 You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications button so you're notified for when my next podcast goes live. We should wrote a letter to, is it Paul Burroughs in 96? It says that they were going to kill her in a car accident. Was there a shiver in fear of her life? Did you ever feel that vibe? Yes, she was everywhere you go. You're trying to make it as sterile as possible because there was massive threats against the family and him, he brought down the government with the cash for questions carry on which I was involved with, people who were watching you and we did find people watching us doing surveillance on us from MI5 which was standard and others. What you're hoping is they're going to look at your level of security and they're going to go, we can't get away with this, it's too much. You know, you've just got to see through all the bullshit man this is fucking insane. This is going to get everybody killed and I'm not sending my men in there. Some of the iconic pictures you see of the princess there was one of me and her in a boat where she's whispering to me that made it all over the world, some of them sold for a million euros so you can see why they were so aggressive to get in and get in your face and try and take a compromising photo and the question is why did everybody love her? Because people could see what she was like and the media, especially the media in the UK, the tabloids then just destroyed her. So I said to the princess, I said have you seen the daily papers today because I wanted to just give her the heads up as to what was in and she said are you meaning that article in that paper and I said yeah, are you okay with it? And she said well, it's his choice and she turned around, she'd obviously been crying a lot and she said have you heard about my friend and I said yes, it's awful what's happening and I know you knew him and I'm really sorry and she was crying and she said do you think they're going to do that to me? Because mystified, one of his big rules was everybody must wear a seat belt he was really big on it and you can see on the pictures he wasn't staggering drunk he was made out to be pissed out of his head and Trevor said to me and Kessler said to me as well he was not drunk, we would not allow him to drive There was rumours that she was pregnant, is there any? How can I say? Boomer on and today's guest is at least handsome Great to meet you brother How are you big man? I'm good, are you? Yeah, really good thank you first of all thanks for coming on the show My pleasure, thank you for having me on Yeah, no problem, you just released a book called The Bodyguard Great read, close protection like you've worked with some of the biggest names on the planet but none other than Princess Diana Yes, yeah The biggest name probably on the planet You've got to have deep personal conversations with her Your own opinion of the night of the crash Very fascinating read I get a lot of books and a lot of guests but that one I read in two days Very intriguing, it's always something I've always remembered Now we're 25th anniversary just past a couple of days ago As a kid that's always something it's always stood out There's a lot of speculation, a lot of conspiracy theories but you're the man in the mix How are you? I'm good, I'm good, busy as always like you dashing about all over the show but yeah Everything's good Before we get into everything I'll go back to the start of my guests where you grew up and how it all began Okay, right, so the book The book I wrote with my ghost writer was a legacy really for my kids during lockdown and there are some things about the princess in there but she's the big news right especially the 25th anniversary So I was born in Lancashire just north of Manchester and lived most of my years there we moved back into a place called Salford in Manchester which is slightly different than it is today big working class area and mainly around the dock area and my dad used to work there and my family are all from Manchester and so my parents moved out to a place called Rosendale in Lancashire and they'd both been there during the war they moved the children out so they moved back there they must have really good memories of it So yeah, born on a big council estate what do you call it in Scotland? A scheme, massive scheme thousands of people full employment then in the cotton mills and it was a great place to grow up loads of pubs big community feeling as you get and then there's the pecking order of course isn't there as a young man on the schemes or on the council estate so you quickly established your pecking order as a young man and then your little gangs that you hang out with would have their pecking order as well so I think that growing up in that environment affects everybody slightly differently doesn't it so for me as a child I think when you look back I was quite thoughtful and perhaps a bit too thoughtful on things and I was bullied at school quite badly not in terms of horrendous acts of violence against me there's a few but I think I overthought it as you can do you know and that played a big part in my life on my paper I'm dreading going to school dreading meeting this person it affected my life incredibly so I can really relate to people who have been bullied at school for me it's more psychological I think I built it up myself but apart from that I had a really good happy childhood exciting getting up to lots of mischief as you do so I went from there to a karate school so I thought if I can learn this karate I can sort this guy out so I went to the karate school in a place called Bake Up which is a really interesting place there's a lot of Irish people settled in this place called Bake Up it was the last train line to be built and a lot of navies got laid off there so there's friends of mine at Irish Accidents they've never been there and there was a big community there how can I say supported the IRA of course because that's where they came from and that's their belief and there's all the murals on the wall and everything's incredible place so the goal there if you had a friend there and we didn't have any friends from there because it was just a really rough place but the first karate school I went to was in this place called Bake Up so I was so determined to do it so as the bus pulled up I got off the bus, ran to the community centre because I thought I was going to get battered by the young people there and I probably was if I didn't run there was a couple of us and then it started getting worse then so first night there was an instructor there and he delighted in beating you up and he broke my ribs on the first night of my karate so that didn't work out too well for me so a bit later on in life I started going to the football matches and I used to support Manchester City which was my home team and when I went to Rosendale it wasn't the team to support it was Burnley he had a sported Burnley or no one so I started going watching Burnley and I didn't want to but I soon got the bug for it and it became my team I went all over the country watching them get beat generally and then got involved in football violence which was a big kick for me because after all those years I've been uncertain about your physical attributes and psychologically being bullied but the turning point a big turning point in my life I've had a few turning points as we all