yeah you had a bit of a tear up and stuff yeah what happened there um I had I had a bit of an argument downtown come back the place where abouts were you in Hereford Hereford okay yeah I had a bit of a tariff and one of the pubs in Hereford come back to my house add an argument back back there um the police had come to town I'll smashed a window and stuff and just gobbed off when they come to get me and then they shook me downtown I'd come back in the silent major we said look I don't know if I can stand up for you on this one like you know I mean it may have gone a bit too far and all that sort of stuff it wasn't it wasn't particularly Pleasant and I you know I I I I've always been one of those who's never thought I'm always close to the bones you know I mean I'm a checkered past an officer was saying that you know what I mean so I just thought look I'm now going to be in a position where even if I get away with this even if they keep me yeah which I didn't think they probably would even if they did keep me then it would be a case of you know you're second in the queue now yeah okay and I've just seen someone a very good friend of mine just recently you know he's hoping to get get promoted to start major because he has gone the distance but everybody's leapfrogging him because they've all got their long service Good Conduct medals and he hasn't yeah I don't know there'd be more chance than Nelson getting his eye back to me getting long service you know I mean there'd be no chance so you know I knew that that was going to catch up with me at some stage I was still a fairly young bloke I knew that I could earn good money in civvy street because there was all this bodyguarding going on and all that sort of stuff and I thought no I'll just take the plunge so you didn't but you didn't know when you said what I've had enough of this you thought you know what I'm going to be second in the queue yeah I want out you said you had to pay yourself out yeah hey to get out you know roughly a monkey okay all right I don't know what it was it wasn't a lot it was a lot they owed me a bit though at the end that's 500 quid yeah sorry buy yourself out you you're out when you bought yourself out was the 90 was 90 level was that previous nine eleven no I literally I got out on the first of that month of September the first of September 2001 yeah and on the ninth we know what happened do you like me and it all went off and I'm like 11th 11th yeah yeah that's right yeah so on the 11th it all goes off and I'm like ah you fooled what have you done that did I mean but then I think to myself well I'll tell you what's going to happen there's going to be a whole heap of work in Afghanistan there's going to be this is going to buffer on all around the world there's going to be there's going to be Workforce like this so I got myself in a position where I ended up in Afghanistan really early days running the security for a for a European Embassy earning good money when I first got out I wanted I literally I got out and I'd I'd run out of money give me example how much dollar you were on in as uh in the SAS roughly 20 we're talking 23 years ago 24 years 23 years ago you'd be lucky if you went home with 1800 quid two grand in the bank a month wow so it wasn't a lot wow and I was terrible with money anyway I just worked mine and beans and beer tonight I mean yeah and so yeah obviously as you went through I was only the true production I mean I wasn't earning the massive money um when I got out I ran out of money yeah I had no money I went to the job center and this is a lot of people have heard this story but I went to the job center and I knew you could get these crisis loans and I see all these lunatics getting these crisis loans and walking out of these Green Ships going on foreign she's not having none of it right but what qualifications have you actually got um well none of my Army qualifications transpired and it was just a waste of time so I've now got a cycle proficiency that's it that's all I've got so she says what kind of work do you want to do so we'll security of some sort she said oh okay she said I'll put all your work all your stuff in the computer and she said we'll see what comes out and to get this loan I had to say I was going to go on this on this interview she comes back she goes well I've got a job in Margate she goes there's an interview going on on next Monday week Monday or so what's happening lollipop man [Laughter] [Laughter] luckily before that interview came up because she she said in the interview what do you want to learn earn a year and I said 50 Grand she laughed at me I swear she laughed at me like so that week A friend of mine found me up says there's a job going in Afghanistan it's 55 grand a year I said can you get me the contract over yeah he says yeah I've got the contract walks back down to the um to the job center bloke says right I'll see you and I said no you might not want to see here all right you'll have to wait don't say yeah I'll wait yeah no no I want to see her so I want you back now give her this piece of paper and it was like she was Devon's like you know I'm 55 grand yeah yeah I told you yeah I'll take an extra ten percent like I've just taken after a dinner so what was the movement there then the movement for you you've got a contract yeah I've got a contract how long for a company called Saladin it was a it was a contract for about a year I think um who was heading it up what's up in the bridge there was a there was a company in the UK one of these companies in the UK that provides security at the high level um they headed it up it was working directly to the European commission they had an ambassador in Iraq in in Kabul who couldn't that he was Danish and the Danish never had an army team that they could send yeah so he's he's said right I've worked with these people before this Saladin company and they literally they they got the contract farmed it out there was me originally there was me there was two of us were xsas yeah there was another guy who was the next Legionnaire and another guy was the next paratrooper and we just went out and that kept me going for about two and a half three years I think wow done it right out there Happy Days yeah it was all right well you doubled your salary for a message but you're probably on 20 or grand mate and the little kicks back but you jumped to 55 from leaving yeah I mean I'm shift as soon as I get out there I'm I'm dealing everything I bought myself a little motorbike I'm shifting ammunition out one door I'm buying guns in the next you know what I mean I'm doing the whole lot what was the day-to-day like for you out there like getting up what was the day look from the moment you get up the moment it could be anything it could be the ambassadors just wanting to go and see President Hamid Garza you'd go and take them there he might get invited to a gig go and take him out there you could be he might talk a couple of times he flew me up to Mazar so I'll go and take take stuff up to Mazar Sharif I drove up there so it was so varied it was a good job you know and I enjoyed myself and I was very lucky to get that sort of work you know and in the early days the money was quite good as well so you were getting decent money you were doing a half decent job it wasn't the same as the regiment but you know you might you might get a little bit of trigger time you never know do you know you might get lucky but you know you might not so yeah it was all right those days were good and I had good fun and how did that come how did that three-year deal contract come on end um I left I I had a McDonald's and I went to Iraq there's someone offered me some more money in the Rock and I thought right I've done three yourself disappeared her up started working in Iraq did a similar thing went around the bases there worked for several companies several different people and then it was called the circuit in those days but I call it it's more like the circus now like I mean there's all there's all sorts going on on there but it was some of it was decent work some of it was absolute garbage when I sat on a Sat