The Remarkable Life of Phil Campion - Bear &

right the plans in those days were get them to shoot at you get them to shoot get them to chase you and then hopefully if they do get on the boat they'll have nothing left to kill you if you didn't get some fists and boot their way that's the plan yeah waste their ammunition and get them closer yeah i'm bear grylls and i'm embarking on an epic journey from the spectacular pool harbour home to the scouts all the way along to devon home of the royal marines commandos so strap in and join me as we travel along some of britain's most stunning coastline meet big phil phil champions big in size and big in character having served with the british special forces with the sas phil went on to have a crazy career around the world as a private security specialist phil wrote an incredible book describing his tough upbringing his career in the military and his life since but true to form there's nothing quite like spending time in this country now i was saying earlier about your book and how how brilliant that was that must have been quite a thing writing that and telling telling your story is that something you wanted to do i found it really therapeutic if i'm honest because i've never opened up about some of the things i talked about before yeah you were amazingly honest in that yeah i think i have to be honest i've got to look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and say have i told the truth in that book do you know what i mean and i wanted people to know because your your upbringing wasn't wasn't easy and it wasn't easy um tell us about that well i was adopted from birth to a family who lost all their money there nothing left he didn't have any work um we'd lost his job but he then subsequently became a bit of a drinker was violent towards my mother and then was violent towards myself as well so and where did where did that lead to as you got as you got a bit older ah and the military stuff how did that aspiration come around and i wasn't the best kid on the blockchain i mean i was naughty i was mischievous nowadays i'd have probably been given a label adhd or some sort you know i may not have been on the scale for definitely and i just got sent to a public school because i had a high iq and the state paid for me to go but i got i got fairly bullied there because they knew that the state were paying my parents weren't paying and i shouldn't really be there and things didn't work out there but that was my first exposure because i had a ccf so my first exposure to military was in the ccf and it was somewhere where once you put that green skin on everybody was equal do you not mean it was like well it don't matter if he's no good at math so it don't matter how much money he's got in his pocket because you've got to wear exactly the same as he has positives from negatives all the time you know i picked myself up out of there i ended up in a children's home i got a job what was the children's home like the kids homes should have been safe environments and sometimes you didn't feel safe you know and you made your own you know i've been looking over my shoulder all my life sometimes when i look back at it that way because you used to you know you used to take solids in your bedroom at night and think to yourself what's coming through the door next night you know what i mean and the kids shouldn't have to feel like that and how old were you then let then it retains look i don't like to dwell on it too much because the positive side of it was it made me into the man who i am you know you you go down so low and you can only see up yeah i left there i got a good opportunity look while i was in the children's home i got involved with a place called council activity center and cowshop was awesome he had a cycle track and had to ski another climbing walls and i was open season for phil to do what and the guy down there griff was ex-military he was an albert in the navy or something like that very very possibly but really nice guy he said i'll give you a job on the yts he goes i can't give you nothing else he said because you've got no qualifications i'd have school recycled efficiency and that was it like i mean but he says that i'll get you on the yts the yts was about 25 pound a month or whatever it was but they looked after me i went in for an interview with him expecting him to go yeah well sign here phil you'll be working and he went no no because i can't i can't employ you you haven't got any you know you can't be a teacher you know you might have a couple of skiing qualifications and he said but primarily we're at school we need a we need you to have these i didn't have them and he just said to me said have you ever thought about the army and i said actually griffin says i have i said because i had a ccf at school i said that i'm not putting so much trouble i'd always fancy myself in the army when the phone got picked up there and then and i've never looked back i must have been sixteen seventeen something like that seventeen yeah and so who and what regiment did you join i went to hampshire's i literally went in there the script is written for you when you like me because it's like well you do your test and it's like it's infantry infantry yeah you're going to the infantry side i'm happy with that right i'm happy i guess you know i said what's the quickest route to get in and the guy said well the royal hampshire's recruiting now he says if you take that he says i can have you on a bus in about two weeks time should you be successful at this selection place and all that and that was it and i went i went to i went to depot so how many years in total did you do in the military i did 15 in the military in total from the royal hampshires we amalgamated to the princess of wales's royal regiment uh at this stage i've done my commando course down in limston when we amalgamated uh we became part of five airborne brigade so i did play company uh johnny holmes was the commander and then he insisted that you wear your red lid which was pretty few people though that say done command of course and p company yeah yeah there won't be too many i managed to through the director inquiries get johnny owns his line straight into his office so i phones it up hello sir it's lance corporal champion here and i'm just recently playing yeah yeah you know he's a brigadier i'd like to um i'd like to transfer to the parachute regiment if possible sir i've just passed speed company and he said