have but just before the football probably about the same time I started figuring out hang on I can fight and I could fight my dad used to teach boxing when we were young his dad was a boxer my granddad and he's one of the top boxers in the country and then the war came of course so he couldn't do it so he used to do prize fighting and then he would sort people out in the local area my granddad is a real tough bastard and we used to go down to Salford and see him and all of a sudden there'd be a knock on the door and Ted would have to go out sort somebody out come back obviously make a few quid so my dad taught us boxing when we were young and I didn't really like it my brother was older and I think he'd bust my nose it wasn't a very plain experience for me but all of a sudden I found I could hit people and it sounds weird that I look back on it now and your life's your life right and I just figured out I could hit people and I could beat them and I enjoyed doing it and then I went to this pub probably within a month or a few weeks and this bouncer in there was a right bully a big guy there's a few of them and I'd done something I was young then I was pissed and maybe spilt something and he came for me and I thought here we go and I said right get outside now and I'm gonna fuck you up and why I said it I have no idea because I was shitting my pants and so this guy came out the pub but the whole pub it's like a pub disco type thing the whole pub emptied as well because he wanted to watch this young lad get battered by this guy anyway there was some like garages on a little bit of wasteland by this pub and we started going for it and I was just banging him I mean really hard I put both my wrists I hit him that hard and I remember it to this day and he couldn't hit me and I could just hit him anyway I beat him down he's on his hands and knees crying he says don't hit me anymore right and I was like wow and then I saw this guy used to bully me and I went you're fucking next boy and he went no I don't want any trouble I don't want any trouble please and that was a big turning point for me for my confidence you know as a young man so I got into the football violence quite too much it was I think living for the day living for the fight you know because it was pre arranged some of it some of it wasn't and I just didn't care just did not care and quite quickly in the pecking order of football hooligans as they called them then I started going to the top and then the local karate instructor from the same club who lived across the the estate he had a chat with my dad and remember my dad telling me he said Terry my dad he's dead now go bless him I held his hand when he died the most empowering thing I've ever done in my life I just felt so at ease it's incredible isn't it this man I you know that we all loved as a lovely guy and it made me feel so at one with him it's incredible that isn't it and everyone else was crying and all that and I thought wow this is great I get to do this with my dad it's mad isn't it so the karate instructor said to my dad you better get your boys my older brother he was into the football violence as well but he wasn't as good as me I was quite good at it you know and so he said you better get him in the karate school before they end up in prison and our local prison then was strange ways in Manchester you know and I knew a couple of lads had been in there and again even like today if you go in prison for a stretch your social standing goes up in these circles of course doesn't it so I started that badge of honour don't I it is yeah it is and that's how it is on you know some of these estates so I went down to the karate school and it was a big fighting karate school all they did was fight they were well known all over the UK and I went down there and pretty soon I got really good at it in a very short period of time so I think they had four fighting teams and the top team were all black belts some of them international players so pretty soon within six months I was on the team on the A team so when we used to go to fight there was four black belts and me a white belt and I used to go and win and when I got into the sport it turned me away from the football violence and fighting in the pubs you know every Friday night I couldn't go home without having a fight why do you think that's because of the discipline that karate yeah it is it is the discipline yeah it's a discipline and once you're in a combat sport you get your you get your it fills you up so you don't need to do it anywhere else that's what I felt and remember this one this one time there's this guy in the local area I'll not say his name but he was a real tough cookie and something happened in the pub and he was just a violent, very violent guy and I said to him look I'm not going to fight you in here if you want to fight we'll go out and fight outside because I want to come back in and finish my pint and he's like hang on so we go outside and he's rearing to go and I said right just back off me a minute took my watch off took my shirt off placed it down nice and neat bit of psychology going on here and he said what are you doing I said well after me and you have fought irrespective of who's won I'm going to go with a nice clean shirt back in there and finish my pint and he's looking at my light thinking this guy's off his fucking head and in the end he said I don't want to fight I don't want to fight you I don't know why but I don't want to fight you so I said are you done and he said yeah I said we're going to go back in the pub you come near me I'm going to you know we're going to fight in the pub I don't want that because I thought he was going to go in and blindside me or something anyway a few days later he killed a guy with a shotgun this guy went to prison and all the rest of it so perhaps not the best guy to play this game with but it worked and then later when he came out of prison we kind of become friends you know so yeah Isn't that mad though that you're being bullied a lot of people have on the show being bullied end up turning gangsters SES Yeah boxing, UFC Yeah then from bullying even that guy his ego is probably so dented with you that you thought he's ever maybe needed to prove something towards somebody else mmm yeah and I think you know James in the cold light of day and and this this has really served me well in the in the work I've done in the close protection industry in the military and things like that but when you're really calm in an incident and you know when people get violent violence grows doesn't it and all the signs of violence in somebody that you know I'm trained to to see that's how we we can spot people in a crowd who are about to do something it's the signs they're leaking and as animals which we are we get that on a very very deep level so you know if you can overcome that and go into these situations not showing any signs whatsoever of anger of anxiousness of adrenaline people don't get that they're like hang on I'm doing this you're supposed to do this he's not doing it I'm supposed to do this he's supposed to do that he's not doing it and then in their brain their subconscious starts going hang on there's something wrong here this doesn't add up and then they start questioning it and then once they start questioning it then you can bang them out if you want to because I had friends any sign of