on a Skylink camp in a rat once for nearly six months I didn't go to the gate once right the contract was looking after these Engineers that refused to come I've got paid for nothing for six months were you at me getting paid to do nothing or would you rather be active I'd sooner be active but if you want to pay me for doing nothing I'm quite happy with that do you know ask any Premiership footballer that sits on the bench yeah you're happy yeah [Laughter] and then so we're talking 2001 done four years in Afghan another three years sorry three years in Afghanistan and then I started going into places like um I went to Jerusalem I went to Gaza I went to the West Bank I run a couple of training teams over there with the United Nations um did a little bit of I call it hobby Garden looking after the stars and stuff um what's your stars oh I did everything I've done dizzy raw School I've done Led Zeppelin we did we did one it was the Rimmel supermodels and we've got old Bus full of supermodels and we're driving around um like these big shopping arcades and they're all sitting there with the lipstick on like you know what I mean just and I sit on the bus with me like you know what I mean just take shorts and I remember thinking about it well they were all a lot younger than me then and I remember putting them I put Monty Python on on the bus and none of them understood it was all this about that's not funny I'm like this is the funniest thing he's like oh is that not funny what is wrong with you know what I mean so just go back there Jerusalem what on Earth is Jerusalem like great yeah don't you explain it um I've got a great photograph to explain Jerusalem it's me taking a selfie in a right it's an awesome thing right I'll send it to you after this let me write a selfie um I was working for an office which had Tony Blair and a couple of other dignitaries were coming in now we were finding a bit of security for it um it was easy days compared with lots of places it was easy where it did get hard was the you know trips into the Gaza that we made later on and subsequently ended up on a team that ended up in Gaza full time and that was quite difficult because the Gaza Strip was a completely different animal you know I mean it really was a completely interesting explain to me what the Gaza strip's like just it's people say the most the worst place you've ever been and Gaza Strip was right up there with them you know once you're in the first job I went in on we had all United Nations accreditation the second job I went in on we'd lost all that accreditation and We're working directly for a civilian company and it was just murdered I mean we got chased out of there twice but you can't get chased out of Gaza because you can't just run over to the wall because you'll get killed so we had to literally hidden it hidden ditches oh it was just horrendous we had we had a real yeah the real scrapes and all trying to work out this this security for this rebuild of a power station that the Israelis had smashed and yeah it was it was it was a tough old gig and you're trying to protect that we were trying to protect the engineers So what had happened was yeah there was a bit of a I think they called an infotard or whatever it's somewhere where they end up scrapping everybody happens all the time you need the brain of a small planet to understand Middle Eastern politics but basically there was a group called fatter and they'd been sort of like capacity building and guards when they were getting on the right with the Israelis and nobody else in Gaza liked them um so they got overrun now we've been working for fatter and we'd been helping them on a on a border crossing point and we've been helping liaise between them and the Israelis so that they could get the gear in and out of Gaza and it was all going really well anyway Hamas executed all the blokes that we were that we trained so they executed them all they killed a lot of them who executed Hamas who were on the axis of Evil they're one of the groups with inside Gaza they executed these guys then we get a call from a civi company saying look the only people that have got accreditation to go back into Gaza because they they shut the borders and said no one's coming in unless they've got accreditation well we had accreditation to go back in but we'd been training these guys so I'm like wow this is going to be this is going to be quite cheeky so the Israelis in response to them kicking off at the border Mallet of the power station in a place called dear albala smashed it to pieces the only people capable of mending that were these Swedish lunatic cicadas these meatball crunching lunatics from Sweden they were like who knew nothing but they could Bend power stations right they were completely on the piss the whole time but they could mean power stations right so they flies we're not going in there unless we've got proper round-eyed Sakura we're not we're not trusting them to do it so they farmed out to a city company who gets hold of us the United Nations didn't want nothing to do but no it's all like Nation Sweden weren't capable of it anyway so they're now in a position where if they want to go in there they've got to have something so we ended up through default almost naming our price because I know if I go back in there I could be potentially on the watch list from from Hamas and they could want me so we went back in we had a series of meetings we got them back in um but then we got attacked while we're in there by I think Islamic had detectors and there was a couple of other bits and cheeky stuff going on we knew that we had to get out of there so we basically saw like when the thing was finished we told them we had to go out to get some kit and we got went out and never come back again like on that you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah yeah it was a yeah but those sorts of jobs they were dangerous and the other thing was you know you've got no backup when you do stuff like that all right the office might have you back to a certain degree but you know I'd always joke that you know I'd sign up I'll tell Wendy where I was going because she's the only one who cares you know what I mean so give me a rough idea how many men you were working with there we had a team of we had a team of six I think yeah and I say there was nowhere to go if it went wrong and it did go wrong there was nowhere to go we ended up hiding in the back back of this old U.N compound when we got chased out the power station the first time horrendous just nowhere to go you're like well yeah and like I said Israelis they they so we had a we had some Hamas guys and they were getting attacked by the Israelis who were they they're trying to protect anti-israelis are attacking them you know they're throwing I remember this one day I was walking down in the garden massive bang I'm like wow got down there I sort of like crawled in what's going on some guy tried to send some missile over to over to Israel and just blown up in the corner you know a pair of steaming boots pink missed everywhere did you have this sort of attitude we're chatting now when you were in it going you know what I've got to laugh at this yeah look one of the one of the key requirements for any for anybody who needs to join who wants to join the LTS and it was actually David Sterling wrote a thing called his ethos and the very last thing was e-force is a sense of humor you need to have a sense of humor you need to find someone in stuff funny you know I mean some of it's quite dark some of it's quite you know probably not funny to a lot of people but you need to be able to find something in it because you I don't think I could do it unless I could find a little bit of a yeah human a little bit of a little bit of an angle in there do you know what I mean what was your movement should you come back from there it could be anything you look you know don't forget what about the Pirates what about the Pirates on ships and stuff so the Pirates and stuff so again I'll get a phone call of a friend of mine he says to me he goes uh he goes out Pirates down in some others I don't