 Because at the time girls and boys were still coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq and you know fucked up in all sorts of, oh it's awful, awful. These wars, these unjust and illegal wars, it grips me Chris, it really does, it grips me. And the first month of SEA selection is it's just pure physical. The Royal Marines had to leave the Navy, join the army and when you join the army they had to have a parent regiment to belong to and of course that regiment was the parachute regiment and if they failed selection in theory they would get posted back to the parachute regiment. Can you imagine a Royal Marine in the parachute regiment? Mr Spud, is there something about being in the regiment that makes people stay around Hereford after they've served? No, well I mean I love it, I mean I'm a city boy and I'm a country boy but no I wouldn't say there's not that much to keep the lads around here, I mean as a percentage I guess there's very few of us that live here. Most of the guys sort of move off back home or overseas. I mean the camp is only, that's the crow flies about five miles from my place really but it's nine miles away and I'm on the flight path to the beacons you see so I get a lot of air traffic sometimes but they don't fly low enough for me, they're always staying up high. I think they should get a bit of low level training. So Spud, how well were you when you joined the, did you join the parachute regiment first? Yeah I mean I didn't get on in school too well and I always had this sort of rebel streak in me and I left school at 15. I don't know how many other levels of GCEs I took but I do remember the day I left my parents gave me a pound to give to the school so they could then send on my exam results. Now I don't think they ever sent on my exam results well my parents didn't tell me and as a consequence I didn't didn't know if I'd passed any exams or not. Anyway so I got out into the big wide world and I was itching to go if you know what I mean. I had a couple of jobs, one job was working up in Spitterfield's fruit market so I had to get up early in the morning and drive from sort of Alpington, Bromley area and then four o'clock in the morning all the way through up to sort of eastern London through the Rotherhide tunnel and then start work and I was back home in bed for about one o'clock that afternoon and I remember my dad lending me the money he lent me the money to buy a moped so I could do the journey which was an FS1 Yamaha moped. A fizzy, it was the purple one so it was the sort of second generation and it was 480 odd quid which was a bloody fortune then but my my old man managed to raise the money to lend it to me and he made sure I paid it back every week and I look back at it now I think that's a really good that's a really good grounding the fact that he made me pay the money back but also the fact that I had the you know the ability to get up at four o'clock in the morning I mean it was horrendous drive really through the streets of London with all these heavy lorries going on and after I've done that for about a six or seven months I had a friend that I had a friend that a school friend that joined the Royal Green Jackets and he was home on leave one day and he sort of bumped and had a drink and he had sort of matured a lot I mean he was always a bit of a lad but he had actually matured and I said to him I said Richard Dick I mean what's it like in the army because I'm getting pissed off around here you know and I was also getting into a little bit of trouble sort of running with southeast London pack these sort of nothing to do with drugs or anything like that but just you know just being a being a lad been been violent I suppose and he said oh it's great you know it's really great and you get three square meals and you know all that old nonsense and you get money you get paid as well for it so I thought yeah and I said to him look what should I join who should I join and he says if I if I had my charts I'd join the Royal Marines well yeah I want to see them I want to join the Royal Marines so what happened was I then went to Blackheath which was where the recruiting office was for the Royal Navy we joined the Royal Marines and and I thought went in there and these posters of these big blokes and stuff like that you know and I remember as a kid I used to read these sort of commando comics and they were all about the Royal Marines I mean they're always smart looking and and there was these bunch of guys called the paratroopers and they were always really rough bust it's horrible so I went and joined the Royal Marines and you go in there I did the fitness did the aptitude and I remember the sergeant saying to me right go go away lad come back at one o'clock and we'll let you know what's what the score is I came back at one and he said oh I'm really sorry I said what do you mean you said you've got a police record so I know I haven't he said you have when you were 15 you stole a car I went no I did still it was my mate's car he let me borrow it you know and it why is it on record because I was told at the time it would never go on record but it was on record so I said we can't accept you you've got to go away for a year I said no what a joiner what a joiner I said what else can I do he says well you can always go next door and join the parrots they'll have you so because at that time the Royal Navy recruiting office was next door to the Army recruiting office so I went next door joined the parrots and they had me and it was that was it you know um really I remember when you were leaving when we were leaving school and lads joined the army it was just like such a it was such a big thing yeah you know there's all of us doing all kind of shit jobs and yeah trying to earn art I think I was on 30 quid a week back then and then there were these guys coming back on leave and they had the crew cuts and and suntans and they'd been out running with their troop and this kind of stuff um yeah it was quite it's it's it was a good option for a young person wasn't it well I joined in wow 78 and um it was either for me it was either go on go in the print or do what I was doing up at the markets or go to jail I mean it was really that that that's straightforward as far as I could see I mean I'd rather like to have thought that I would have been too clever to go to jail get caught but uh you're always pretty smarmy and smart at that age aren't you um but yeah I mean I joined the parrots um I went up uh in those days they're the waiting time wasn't like six seven months nine months like it is today I mean it was a matter of weeks and I remember even to this day that uh Jesus I just wanted to get out and I think it was only about four weeks I had to go up to Sutton Coldfield you know but it seemed like a lifetime I went up Sutton Coldfield managed to get the unit I wanted the parrots um I wasn't particularly fit although I played rugby but I was sort of always built for sort of comfort not speed um so we went down a depot parra and those immortal that immortal phrases uh when you get off the train at order shop you know order shop order shop this is order shop you know and you'll get out and and the usual scenario the bus is waiting there's a couple of force crews there and they will usher you want for the bus and you go off and that's it and um I kind of I kind of thought it strange for the first few months been running around well first few weeks running around being shouted out but I kind of understood it I couldn't get to grips with the fitness um that was quite although I was fit through rugby I couldn't get to grips with the fitness all these long runs um but I managed to get through it all right and I remember after about week six or is eight when you pass off I don't know in the Marines but you I think week six or eight you pass off the square so you stop wearing these sort of cabbage hats and they give you a maroon beret you know um and then they uh then what they called the uh hitler youth joined us the junior parrots you know they had been in since 16 so I mean they were like they knew all the scams all the score excuse me yeah they knew all the scams and all the score and it was quite it was quite uh interesting to see how they treated us but I mean they look so young and yet I was only what 18 19 I mean it's just incredible um so I passed all that and then obviously there's something called peed company which is a series of quite heavy endurance sort of events physical events and one of them's the log race and I actually got awarded the flag and every every sort of event you the best person gets awarded a flag you know the I think was a pegasus flag or something and that's the first thing in my whole life anybody's actually given I've won anything you know and I and that log race to me is is is an unbelievable feat of endurance yeah the stretcher race and everything else the transium the milling but for me that log race was something it was the first time in my whole life that somebody actually praised me for something that you know that I that I actually worked on and that was kind of good uh all through the rest of the the training the the next three or four months um was I found it I found I was I was very I found it very hard to get into it all but I suddenly clicked when we went to advance Wales I never found the uh the power training easy I I mean I didn't slip into I didn't slip into it it took me months to get into it and it sort of clicked when um almost to the end of the course you do something called advance Wales which is three weeks up in the breccan beacons and it was winter at the time and um where you do all the tactics and the ambushes and patrolling and I it's kind of clicked in for me then and I remembered being two o'clock in the morning and there was about four foot of snow on the ground and we were dug in in a defence position on this thing called well this feature called uh concrete hill there's no reason you can't dig into it you can get down just take off the top layer of peat you're there anyway so anyway we had snow and everything and two o'clock in the morning I was stagging on on the gun and I was thinking f**k you know this is you just don't you just you just think what the f**k you're here and uh and you try and play it for real and all of a sudden I got this whack right under the stomach this corporal kicking you right in the solar plexus and he says wake up Ely wake up and I said no call you know call all staff I can't remember can't staff I'm not I'm not asleep I'm not asleep I wasn't asleep and then I remember a few years later I'm downtown in Heriford just past selection into the SES and I'm in this nightclub you know bigot it up and then this guy Fekezi's name was he come up to me and says Ely and he f**king punched me in the solar plexus he said well done Ely he said what squadron do you get I said these squadron he said well I'm a now f**k off laughing you know I mean it was kind of a joke really um but that little incident always I always remember it purely because when I talk to other soldiers recruits about um how difficult life is at the time you'd always remember these certain things in your career that like I'm not saying Vic was a mentor but like that always I mean from that early stage and I didn't stop soldiering until I was about 50 odd and I've never ever forgot that you know about I mean sleeping on stag's worse than having an ND isn't it I mean sleeping on stag you you know they used to they used to f**king shoot you back in the first world war I mean having a negligent discharge isn't isn't so bad but if you sleep on stag and I've never slept on stag and I've always you know it's always been good that's a good little sort of story I always remember and always recall I mean I've got a nephew in three power at the moment and um he's doing well so but I recall I recalled that story to him years ago when he was in training and I think it stuck with him too and then we passed out I got my maroon beret so absolutely so proud it was just unbelievable and the parrots have this this saying which is called alley it's an alias I mean the marines have theirs but we've got this saying looking alley looking smart looking cocky and parrots are cocky parrots are smart in the sense of they're combat smart I'm not sort of like you roam or range you look we always were envious about you with your shirts and your trousers and all your Gucci boot gaiters and stuff I passed off and I felt so great and we had these parrots mops which was different from the rest of the army and we just we just felt so different I went off to do the parachute course up at rise Norton and on the third jump I piled into the to a pig farm it was very windy gusty winds and I smashed my right shoulder snapped half a clavicle of it so I spent the December in hospital rf railton and didn't pass out with my platoon 449 I passed out with two platoons later 451 which was kind of I went all the way through with these boys and you know that's a great guys in 449 some which I'm still you know we took to now I passed out with 451 and then I got posted to Berlin I got posted to para that was my battalion and they were over in Berlin so I did the last couple of months in Berlin with two para I did the last guard at Hess you know the old German Hess Rudolph Hess yeah I do survive in Nazi bastard the the allies at the Nuremberg trials shows you how long ago it is Nuremberg trials allowed to live I mean I did the last British guard with two para on that so then of course we we went off after Berlin we had six weeks leave and then we let me prepare for a two-year tour of Northern Ireland and that was when the you know that's when you realize what war's all about I mean I spent two years in Ireland I it was just quite amazing the the pounding of the streets and all the sort of all the ambushes we did the patrols over in the bandit countries they called it and then we had Warren Point and I cook second bomb on that I was being beat company two para down at Nure we were the QRF and it's where the IRA blew up 18 of our guys at Warren Point place called Warren Point they were never actually coming to Bezbrook Mill to do a reset I know but we were doing a company changeover and the strange thing