danger people were taking them in people used to get angry loud, aggressive and it was scary and people used to think fuck that they're off their head they couldn't fight they could not fight and I let you say if you're in that camp then in your mind he's not reacting the way he should be reacting so it froze off whatever they're thinking and balance and had many friends like that and they were it's like acting it's like acting apart they're aggressive they're angry they're thinking but you can't fight but it used to it does, yeah and when you get somebody like that and they're showing these signs of anger and aggression and there's a book called The Chimp Paradox Professor Steve Peters I've read that fantastic book he was my son's psychologist for years on the Olympic team when he talks about the way your chimp works your anger your fight or flight and all the rest of it once you can control that and you've got to practice it like mad once you can control it you know, you get a person there who's showing signs of aggression or whatever this is the thing I know exactly what they're going to do because they're telling me then I'm going to clue what I'm going to do I have the power now even if I say excuse me I'm leaving and I walk away I have the power I take it from them you know, it's mad isn't it and this will blow your mind this James right so we were in Tripoli during the Second War and we had to take this really important person down to see one of the Prime Ministers I think there was three then and they were just knocking the shit out of each other it was a horrible place to be lovely people by the way but very very dangerous the most dangerous place in the world at the time and we had to go into this hotel so we had I think we had about four or five armored vehicles with us and I was a team leader and so I'm looking at this every militia you could think of is in there armed to the teeth and there must have been maybe 200 militia men from different factions and it was very tense and we had to do it it was mission critical for this organization that this guy got in there to see him and it was against every protocol that we would have but we had to do it so we were outside and we were about to deploy in as a team a protection team I said right I get on the air I said right everybody take your weapons off we're taking no weapons and they're like what are you fucking crazy and I said lads if it kicks off in there there'll be plenty of weapons lying around we can pick them up but I had a weapon I took my my glocking with me in a like a really I used to have this really fancy bag that looked you would see in London patent leather and everything it was ridiculously not a tactical bag or anything and I used to dress quite smartly so people kind of didn't know who I was you know but why did it James was this we had our operators all great operators I thought if anything happened in there they would pull that weapon because it's how we were because human beings in it and if they pulled that one weapon it'd be like taking a water pistol to a gunfight because everybody else was so heavily armed you know so I thought if I can get my team that don't have the option to pull the weapon then they're not going to pull it they'll find a different way to defuse any kind of conflict you know and it worked really well and then we were in there and it's have you seen that film 13 hours in Benghazi? no watch the film if you want to see what Libya was like at the time watch that film you'll love it and once you've watched it give me a call you'll call me straight away and you'll see what it was like but there's a scene in there very similar to this and what happened is they opened these gates and they let all these people in you know for publicity but they could have been carrying or it was just such a dangerous place and we got out and I had to debrief my team after and I told them exactly why and they kind of got it you know but that takes some balls to do that man so I think you know growing up on the estate really served me well you know in various ways and then what did I do then I what was the adrenaline between the the hooligan stuff and the karate stuff was it totally night and day? where did you get your bigger buzz? I think the karate and then kickboxing but if you're one of the highest ranked then you're eighth dan is that correct? eighth dan yeah eighth dan that's unbelievable it is you know spent a lot of my time it's my hobby my passion it's our family business you know we run karate schools professional karate schools we have a lot of instructors we have great students but I think with the karate and the kickboxing because there's rules and you have to like any any martial art any standard any combat there are rules and the rules make it difficult to beat someone and I think that gives you a bigger buzz because you've got to really train hard for it so that's a massive buzz when you're standing in front of somebody and it's you and them it's very animalistic isn't it? but I think this is what really helped me is that say for example I was stood across from a karate fighter or kickboxing or taekwondo I've done them all at international level I'd look at them in the eye one thing for sure is I train harder than them and two is if I met you outside on the street I would fucking kill you and I knew it and they knew it too psychological isn't it? yeah do you think that's where you are as well a psychological like a chess player like you taking your clothes off hanging and putting them on the gate and it mentally fucks them where did you get that from? I think I've always had it you know I think I've always had it I've always looked after my brother in the pubs and that you know I think it's in me to care to look after people I've always had that gene in me and and I think because I've studied it so much I've studied the psychology of violence massively and I now own it I get it I own it I can work with it it doesn't intimidate me it doesn't frighten me you know so and I teach that how long did it take you to own it obviously when you're bullied and then you start learning how to fight then you start beating people up start beating up your bullies when did you learn to control that because obviously they've got the buzz for fights they've had the power or something you've never really had as a kid when did you learn to control that and understand that you were a man who can kill basically a man who can take life when did you learn how to control and walk away unless you were tested was that years and years of practice? I think I've got it pretty quickly with the martial arts because this is the thing I wanted to be the best in the world that was my aim you know when I was a young man and my instructor said to me like Lee this is a score if you get Nick doing this you can't train and that was a biggie for me then because we used to have these karate licenses you still do now he said I'll take that off you and that's you done and that was enough for me to say right I've got to stop this and I sorted myself out almost overnight crazy isn't it and then I go into the pubs and stuff and even in later life going back to my local pub which my nan and granddad used to run back in the day and meet people and everybody go oh that's him that's that guy that's that tough guy you know and I didn't like that and I still and I don't like it but