imagine what you were talking now to Mid 2000s probably yeah so I've got this image in my mind of some swashbuckling with a sword in one eye and apparent on his shoulder like you know me and I'm like what is all that about so I thought it goes no no Somali pirates explained it to me said you know Somali pirates are taking ships I'd read a little bit about it saying little bit he says look can you go down he says do a job for me down and I said yeah he says you're going to be taking a ship from Muscat I think down uh down of wherever it was going I can't remember so it goes down the very first remember the very first one I turns up right I swear I'll turn up um down in Moscow and he promised me because you're gonna get Razer why are you gonna get this you're gonna get a whole finger stalled so this agent met me like the shipping agent Geck they met me I said bro can we go and get the stores uh what's those Mr Fuel and you know the stores for the ship you know the the white wire Mr field you know why I wanted a wire one for the ship I'm gonna be with the Pirates no no no Mr fuel there's nothing here Mr field so our phones at the office our phones offices I've tried the oldest guy all day nothing nothing at all I managed to get hold of him with about sort of like an hour ago before we're supposed to say I said I said this world is nothing here there's nothing else it's I said what are we supposed to do and it's exact word sir nobody said it was going to be easy mate this guy turns up he's got a he's got a round of like gardening twine yeah Mr feel I have the wire yeah thanks mate thanks yeah I'll just hang myself I guess on the ship and we're all right look you know what I mean but the ships were a good laugh then so you won't allow weapons you won't allowed weapons in the early days it was no weapons right so we sort of like come up with it was like being on you know the 18th but they're all right so we thought no it would be the 80s so we're on the ship get the old boasting out the old world around that we're welding spikes we're filling up Drums of petrol and throwing flares and stuff you know brilliant brilliant just anything you can do to make we're greasing all the stairwells I had a parade for a pirate to get my ship and then just watch himself it would have been hilarious it's been the funniest thing ever so we're doing all this stuff to ships it was great and like I said we we for five years I probably spent doing that I spent probably five minutes in the glaze of pirates do you know okay so it wasn't very often but you know the one time that I always talked about was the one where I ended up throwing the fridge at them you know what I mean we run out of everything so I'll start so I'll get us on the ship and I can't remember where it was I can't remember I got on in Mauritius or something like that anyway we're coming up we're coming the reverse way back up to Egypt and as we get through there's like a corridor where the where the neighbor used to escort you we get to the end of that of course the Pirates know the Navy are going to decide that's where they get you yeah so we're going along I've got the guy that goes with me he's a drunk he he spends his old time drinking the captain's a Russian he does the same thing he's petrified a pirates so it's basically made the first officer and a couple of others doing everything on this ship all right all the watches all this but my mate's completely drunk the whole time he doesn't want to come out of his scratcher he's not very well he's making every excuse he can so I said well you just stay down there as we come out through um if any of the ships disappear about an hour later I'm like oh yeah you can see him they're there in there yeah just two little two little boats bobbing about yeah and they're getting to talk a lot closer and closer and every time I look at the every time I look at the the the raid though it's like oh yeah they are definitely coming down so I said I'll says to the to the to the first officer right change direction he changed his Direction look at the thing yeah they change direction like it's definitely yours it's happening so we know they're going to outrun us they're doing about 25 knots we're doing about 12. within an hour today all right now we always had this thing where we said if they come in the early days in the early days it wouldn't work later on because they started using motherships but in the early days we used to say right if these little boats come along right obviously you've got these people they're not really trained soldiers they've got all the guns they've got AK-47s but you've got some flip-flop wearing Shepherd in a boat just doing 25 knots what is he going to eat do you know I mean he's he's gonna pray and spray he ain't gonna win nothing so what am I going to do I'll tell you what I'm gonna do I'm going to stand on the side of the ship with a homemade wooden gun and try and get him to shoot at me because he I I just want to know that he's got no gun no no ammunition I mean because he can't carry a lot of ammunition in there and the other thing he can't do is he won't have the world supply of fuel either so the longer I can keep him chasing about the more I can get him to fire his gun the less chance he's got of getting me if he gets on the ship so we're giving the run around a little bit we've got a couple of flares let him have the first one it goes nowhere near me he's worked his out he's got me in a one and I look at that yeah we've got you mate so he comes a bit closer oh I'll tell you what he's serious with his players comes out again his mate comes in he manages to get to the side of the ship but right we had barbed wire we had like all the hoses out so the only bit that we couldn't really cover properly was right underneath where the bridge wings are out so I'm Looking Over The Edge and he's looking at he's he's trying nuts and bolts and we've got nothing left we've got nothing left and I'm like oh God the crew have gone they're in the bottom of ship somewhere the the boats and he's out there he's the potion was quite a geezer like I mean but he's like what do we do I don't know I ran into the bridge to see if I've got anything left I can throw at this lunatic before he gets on right and the captain used to have a little fridge you know those little travel for instructions he got one of those in the corner of the in the corner thing it's full of coats so it opens it tips the cokes out rips this thing out of all gets down there and I think I've got one chance with this I've got one chance with this fridge right looks over the edge I'm right there he's definitely on he's trying to get his ladder on but the ship's going on and I'm like oh what I'm gonna do is I'm going to yell at him first right I'm gonna scream at him first so I'll leave him special [Laughter] boom I miss him right but it hits he hits where he's hooked on it knocks the sevens the piece of rope off right yeah and his boat like drifts back and he looks out and he must bring himself tell you what I'll give this one I miss you yeah I mean I'm out of you like me with that they had they they turned out and they disappear like that oh my God how many men would pay to go on these ships with you um on that particular one it was just me and another lad on other ones I've done it with teams of six some then started doing it with like they take a loaded Lads from Sri Lanka so they'd pay them sort of like a bag of rice and a flip-flop for each trip and you'd get 50 Quid a day you know I mean it went that way and then they started getting weapons and then it started so as soon as the weapons came on that was a bit of an equalizer but then they got motherships so they turned up with a mother ship all the heavy guns and all that sort of stuff but by the time it started going that way I didn't really I was getting out of there then give me example the size of ship you were on oh somebody we're talking a big massive Super Tank okay so what were they carrying on there oil palm oil grain so the big the big ships yeah the ones that weren't so affected were the car carriers because they could do