i'll give you this chat oh yeah splendid splendid splendid he must have put the phone on what water what the phone but also what's the last corporal doing phony exactly yeah i love it i mean talk about who dares win i mean you know that that's that's not in the chain of command is it it's not like oh absolutely outside you get what you fight for so within 10 minutes right within 10 minutes i swear now i can hear the rsm bellowing at the top of the corporal corporal champion i've been marched over upstairs into him shouting at me for breaking all the protocol and all that sort of stuff then i went into the accident and then i went in front of the ceo and the co i'm stood there in front of said let me bury and i wasn't being on all orders on it i'd bury on and it was the princess of wales berry and he started giving me the lawyers lecture i said well you you amalgamated me and i threw me barry at them i said look at that i said that's not a royal answer berry is he started screaming and there was a guy henry egan and he was the battalion to i see and he'd done pea company and he understood people like me and he grabbed me in his office and he said well done couple camping he said you've reached your ceiling in an afternoon the ceiling stops here two choices really he said you could probably get civvy street if you if you tried hard enough he says but uh he said i suggest you go on special forces selection or something like that so i i went back in on on an interview and asked him but he said no he wouldn't let me go then he said no he said you'll give me two years in the cop platoon in northern ireland as part of this tour because he's got wind if i was trying to get out of northern ireland basically um that was it i give him a year i did a good job and he let me go and i've got a lovely letter off him when i passed elections and you know we might have had half differences but um you know you've you've excelled and you know you've you've made good you've made good your conversation in my office and you know what the day he left i sent him a message saying sir i said i can't be there today but if i was i'd be there with my heels together and the others that i've thrown up for you because he was a good boss like did that mean so then you went off to selection then i went selection past election first time uh joined joined the d squadron and just you know was there for three or four years four years five years yeah and then then when you ended up doing a lot of the security work afterwards was that a well-trodden route by a lot of ex-hereford guys it was and it wasn't because you know obviously afghanistan and iraq hadn't been in play had it so i literally used the blue years was this it's just 2001 2002 as the balloon went up um i basically headed out to pakistan and thought right now i'll get i'll sort this out i'll get myself the military system yeah out of the military in pakistan tooling around looking for work and i ended up in combat a little bit on your own now you're out of system that i didn't like it i'll be oh did that honest i didn't like it but look life deals your life deals a sandwich that you don't like the taste of you got to eat it you know that more than anybody you know one of the important lessons i always like the cadets you've got to deal with the hand you've got then i got wind if there was a job going in kabul so i went out there un flew in with the european commission took care of their security for three years one of the best jobs i've ever done really i really cut my teeth in the industry yeah you know i made a bit of a name for myself you always seem to me the master of improvising adapting overcoming you know i always say i said to our family when we were i said we're going down to see phil i said phil is a guy you want beside you in a crisis because he'll make something out of something and or if he'll bluff his way through this they'll punch his way through that and he'll charm his way through that i've got an eternal belief that i can turn it round somehow but that's that's an amazing skill and weapon for you sometimes it's all i've had left in the bank if you believe so con take us to the take us to the pirate right so the power is your thing so i'll go on this trip i've done i've done loads of trips loads of transits and they were all different and you know you didn't see a lot of pirates and what sometimes you were part of a small too big team yeah it could be it could be a small one it could be a big one it depends what the client had paid for and i wasn't in the position to argue so i'll just take what they give me and go and do the work do you know what i mean so i that that was pretty much how i would run it well how big a security team on just two of us yeah it wasn't a massive one it was i think it's what they call a coaster so it wasn't as big as a tank but the three boards were quite low and it was yeah so we get through the transit corridor and the escorts are gone and then we're on our own and you you armed have you got no no no no no those were the days when it was just you know slingshots and whatever you could make out your understanding what's your plan if anything happened well the plans in those days were get them to shoot at you get them to shoot get them to chase you get them to waste ammunition and fuel and then hopefully if they do get on the boat nothing left to kill you if we didn't get some fists and boot their way so is that the plan get in a waste of fuel ammunition and get them at closer that was about it yeah yeah get on board hide the crew hide the crew and then have it with them if they come on that time tell me what you call these hammers they all have look at the hammer you've got to have a close-up of those look at those hands look there you go i always say to phil if those uh if those hands could talk what do you always say they've got some secret holes okay so anyway so anyway so we're on the thing the guy that i'm traveling with has got a bit of a drink problem and the captain of the ship can only operate if he's full of if he's full of vodka all right so i'm surrounded by people that are just drinking for the whole transit and it was quite common that you know people would be so scared of going through these pirate wars that they turned a drink or they wouldn't be able to operate i can tell you loads of stories of captains just failing on the spot you're like oh my god anyway so this one particular one thinks he's going to drink all the way