it just goes to show how your memory or the legacy lives on and it wasn't a legacy that I wanted as I got older crazy isn't it but I think yeah it was the thought of losing my sport because I just wanted to be the best in the world you know so what did you do when you started moving through the ranks then did you just stay focused into karate and kickboxing yeah I focused on karate and I was moving up fighters were the best people in the world and doing extremely well you know and then at 21 I went to South Africa so I just got on a flight went to South Africa I had a wife then Melanie and we had one child and I went over got myself a job got a place to stay and then flew them over and in South Africa I went to this big karate school in Johannesburg and there was I went to this school I think it was called Schmutz Jan Schmutz Academy something like that and it was massive loads of black belts maybe 30-40 black belts I've never seen this training one club and they were good anyway I waited patiently and this guy the head instructor you could see I was waiting didn't know who I was and he came over and spoke to me and he said yeah well I think you'll find it different here the English they're shit at karate we're the best in the world and he really gave me a dressing down I'm like you don't even know me so I never went back and I went to a Taekwondo school and then karate and Taekwondo like bitter enemies you know and within six months I was on the national Taekwondo team you know I just love fighting I just love it it really gives me a sense of peace weird eh? quite yummy yeah definitely and life threatening experiences are very similar but a bit more intense but it does quieten your mind and going out to the pub on a Saturday night the last thing you want to do is fight when you're doing it all week so this is why you know we have hundreds of children training with us in our sansa martial arts schools across the country and I'm hoping and I'm praying that they find that in the karate as well you know and if it helps us create better human beings who can contribute to the community in a nice way through the medium of sport that's our job done yeah so what did you do then married kid were you just going to be involved in your karate travel the world fight around the world yeah that was the plan that was the plan then marriage and babies comes responsibility and cash at the time cash was short not much money in karate boxing as though there is now they didn't used to be but now a lot of people make a good living out of it you know our instructors make a good living out of it and we we specifically look for young martial artists who maybe have been injured or gone on their martial arts journey and they're great athletes great teachers but they don't know the business side of things and I didn't and I remember going to a big business meeting in Wales for the karate when I first opened my karate school here in 2000 well it's kickboxing school then I went into kickboxing I was quite successful at that as well as my son's world champion and I went down to this meeting and there were top martial arts school owners from all over the world and I was asked to teach a high energy class which I did and then we went to the business meeting and they all sat around talking about business I hadn't got a fucking clue what they were talking about and now I'm the little boy in the room now and Kate was with me my wife Kate who comes from a really big business family her dad got the Queens Award for export she knows all about business and I came out of that meeting I said to Kate never again am I going to look stupid like that and I taught myself business stood it for years so I became a master at it as much as I could be so the martial arts now with these young kids because of the internet and everything we can centrally do all their marketing for them we look after their students for them we look after all the admin for them so they can just get up and teach and that's what martial arts guys want to do and we've seen so many people up in martial arts schools who think well I'm going to earn a good living out of this and they just fail because you've got to be a business person you've run a business haven't you so keep it after a lot yeah so now we're really lucky that we've got a great team I've got 20 odd instructors on my team here and we have great admin support and everything so we've just set a young lad up he's just come off the British take on the team on the Olympic team and for whatever reason he had to leave so we've we've set him up in Manchester and he's having a great time teaching he loves it so he's a real good success story for us you know yeah so if you're living a dream you've got a son over in South Africa world champion karate kickboxing got your wife got your kid how did you end up involved in like military and close protection yeah it's interesting my wife didn't like my wife then she didn't like South Africa and she didn't really get it so I had to come back home so I came back home a couple of years later and I didn't really have any I had nothing I was staying at friends of mine Stephen and Karen God bless them people and so we were staying there with a little baby and then we had a second baby Jeanine first one was Shemaine then Jeanine came along and I didn't really know what to do but I didn't want to go back to the steel factory I was I got an apprentice as a boil maker sheet metal worker worked in the steel factory for you know that's what I was doing in South Africa and I thought right I met a friend of mine in the pub and he was he joined the military police and I was chatting to him and he was telling me how good it was and I thought I just get that there's me wanting to join a policing agency having been a bad boy you know and I didn't have a lot of respect for the police because I didn't get what they did and when you're in a community that everybody hates the police then you go down that line don't you it's only you know when I joined the police I understood that the you know what the police do and what a difficult job they have to do not only with the public but with the restraints that are on them and all the rest of it so I joined the military police and I went down for my selection and the officer there did not want me to join the military police he wanted me to join the engineers because I was a tradesman I had a fair and I fought to get in and I joined the military police and I had ten of the best years incredible doing all and I was so lucky that I did such a different range of things in the military police that just filled me up you know military police normal police so the royal military police is an army unit and anybody listening to us who's been in the army I bet they've been going they'll have their comments on it but the military police are the the army's police force they're the MPs with people going wrong shit yeah all sorts of stuff but essentially we don't have any powers to discipline anybody really what would happen is the commanding officer of a unit an infantry unit if any of their people did anything to contraven military law whatever you know the military police guys would arrest them and question them and make up a file on that one particular case and give it to the commanding officer and he deals with it a lot of people think the military police deal with it we don't you