about 25 knots and they were so high you'd never you I'd pay to see him try and get on that um cruise liners again you know cruise liners have got 1500 staff underneath it I mean they are not letting you get on there yeah so and they can a cruise line will do about 26 knots as well I mean so they can power their way through it um the car carriers um some of that some of the bigger ships weren't so effective but they were mainly after these coaster type or or the oil the oil ships because they were loaded they got the low free balls yeah okay so they can get on them all right so the simoleons who were succeeding were jumping on the ships yeah getting rid of rivers on there Nick in the boat or around them so the crew is the worth right okay no one cares about the ship Lloyd's insured okay no one cares about the ship no one cares about the oil no one cares about anything on the ship apart from the crew right right so the crew is the worst so the somalis notice so what to do is they take this well he took a ship back to the Nexus right so someone says to me I've got this job going on at the moment he says um and I went over I flew over to Thailand where the ship's crew were and got in on the negotiations and they're talking about it they wanted something like 25 million for the crew back well they got them down to about four and a half and then a friend of mine did they pay it right so it was funny a mate of mine used to have a plane in Kenya and he and he used to fly to fly their anthems out he loses the first one he loses the first Bag of Money never gets picked up never gets seen again all right so let bag of money he goes so he gets another bag of money right drops she's eight million into a hole now yeah right but it's in jail or the first lot right drops it out they get it and the deal was that they were gonna we were gonna go out and meet the ship in case more Pirates strike because they could literally those locks could get off the next sort of go right I mean anyway they managed to get I managed to get an American ship that was in the area I said can you give them a bit of cover for a friend of a friend to give them a bit of cover and this ship come back and we got it to Mombasa when it got to Mombasa I'm telling you now Monday so in Kenya yeah yeah yeah they lived on this ship yeah the Pirates had lived on the ship but they've been too scared to go downstairs so it had been using all the sort of like rooms that you could get out as toilets they'd been living on a decks they'd imported all this cattle I've never seen a ship him in a worse condition in my life the crew the crew were just so relieved to be off it apart from one yeah there was the the ship's mate was a cross-dresser and he'd fallen in love with the with the Somali pirate and he was he actually took the fence towards taking him off he's like no no no no I go back I stayed no no no no no no we got your ticket you're going home I love love long time no no no no no no no no no apparently in the long run he did go back yeah anyway so did we so we've got this [ __ ] we've got them off they've gone back they've sent a new captain over and he's gone to his right well I can't take that [ __ ] back he goes because I'm not sailing in that he says you're gonna have to do a partial refit where are you taking it we were taking this ship back to a place called Chittagong in Bangladesh to scrap it but they wouldn't go I managed to I managed to get a friend of mine to drop some weapons off he came in fire sea I shouldn't have had weapons I managed to get some weapons get them onto the ship take this thing back drop the weapons off in the sea take this thing out of [ __ ] you're gonna throw it away but insane just crazy crazy crazy did you know that what you were letting yourself in for at the start I mean you you knew it wasn't going to be easy but that's proper danger money you'll go you're flying out there to jump on a ship with no weapons yeah no in simoleons got weapons coming in there yeah I'm quite happy I'm quite happy I've done it I've done a few jobs I've done a couple of jobs recently I went there I went to Ukraine with no weapons I'm quite happy with it I can work it out you know I mean I'm all right I've seen the size of those fish so we're talking like mid 2000 2008 9 10. what else has gone on in your world in that sort of this past sort of 10 years I've seen you explode I've seen it last so I I it really Wendy started looking in at me now and going Phil you know you're going to keep this up forever yeah because although we were we were we were earning quite good money sometimes we were drinking it away when I came home we weren't really doing anything productive so our sister we I I'll see if I can find something else to do yeah I've written the book born Fearless bornfielders have done really well it was a Time's best seller um I did get a little bit of trouble as well I ended up I ended up in in Winchester Nick on a Roman thing but it all got blown over eventually but whilst I was in there yeah hold on anyway let's go back to Winchester and my turn what happened there right so afternoon's drinking Pete Tong back to the house started off a sort of domestic argument with a neighbor interjected over defense I'll put a win I'll put a window through I screamed and yelled at this lunatic that I was going to kill him before now I'm getting the rest of attempt to murder on him because he's phoned up the old bill because of who I am Wendy tried to climb it all down but it wasn't being calmed down as far as the police were concerned they took me I had a bit of a roll about with him in the street as soon as they've got me they then started you know they they they came in but it's a charge of attempted murder well I mean we said I'm like oh my God what I'll do with this Duty lawyer says to me just keep your mouth shut yeah so I kept my mouth shut in the meantime that all sorts was going on they told her that she had to get out the house and all this sort of stuff so they were driving this like wedge this nice little wedge in between us I mean in the end I'm going to throw for the opponents we're still together and things worked out and everything there was no charges brought to bear and all that sort of stuff but what I ended up ultimately in Winchester prison so I get straight from straight from being up in front of the beak on a Monday this is quite a funny little story right so the beak the beak's there and he's been told all about you know why I should be reminded in custody and the the obviously the opposition of doing everything and they've turned around and I'm still next to my brief in the thing and they've turned around and they've gone and we believe Mr Champion to be the most dangerous man in Hampshire and I says to my brief I'd love to see it I got endorse it but I had a real a real sort of like mental health thing in there where I'm like like this is this is seriously I don't know um finally about eight or nine years ago I suppose eight or nine years ago from now this is now at a point where I've literally and I'll say this to people now right bait will have always said to me oh my life you're crazy if you talk to yourself I'll say to people you're crazy if you don't because when I was in Winchester I had debriefed myself in the mirror I'm like you know about that scene Don Logan yeah in the sexy beating him yes no no no no no no no no no no no no Liberties he's Taking Liberties I have one of those conversations with yourself in the middle like you son you're an absolute c word you know we're like you ain't gonna go over that you need to sort your stuff yeah give yourself beat yourself up in everybody so I said you've got to sort yourself out dude I mean came out of there um I was on a tag for Christmas about six or seven months so I ended up um I couldn't go back to Hampshire she ended up living somewhere else for a while because she's been told she couldn't go there so I ended up living in a in a what I've done was I got a friend of mine well not a friendly cousin he had a building site in London and I said look he said if you can get yourself a caravan he said go and stick it