was the the guys in the four tunnels were from 449 Badoom my Batoom and Barney my best mate at the time was killed and Tom my other best mate Tom Caggy still alive because every every half hour they they were tailgaters at the four on the four tunnel and as you remember the four tunnels used to spew all this diesel fumes up and if you if you sat in in the truck itself you were you'd get sort of you'd get you feel a bit chokey so the thing was it was always to get on the end of the tailgate so you get fresh air so Tom had just changed with Barney and Tom was on the end tailgate the first bomb went off and everyone in the truck got bloated the pieces apart from Tom who was blown out I mean he suffered 80% burns from his neck downwards I went to see him a few months later in Woolwich Hospital and he was on a spit that anyone this spit for six months just slowly turning around so you know because his body couldn't settle I mean horrendous Tom's alive and well now and we were in regular contact but the irony of it the irony of this little story was that if I had passed out through 449 I could quite well have been in the back of that four tunnel because everybody apart from a couple went to B Company they all went to A Company and it was A Company that got hit at Warren Point um you know I don't believe in conspiracy theories and I also don't believe in coincidences either in that sense but um yeah that was uh that was an high opener for me and then the tour went on we lost a couple of more guys and then I with Tupara we had a rotation system you did a monthly camp at Ballakinle and you did a month down on the border and on the rotation in Ballakinle which was the main secure camp where Tupara were you know were where the battalion were stationed we had to camp guard and uh one of the times officers and sergeants had this mess too and uh it was B Company again and you have to uh you have to supply the guarding company has to supply the sort of the waiters to wait on the officers and in the sergeant's mess and because I wasn't a front of house type person you know I wasn't a front of house type guy they stuck me in the back in the kitchens along with this guy um and uh the guys what was happening was we were we were doing the dixies we were washing washing up all the plates and all the sort of uh the clean cut lads would come in with these half with these trays with half drunken beer and vodka and wine and there's me and this lad Robbie Allison we would put the trays there we were at the washroom we would drink and then anyway we got absolutely shit faced and somehow ended up on the top of the officer's mess um throwing slates down on top of the in the garden party and that was it mate we got they called the guard out and because it was B Company that was securing the camp it was the guys I knew so the guy card came out they arrested me and Robbie and the long and short of it all is I got 28 days in nick I mean I could have gone to collie Robbie got 28 days as well um which is like crazy thing to do you're on an operational tour anyway while we were in there um these two marines turn up and I don't know whether you know I'm guy called Dick Scott and Dave Slater uh Dave Slater is the name from back yeah well they turn up because they've gone able and joined the forum forum legion because they weren't they they weren't allowed to go on the tour of Ireland so their commando unit was doing so obviously their commando unit was over in the iron if that is that they actually did end up in northern Ireland um they turned up but they did 28 days with me and it was so so funny I mean it was a laugh a minute and then I got uh before I had my little sort of drinking episode I was on what they call the drilling duty so I was up to get my first sort of stripe I was up to get a lance couple so I was on the lance couple's carter so um the procedure in the Paris is you you have a um you have an inspection in the morning an inspection in the evening about 1,800 hours and the duty soldier in major comes around and make basically to make sure if all the prisoners are safe and and the system is you stand this attention with it within your bed space all spick and span the soldier in major comes up to you and says any complaints any requests and you go no complaints no requests sir and that's it and that's standard thing you just don't say anything he came up to me one time and says uh any complaints any requests I went no requests no complaints one request sir he went what what the fucking request fuck what do you mean what's your fucking request and after he calmed down and quince regulation states that he has to take my request I said sir I want to know if I'm still on the drilling duties I want to know I want I want an interview with the with the adjutant to see if I'm still on the drilling duties drilling fucking duties drilling fucking corporal Johnson come and get this prisoner and go and beast him sir and at the time the the parrots had this you had two items you had to carry with you all the time a big one backshell which was polished chrome and he had a polished chrome para helmet the old tin helmet and you have to take that over your circle so he beasted me and beasted me but I eventually got my request because they have to allow it and uh I um I went got marched into the adjutant's office and basically you know it was a no but I just thought I'd ask anyway so my 28 days in nick taught me a lot about um how to keep fit I mean it was fit as fuck when I came out at one time they they signed me up because you're allowed to sign prisoners out to go and do manual tasks like area cleaning or something like that so the um one of the officers I forget his name now came and signed me out I mean we were playing rugby against three UDR and they signed me out I didn't have any kit and anything any like that boots so they they quick march me with my one backshell in my helmet that's right that's right over to the rugby field yeah no warm-up no training fucking stripped off somebody threw a pair of boots at me I got on played the game of rugby yeah uh made a try I must have I did school one I made one and um that was it put back on you know put back one stripped off on the on the touch line and got marched back to the jail and about an hour later an hour and a half later okay if somebody else comes out says right you well we're going to sign you out you've got to go down to the plucky pub now the plucky pub on Ballack in the camp was this old sort of plastic pub built sort of uh you know like a big bar it was on its own uh reproduction type uh English pub so they marched me down there and I thought oh this is nice I'm going to have a drink with the lads and stuff like that and no it was to clean up the bar you know it wasn't anything to do with uh uh you know having a drink with the team it's to clean up the bar yeah um yeah so that's uh the two year tour of Ireland really set me up for what soldering was all about for me um when we got back to the UK um Colonel Jones vc uh who then took over to para decided he wanted to form reform the power finders now the power finders was a special unit basically during world war two they these are the guys that go go ahead of the battalion drop find a dz and lay it so then they could bring the battalion or brigade drop in a quite a specialist unit it's like a mini sas within a battalion uh these days they have it at brigade level but back back back when we came back from northern Ireland the uh Colonel Jones click Colonel Jones wanted uh wanted to have his own eyes and ears so there was a card to do to to see if you could pass to get into the power finders um I went on the initial carder and I passed um kind of really enjoyed it because um it was only half a company size 50 guys 55 guys with the h2 element and uh we were all fit and we were all keen and we were all sort of uh uh really professional and I don't mean that in a bad way in the sense that rival companies were of course they were there some outstanding nco's and outstanding toms but we we were this like band of brothers I mean we didn't do any of the marching stuff which I kind of in fact I really liked I mean um and if we would always be out training we'd be on the be on the pestle night and we'd come back at six o'clock we'd do a 10 mile I mean it was just amazing and then Colonel Jones left us alone because he wouldn't want to see us on the parade square you know we see company you know I'll see companies out training or they're doing this or they're doing that anyway so so that was that was fantastic I mean that was a fantastic sort of way of uh getting away from the the derogatory of regimental life which I never really enjoyed but actually getting my hands dirty and you know doing soldiering stuff which which I really enjoyed and also the camaraderie within the guys I mean it was a laugh a minute I mean guess we were so fit and I look back at it now and go for fuck's sake this is crazy stuff what we used to do I mean go downtown get absolutely smashed in six o'clock you've got a you know you've got a 35 50 pound bergen on your back with an SLR you know they're they're twice the twice the weight of an SA80 there you know and you're up and down and you're just laughing and you're it's just amazing um so that that was it you know um how are we doing yeah we're doing excellent did you did you have to train for any other kind of airborne insertion to be a power finder I mean do they do halo this kind of stuff yeah well that's so interestingly um halo was a quite a unique asset to have and only the sas really did it um I I did my halo course in 1984 when I was when I was in the sas and when we when power finders you're you're correct in what you say Chris uh when power finders started a couple of the lads did go for their halo course I mean the nco's I think the uh I think the boss went as well but you know back at that time I mean halo was was only reserved like I said for the sas and a lot of the pgis uh the re f did it of course they have to do it because they have to train us but it was um it was quite unusual course to get on quite a very hard course because I think I think air assets at the time were you know what available um but I did mine I did my halo course in 84 when I passed the sas you know I mean that was for I got I got so many stories I just love scared the shit out of me but um I try and keep this in chronological order yeah yeah go for it yeah so um and I if you want to I can you can stop and I'll tell me to stop so if you wanted to make a segment of it then it's easy for you isn't it um yes yeah um right yeah the the sea company yeah sea company was was great and I really got into the the tactical side of it but there was something there's something I needed more and um and I hadn't really I thought about the sas when um when I was in Fort Kill in the in one of those locations in Northern Ireland on the border when the uh Iranian embassy went on I mean that's really that's really all I knew about the sas before that when I was when I was working in the fruit market up at Spitafields there was an old boy there I think his name was Tom and somebody told me oh Tom he used to he used to be in the sas he got captured and he got captured and spent his time in some salt mines in Russia somewhere and I was that stuck in the back of my mind but I really didn't know what the sas wanted but I knew back in all the shop when I was in the patrols power finders that I needed something more so I actually applied to join the sas and that's that's like unheard of I mean unless you're a full screw and you've done like six seven eight years and you're the bollocks so for me to apply and get accepted because the co has to the co of two power had to sign me off they can defer you three times up to 18 months but he signed me off straight away because I thought they probably thought that oh oh fucking ealy it'll be back and of course once you leave the family the parachute regiment the battalion you're fucked as far as promotion goes I mean I left as a Tom I'm still a Tom on their all back somewhere you know I was a private soldier you know don't matter if you retire as a full colonel you know you're still a Tom on their shadow rank you know um so either I'll be back when he comes back with these fuck out of him um but but they didn't because I didn't come back um I didn't come back until just before the Falklands so I went and joined the the sas did selection and the first month of sas selection is it's just pure physical and because because you have to because they have to accept ranks from all units from all four armed forces um the navy you know the air force the army and indeed the marines back at that time the Royal Marines had to leave the army even when they decided to go on the selection course they had to leave the army come off strength from the navy sorry come off strength from the navy join the army and when you join the army they had to have a parent uh regiment to belong to and of course that regiment was the parachute regiment and if they fail selection in theory they would they would either have to leave the army rejoin the navy or get posted back to the parachute regiment can you imagine a Royal Marine and the parachute regiment I don't think it's ever happened but back in that day they had to do it now I think it's a lot easier the first month was all just all physical culminating in that in the test week five days over the hills and out of out of 186 out of 186 people that passed um there's only three sorry I'll start that again I'll leave that to the end I'll come back to that um because it's it's it kind of it it kind of works out for what I'm going to say to right the the the whole month now the sES training the initial month I found quite hard in the sense it was all physical I mean the first couple of weeks was pretty easy for me and it would be pretty easy for anybody that's in an infantry unit or fit but as but as it went on the fact it was physical is it it was physical you always risk getting you know an injury like a twisted ankle or something like that and it's sod's law that most some good soldiers have never never passed out in the sES because they've they got actually they actually got injured and that's just the way