know that's what would happen if you went to court marshal if it was a serious defence murder or something really big then it'd go to like a court marshal which is like a court but without a jury as such they're just officers that would sit on this and deal out the punishment you know you must have been hated more than a normal police story like the military police like there's a lot of boys in the army going all with the fucker and trouble but I wouldn't like to I wouldn't like you're coming at my door did you go to people's door who went here? yes oh mate yeah so I worked I did so many different roles in the military police I mean I didn't wear a uniform for about three years three and a half years so the absentees and deserters as we call them generally the unit would have an absentee's deserters facility there and they'd pick them up like you say young lads you know people just had enough and the desperate so they'd pick them up and then they get processed either back into the military or into civilian life so there was a procedure some of them went to prison depending on what they've done but I remember in Northern Ireland I took over the absentees and deserters file there which was like that thick man so I sat there thinking why has nobody ever done anything with this? they said well it's too fucking dangerous and I went I'm gonna do this and I nailed a lot mate and it was so exciting going into these really tough areas and we call terrorist areas where I loyalist or yeah so either protestant or Catholic and I would go in and get these people out just to get the bull I did it for me I didn't have to do it it was the buzz that you get from doing that shit man so yeah I have done that knocking on doors and I've done all sorts of stuff mate how were you treated from loyalist or like Catholics or protestants were you an enemy for the IRA side or were you just military police or just enemy for both? yeah I think the British army you're not well liked yeah yeah from the Catholic side of things and then things then you know it was pretty tense when I was there in 1989, 1991 and it was a dangerous place one of those dangerous places to serve and I've spoke to a lot of people who've served in Iraq and Afghanistan and places like this and they still say that was the most scariest place depending on what they did what job they did but and then with the protestants they were obviously pro-military but at the real top end of the hardcore loyalists they were always thinking what are you doing what's going on here why you know so they were always looking for people trying to infiltrate them you know through our very special forces people so there was a bit of untrust at some level but and I remember once right this is fucking mad so we're in this pub me and this guy and he was kind of working a little bit undercover and I was doing some I was just wearing civilian clothes hair they're a bit longer and all that kind of stuff and there was there was three of us so it was a real hardcore loyalist place in this real hardcore loyalist area so we were just having a drink and I go to the toilet and I come back and they're surrounded by a group of guys and I look at them and they're shitting themselves and I went back and they said to me how you doing father I'm like I'm alright and I looked at my mates and they were asking me weird questions and I said like can we just stop this a minute I said to my mates what the fuck have you said they said I was just taking up the fatherhood and he was my last night out how ridiculous because we all had cover stories you see and I looked at the lads and I said right lads this has got to stop and they said right okay boys we know you're military we know you're not normal normal military you've got two options here you try and leave we'll fucking kill you if you stay you don't buy a drink all night we know you're alright stayed there till about 3 in the morning got pissed yeah crazy right you're mad what did you do then after the military stuff so after the military there's various reasons why I left but it just wasn't the right time for me I was due to go back to Northern Ireland to work for this special forces unit and then I got I was going through a divorce so I couldn't go back I think they said you have to wait 12 months, 18 months you know because obviously going through a divorce and stuff you know you're obviously mentally unstable also they thought I was and I thought it was pretty cool so I left and I was determined not to enter security so I got a couple of jobs I just couldn't hold them down you know the story don't you I just couldn't hold it down so then somebody I think they gave me a call or something and said luckily on the Mohammed Al Fayed team it's a big protection team there's a guy called Paul Hanley Greaves who I'd met before in the military he said he's head of security he's looking for guys so I I gave him a call went down to London and got the job how hard was that to get the job for obviously it's a big family a bogey and it must be like I'll have a bogey and it'll have a fire but how was it the end of you before that job well it was quite it was Paul Cook Corners with me so what you had to do then is you had to go down and have this interview with the head of security and then you had to do all these tests to make sure you weren't going into diseases or anything like that everything was tested by the doctors so you weren't bringing a lot of military people because you've been all over the world you can be carrying stuff so you had the medical stuff to do and then there's another interview and then you had to do a handwriting test I forget the name of it when you do the handwriting somebody looks at it and tells if you're a psychopath or something like that have you seen it I think you can draw a circle as well if you draw a perfect circle I think you're a psychopath I can draw circles can you eat I'm in good company I love it so I didn't do the handwriting test Paul said you don't need to do it you can start next week and this is so funny I think you took it away when you did the test and sent it in so his handwriting was really bad so he got his wife to do it so when he came back in he said we were a bit concerned you're pregnant mate and his wife was pregnant that's mad isn't it so they can find out things about you with writing with your handwriting it's a dark art isn't it that is mad so let's say a massive family and who were you protecting then the father or the son so you had the the head of the family Muhammad Al-Fayed and his wife Hennie and they had their four kids Camilla, Jasmine, Omar and Karim Omar being the youngest who I was chatting to last week actually who kept in touch it's such a lovely story this he got in touch with me I'll get back to that he got in touch with me a year ago and he said Lee I'd just like to thank you for you know you changed my life how nice is that with all the young boys same age as Damon so yeah so each member of the family had their designated protection and so when I went there I worked in London learning all the roots all the secret passages and everything I needed to learn you know about the family and then at that time I think you spent about three weeks in their main residence in Mayfair and you never got to meet Mr. Fayed for the first two weeks the first time you'd meet him is you'd open the lift door and he'd just look