on the building site he said I'll give you 20 I'll give you 50 Quid a day he said you'll be in security at night he said you can fill a few skips during the day job's done so I put on Facebook and I made him on Tom Blake the ex parachute regiment says I'll give you guys if you go if you can get the South Cerny he goes there's a lovely Caravan there you can have it so I guess to south soon I'm driving now I'm looking for number 27 in the window this camera I'll drive past all these well that's a nice one yeah I like that one this is one in the corner he's got mold all over it it's green it's absolutely you can't see through the windows the curtains are in this 27. I'm not I'm grateful yeah cheers Tom thank you so much puts it on the back of either Little Land Rover Discovery I think um no no the Freelander I had the Freelander puts it on the back of that drags it into London puts it in the thing whilst I'm in London I think myself right I'm giving Wendy I've gone 50 50 Wendy um and were you married to Wendy this time I goes we go 50 50 on the doe and I basically get to I'm I'm providing the security night but what I do is I think myself right where can I go from here I can't feel skips for the rest of my life I can't be doing this for us but it ain't gonna happen I can't this ain't gonna pay for nothing so I've got a copy of born Fearless I'll go down to the charity shop I buy I buy a whistle buy a nice nice suit right I think it was a Ted Baker one yeah all right a little bit of shiny little bit nice little shirt little tiny I mean and I go down to places like the ivy in that I'm cutting around the Ivy at night and every time I hear one of these TV types talk about anything to do with the military military book exercise before I know it I'm like the talking head on Sky News anything goes off good film yeah you're everywhere ends up making it ends up making a documentary for Sky News end up doing this program called and I just built this sort of like media profile off of complete [ __ ] yeah completely not a [ __ ] do you know what I mean but it wasn't [ __ ] you mean completely now it wasn't because I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't a TV guy at all yeah I mean but you're honest I am yeah that's I think that's what pulled it through mate you're honest you don't want to be honesty and if someone's listening on the news and you come up and they're saying would you reckon about the terrorist field what is this what show a prime example I'm going to ask you a question what do you think about terrorists who are in London who are still in London and they're on the list well they should be rounded up and shipped out simple ways and this was the message I was saying a lot of stuff I've said was close to the Bone a lot of the stuff was was was was was quite gritty and grainy Skye and I partnered company after a while because you know they're like they are far too woke for the sort of stuff I say you know I mean and I'm not bad I don't say anything really bad I'll just you know a spade has a spade with me and a shovel's a shovel and it picks a pick and I ain't gonna tell you a lie in between you know I mean I had journalists say why is he doing this sort of work why why because when I was special forces my primary role was to go and gather information bring it back and tell it in such a way that nobody gets hurt when they act on that information so I know what I'm doing you know what I mean yeah a bit sort of like anyway so that's how the media stuff went and like I say I I did blag my way in there because it was like there was no official route so I literally bullshitted me way around the field and his club's meeting I don't think you have I don't think you have I think the credentials you've got and everything you've told me today I don't think you've blagged it I think you're the personality the right person that people want to talk to because when they get proper answers quite possibly but again the TV the TV world doesn't want the right answers sometimes the public don't the public do and every time you know GB news are all over me at the moment I do a lot of stuff with Junior news now because they are they they won't put the gag on me they won't tell me to shut up channel four Nick my ideas what did Channel 4 do there was something going on the channel for yourself uh right over the boats I did drugs yeah so right this is the coup right at Aaron Banks I don't know who Aaron Banks is but apparently he put a lot of money behind the brexit campaign Channel 4 had beef with Aaron Banks right Aaron Banks funded me and I didn't know it came to where the money came from he asked for somebody to go over to Calais prove that it could be done pick people up bring them back drop them off and go under the radar and not have to go through customs I said I'll do that I did that I went over the trace quite clearly showed that I did it okay I went back over I came over I had the video evidence of me dropping guys on and off right but the day before I went I drove the coast a few times and I made sure that I could find places to get on and off I didn't want to go over there come back and go of the failed so channel four right in their attempt to uproot um Aaron Banks obviously came after me because I'd helped his brexit campaign and as far as I'd proved that these people were coming over in small boats right so they tried to say that I hadn't done it when I had but they caught me on the Hop they called me in for an interview under the pretense of we want to do it now so I started talking to them about it and then they basically called me out it caught me a little bit on the Hop and I didn't come out smelling the roses for that interview I looked a bit sort of like cagey but sort of like uh and of course people jump straight down me back now Skye on the back of that dropped everything with me like a hot potato yeah which it was going that way anyway to be honest Channel 4 did the best to to stitch to stitch me up the ironic thing is about six or seven months like Aaron bank went to court and that thing got brought up and it was proved that there was no there was no wrongdoing at all I did exactly what I said I was going to do do you think I ever got an apology do you know the crazy thing is they've all tried to do it themselves now they've all tried to go over there come back and drive the ribs over there they've all tried to prove all right I was telling you this years ago yeah and then your stupid attempt and in your thought I think to try and smash The brexit Campaign which I've got nothing to do with it I quite frankly couldn't give a monkeys either way yeah you've you lost you cost me my living do you know what I mean and I was quite no I'm not bitter about it now I don't care but it's just yeah an apology would be nice yeah you know I mean especially from Sky News and I got you know I've got older you know they know who they are there they know who they are do you know what I mean and it was yeah it was wrong they're wrong what's your relationship like now with sky or Channel 4 do you not want to do work with them are you looking at other channels if they come back to you and went Phil would like you to come on board uh I I think I'd have to sell my soul a little bit they they would have to eat some Humble Pie I'd have to have an apology off them yeah and I'd have to have an assurance that you know whatever I was going to do for them wouldn't impede or impair the way that I portray myself yeah I look an instance with Sky News I said something about Bloody Sunday um they they'd asked me on one of their pre-recorded programs did I did I did I think what had happened on Bloody Sunday was justified and I said well look I don't know exactly what happened I wasn't there but I can tell you now that people were fired they would have fired for a good reason they wouldn't have just done it for nothing and to be fair if you were completely innocent you'd have been in your bed and you wouldn't have been out charging about cause in trouble anyway so there's a six and two thing they cut that out of an interview altogether and almost made it look like I