it is um so yeah and I remember standing there and I'm a Tom I'm a private remember and I'm standing there and there's all these ranks with all these fucking stripes on and there's sergeants and you know having been in three three four years you pick it you know because I was an old sweat I kind of you still respect the rank of course you do and these guys standing there with these British army judo badges on and this and that and cross country runners and fucking olympic you know olympic trialists and all this not anything what the fuck's going on here so I just cracked on and done it I just got on with it kept my mouth shut played the gray man um because there's no point in being up in front of pissing everybody off because you only get noticed um so I played the gray man hung back and just just bided my time and I remember on third week the build up to test week we're up the breccan beacons and the thing about the thing about selection is you get nobody shouting in your ear there's nobody telling you right go to this go to that dude let's do that fucking shut the fuck up you shut up fuck off come here come and all this nonsense sorry you don't have to see word do you yeah okay well we'll cut that one out you know come here a little stroke and all this it's all very much look here's your next grid see you later if you don't want to if you don't want to go on there's a whole crew waiting for you down there and I remember seeing these um these guys walking off the mountain and then we have to wear these big burgers but they've got these big fluorescent orange uh air marker panels on the back so obviously if the weather went down they could actually spot you uh it quite easily so I remember looking at seeing these sort of every time I was get to a high point I'd look down and see oh yeah there's one just getting down there yeah and it just gave me so much boost and confidence to know that there were people jacking all the time and um and that's what kept me going a lot and I remember passing these guys and thinking what you're doing here you know and they were always they always double checking their maps and um they were thinking too hard on it they were thinking too much into it I mean you had to go from A to B and that was it at a certain time and yeah seeing those burgers heading off down towards the old chuck wagon the fortana you know it was beautiful it was just a beautiful site it gave me so much confidence and boost and of course when you did pass the particular phase on that day um because my because we were stationed here in harryford and not um and the training now he's he's back down in fontralis which is no it's not it's cenny bridge now which is almost on the mounting training area or anyway we had this horrendous two hour drive up there in the morning and two hour drive back in the back of a fortana chris I mean it's it's no fucking joke I mean especially if you're all fucked up and you're wet and you're stinking you know it really really wasn't good and then of course the last fortana was always the blokes that had passed that made the time and there's been sort of two or three fortanas that have gone back to camp and um of course by the time you get back to camp all the guys that are jacked are all are all out of shower all clean yeah and they're all avid had a scoff and then the nco would come around and each room it called out the names and the names he called out you knew were the ones that were going to get kicked off the course and I tell you I remember it being in the shower with my mate ken and we're laughing laughing and joking and uh the names being called out we'd come back over the tower around us and like we'd walk in an eight man room there'd be nobody left apart from me and ken I mean it was just beautiful um yeah so on on that um on that course there was 186 of us and um only three passed and there was there was me a ton in one in two para there was uh Elvis Phil Presley a full screw in three para and it was Chris Fox role marine captain um so that can't that kind of was really good you know yeah it must be an incredible feeling to pass but it's not it's not a short selection is it it goes up am I right in thinking it goes on for over a year yeah well it goes on for several months and then you have an 18 month um uh probation period we did lose uh for me the hardest the hardest bit I found um well I found it all hard really I mean just go back to test week test week the last day of test week culminates in a big march the fan dance and it's over it's right across it's 60 odd miles I think it is it's right over the other side it starts off starts off at uh uh tally bomb reservoir you go right over to brecker beacons right over the other side to cray reservoir and you come back again at a different route um hell and when I did it there was honestly three four foot of snow it was the first time snow had fallen in brecken village for about 20 years proper snow and at consequence you normally get um on a winter selection you normally get the um 20 22 hours to complete it or 24 and on the summer it was 20 hours uh well what they did were on my particular selection and I'm sure they've done it since it's just so no time limit just finish just pass and we were trudging through snow waist high four foot high snow across the big and it was just amazing and um to pass that was I kind of felt special as well because you you then begin to feel quite special in a way or just completely far up is it true there's no sort of ceremony you just get handed your berry or your dad oh yeah yeah that's going back to um there was when me chris and Elvis were in there we all had to wait outside the co's office in harriford and we're all having a laugh and a joke and if you know chris is like a real small guy but uh probably the fittest guy I've ever met really because when he'd finished uh when we'd finished test week him and his girlfriend went and did the seventh is it five peaks up in the lake just he went around them crazy crazy man um we're all outside let me get called in we get called in together yeah and the co's here with his berry on and we've got I've got my room Phil's got his on and uh chris has got his his berry on we're all standing there you know he says well gentlemen well done for passing you know that's right yeah well done indeed for passing and next time I see you I want to see you with the correct berry on we get our son fucking hats because if your viewers don't know um anybody outside the parachute regiment he's called a hat a crap hat it's quite a derogatory term but it can also be quite an empathetic term for people as well uh but you know so to call someone a hat is is is to say you fucking tosser I'll dare you now I get called a super hat because I'm up here yeah they call they call people in the SES super hats yeah but if there's any member and I I've never met a member of the SES who was a parachute regiment that always they always call themselves Paris first when I go on parades or or go to any dues I mean I wear mine I wear my SES tie I would never wear my berry I'll always wear my parachute regiment berry you know and I think you'll find 99% of all guys would do in fact all ex-paras would do that I'm pretty sure it is uh just one of those things you know um yeah uh even chris was like fucking tosser I mean that's the CEO of tutu ss we were talking we're just joined you know what's the what's the um timing then nige of the falcons was this was this before what happened was uh a par selection then you get a three-week period of weapon training and and stuff like that ambush basic patrolling techniques purely because if guys that have come from core units like engineers or or the Remy or even dig the navy you know they pass that initial selection they need to have a grounding on on basic soldiering because that's what the SES is all about it's soldiering it's infantry skills so they needed that so that three-week period was basically really for them and for us to to get up on speed with ours but for them to actually understand the basic patrolling we then went to the jungle for oh that was horrendous for um a month basically it's about four weeks at which point I um I slipped off a log and my shoulder opened up again and they had to cast a vac me out because of infection I didn't want to go I mean I really didn't want to go so they cast a vac me out so as a consequence I didn't pass selection on that phase um but they said you come back so what happened was I then got RTU to back to two para back to see company of power finders yeah but I don't know about the co at the time I think he was taking the piss because he made me bed instalment yeah of the company which was brilliant really because I had my own bunk yeah I mean these days I think everyone gets their own bunk but back in my day it was like eight-man rooms split with the petition four in each and there was an off to a side there was a there was a corporal's bunk but on one particular floor there was the bedding store and corporal's bunk which was a double-sided corporal's bunk so I managed to get that so so I was taking the piss out of being the mattress storm and while I recuperated because I still had this bloody shoulder which was festering you know it's pussy then we got the call to go to the Falklands and I'm thinking bloody hell I hope I don't get downgraded and I try to sort of try to play the big I didn't want to be a rare party I wanted to go to war with the blokes none of us really knew we were going to war we just thought it was a you know it'd be settled you know Thatcher and Alexandra Hague he was doing this shuttle diplomacy wasn't he from Bonnie's Aries to New York to London and we thought it get we thought he'd get a negotiated settlement but as the weeks went on the guys were training more and more my shoulder was getting better but it still wasn't 100% I remember tabbing with a field dressing over it and trying to stop it from weeping um because I really didn't want to get downgraded anyway the the oh see at the time of C company Roger Jenner absolute cracking guy um when three para got the orders to go with the first task part of the task force we thought shit we you know we're not gonna we're not gonna be with the party and in Colonel Jones bless him apparently um decided to pull rank and got two para down as well so we followed we we followed the main task force of three para we're about two weeks behind sailing so Roger Jenner the OC said spud you're coming with us going like in lovely so C company was in because it's only half a company was split into groups patrols and recce now I was patrols initially before I went up to herford but because there was no placing patrols I got put in uh to recce which was fine because they're just a mirror image of each other you know and everybody knows everybody um so yeah so that was it I I uh I averted my my rank of mattress storm and and got put into a recce so we sailed down there but my shoulder wasn't right and I um I I mean I hit the beach with this shoulder still an open wound but thank fuck it was cold down there because obviously the cold uh uh compresses it and times all up you don't feel it so much yeah um and then they are do you want me to carry on about this or yeah yeah let's let's hear it but it's fascinating I'm not John I I just you couldn't pick out the bits you want because um uh yeah so so yeah I actually got RTU to two para from the jungle and then as a consequence of that went down sailed on the northern with two para back in my old with my old uh company which was which was absolutely brilliant um um we when we got down there we um the northern was was this roll on roll off ferry and it took us about six weeks to get down there it's 26 000 ton flat bottom boat I mean it was just fucking horrendous really but the crew were fantastic they really were and um when the time came to get into the landing crafts um we all sort of exited out the uh I went out the port port loading door and uh we were meant to be the second landing craft to hit the beach because we have because Jones wanted his seed company in with us you know he wanted to be with his his seed company his boys as as he used to call them um so we we were meant to be on the second landing craft but we were in these landing crafts early hours of the morning for about three two or three hours fucking nightmare sloshing around wet feet waiting for the other guys to load onto this they were out the starboard side which was the leeward side which is the side with the wind so it made their task even difficult trying to get out and board but fair play to the the marine coxons on there are all marine coxons I mean they you know they they they were good as gold they were they were really top guys um so then all for the when all the landing craft were ready we all then sort of shot off as you see in the films early hours of the morning naval gun fire and all that thinking fact this is going to be horrendous because there was no firing back at us when we were still in the uh landing craft and we thought we're just going to get slaughtered when we hit the beach you know because that's that would be the obvious thing to do wouldn't it you know how many aircraft how many you know how many landing craft were coming towards you and then you would just wait and you just pick your time you don't shoot at them unless you've got anti-aircraft or naval guns on on board on board the mount up in the mountains you just um you're just waiting till they drop the ramp and that's what we thought then we found out we were lead landing crafts that made it even worse you know I mean that just so for fuck's sake because the the the landing craft that should have beached first got stuck in kelp which is that seaweed stuff which surrounds the shore of the falklands so we hit the beach first unopposed landing thank fuck unbelievable so we run up the beach as you do we met with some sbs lads and sas guys because they were monitoring the beach and then we tabbed off up to up to Sussex mountains which was our first sort of feature that we had to get go firm on being sea company we were then we went off to our own op's further out overlooking sort of Darwin and goose green and we spent several days and nights up there in