through the transit subsequently by sort of like tea time every night he's horizontal he's he's in his he's in his scratcher pushing him out my mate who was on there i'll tell you mate the guy that's traveling with me he's more or less the same he's he's he's been drinking with the captain no i'll brief the captain up oh you know he's been drinking with him and i'm thinking well all right you got to do what you got to do i can't pull him up you know he's a big lad he knows what he's doing you know that's his problem i'll get through i'll get me money i'll go home yeah anyway i'm on the deck i'm in the bridge and i see i see two little spots in the horizon i'm like oh here we go and they get closer and they get closer and then i'll get them on the radar properly and i'm like yeah they're skips they've got trails they're doing about 15 and a half knots it's a good sea state and they're coming they're ours right we know they're coming right so i've rounded up a few we had a couple of the flares and a few bits and pieces and some nuts and bolts and you know i'll turn me pants into a slingshot on that just we're up on the deck the captain's know what to be saying now all right he he's completely horizontal he's gone so the first officer of the watch is like oh he didn't want to be there either so i said right take the lads downstairs and you adrenalized at this point you're thinking that something's definitely wicked they're without doubt they're as they're 100 there are i know there are i've seen it before and i know they're coming for us all right so i'm thinking myself all i'm going to do is i'm going to get on the bridge wing i'm going to wave and i'm going to scream at them and i'm going to just going to try and get them to fire as much automatic fire at this ship as they can because they are not going to hit me alright that's what i've got in my own mind they are not never going to hit me so they get round they get within within sort of like shooting distance they don't shoot straight away they're looking they they're buzzing about and then they think they then they start coming in as if they're going to go for it right so i fired a flare at the first off it's gone and then all right he's got something and then you can see i'm almost chuckling oh it's your flares again of course you have one the cannons are going down the side but ain't going to stop nobody and what are the cannons the walk cannons so we got the wall so that's i used to tip oil all over the deck as well you know what i mean so if we got on there we'd ever stop like jeremy beadle so how do you done that i've done all that yeah so it was all prepped the was prepped but they were still intent on getting on and they come alongside and the guy i can see him he's got like a ladder with a hook on the end of it and he's going to put it on and everything's gone i've thrown everything i had him everything's gone i'm like they're coming on do you like me didn't you have didn't you have some barrel or something you'd rigged up on a road i had a barrel on the rope yeah all my defenses are gone so talk us through some of those defenses barrel on the rope you know what is it what is that it was a big it was hanging off one of the davits and it was just a barrel when it was strapped up and the idea was if they got them in the right place you'd chop it and it would swing down and hit them well swings down here there's only one place that can hit them and they're not in the place where you can hit them so the barrel's no good to me barrel's done they're right underneath and the water cannons are they effective no no they give you a good shower most of them needed one anyway so [Music] the captain's got this little fridge full of coca-cola's it's one of those little ones you get in your camper van like you know what i mean and i'm like right what have i got so you have drunk down so yeah see the fridge rip it out tip the cokes out because i thought you know i still want the coke i've run down the bridgewing i've looked over and he said he's trying to hook on he's trying to hook on and as he goes to put it i yelled him all right i don't know as hard as i could down the side of the ship rattled it down the side of the ship and it hit like the front of the boat and put it done enough to put him off he must have thought he hadn't given up my time anyway hit the front of the boat i'm not sure if it hit him but he's done enough to turn them away and if they went they stay wheeled and then they left yeah oh wow well we got chased by a mother ship on another occasion which that was and you could see this mother ship was absolutely loaded with skiffs and pirates and we're doing like 13 knots and this thing's doing 12.9 do you know when at least he's coming again and we're losing a bit of speed and he's gaining and the thing gets down to within you can see you can see them and everything and we've got these we've got these and anyway gradually we've got up to about 13.1 you know the donkey's doing overtime downstairs do you know what i mean all right and we get this thing going and we get out of the way and i remember the captain the captain laid on the floor on this occasion just gave up laid on the floor he couldn't do nothing he just laid on the floor all right it does do strange things that people fear do that means we laid on the floor anyway we got away after it took about three hours to get to such a distance where we were like okay and they stopped chasing us and went and then two hours later there was a great big plume i got the photograph a great big plume of black smoke from the from the engine room we blew the engine and now we're drifting anyway they got it going again and we got away but yeah the man and narrows there's an element of luck you make your own my friend and you are a testament to making your own you gotta ride it a little bit such a place to spend time with you we can do lots more together for now hope you enjoyed the great the one and only the legend phil campion come on [Music] you

Channel: Bear Grylls

Views: 437,215

Keywords: bear grylls, bear grylls episodes, bear grylls full episode, wilderness survival, bear uncut episodes, bear uncut, bear grylls channel, bear grylls adventure, bear grills, bear grylls 2021, bear grylls extreme, extreme, british adventurer, military, phil campion, bear grylls and military, sas, ex sas, phil campion sas

Id: pqr6SUTNBxg

Length: 15min 50sec (950 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 26 2021