at you and walk past and this was the vet if he didn't like you you're gone then the next thing maybe two days later you were allowed to speak to him so he's letting you in because I mean when you're working I spent more time with their family than mine so you know you get to see everything and so you know can you imagine letting somebody into your family that's going to live with you you know it's a big and I totally get it so I worked in London for a little while and then I got moved down to their their home in Oxford and then I worked a lot with the boys then I worked sometimes with the girls or with Mrs. Fayed and then I went on to his team so I looked after him then then that was like the it was you got paid more money it was a bit more credibility you know it's a great job I love the job and then I was team leader for a little while and yeah just had the most amazing experience you could ever imagine private jets everywhere helicopters bolts the whole shooting match how many security was protecting that family? well I mean at different stages we had different numbers but it was a considerable team it was a considerable setup at that time at any one time on the books maybe 50 50 on the books yeah and we all worked around in rotation but this is the thing James people don't understand I know you've read the book about close protection operators say for example in Northern Ireland if we went out as a close protection team or you know because I worked in witness protection for a little while you might have four guys on the ground you might have 150-200 people around you in support of that you know so on the bigger close protection teams you've got your surveillance people your counter surveillance your drivers you've got your close protection team that work with the VIP as such and then you've got people around them you know so there's layers of security and then you've got people at the residences looking after them so nobody gets in there and leaves things in there cameras, bugs, whatever so everywhere you go you're trying to make it as sterile as possible because there was massive threats against the family and him he brought down the government with the cash for questions which I was involved with so what was that? so what he did is he wanted his British passport but they wouldn't give him the passport because when he bought Harrods there was a big legal case that went on with him and this guy called Tiny Rowlands who tried to buy it and what they were alleging is he bought it with somebody else's money and it was the one of the Sultan of a man who he used to work with so I think he had his gold credit card and bought it but the Sultan went there said no no no there's nothing going on here his money is my money I'm okay with this this is fine so I think at the end of that trial he was found not guilty but I think the upper classes put like the death wish on him and said but it wasn't he didn't do it like a gentleman so he couldn't get his British passport how crazy is that? everything he used to do here he was a very generous man he did a lot for charity which he never told anybody for the children's hospitals and things like this and for the older people in his town hampers at Christmas and everything but he never publicized it and he's thinking we need people like that in our country and I just don't get it you know in the UK so what happened was he went to prominent politicians and said look can you ask these questions in the House of Parliament about my passport and there's some money go and stay at my Ritz Hotel free so that's what he did and in the end they weren't asking the questions so he said right okay I'm gonna show you fuckers and he said right publicly that person that person that person I've done this this this and there's the evidence and he brought the government down that's man in it so they took money expected them not to just walk away but he's not that kind of guy he's always had that target on him for some reason even in the news people's always been negative about the man how was he as an individual he was one of the most intelligent men I've ever seen there's him and this people are gonna freak at this Alex Sammond I work with Alex during the referendum what an incredibly intelligent guy he is irrespective of his policies and what he believes just him as a human being hyper intelligent incredible but Fayad was the same he said attention to detail I've never seen anything I've learnt so much with him about attention to detail and stuff like that and we'd walk through Harrods you know the size of it and every day we'd walk the floor with him maybe sometimes for an hour sometimes for 10 minutes but he'd always walk around his store around the shop and you know he'd be walking past something he'd be like stop get me the manager and they would they would shit themselves they'd come and he'd go look at that stand over there and I remember one it was with umbrellas one was upside down I'm thinking how did you see that in this massive store with everything going on in your life with all your businesses or if you find a bit of dust somewhere Maddie he had all that billionaire and he was so invested into that store it meant so much to him it's incredible How many hours a day did you used to have to work when you'd done close protection? How many? Hours a day because we're all ex-military we're generally in the close protection industry in the area I work in a lot of it 99.9% ex-military so you're used to working long hours so you don't clock off and it's given you know so if I if I was to go on on operation you would stay till it's finished I mean the worst I've done I think it's three days I was standing up asleep because we just knackered a few hours sleep in three days it was hideous and you just no matter how tough you are no matter how trained you are there's a breaking point in there when you sleep deprivation and I remember on this one job and the Queen came over to Northern Ireland and she had her protection with her and we were the next ring of protection looking after her and I was absolutely hanging and at the end of it I was doing top cover in the in the Land Rover you stood at the top of the the vehicles that we had then with the weapons you see in the war zones so I was doing top cover and I fell asleep in that position there's nothing you could do we were banging helmets we were absolutely knackered so you're operationally you're not fit for purpose you know but generally you know in with the fire team and other jobs I've done sometimes you can put in an 18 hour day because what you've got to do is this is the thing a lot of people don't understand so you've got to do your physical training yourself to keep your you know keep it on top of your game so you've got to be mentally fit and physically fit so say for example you knew the family were doing something let's say 9 o'clock so you'd be ready for 8 for example and then you've got to prep everything so that might be another hour then you've got to do your fizz which would be another hour then you've got to shower, change all of a sudden so now you're getting up at 5 o'clock so they go out and do their own thing then say for example you go back to the residence or wherever you are on a yacht or something they'll go and have a sleep now you've got work to do then prepping for what you're doing that evening and then they might be