the op's and I do recall I do recall after about a second or third day looking down and seeing the the the attacks in San Carlos Harbour where all the navy were and those skyhawks and mirages Argentine mirages coming and bombing and strafing and doing hell and I used to think fuck this is the Royal Navy what the fuck's going on we're losing this fucking war we haven't even seen an algae and now they're strafing and the bomb's going on remember seeing the antelope go up off you know if I've never seen well there's no reason for me to see bloody ships go up unless you you watch the old war movies um and when that went up I just thought oh my and then the Sheffield and then the Atlantic conveyor you know and there's all those naval ships getting smashed and we thought this is fucking stupid we're actually losing the war we're freezing to fucking death blokes have got trench foot the marines and fucking three parrots stuck on the beach it sounds a bit like it sounds a bit like Normandy didn't it they're stuck on the beach nobody can break away from the beach head we're stuck on this mountain we've got to do something and I think and I've spoke to Julian Thompson spoke to him a few years back about this and he was really which was the Royal Marine Brigadier of of three three commander brigade wasn't it yeah and he was so embarrassed because he couldn't get his mechanized he couldn't get anything going excuse me because obviously the the the important thing were the two aircraft carriers so all the focus was on them we couldn't get any we couldn't get any top cover at all so I believe there was some crosswords between Jones and Brigadier Thompson and we would then told to go and have a look at this settlement called Goose Green um so we advanced to Goose Green via a place called um Cometed Creek House which is just an old farmstead where we sort of laid up there the whole battalion laid up uh and I remember being on the 320 radio because C Company had these 320 radios per patrol and they're tuned in always tuned into the world service and then I heard this guy John Knot who was the minister of defense for the Tory government at the time saying the second battalion the parachute regiment is poised and ready to attack the settlement of Goose Green I mean Goose Green lay two and a half miles in that direction and we were at night this is a fucking seven eight clock in at night time and we we we're going to attack first light so he's actually warned them now you try finding you try finding that broadcast you won't find it anywhere I've asked for a freedom of information three times for the BBC each time they've come back no twice they came back making out some cock-a-ball story that I'm not this I'm not that then I told them I'm a journalist and I want it because I'm writing a book which I am and I'm still waiting to hear back from them because it's in there it's in their archive somewhere only one so they basically broadcast the enemy that you're putting an attack in in the morning before before the attack it's it's it was so betrayal it was so demoralizing it was Jones was said to be incandescent with rage I mean apparently he never really had a he always had a short fuse anyway from what I can make out but he was incandescent and Dave Wood who was the adjutant was in this meeting that that Jones was given to to the commanders and he came out and he said to my mate Duke Allen who was a large couple in the he was in the mt section and all the mt boys were actually the stretcher bearers you know in war and they're normally the characters I think they're the characters of any battalion really they're the guys that have seen and done it but just want a bit of an easy life they kind of like the idea of messing around with vehicles and he came Dave Wood the adjutant came out and said to Duke Allen he said he said to the words of gentleman what's he say oh yeah he said gentlemen tomorrow morning the promotional I'll get this right for you he said the promotional it'll come to me basically he was saying he was saying I'm trying to think of the word the promotional opportunities it's not the word he used the the promotional opportunities are going to be I'll try and do that again for you I'll tell you just one second mate oh no I've got I'm just looking for it now hold it you want to have this one it is good I wouldn't there we go I'll find out something yeah can you can you hear me yes perfect you can't see me though can you yes I can you can okay um well I'm trying to okay this is from Duke Allen who was uh empty but they're the uh defense they were defense but two down south they got renamed and he he said he said to me it was on the night before Goose Green we heard the radio broadcast from the BBC and that guy John Knot we've all stood about in a small gang alone with Captain Adjutant with Adjutant Captain Wood which his name was Adjutant Captain Dave Wood we were all standing around waiting and listening to the BBC World Service when we heard a voice out the radio grasping grasping us up and basically Captain Wood came straight across to us and says he said and says to no one in particular gentlemen the promotional prospects in this battalion tomorrow are going to be fucking excellent and the irony of that is Chris he got killed a few hours later oh my god yeah you're down there you're about to it's the pinnacle of anybody's military career you're actually going into battle you're facing a determined enemy they're dug in they're in far more extreme numbers than you and you're a bloody not far off a teenager i'm guessing and you're about to set for up that mountain and you know not all of you are coming back some of you are gonna you know die on that mountain and stay there the BBC broadcasts to the enemy that you're coming it's it it it doesn't get worse than that does it uh no especially when um when it was you know it was gusting minus 20 degrees you know it was just unbelievable yeah so i kind of like that and Captain Wood came straight across to us and he says to no one in particular gentlemen the promotional prospects in this battalion tomorrow are going to be fucking excellent he got killed a few hours later god you know this uh i've got some cracking stories from the book on that but yeah so that's what happened um then c company being what they are we went and um gone have to set the start line for the battalion attack now for guys that are listening and girls that are listening to you you you have to have a start line to do an attack it's an imaginary line on the ground where a battalion lines up ready to go and advance to contact uh that line has to be found and that was my task for a company to go and find the start line a stop which is close to me but not close enough for them to see you or hear you um so myself and uh my little patrol with guy called Ken Rainer who was a force crew we led a company into the attack uh then other parts of C company led B company to their start line and then D company um A company were the first to attack they attacked a position called Bocca house now of course once you attack you you obviously your your um element of surprise has gone obviously because you start shooting and anybody for fucking miles around knows that something happening so they started to attack they took their position um and um a company attacked first company attacked the parachute regiment had done for I don't know probably six since radfan or something like that and um no one was killed there's been absolutely few crazy stories there but what happened was the arches had bugged out a few minutes before and um and it was a night attack so the Shimuli's going up this and you know there's machine guns going off a typical sort of night attack tracer going all over the place people shouting people screaming grenades been been thrown um and it was all over in about sort of three or four minutes and then you hear these Spanish voices and um they're like guys are going the fuck's so fucking hard you put your hands up you know put your hands up and it turns out that this this is three three homesteaders in there yeah and a dog and one of the bloke says why the fuck are you speaking Spanish oh we don't know we thought you were Argentinians oh we're fucking too para you know that was uh but the strange thing was before that attack when we laid the when we laid the start line obviously we didn't have to pull back a bit and um it was really really blowing a gale and um we all got all round defense and then I heard these squeaking tracks like like a tank coming that's fucking crazy oh that listen and listen and listen as you know you you know sound travels a long way at night but it sounded really really close um and the only track vehicles we realized the Arches had were these things called LVTP 7s which were like American American design troop carriers carried about I think 20 20 soldiers in and I think they had some machine guns on top and everything the tracks track vehicles anyway this thing didn't appear but we all got round defense and we got the 66s ready which is a a throw away tank tank bazooka mini tank bazooka mini tank rocket and um which were a bugger to once you've once you've extended them you know you fire them off and then you just chuck them away you can't refill them but if you if you extend them and try and if you don't see your target you need to sort of collapse it and bring it back again because it's just constant and it's quite hard to do it even during the day but at night with gusting winds and all the tension around and the attacks are ready to go in you know it's really hard to do um so that's something that stuck in my mind as well knowing that at night you need to know everything about your weapons you'll carry you need to know every little crease everything about it you need to know all the idiosyncrasies of everything that's going to protect you your webbing your kit you know where everything is where exactly where everything is yeah and in particular with your weapons you need to know where the safety catches and how sensitive or not it is you need to know what makes a noise even when you even when you think it doesn't you know all these little things are all part of soldiering and you know you only learn these as you go through in life and you're in these situations everything is so down to the least second it's no good you patrolling with your safety catch on and your point man and all of a sudden you know you see the enemy because that's all it takes you don't take a second it takes a split second it takes half a second so i was aware of that the tap goes in and then um come first light a company then move forward and they hit this position that the sas had done a recce on a month previous uh but we got no recognition of the intelligence of that and i've i've interviewed guys that were on that since and they've told me they pushed all the intelligence over to command to the brigade and it didn't filter down to us anyway so a company going do you want me to go through this yeah yeah you're doing wonderful mate absolutely do you want me to i mean because i can you just tell me i'll be i'll try and cut it down so um once once a company had taken their position if we but if we if we don't get this down right it's it's lost to history and and that's a bloody shame yeah yeah but i don't want to um i want to give it its gravitas and um you know i don't want to sort of short it i mean that's why i've got the book that's why i've got goose screen uncensored stories the book which would you be good because i mean i can you know as you probably probably know i can talk about any subject you want um but if your if your viewership is mainly military yeah we're a bit across the board but yeah i challenge anyone to not find out what it's like as a young man you know having to get stuck into that battle when yeah thought processes your kit your worries your fears your how was it with your buddies and and to lose people as well which is you know the the better end of war isn't it yeah yeah yeah no okay then well i'll i'll try and keep it succinct but you know keep it going um so after a company put their attack on burnt side house and followed followed through b and d companies will come in across on the right flank but their their actual positions were a series of argentine supposed argentine trenches and as the bocker house attack went in then b and d company came under fire too from these sort of line of trenches which and we're talking a mile and a half from goose green and we're talking about uh 500 meters from a feature called darwin hill okay which is sort of a rolling pimple in front of goose green i mean we're heading south we've got the sea on both side because it's an isthmus we've got the sea on both sides the isthmus is only about half a mile wide okay darwin hill was right by the sea on the left uh bocker house was right by the sea on the right and you've got basically a line of extended extended line of paratroopers a company on the left b company in the middle wrong b company on the right b d company in the middle they did change later um and you've got sea company now come as reserve company we're only half a company strength so we're bringing up the rear so as light starts to come in and in that part of the world it normally gets like about 10 o'clock in the morning because it was uh it was maytime and um there's a bit of a firefight going on to the high ground to my left okay there's a field sporadic fire going and uh thinking nothing of it you know just probably taking out a century an argentine century and all of a sudden we got rained down with mortars i mean literally they just came down on us and you can hear them because they make a plot and you can basically sometimes you can see them as well um and they just come down and just came rained us all they kept they called us out in the in the open uh and the only thing that we could do was run forward to the feature of the bottom of Darwin hill now before that we all hit the deck and there were there were mortar rounds coming down they must have been over a period of about three or four minutes 30 rounds come down some of them weren't going off one of them landed right between my mate's feet literally uh within about four foot away