saw that one yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay and that gets me in trouble with my peers how can I let my peers in the face and not back them up you know what I mean so I'd have to have assurances from channel four and channel four I'll tell you another story about channel four I don't want to spend my whole thing that's because I don't care anymore really but you know I did a program for them called jokes live where I talked to Old jugs live drugs and it was all about thumping an ecstasy tablet and going in a brain scan and all that sort of stuff and Lily Allen's old man was on there yeah anyway I had a bit of an adverse effect on me but I came away I came I came across quite well on television because I did say exactly how it was all right and just like we're talking now so I guess a phone call from a guy called David Glover who was one of their commissioning officers he says do you want to come in he says we'll talk about you know where do you want to go with TV what do you want to do we'd like to see more of you on the screen and all this sort of stuff so they funded a um a little pilot I went to America I've still got the pilot it's quite cool I went and shot a couple of pigs in that and did a bit of sort of like survival Bush type of stuff and wrestled with a couple of animals and that did I mean it was all right give them that and they said oh we don't really want this but if you've got any other ideas so I said yeah I said I've got a great idea so why don't we replicate Special Forces selection and make it into a program yeah and of course that one says well go away and write it up Phil so I went away I wrote it up sent it back in they said any other ideas yeah I said I've got another one I said well bye why don't you set someone on the run or a group of people on the run and chase them of trained people haven't it yeah there you go I called it on the run but haven't it they took those ideas off about six months later a friend of mine says all they're recruiting for a special forces program on channel four so I phoned up David Glover I said what I said you've taken my idea then no not really he said someone came to us of a rather similar idea he said and we've decided and we're rather full for Special Forces types now so you all sort of like out of the frame you [ __ ] you absolutely and look I don't begrudge you know Billy's a great guy Foxy's a great guy listen you know they've done a great a great deal with that show and I don't begrudge them that one one one bit you know I mean if they ask you to come on the show would you oh I think there's a lot of the public would want me to go on that show lots of people have always said they've got me on that show I I'd like I said I'd need the assurances of Channel 4 that they won't end up trying up and make me look stupid again you know I mean because that's what that's ultimately what they've always tried to do I think you'd be absolutely brilliant on the show it'll be fun but I'm not sure I'm not sure you'd get away with being the mole what would you do I want to roll back a little bit you said you had mental health issues mental health problems going on when all that's kicking off on the remain what's going through your mind I don't know I dug deep on some of that because I had a few issues when I was in as well and I look mental health is one of these things I've massively tried to champion because I have struggled with a couple of things I've struggled when a friend of mine got killed and it was nothing combat related he was in a car crash and I struggled with it I struggled with the way it happened I struggled with a lot of things with it and I didn't feel like you could talk about it and so I didn't and so I bottled it up and I don't want to blame my behavior on on mental health because I have been a lunatic right I I am capable of being a lunatic okay but there has been on occasions times when the mental health thing has probably fueled a little bit the way I feel and pushed me in in the way that I act you know what I mean now I even now talking about I can envisage people looking at this going [ __ ] that's why he's just gonna try and blame everything on the mental health now I'm not because I am a lunatic and I have been that man that likes to punch up on I can quite happily get myself into trouble and and be quite all right with it you know what I mean sometimes but I'm not a nasty man I'm not I'm not a horrible man I wouldn't Nick your dinner money do you know what I mean um so in that respect there have been times where you know I've been low I've struggled for what way to go and I felt especially with the with the sexual stuff couldn't talk about it yeah I didn't want to talk about it I I bottled up for years and years and years when's the time you actually look back your time to stop and look back and go [ __ ] God that went on when I was eight nine ten eleven with all the sexual stuff and actually had to deal with it um I bought all the the the do you know at the time and this is this sounds so wrong right this sounds so wrong at the time there was another lad and I can't remember his name um that we would almost joke about the first lot and say you know what if their answer if their hands are warm it can be quite Pleasant like you know what I mean that's honking in it yeah it's funny and that's how you dealt with it you know what I mean it's black humor it does it brings a smile to me face now thinking about it that is so wrong isn't it you know what I mean it's wrong that's how you dealt with it and so you know at the time I saw like I pigeonholed it myself I put it to bed by that you know and whatever you know what I mean move on look for the next thing it wasn't until I was doing an after dinner for some NHS organization in Birmingham and I literally was stood there in front of all these people and uh I had to go on at nine o'clock and I got there early so I ended up watching the bloke in front of me and he was talking about foster homes and how some little kid had been interfered with and how if they could identify the perpetrators before they actually went through the system but they never got to identify them because not enough people would come up and talk about this sort of stuff so they struggled with finding and I thought it was like I mean I'm sat on something I'm literally I am the kid that was interfered with and I've never said nothing and because I've never said nothing but perhaps if I hadn't done they might have been able to identify or at least put that into a format whether it go right there's a there's a check there you should make before you before you let them do it so I walked out this room's got three 400 people in there right that's what people I don't even know right I've never spoken about a word but it's not even with Wendy right so I've literally got the speech prepared about how I think my time was in care and all this sort of stuff you know I mean I'm taking my thousand pounds for me after dinner and I'm going home as far as I'm concerned and I'll be way up to walking up to the stage you might tell you what side I threw on the floor I walked up and I told the story about what had happened I told them the details I told them how to bloke they've done this if I told them about what he did there I told them the apps you could have heard a pin drop you could have you could have gone well this is insane you know I mean there was people weeping in the crowd do you know what I mean it was it was it was heavy stuff yeah and I just said to them look I've only done it because of what that guy said there I said I could never have done that this has been saying me for 40 odd years you know what I mean I've only done it because of that I said so look whatever you take from this please you know learn from what I'm telling you you know I mean and then at that say it spurred me on the right and writing it into another book you know hopefully maybe it will have an impact somewhere do you know what I mean that's powerful yeah it is powerful yes and there's so many kids out there with a story like that yeah loads and I just feel I just do that