out in the nightclub till 2-3 in the morning repeat see when they're on yachts and stuff like the food I'd imagine the chefs and that they're all background checks with everybody with the food obviously because you see the Russians and people are getting poisoned and that was was that always question marks for himself like eating the right foods and the waters and everything was that all tasted was that a bit extreme no no no not at all it is a concern but what we had with the chefs they'd been with the family for that many years they were known to us and a lot of his staff stayed with him for a long time he used to pay the best wages they expect the best and that's what he got so new people were vetted of course and then let into the fold solely so they might be work at Harrods for a couple years, three years so then you get to know them then they might come in and do something on a low level and then once they're accepted by the family and they're trusted and that's pretty standard standard stuff you know was there ever any attempts obviously when you were working there were there any attempts how can I say when you have a protection team as professional as that one the people who are watching you we did find people watching us doing surveillance on us from MI5 which was standard and others what you're hoping is they're going to look at your level of security and they're going to go up now we can't get away with this it's too much and then put them onto somebody else you know this is this is interesting I've always thought this so say for example in Glasgow let's say on a Saturday night in Glasgow there are I'm going to make this up 400 attacks against the person in Glasgow let's say for example there's 500 happened on a Saturday night you can't change that that will always happen but you can make sure it's not you by taking precautions so the people who didn't like him and he had a lot of people who didn't like him what you're doing when you're doing your close protection stuff is you're watching them watching you and an attack starts the principles of an attack are the same are very very similar so the first thing is going to happen somebody's going to watch it they're going to look at you they're going to assess you sometimes it can be over a period of years sometimes it can be a minute you know when the pub somebody looks at you and you know something's going to kick off or in a kebab shop or wherever so there's they're identifying victims and these people who are you know just out for fighting or just that kind of violence they're assessing all the time yes, no, no, yes and they're picking out the victims and then they'll go for one and if you miss the stage where you're being victim selected you're one rung up the ladder does that make sense? yeah now if you don't know it's happening the next thing that's going to happen is they're going to approach you they've got to approach you to interact with you, okay now if you so if you at that stage you see the approach you can diffuse it at that stage if you miss the approach now the next thing that's going to happen is there's going to be some kind of distraction generally maybe verbal or something something's going to happen and then comes the violence after that now most people react to it when the violence is about to start so say for example you're teaching self defence you grab me here I grab you there you hit me I do this that's bullshit it's too late so 99% of avoiding trouble as a close protection team is done before the person even gets there and if you get that right then you avoid attacks so say for example out in Libya was a really good example our team I've worked in several teams there all Brits very professional great guys and then you see some other countries doing there all the United Nations or NATO and you look at their close protection teams and we would look at them and go shit they're going to get hit and they did often get hit because the drills weren't good enough they were real gung-ho it's all about me the bodyguard look at me and no one's watching what they're supposed to be doing but when the terrorists or the criminality look at this that's what they're looking for because they want to get away with it they don't want a hard target they want something they know we could do this and we can win same as street violence you're never going to pick on the hardest bastard that you think is going to kill you unless you're high on drugs or something so if you harden yourself as an individual or as a close protection team and you make it really hard for the terrorists to even go on forget that one we'll go for this one and just push them on to another team crazy isn't it how was it were you using speaking terms a lot with all fired or was it just a case of do your job and go to bed yeah with the fired family great relationships with the kids used to chat to his wife quite a lot she hated security hated security I think it just interfered with her life not private no and her and her eldest daughter they were really good at escaping from the security and they'd go into shops put a different jacket on try and climb out the window not his wife wouldn't try and climb out the window but she'd try and ditch security and I remember I got put on to look after Jasmine his eldest daughter lovely, lovely girl and she used to run the guys around like crazy and if you lost her you'd get sacked as you would wouldn't you if you put somebody in charge of something you love and they lost them then you'd just get rid of them and that's what you'd do so I said to Jasmine look Jasmine this is the score I love my job I like working for the family but if you're going to try and hide from me or get away from me it's not going to work I'll go home and I'll resign now but if you and I could come to this arrangement that you're not going to do that to me I'll cut you a bit more slack I'll give you a bit more freedom but you've got to be honest with me and she went okay I'll do that is that all they wanted just a wee bit of freedom maybe hanging out with our friends I'd go for ice cream without their something watching over your shoulder I think so yeah but a lot of the bodyguards I'm not saying a lot it could be a lot yeah the frying to speak to the the clients as we call it or the person you're looking after because yes man no man you know them really formal robots yeah and I get it but a lot of them they just want you to be like we're chatting now yeah okay I'm very professional I do my job as you know but we're going to talk like human beings I'm not subservient to you although you know you call them momma or so whatever they want to be called but you know you've just got to see through all the bullshit man it's crazy isn't it I know on one operation I was on in Libya working for this big NGO it was so dangerous we were on the last ones out during the second war all the emissives left and we were I think with Brussels or Geneva was headquarters and they wouldn't let us go with this one team of people I was working with about 50 of them and I was running the close protection team we had about 35 40 people in the protection team and it got to the stage where it was that dangerous and we had swimming pools in this compound we're in and we had the security set up there and we had their set up and we got some direct fire AK and stuff into the compound but the the rockets that