it just went into the into the peat and didn't explode um a few of them hit the rock because basically the terrain was all tufty grass with rock uh and i decided i just went fuck this i said right i'm gonna move i'm gonna move on three one two three and i got up and ran and all of a sudden my mate jay why shouts out spud and i turn around i see this i just see it well i thought i i thought i saw it i stopped and it exploded probably about 10 feet away from me and it was all tampered by the peat but this piece of shrapnel came out in slow motion but it must have been going a fair few you know it's fair speed and it comes straight across my thigh missed it by an inch at an inch i just kept running these these small margins in war that a million soldiers could tell you about that's happened to them that happened to me we ran into dead ground and then there's nothing we could do really so we got a brew on a company advanced up this hill and we're fighting and you could hear it but there's no point in us doing absolutely anything because they have to get on with it b and d company over to the right we're still advancing forward not so heavy fire at at yet and remember goo screen is still mile and a half away um round about 11 o'clock there was such heavy gunfire going up on the top of Darwin hill we decided to advance around a bit to see if we could support them in any way and then basically it bang it was over we moved up to the top of the hill and eight company were all out there was these fucking argy's dead bodies splattered guys crying argy prisoners with their hands up filled dressings our guys fucking dead um just and we walked through this position and we're thinking frack you know and then suddenly comes up in spite of our fucking stevy prize got it i mean oh for fuck's sake stevy prize a great force group you know then chuck oven's got it all the colonel's been killed dave wood the adjutant killed chris dent to ic of a company killed uh you know the names just went on and on and you're thinking and they're still fucking argy's in the trench and you still got to be aware because you know you don't know if they're going to kill you or if they can have a nervous twitch or something and it was literally just getting its first light by this and the the some hadn't actually started coming up but it was the area was gray and the phosphorus grenades that we'd thrown had set this gorse on fire gorse is this is this bush that covers most of the fortland islands and in this particular time of year it flowers a lovely yellow flower and that was all on fire so that was all adding to the tension um the the co the oc of um a company farahopley was in uh having a little chinese parliament with calling price the sergeant major and there was a bit of shouting going on there so you're thinking personalities tension high um people a couple of blokes missing monster addons steve toughen missing presumed dead um so this list of guys come come through gets passed over by people another another guy's ted barrett comes over as a sergeant system i made you know ken can you come on out i'll come and i'll find we're missing so and so and kent says look we've got to we've got to go to a forward slope we've got to we've got to hold this position so as we move forward this as we move forward as we move through a company's position and i mean it was just i mean when you start seeing blokes crying in a war film you think oh i'm fucking wankers you know you know some of these guys were young they're 18 and they'd obviously been through this real traumatic spirit i mean literally they're sitting down in these fucking dead arches all over the place and i'm thinking oh my god you know oh my god um so we we're we're told to advance to the forward to the forward part of darwin hill which then overlooked goose green so we're advancing and the rest of the guys at battalion are clearing up doing ammo restats uh getting getting the wounded you know the injured and and all this business and doing body counts and um uh shoving off these uh argy prisoners and stuff and who who as far as i can make out with proper soldiers i mean they were that they were the they were the proper deal on top of that on darwin hill contrary to popular belief they were all conscripts i don't fucking think so but i mean even a conscript can pull a trigger um so yeah so we move on we move on ahead to secure the the the southernmost part of this feature and uh we get there you know this is billiard table sort of land that just goes all the way down into goose green like a flat as a pancake and the settlement you can see but to the right and forward is the excuse me is the airfield and it's bakar is on this fucking airfield these bakar is a turbojet ground attack aircraft i mean they're just absolutely horrendous pieces of kit we were more scared of them than the mirages or the or you know or the skyhooks and i'm thinking you know what is going on here all the screaming and nonsense is still happening behind us but we're having to focus on in front um and then i can see all these hundreds of them all on the airport which is a grass strip really and all in front of goose green and i'm thinking fuck can't they see us why aren't they firing because we didn't know at the time but they had these uh orlican guns 30 30 mil cannons anti aircraft guns well you would do if you've got an airfield wouldn't you you'd secure it with these anti aircraft which they later turned into the ground roll into the ground roll and started firing at us plus they also had those bowford guns they took off i've never the only time i've seen bowford guns is on the world war two you know the world at war jeremy iran's documentary you know where the navy was one ship and the quickest magazines of shells down and they come out like that well they had a couple of them they're taking them off ship and they had them in the ground roll of course we didn't know about that until um we started to advance but anyway i see all these arches and i'm looking around i see my mate charlie i see charlie i can't really see us he says well i don't know he got the binoculars out well ken did because you know there's only one per patrol and he says yeah he says they're arches they they think we're arches he said they must do otherwise they'd be firing at us then ken sees the guns so that was it we about an hour later well it wasn't it was about 40 minutes later because they wanted to keep the momentum going uh christ kiebel to what the two i c of two parrot talk over major kiebel and uh basically we had to keep the momentum of the battle going and c company had were ordered to advance down this slope while d company and b company who were still fighting their own little uh fights with trench uh excuse me with trench positions over to the right so ken says to me right spud we've got to go down the slope i said you're fucking kidding he says yeah he's in your point man because i've been point man with ken previous you know and i guess i guess he could trust me because point man is um you gotta you gotta be semi-switched on and i you know it was just one of those things um so i said oh for fuck's sake ken he says yeah he says it's gotta be you you're first and basically we went down the forward slope of goose green in what they call an arrowhead formation so there's me at the front two guys behind me then four then six or eight and then it sort of went out like an hour wide arrowhead and at a distance back probably 30 feet would be the hq and the signals element with the major jenna roti jenna so we advanced the contact like that um by fixed bayonets um and then you heard this fucking spud's fixing bayonets and you heard this clink clink clink clink and everybody else was fixing bayonets because i thought you know what the fact you could see these sort of command tents in front well about 300 400 meters in front of us well before the main position of goose green so you just advanced the contact like um like like you just think this is the end of the 20th century isn't there an easier way of cleaning up this position so we advanced and all of a sudden there's something happens there's some shots happened and everything else so we all they opened up with the orichan guns they couldn't get the both i realized later they couldn't get the both of guns in a trajectory to uh they couldn't get them down much because we were coming down a forward slope so they were firing up at the top of the hill at darwin so i ran like hell um um and then we got a load of casualties got hit in the the hq element um three between three between a company came to support us because like i say we're only half a company strength so they came up to to bolstero our ranks so they were behind the hq company of the hq element of c company but as soon as the firing started they got caught out in the open and basically scrambled back the other side into dead ground of darwin hill feature which left the hq element out they all got smacked to pieces injured um some very badly one guy was killed my mate charlie was left in a had to look after him um and then he died and then they had to work on another guy he died uh you know the other guy the oc got hit and he was working on he was working on the blokes i mean the whole of his hq party basically got hit and you could hear it on the radio go take weight out go take hit i'm here i'm here you know and it's true i didn't know anything about that because i run like fuck i'd run like hell into dead ground and then we came to this we came to this uh stream and the sea was to our left and there was this wooden bridge which crossed the estuary and there was this sort of big wooden feature which was the school house and then um there's actually no way we would cross on that bridge so there was a sort of uh a roadway as the culver as the street as the re-entrant went into a bit of a a river than a stream there was a a road bridge across this culvert so we managed to cross there and we got into this area around the dairy and there was fucking arches everywhere and we the blokes were just they were popping out of everywhere and you were just having to take them out i moved into a trench which was command trench threw white fos into it and of course these white fos grenades were like we called infuse instantaneous because as soon as you've you threw them they've gone so we didn't know that until a company started throwing them and then wound everybody else um but i didn't think it would be that instantaneous going out went in this tent that was off that was on fire shot it up moved to another one and there was this other trench where there was a dead argy in it and i moved into jumped into it and and i thought there was and i felt something i thought this i don't know if this lad was dead or not but he felt he felt squidgy if you know what i mean and i end up headbutting him look like you know real real but i don't think about it now and i think um yeah so i i sort of put the head on him a few times his muck was dead and then you just carry on and then the then we got c company got fractured because by the time he got to the estuary patrols went left reccy were all over the place there was a there was a kitty swing outside the school and the arches have put this multi-bowl rocket launcher tied onto it obviously fire it remote so old uh we've sort of made for that and then as we were going and that called jock jock bowland turned around and says they're coming behind us they're coming behind us and as he turned to sort of turn around this fucking rocket went right across him from this swing from this multi barrel rocket launcher and one of the fins sliced his chest chest open so he's there on the ground fucking lung hanging out blokes trying to sort him out another guy goes down get shot uh all this is going on for about an hour or so we've actually trying to move we're trying to penetrate through into these positions of these arches next minute we go and attack the schoolhouse patrols done a good job on that um which there was about 80 arches in there firing across us so that that had to be taken out um which is the schoolhouse was the biggest building on the islands at that time um but it was all made of wood so I was up past the swings and I heard of the attack and there was some boys from D company that came across as well and I fired my 66 onto the roof because I could sit make out the right hand side of the roof but it just bounced off and then somebody else fired another 66 and went into one of the windows set it on fire few of the other boys we had these m 79s we call them the block guns you know they fire the n 79 40mm HE grenade they were firing them in and as the arches as as the schoolhouse when I'm on fire the arches were escaping out the back and because it was right by the scene down the re-entrant down the down the behind the estuary and onto the beach and obviously back down into the go screen and that's where the folks had a bit of a turkey shoot there I'm sorry to say use those phrase turkey shoots but I mean to be realistic you have to use that because that's what it was and you know um you look back at it now 40 years later 38 years 39 years later and I've got no regrets on anything I did there because at the same time that's happening my mate me know who's a young 18 year old lad had the problem with the white flag literally 50 meters to my right he was part of D company they were they were going to come over and give us fire support for the schoolhouse but he didn't make it because the arches had a big Argentine flag up then they then they a couple of them stood up apparently with some white kegs around a stick wanting to take a surrender now there's been a controversy there because a couple of the lads went up to take the surrender from I think it was I'm not sure what Petunia was in D company but the officer was Jim Barry he went to take the surrender and Meenow was saying don't fucking go up there boss don't go up there so he went up there and Paul Sully corporals good mate of mine Sully and Meenow not Meenow Nigel Smith went up Lance Corporal with the boss with Jim Barry and basically they got wiped out they got wiped out and because Dave Meenow was meant to give us cover in fire on the schoolhouse he