something else is thought like that the Special Forces thing has actually helped me there because people look at me and they go right he was special forces so there's that thing around you and I know that I'm not stupid there's a thing about you where people look at you go why are you special forces and he must be I'm not an old man I'm not I you know I've learned a few things in my time and I'm not scared of much right but there is this Aura and I can use that aura now yeah to to I can say that and people won't turn around do you know what I mean I can say that and it is powerful and I know that you know what I mean so all the stuff that I've learned all the stuff that I've done wrong I'm not ashamed to say anything if I was ashamed to say I wouldn't say I'd keep it to myself but everything I've ever done everything I've ever done wrong I've always now put out there because people can learn from it all this stupid good mistakes all the times I didn't listen to people when I talked to young people now you know I'm the I'm the head Ambassador for the Army Cadet force and I get a lot of young people asking me all these questions I feel I'm in a position where I can really help them by being honest and saying look you know listen to people try and do your best at school try and learn here try and do that try and have activities don't be afraid to get it wrong don't be afraid to lose stand up all this sort of stuff is all stuff that I've learned you know what I mean so and it's all stuff now that I'm an older man I'm trying to put back into the system to help other people powerful man you're like a a an amazing role model for a lot of kids out there and for you to get up and stage and say that off the cuff when you built this up for 40 odd years massive respect to you it was hard I'm gonna tell you it was hard but again nothing is impossible yeah do you like me did you just feel that was the right time to do it you were building up for a long time guys need to come out somewhere he's come and say and at that moment you're like right like you said fruit never really thought about it I never thought when I sorted like compartmentalized it when I threw it in the bin at the back of my head I never thought it would ever come out I'd never thought I'd talk to anybody about it and just that one bloke that one trigger just went now you've got to do this for you've got to do that and what's more is you're in a position where you can do it do you know what I mean and you'll be spineless if you didn't do it what advice Phil have you got anyone listening out there and this happened to them when they were a kid and they haven't dealt with it talk to someone about it I I say I was like a bottle of a bottle of coke where someone had taken the cooktop off it got a whole packet of Mentos shoved it in there and put the top back on it bounced it a couple of times and left it in the corner it's got to come out all right and it will come out somewhere if you don't control it now what I've done is I've done the cap really sort it out slowly yeah and I've managed to get it out and I've talked about it and you know what I feel like a normal bottle of coconut I feel all right I feel good it's out there so look you've got to I don't say go and tell the world Tick Tock it or stick it on Instagram you know what I mean tell somebody yeah tell someone you love tell yourself first tell yourself in the mirror that happened yeah I need to tell someone what the problem shared is the problem half yeah it really is it honestly is I'm adamant by that it helped me out so much unbelievable mate unbelievable moving on what have your thoughts on the whole Ukraine Russia thing and have you been out to Ukraine I went out to Ukraine early days um and I helped a few people get back get out of there I've got a couple of people over the Border um it's a dangerous place again it's a war zone honking people are making honking decisions out there there's a lot of stuff out there that's absolutely disgusting it's a very very it's the normal people to get in it it's the normal when when I the first thing that stuck with me was when I got to Poland was seeing these streams of women holding children whose old men are like stuck now gonna have to fight they don't know if they'll ever see them again you know that's not a normal thing to say let's start taking one of the biggest estate saying somewhere like Southampton taking Millbrook shaking it until all the women find fall out of it leaving the blokes in there surrounding it with Russians are going right they might see you again right see you later yeah it ain't right it ain't normal ain't good and whatever you know whatever the reasons are that they're fighting I just really pray to God that they can find a way through it which which which nullifies it and and satisfies both sides as soon as possible because it ain't nice it ain't good did you feel the urge to go out there and help uh not gonna be perfectly honest with you on this one my pocket felt the urge I needed the dough I got paid for it I got paid I got paid well for it so I went over there and I did that and I came back and I'm not you know I'm not going to make any bones about it I didn't I didn't feel compelled to get involved I didn't feel like I needed to go over there I didn't you know you know I'd like to say that I would probably support anything that supports the ukrainians do you know what I mean but again there's not much I can actually do you know the British government is doing what it can it's it's a it's a real horrible situation yeah do you know what I mean and obviously if you looked at the propaganda from the other side they'll be telling you a completely different story aren't they do you know what I mean so you do get if you if you look at the stuff online now you'll start you're starting to pick up two sides of a story aren't you know what I mean it's like yeah it's a it's a difficult complicated situation again but ultimately the only people that's suffering are the normal people yeah you know what I mean the people that are using soldiers on both sides of the coin the people that are stuck in these Estates the people that have had to do a run of the people that obviously have already lost their lives in it it's not these politicians it's not the ones in the Ivory Tower what will you pay to actually do just go and help someone get back over the border so get them from Ukraine every quarter in Poland yeah get them to Poland get shot and what give me example what your day would look like you're saying you get them over the board have you got a badge or something literally literally went over to provided them with some information enough for them to get themselves over the border and they did I've got arrested actually on the border so I've got yeah yeah I've got I've got looked at myself over there like I say we've I've moved away from that we didn't do anything wrong but you know well yeah it's extremely dangerous on that border I'm sure it is mate and uh it just seems that it's danger just follows you everywhere or you follow the danger everywhere yeah tell me um what did you get arrested for um being on being on the board being across the border so they've got like this great big track goes all the way around um we gave these people an idea of where they could get across it we knew it was censored so we went down there um I said I was creating a press story yeah so I said I was press which wasn't a complete lie because I was looking for press stories while I was there so you know I would have found something that was press work I would have used it I you know I'd press stickers on the car and all that sort of stuff yeah and I directed them to tell them that if you want to get across this is probably the best chance of doing it right and so literally as they they did their bits and pieces I I stuck I coughed when the police turned up so the police preoccupied themselves of us yeah and hopefully I don't know if they do they didn't hopefully whoever was trying to get across the border got back again they were ukrainians I mean I'm not this was the big worry from the police