couldn't he had to then turn around because he's seen the arches laughing at him double arches were laughing at Dave that's what he was telling me he said they were laughing at me he said I'm 18 I went as far as it and the gun went click and Dave said I started crying because I couldn't support my mates and somebody shouted to him you know get the SPW out spare parts wallet and he did he managed to clear the gun and get it and he started shooting and they sort of took out these arches with the white flag not before three of our guys got killed under the white flag incident Jim Barry fell on the barbed wire fence and after after a short while after the arches had been all been shot um Taff Meredith who was a sergeant who was a sergeant at the time of I think it's Temperton uh went up to Jim Barry and said to it and Dave Meenow the machine gunner 18 year old was telling me the story that Taff was talking to Jim he was saying sorry boss I've got to talk I've got to take your map I've got to take your binoculars I've got to take your compass you know and um I'm going to look after the boys they'll all be all right and old Dave says he went up to Taff and went is he still alive then being an 18 year old is he still alive and uh Taff went no no he's not he's dead well you're talking to him well it makes me feel good I mean beautiful little story in the middle of war um so what happened when that white flag happened then we did the school house we ended up with about 20 odd 20 odd argy prisoners down by a little stone building called the the dairy which is by this bridge we'd all gone over and um I later found out that the area we were attacking where the arches had dug in was basically a pig farm and they'd used they'd used all the pig styes as they turned them upside down and they'd used it as and dug them in as overhead cover from protection so there's all these trenches all around there and the arches were all over the place I mean then we were getting shot out by our own blokes from behind because they couldn't make out who the fuck was who the fuck we were um and after about 15 20 minutes after after the white flag and then the the the um schoolhouse burning down sort of I had a couple other guys had gone right forward because we wanted to see goose cream and wanted to see what score was and there's no way we could have got into goose cream because there was just too much fire it's you just couldn't the arches were firing everything us I then came back and seen all these prisoners all laid out down by the um uh what they called the dairy on the track and there's this one poor old argy he had his leg he had his leg hanging off uh one of the guys had to cut it and put the skin up um and then Dick Morrell who was our medic he was in the dairy patching up all the guys I mean we patched up the hell of a lot of guys arches as well he did um only a small building probably about 24 by 12 stone bill um and then this argy officer was standing up and we were telling him to get down or someone what I wasn't telling him to get down um Dick came out seeing this argy with the no legs I want this man up here I want to treat him the argy officer said no the argy still had his pistol the argy still had his pistol and then one of the blokes was going to shoot him going to shoot me and then Dick said no no and Dick butt stroke this officer yeah and then at the same time somebody shouted airy warning red which meant enemy aircraft coming in then somebody on the right they came up from behind us they come from the north so they come up from behind Darwin towards us um they came around and um they just let cannons rip shut up every the irony of it is they shut up all the argy's up the track because they're on the track obviously the pilots have lined up on the track but the funny thing was well not the funny thing the strange thing was 30 meters further on was half a d company all lined up on the track luckily no one got it um they came round again and then they dropped napalm they they came round again one of them dropped napalm and uh it dropped past the dairy just after the prisoners and it singed me it was that close because it went that way away from me singed me because I'd say it is in a bit of a tash just singed took it all off and a few of the other guys got a bit of a roasting as well but nothing nothing too great the pop the carapala was shot down although he said later that he ditched it yeah and he came floating down into our position and the guys were shooting at him and some said no don't shoot because obviously we're parrots you don't want to be you don't do that shit so that even though the fucker had dropped the napalm on us so he landed and he landed bang smack in the prisoners position and sitting in some it was a sergeant of sea company rip now um ordered him to pick the the argy up with the no leg and uh he didn't um he said no i'm not going to pick him up so he got butt stroked and then he then sit down his badge from his flying jacket and then he eventually did pick up this uh this this this argy this young lad with the fucking leg gone below the knee um after that there was still your sporadic gunfire going around um still a bit of killing but most of it had died down i mean i suppose these days you'd still think that it was still a war going on but considering what we'd been going through i mean it'd been a 14 hours since we started on this escapade and um it was just unbelievable because it's amazing how how the human spirit is there and you get strength from you get strength from achievement and also it's like a bit sort of you know courage is courageous it it it it is sorry courage is contagious it's also courageous but courage is contagious and uh that's how we felt but we but we realized that we weren't winning this war at all there's there was no feeling of adulation and uh victory i mean we had no idea what was going on we had no idea what our losses were um we had no idea that our mortars two tubes fired over 800 rounds in that period we realized they had no more mortars left they couldn't get them up they could not bring them up we realized well we realized we had no ammunition left because we were using the arches they had the same 762 but they had the folding stock SLR which was a better weapon because it's semi automatic um and we had no idea what was going on outside of our own little group i suppose um as the light faded so did the gunfire um and then patrols got after the schoolhouse and there was nothing else for them to do in the sense of point is staying within minglin with the argy position because you didn't know if they were going to put a counterattack in we didn't really know how much force they had you know in um in the settlement of goose green i mean we were told by the sas reports that there was only 400 um lightly dug in soldiers most of them are aircraft technician for the uh for the picaras um that's what we were told but as i said to you before i've been subsequently i've interviewed person that was on those op's and said oh we told him what was there um so we said patrols were then pulled back back to the top of darwin bridge the company and b company were still left in position they had their battles to fight they fought on bockehouse and all these trenches and there's some fantastic stories of heria's in there um but you know that's for another time um then with wrecky and myself i didn't know there was a couple of us around i didn't know who had been hit i thought it all been killed roger jenner the oc roger jenner the oc who i'll start again roger jenner the oc who had been caught out in the initial burst of uh argy fire he his hq group got absolutely wiped out because he wasn't that he wasn't that far down the forward slope managed to make his way back he was injured he had a big shrap on his shoulder and he refused to go to the uh r.a.p because once you were injured and that was apparent apparent back on sussex mountains once you were injured the the rule was you would go back you'd go to age xp they get flown off to one of the casualty boats ships and um you wouldn't you wouldn't come back again so roger stayed up on sussex i stayed up on uh uh darwin hill um wanting to know what happened to his company and uh dav charlie brown who who was the clerk for c company you know fully fledged paratrooper in fact a classical train musician actually should have been a royal marine he went up to uh he went up to the boss and says uh boss he says are you all right you should go and get your shoulders all he said no no he said i've lost my company i've lost my company and charlie says well we don't know yet boss do we we don't know yet i've lost them i've they're all gone but as patrols slowly made their way back up charlie went over to see the boss and says no they're coming back look patrols are here and you know pull faro who's the uh ocea patrols turned up and you know picked my drug and then eventually i made it back up but not before um we had loads of casualties you see and somebody had to look after the front line the deep god the company lads came over and looked at the protected the forward edge of what we we saw our our furthest line of exploitation so far they secured that and we had to get these casualties back we had loads of casualties they're fucking blokes just screaming they're oh it's just awful absolutely awful so we were so desperate to get these guys back so we found a wheelbarrow and we put smudge smith in who had a big open wound and he was screaming like a stuck pig so we managed to sort him out all the on the pump was gone the morphine i mean you know you don't give your own morphine you know because you might need it so all the lads and all the medics had used up all the morphine and stuff so we had all these injured all these injured to sort out we had one lads from deep company i mean he had a drip he had a drip in him and he was fucking it was all over the place because when the when the napalm attack happened when the fucking napalm came in he did a runner across over a barbed wire fence and kept on running it'd been shot three times and he still kept running so we had to sort him out uh and a load of others anyway so what happened was um Paul Grundy who was uh lads called who was uh our radio what for for uh my patrol in recce uh called up said you know we need casualties and it's dark now you know it's dark firing's down the smell of cordite in the air bonfire's still going off you know the gorse is still burning the wind is whipping up smoke everywhere um he got these arches all over the place somebody quite rightly said right move them up so they walk them up a couple lads from sea company walk walk the arches up you know there's 20 or 30 of them and we hadn't really had time to uh search them all because it was in the middle of a middle of a battle just thank god none of them did a runner so they got they were out the way and then Paul called up and said we need you know casovac we need casovac quick and um we said we can't what's saying came back because we were sea company we had a different net we had the battalion net but we also go back to brigade net um so luckily a pilot called john greenoff scout pilot who had worked with two para in kenya the year before when two para on this trip in kenya um um heard the call and he was told not you can't there's no way you can do you can't fly at night this too too dangerous the rounds are going off you can't do it you can't go over that you cannot break the the ridge and to go screen uh so john said fuck it i'm going so this other him and his other pilot is opo uh like richard i think they took two scouts off yeah flew over the ridge um so much fire it drew so much fire they went back okay and then john thought i'm not and this blokes paul's on the radio come on we need casualties please please we need casualties over and john said rock we're coming so they start flying over again and they're hovering and then paul's going i know this because this is an interview i did with john greenoff the pilot paul's pleading with him please don't go please don't go charlie one zulu please don't go you know stuff like that so which was john's call sign so they come over and they fly past us and paul's gone you've gone too far you've gone too far you know gendall's the freaking arches so they turn around come back and then i bought this i bought this scout on a 110 flash of a camera uh a couple of the other lads had these right angle torches you know the right angle torches but i always like to think it was my flash that and john confirmed it actually he confirmed i saw the flash i i said i wasn't sure about flashing because you think you might have been a gun flash or a muzzle flash or something he landed his scout um they threw a load of ammunition help and then we bundled jock who was in a bad way jock boland rocket man we call him um in a pod because this thing had a pod on uh smudge he went in and all the other wounded we piled him in and it was so overladen this this helicopter this scout that he couldn't take off and i i just said to john what do you mean you couldn't take he said couldn't take off what you guys did you all got hold of the skid and i can't remember this but john and i've had it i've had it clarified by a couple of other guys that were there he said yeah we all got he said can't you remember spud we all got hold of the skid and we lifted this scout off and that's what we did we lifted it off and it was these boys were covered in blood and everything and john got the dfc for that should have got the fucking vc dfc bar do you know unbelievable what he did so that was it um then nighttime came then when all the adrenaline rush is gone you start you start feeling cold very cold uh and then you start feeling hungry all your senses these senses you don't need at the time all start coming back to you i mean your body your body's been shut down and all it uses is the brain your sight and you know your senses certain senses it uses but when that threat is is drifted away other senses come back and hunger is one of them um and we were really hungry i mean i was all i was down to i was down to about 10 rounds of my normal magazine because i got i got shot in the thigh which which which took a which took a magazine out so i pulled it out i stuck the rounds that i could get down my smock so they were still there i had some algae i had the rgfn on that um and i've still got the round i've still got the casing where the round went in amazing isn't it i stuck it around my um dog tags still got it still got it don't know how i kept it i just it just one of those things anything goes down the smock stays doesn't it because you've got the belt there even your mars bars and stuff so yeah come come come last night we eventually made ourselves we sort of walked back up up up the hill towards Darwin ridge um very very cautious because we weren't sure there was no password we we didn't know about password and um you know the guy's a twitchy of course and he said it's dark but we just assumed and hoped that they would know it was us uh we so we managed to go up there and i slept in the morning burning the burning gorse we didn't sleep just sat there sat in this in this course since we all sat in the gorse absolutely bollocks none of us slept got a bit of a scoff on got a brew on which is amazing what a brew does isn't it you could be in the most shitty situation anywhere but you you get a you get a fresh hot brew on and it's beautiful and then we did that and then we we weren't even we couldn't even have we didn't even have the effort to talk we just we were just so fucking fucked but but we were ready for the morning we were ready for the counter attack we were ready to go in there we were ready to go in again and when it was just it was the way it was it's just the way it was morning came and um i didn't know what was been plotted during the during the early hours but chris kiebel had managed to get a couple of argy prisoners um and then translate a surrender and uh of course um they went to take the surrender terms of surrender were worked out on the airfield and um the battalion marched into uh not marched we sort of you know patrolled into uh into goose grain um i mean because we were fucked c company were absolutely fucked b company had to hold their position a company had to hold their position d company had to hold their position um so it was only the hq elements and the uh and chris kiebel that went into standing to take the surrender followed by us we came in a bit later and um all that jubilation i'm not knocking the lads you see those famous pictures of ken lachovia and hank hood god rest his soul cracking medic took his life a few years ago because of the horrors of war drinking the whiskey that the locals had given him i mean i've asked about these two guys that were with me at the time i said we were so bollocks we just we just wanted to sleep you know we couldn't although it would have been nice it wasn't even in my vocab to socialize i mean i was so wound up like the rest of us we were killing machines we were just fucking awful awful young men fucking awful and that's what it is but fair play to ken and uh to hank and the rest of the boys drinking you know and hank had a real shit war i mean he was patching up his mates he was he patched up a lot of his mates in fact they actually found this guy called steve toughen who i mentioned earlier he was one of the first to go missing on the attack on darwin hill with a company got shot bang straight in the head fucking square on in the brain and he he laid there for eight hours it was the first to get shot and he was lost to get kazovact and hank gave him the last rights and hank said to him he said steve if he don't because he'd already been given two two syringes of morphine and you don't give a head wound that but hank knew by giving one i think for another wound he had and hank said steve if you don't squeeze my hand i'm going to give you another morphine and then steve squeezed his hand to let to let hank know that he was still compass mentors because poor steve was in a bad way yeah he was the last to get kazovact um yeah so that's hank did a lot of good things and took his own life a few years ago we we went to his funeral um held the church the church up north wales held 900 and there was 1300 airborne brotherhood from all over the world turned up all in the car park and then the strange thing was after day two of the wake on the sunday we were all in hank's local pub and then it all started off again didn't it the scousers two para-scousers against northern ireland the boys from northern ireland just like it was three just like it was 35 40 years ago you know in the nappy all started kicking off and i went oh i said to my mate neil i said and duke turned up as well i said come let's go back to the hotel leave these fuckers to get on with it you know it hadn't changed 35 years uh the same old this you know the same old sort of quarrels and characters that always want to fight with people crazy but yeah so that's where we were um with goose cream we had a c company were moved into the precara pilots bashes which happened to be the sheep shearing accommodation during the sheep shearing season and we'd moved into the precara pilots precara pilots bashes and there's shit everywhere it's shit in the beds fucking floor a couple of water off done absolutely everything dirty bastards um but yeah that was it that was well it was a welcome rest for us i know a company never made it into goose green because they had to they had to keep the they had to watch the back they had to be on darwin hill all the time you know as the outer cordon um yeah so that that was goose green yeah at what point in this did you learn that kernel h had been killed yeah um we were advancing behind yeah we were advancing after the initial mortar where we went firm we got a brew on at the base of darwin hill that's when it came down sunray sunray down you know but it didn't really affect me but what it did do it affected my boss who was the lieutenant corner calling corner i mean he started crying and then ken had to get a grip of him say fucking old boss you know start switching on will you i mean we were old sweats we were like 2021 you know i mean rifle companies at 18 17 18 year olds tom's and if that happened in a rifle company i mean it wouldn't she the poor old tom would have been well fucked off wouldn't he because we were the old sweats it didn't really affect us that much but i was shocked to see the bloke crying i mean you do your crying after you don't do it in front of your men do you um yeah that's when we heard when jones got it didn't affect me um because you can't let emotions like that get in to your head you sort all that shit out later i mean i sorted that shit out later and i was lucky in this sense because of warren point you don't mope about it if you're still on ops you know you get over it you know when you're in a safe environment you know and you get over it you deal with yourself but yeah um i'm really pleased that chris keeble took over he did an absolutely stupendous job because when we when we went into stanley uh when we sorry when we went into goose green i couldn't believe they kept coming the arches kept coming and they were told to march out with their hands with the rifle in one hand the other hand held high march out and drop all their weapons they came out one two three 20 50 100 100 200 300 4 5 6 fuck they were there was almost 1200 that came out and those famous pictures of those helmets and those rifles on the on the field just outside goose green and not only that the bakaras were still on the airfield the ones that could fly off took off uh they were the ones at bombas and then they obviously flew back somewhere probably back to stanley um and then when we saw the hardware they had they had canisters of napalm all sweating and smelly they had these like i said these bowford guns they've taken off the ships the the airfield was surrounded by these orlic and guns 20 and 30 mil cannons rapid fire which took an rhq uh yeah i mean they could have held us for a long long time yeah so um i think i'll speak on behalf of everybody listening that wasn't there it's uh it's almost beggars belief doesn't it well i look back at it now i go so many heroic deeds have been done by our fathers and our grandfathers and our great grandfathers and mothers and you know grandmothers that i see this is just my war and i've spoke to the guys up in the regiment up here in sces blokes that have done it finished their 22 years i've been done three times more time up here than they've done in the paris and they will always say even stuff in gulf war one gulf war two all over the place nothing nothing compares to goose green nothing and these are proper proper full hard-on soldiers nothing compares to goose green nothing they've done in the sces compares because what what you're doing the sces is very much controlled you've got all the support i know you're out on a limb but it's a bit of a it's a bit fun driving a motorbike or a pinky over in the desert do you know what i mean because you can hit and run you hit the enemy you can fucking run off laugh um that's what people don't understand they think it's more guy behind enemy lines is yes it's it's it's it's not a good thing but you do have the ability to do your own thing and plan your escape being full on in a battle you can't you've got you've got one way to go you should only go one way you know or you do a tactical advance or tactical retreats right you've got to ask me um ask me about the book bring me the arse of sardam yes so come on that's uh you literally did apparently yeah i was a uh i was working out of Kuwait um just before gulf war two and um i got the suspicion that uh uh the coalition forces were going to actually invade or liberate iraq and basically i got i was a photojournalist and uh i got all my creditations and basically i i followed the u.s marine corps up into Baghdad over a three-week period friend of mine who'd spent left the s.e.s after 20 odd years j y who who was the lad way back in the falklands that shouted spud during the mortar attack where that piece of track almost hit my femur it was him so he was he was uh he was running the uh the first uh the first contract olive security ever had and uh which was to look off the sky news team during the war and i i just went on with j y act as another security guy but i could file my copy back using their um sat system sat and communication system so um yeah we we ended up in now nazareer which was the biggest battle during the war of iraq gulf war two um we got hosted really well by the u.s marine corps really impressed really impressed with their um patriotism their professionalism and the kit they had is just awesome awesome uh you know um and someone like me who's a who's a truck just he had so many beautiful heavy plant and uh you know forget the war i was like all in i was just like all i was full of emotion looking at these big vehicles you know these six six wheel drive vehicles uh they also flew the uh they they flew the the uh hui gunship and at the time they they they they flew the ch-47 it's the ch-46 the isn't it the ch-47 is the is what they call the frog which is a smaller version of the of the shinok vietnam day as well they've actually stopped flying them now but it's nice to see them in now nazareer i was um i was protected by old spooky puff the magic dragon which is that c-130 gunship with a 105 how it's a short how it's they're outside the out of the pork door um set of Vulcan guns on the front that was that was a good feeling um i then went and saw the uh the um g battery of uh 7rha they came up to support the american marines first time since the second world war in now nazareer they had a but they had a um a line of guns up there and the guy that was two i see the guns was a guy there was a tom with two nine commando back on wireless ridge which is which was the second battle i was involved in with the forklands and he he was on the gun gun line there and it was after it was after the battle for wireless ridge and i told this chap he was a captain back in iraq i said to him after the battle for wireless ridge when you guys pummel wireless ridge i said i'd never call an artillery man a crapper ever again so we had a good night there then we moved on and eventually i found myself um a few hours later after they pulled the statue down in inferno square um managed to get a piece of uh a piece of the bronze i only wanted a small piece you know that size of a fact packet um but i ended up getting his left buttock which is quite a big piece um and managed to get it back home and a few years for a second divorce and the house has to be cleared so i found this thing in the golden shed and thought what the hell can i do with it um so i thought well it'd be nice because at the time girls and boys were still coming back from afghanistan in iraq and you know fucked up in all sorts of oh it's awful awful these wars these unjust and illegal wars it grips me Chris it really does it grips me they were going back to birmingham so i thought it would be a great idea to sell the ass to raise money for this raw center to defense medicine up in birmingham and also the wounded warriors program which is the usmc program in the states um went to sell it uh went to auction um went to sell it put a 25 grand and then i i took advice from uh an auctioneer guy a friend of a friend of a friend over in uh Dubai he said no he said that's worth that you need to put 250 000 so that's i put 250 000 reserve on it and that's when my trouble started uh the police then jumped on my back uh i got um bailed seven times i've got arrested bailed seven times they wanted the ass they wouldn't tell me who wanted the ass uh it kind of went worldwide a bit of a funny story really because of because it was his left buttock of Saddam Hussein and and i've written a book about it and it's called bring me the answer of Saddam um it's been well received not by not by the government the establishment i'm still trying to find out who made the complaint my barrister said it's not a criminal act it's nothing to do with them they should if they need to prosecute me they should take me through the civil courts and then we'll see who's putting in the complaint so yeah it's bring me the ass of Saddam what it's a funny book it's funny did did you ever manage to sell it no it's um the police asked me