they thought we were Russian right so they thought we were one of these Russian lunatic teams going to execute people which obviously we weren't you know how many were just and were you carrying no no again no no no which again so the day when we'd gone down and had a look at what was going on on the border we've been seen by the eye in the sky all right so we've been seen by someone so when we went down the next day they was already teeing something up so the ukrainians were there now the ukrainians apparently have been told were were on the brink of all the brink of knocking us out like you know what I mean because they thought that we were Russians they thought we were Russians trying to sneak in and out the border so it was let it's a dangerous game I've got away with it by the skin of my teeth I wouldn't advise anybody to go over there unless you're going over in an official capacity I mean Aid work is slightly different okay you can go over there you can do your bits and pieces but don't take any risks it seriously is a dangerous unforgiving hostile environment it really is horrendous the army what are your movements now Phil all your movements now right yeah locked down lockdown was horrendous for us we were living over in Spain I was looking I was working with a little production company over there all their work went South everything went so we're in Spain we've got no money so we sold everyone we came back I've got an hour since Southampton we came back we bought a narrowboat um and we lived on an hour boat for a bit and I've got got him with a friend of mine and we've set up a radio station which hopefully you know that that's going to go places so we started our own radio station Force radio that's doing its bits and pieces I picked up a couple of brand ambassador type roles so I'm sort of like integrating myself back into being in the UK full time at some stage you know what I mean and then just stepping away from all that stuff you know I don't even want to do the body Garden anymore to be honest I don't want to do nothing with security in it whatsoever I'm quite happy doing this I think TV's crying out for you mate I've done some really cool stuff with Bear Grylls whenever I'm with him you know he always says he always says to me right he always says you are fantastic Talent being poorly managed I'm not being managed at all I don't have a manager I don't have a manager I don't have an agent I don't have anything so I'm done I'm looking if anyone out there thinks they can manage me give me an agent hello give me a shout all right get me into reality TV you'll only do it once we'll be made for Life yeah all right get me in the Big Brother house we're off we're up and running and we're we're done mate let's have a talk after this no one will ever talk to the doors we can open yeah definitely mate I think you know go for the right one yeah I've got I've got quite a big backers Piers Morgan likes what I do he's always give me a good reference bear loves what I do bears coming on the podcast oh is he really yeah oh he's a great guy yeah do you know what I mean no we have we've heard some good laughs I'm doing the challenge at the moment is this this bearing challenge so he says to me he says we're doing this challenge in regarding he says he says it's not that hard Phil he says you'll be all right so I think laughing at this one I've had the I've had the World Cup I've had Christmas I've spent the whole thing on The Beano do you know what I mean I'm Fuller than the fat girls shoes I'm wandering around the right better lose some weight it's January like you know what I mean bear says well come on get up to bears and he's got all his gear out in the garden and that you know hunter from um what's it called Hunter from uh the Gladiator yeah yeah he's there really nice guy but he's there flexing on that he's ready to go and another officer from the Royal Marines he's there ready to go and Phil turns up like the Teletubby lights all right okay so what the deal is you've got a 30k a 33k weight in each hand 33k dumbbell in each hand 10ks on each leg carrying something up 35 40K on your back dragging a 50k Sledge oh Jesus I'm not really sure I'll have to give it a go because he's not called me out and he's filming it yeah someone gets into it I think I've got about a further away down here my heart was literally going to come out pretty well he called it a day he's like what I feel you better stop it but I've said that I'll do that later in the year and I think I want to go back up this place tonight I will I will do it this year I think you're made to be a massive celebrity on TV You're Made for This Phil well I I I I appreciate your confidence mate anyway it could be epic it could be fun mate I Think You're Made for This mate anyone listening out there before we end up finishing up being filmed tell me the names of the books where people can find it and where people can find you right so all my social media apart from Tick Tock is at Big Field champion tick tocks that Big Field Campion zero one because somebody nicked my name there is a big field camping but it's not me it's somebody just randomly nicking all my stuff and putting out right and so yeah so everything's that Big Field Campion there's Twitter Facebook all that sort of stuff um my books then you can get books in the normal places Amazon online the audio book all the all the normal sweet stuff born Fearless um is the first one that was the time's best seller the stuff we've all with all the kids own stuffing I just mentioned is is called who does wins yeah that's also out there I wrote two novels I'm gonna be perfectly honest they weren't that they were well written but because I wasn't a big enough name they didn't they didn't do as well as they probably should have done because Damien did a great job of writing them with me Damien who Damon Lewis okay Damian Lewis wrote the road he's my ghost writer we've been friends for years um so yeah get on board those two books because they're great I'd love to see them do something and I wrote a survival guide which my publisher sticks me up and then they wouldn't they they run out of them I can't get them for love no money but because they did them in a funny size they go well we can't print them unless you can Vlog sort of like a thousand at a time I've got a thousand buyers so yeah that's the end of you've got one of them they're like they're like rocking horse they're like hens teeth yeah May anyone listening out there Phil's playing this down but those two other books I reckon they're going to get snapped up by someone and what you're doing at the moment and what you've done for our country Phil and bringing humor everything you've done bringing humor to the whole world you've lived in for the last 50 years is massively commendable and I know that the amount of respect you've got from everyone in their special forces SAS Army RAF everyone knows big Phil champion and they love you but I you know I really appreciate that as well you know I mean but it's it's something that you know I don't I don't treat that even lightly I mean that's something that you know that's that's not the given is it you know what I mean and you can you can destroy all that yeah so I've had I've had 140 guests I've done over the last couple of years and I've never had the mo a fascinating episode on my head just now well that's that's I really appreciate it yeah mate you're an absolute gentleman mate and I wish you all the best and I think a lot of doors are going to open up oh I'm sorry yeah quality mate cheers thank you very much Cheers Cheers appreciate it good man [Music]

Channel: Dodge Woodall

Views: 474,036

Keywords: army, sas, special forces, Dodge Woodall, war, iraq, jungle, sas selection, weapon, training, tour, regiment, america, England, britain, forces, platoon, soldier, commander, opens up, podcast, clips, eventfullivespodcast, simon jeffries, phil campion, bear grylls, mett hellyer, military, Dodge Woodall podcast, James English, Shaun Attwood

Id: piO3TMW97M0

Length: 100min 48sec (6048 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 22 2023