where is it i said well i don't know i gave it a gypsy peat they said where's they said where's gypsy peat and i said well he gave it a Ken the nose and ken the nose said it's on the run it did i did take it for its last tour around london managed to smuggle it into the danienhurst golden skulls exhibition so in the book there's a picture of it there you know it's up there between the golden skulls um yeah took it all around london i mean the police went apeshit almost a hundred thousand pounds of tux payers money um and they've actually they actually put a press release out saying we don't believe it's it's the real ass we believe that it's you know nigelili is fraudulent making fraudulent claims this is y'all see they're trying to they're trying to sort of get me to come out and say so i mean i've been told that if the ass does raise its ugly head um they will come down on me like a ton of bricks again can you believe it um so yeah it's up for sale um i've tried to get hold of the iraqi government they've obviously got more pressing things to do but the reason why i think the complaint was made um because i think they realized how much when it was some apeshit in the in the iraqi government said to the british government i want this this is uh um cultural property because that's the that's what i got arrested under united nations section eight uh took off two of the 2003 hierarchy culture property act knowingly taking or stealing iraqi cultural property so they've gone on me this united nations thing so um yeah i've tried to get hold of the iraqi's they won't have it try to get hold of the ambassador his first secretary in london they keep away nobody knows who made the complaint um it's a big load of bullshit but it's a cracking story i enjoyed writing it it's funny as fuck and also um the ass is still for sale but they have threatened the police have threatened if it does like i say raise it raise its ugly head then they'll come and they'll come and get me again you'll nick me old beauty so i said i did offer them a compromise i said they said give it to the lost property police sergeant lost property and then we take it from now i said no i tell you what we do you charge me we'll go to magistrate school magistrate will not be able to deal with it we've got a crown call i'm prepared to go to crown court with this they won't do it so there's obviously some skull don't worry that's a right riveting read if you we could do the film again next time or yeah i just wanted to ask you about olive security because my one of my um best mates in the marines was killed working for them in mozo oh dear yeah chat called andy um really and i'm really sorry yeah well it's you know lived by the sword died by the sword don't you it's it's it's the way of the warrior um but it is a bit of a surprise when it's like the most alpha male guy you know yeah it always is up you know he's always going to be doing something like that and the next thing you you see him lying dead on an iraqi street it's uh awful i mean it's just yeah spud what about this film then i wrote a screenplay about my experiences in goose green um and it's the second screenplay i've i've i've i've written and um i was doing a talk on war believe it or not to a load of old soldiers up in london and it was in soho so there was a lot of arty farties about and um in the audience after i sort of waffled on there was this guy called john urvin who's a geordie lad but he's a hollywood producer director uh he's he's done uh done robin hood and hamburger hill is probably the famous war movie he's done so he said to me spud he said well done thanks very much for turning up and giving a talk and then i sort of pushed my script and he said well i'd like to see it and i thought well okay i'll send it off like you know and not expecting hearing anything back but within about 10 days he came back and said yeah i want to do this and that was brilliant i mean that was fantastic for him to say that we have we've been in we've been looking we want to film it in the uk want to film it in wales down at bracken sanny bridge actually sanny lager down there um there's three main characters there's there's um colonel jones vc who we've got in as a cameo role uh there's major chris kiebel who took over from jones for the battalion and and of course there's me because i've written a i've written a script around my my my eyes um we we did have uh we had henry cavill peace people look at it because i fancied in playing chris kiebel uh and we haven't heard anything back i think he's production company only because i thought he'd maybe his brother been in the marines is that right he's in the royal marines um or walsh i think he's just very passionate about the royal marines his is henry isn't his brother right he henry no henry is the actor he's the superman guy isn't he yeah he's the superman yeah i know the feeling um yeah but but yeah no he's um he wears like the globe and laurel on his lapel and stuff i've seen him do stuff like that well i'd love to get a message out any royal marines out there that have a link or anything um for jones i thought i kind of liked uh tom hardy um but he's very hard to get hold of as well obviously the actors we did have because of code now we're still negotiating stuff and we're we're hoping to move into pre-production um june july this year because that's when they're going to lift the restrictions uh we were going to go overseas to estonia or regard uh bog area to to film it but um because of covid but now it seems to we seem to be getting on top of covid and uh yeah and we still want to shoot it in the uk and hopefully it'll be out um october next year the 40th anniversary is may and i think september october next year it'd be great if it comes out and it'll be a cracking war movie you know let's fingers crossed anyway um yes it's um not not an awful lot of films have been made about the falcons have they in that respect because the the um the story of captain robert laurence was the left left tenant back then who was the chap who got shot in the head on tumble down tumble down yeah yeah we're on the phone to each other at the moment with respect coming on the show incredible feature they did incredible feature that tumble down yeah very powerful we've been up yeah yeah but mostly mostly about him when he came home wasn't it so it wasn't actually yeah then there was the um an un-gently act which was the original or the very first invasion of the falcons before the actual war so that was the marines 8901 party who all right yeah put up a bit of a scrap yeah um we again we've um chatted about that on the podcast with ricky phillips who who wrote a book about it um but as far as sort of a film about the actual nitty gritty attacking at night and and this kind of thing i don't think a lot's been done has it yeah goose green nothing on goose green and and um remember it was uh we needed a victory because the from what i saw with the navy and everybody being booked down on the beach the navy the poor bastards oh oh the sheffield when they had those aluminium steps to get out of and it all melted because they needed the like they balanced off speed for weight didn't they are just jesus it just so embarrassing so hopefully goose green um excuse me i'll just see that yeah hopefully goose green will encompass everyone it's not just about the parrots you know it's about war it's about a group of guys in war um and it tells the story of goose green which still to this day is still the bloodiest biggest battle the british armies fought independently and it was the first victory it was the first victory and i think you know victory is contagious and i think with with that it was the catalyst which forced the momentum for the for everyone for the role marines for free power for you know the navy and everybody to to get on because a lot of a lot of the headsheds didn't want goose green to happen i think sandy woodwood said oh it's just a sideshow um well what he didn't understand and he was the admiral what he didn't understand was the men and women needed a moral victory they needed that you know we could have left them there left all those bakars there and they could have bombed us from behind but um yeah spud how many books have you written now it's quite a few isn't it or yeah you in the yeah yeah i've written um fight for queen and country which was a bastardization of term which had updated terminal velocity uh no fear gun for hire um bring me the arse of sedam and i've now written and it's public it'd be published next year um goose green uncensored voices and it's a it's not a blood and guts book i mean you can get that in fighting for queen and country or you can get that in a blood and guts book it's about the blokes experiences the civvies the civilians experiences the ship the the the crew on boulder norland it's all little vignettes little anecdotal stories funny stories sad some sad and some indifferent and it's a collection of well over a hundred and it's an easy read you know it's a sort of thing you can pick the book up read a couple of funny stories put it down and i haven't interviewed anybody above the rank of captain and the only person i have done is major chris keyboard because one has to do that if you're talking about battle for goose green but all the officers all the officers and men are all below the rank captain or below um so be out major publisher bonnier bonnier publishing uk um due out well hopefully for the um for the anniversary of goose green how they run it i'm not sure they probably they might run it a couple of weeks before the anniversary or a month but yeah that's a sign and sealed um the book i'm working on at the moment is living in the country an old soldier living in the country you know in an isolated cottage growing his own vegetables um i've got a passion for british cars sort of post-world war two mainly 60s cars i've got a couple of them i've got a couple of rover p4s you know with the suicide doors i've got morris traveller i got the one i've got on the road the rover i've got on the road is called burt and the morris traveller which is a 1990 1971 one of the last yeah it's the woody i call that trip travel oh it's beautiful put a smile on my face but people think i'm a lunatic around here i drive around harryford smiling big smile on my face always always positive in life i think one has to be positive in life um i'm so grateful uh i say grateful for my life um i lost i lost my brother um three years ago very quickly through cancer and i apologize to anybody who bought the book if there's a few editorial mistakes in it but it's been changed now but i had to get it out and i had to see him hold it before he passed so my apologies to anybody that's read the book brought it read it and think there's too many mistakes well i agree there there is but there isn't now but yeah i'm very positive in life i think you have to be i i think i my daughter says i've been through a lot i consider it just the way it is um i'm grateful for every day i get up i've actually looked after my health a lot better than what i did years ago i think that's so important as as we get on as we start pushing middle age um and i think you've got to keep smiling i think you've got to keep smiling be positive my glass is always half full i fucking can't stand these doom and gloom merchants i can't stand them um i think life's for living and i think you could just got to get on with it and i'm you know i'm really positive about lots of things and like i say this book i'm doing at the moment sort of it's sort of living off grid type thing but it's just a it's just an old soldier old paratrooper s e s guy call it what you want special forces or the terms they put these people now it's just amazing isn't it you know oh look at me sf um and i'm just crack on i in order to keep fit i um i cut wood i don't climb anymore but i knock trees down for farmers tidy them up uh do a bit of firewood um and i really enjoy it in fact after this uh after this uh chat i'm going to go out i've got about two ton of logs to round up and um i've well the exciting thing in my life the end of this week i'm getting a new chainsaw can you imagine i'm looking i'm looking forward to it again new new still 261 my old one's gone i've got several chainsaws but this is quite a nice little chainsaw one it's a professional middle of the road chainsaw that can do a lot of work with it so i'm quite looking forward to having a play with that other weekend hey that's a milestone when you get a chainsaw when when you have a bonfire on the sunday that's the first milestone you made it to adulthood yeah yeah well when i was in the s e s i was on the team on the character uh terrorist team um i was the m e man method of entry man and back then we used to have the steels and the way say when you had um you had to aircraft you know you managed to get an aircraft down and you had to assault an aircraft my job was to get the old steel cutter and cut through cut a panel through the fuselage oh we must have been fucking crazy back then um and because that's when i got into it all yeah well that's what all i can say well i could say a lot but what i will say is i'm glad you made it through all of this thank you for your um uh your input and bravery on behalf of our great nation um and are you going to come back and talk to us again yeah i'd love to yeah i you know i thank you for your compliments and thank you for the invite um i yeah i i we can talk about what i'd like to do is talk about because bring me the arse of sedan was a book i self-published myself i went through the whole i learned a lot about publishing through it you know i could have got it through a mainstream publisher but i thought i'd have a go at trying to do it myself spud anyway listen stay on the line and we can continue okay but on behalf of the bought the t-shirt podcast massive thank you for for for your commitment and for joining us today and i'm going to put all your links below so thank you it's been an absolute pleasure thank you chris welcome and to everybody at home massive love to you all please look after yourself thank you for watching another edition and if you can like and subscribe then i will like you chow chow chow