was landing on the mortars and that the swimming pool would shake and there's loads of peacocks in this place and the peacocks have you heard them when they go off the loud man hundreds of them when one came close all the peacocks would start making the noise they'd make and all the pools were shaking so we're in this situation right and we can't get out no boats airport's been the battle of Tripoli airport they smashed it to pieces I was in that that was fucking horrendous so we're trying to get out so we went and tried to buy a boat and I knew we were going to get we were going to get ripped off this is during the war this so I took some some guys down there tried to buy this boat and I knew we were going to get you know your spider senses start tingling I thought they were going to just shoot us and take the money so we bugged out of this place it was like a big disused building and that was bit tense so we go back and this one guy he was French and he was a reporter a journalist so he came up with this plan to go to Al Qaeda we had ISIS pushing through we had Al Qaeda there and we had the militias kicking the shit out of each other so it was a free for all so he said look we'll go to Al Qaeda make a deal with them I can do this this is what he's saying and they'll look after us this was the plan he was a wannabe he wanted to be like us you know the close protection guys he asked for a weapon and stuff and we would never let him he'd run round the camp like we used to do with a big bargain on a big bag but it was empty you could tell it's empty he was just crazy he was some kind of wannabe flipping James Bond guy so they went for this plan that they were going to do this and they asked me would I take my team in so this plan has been okayed and they said rightly come up and brief us so when you did any big operations there you briefed the the head guy and all these people he was being set up and everyone put the temp everything and the head of the commission sat there and my direct boss he said this is going to happen despite me saying this is fucking suicide we're going to die so they're all going to do it and he said right Lee tell me what your take on this operation is and I stood up and I said right this is my take on this operation this is fucking insane this is going to get everybody killed and I'm not sending my men in there and everyone's like shit I don't believe you just said that and he said Lee that's the most sensible thing I've heard all day everybody get out and we had a chat me and him it was the gore it went really well and we didn't do that operation you know but it just sometimes having a somebody would say put it down to oh you've got a big goal view you know that saying or you've got a loud mouth it's not I'm just trying to be sensible when in utter chaos you know so and that's generally I generally get on with a lot of people but sometimes you just got to say it as it is how was your relationship with Dodie? so Dodie Dodie was he was a quiet guy and he would be around the family quite a lot and you know driving sometimes and he wasn't a very chatty guy but he would talk to you you know he's and because he he did a lot of films and so he did Characters at Fire executive producer for that so he had his busy social circle going on you know young man you know going around all the bars and night clubs and all the rest of it and then he had his business that he did so I think he was a very thoughtful guy so sometimes you know he's on his phone a lot so really you know he wouldn't speak sometimes on a car journey he would just say hello or whatever so yeah and again when you get a person who's a little bit introverted like that you just give them their own space don't you? I wouldn't want to speak to him but if you wanted to speak to me I'd speak you know so obviously you've got your team then that's pretty good job you're loving it Pate Will when did you find out who's with Princess Diana? so I'd been out to Santa Pei that year before for a couple of weeks with the family and then when I came back so generally we'd work two or three weeks on two or three weeks off so we'd only work six months for the year on that job and it did sometimes you know seven months maybe so I knew she was coming out before I went on back to Santa Pei was that before it was in the press or the news or anything? yeah yeah so we knew she was but she'd been seen the various teams we had in all the various locations we'd get fed back all the intelligence would come back to us so so when you went on to work we had a book that was everything was recorded in so when you went in to work you get the book and you just read through it see where everybody was in the world what they were doing where the family were because you know these families like the Fieds I could go into work on a say Monday morning there might be no family there you know I'd gone to the airport with my kit for the Eric Islands and I've ended up in Gestat with your hearts and your shorts and all the rest so you wouldn't even know where you were going to go sometimes you know but the fired family were so generous they'd buy you all new clothes and you know whatever you needed very very generous guy so you go in find out where all the family were and then obviously there was intelligence coming back from our teams Dodie and the princess so we knew they were seeing each other but I wasn't interested I had other things to do you know because there's a lot of pressure when you do that job you've got to be on the ball so when we knew she was going to Santa Pea it wasn't a shock to us How was that then that protecting our family and then the most famous women on the planet getting involved to then never had any security because when she was left the royal family it took her security away so did you just have to enhance your security even more or just be more aware Yeah we enhanced security for that trip and the princess came out with the with the boys Harry and William and they had a policeman each from the Royal Protection that came with them two great guys and because it was that busy with the paparazzi you have never seen anything like it in your life and because it was such a fast-moving environment sometimes the policeman would be going out with Mr. Fied or they could be going out with the kids so we all just mixed in as one team which was really cool for these guys and the policeman said you know what a professional outfit we were you know and they'd been working in close protection for a while and on the Fied team we had some top close protection people in the world you know ex-SAS ex-military police close protection lads you know so we had some great experience there you know and then the MI5 people working for us and all sorts of stuff so it was a great team what was the first conversation you had with Diana yeah the first conversation I had with her she was getting off the tender the small boat that came from the the super yacht one of the super yachts and she comes in and the paparazzi didn't know we were there then this is day one so I just lent over and given my shoulder because you don't want to put your hand out some people don't like touching you you know the high net worth individuals they don't even like touching you you know so I just put my shoulder down to for her to lean on if she needed to she didn't she just jumped straight out like a flipping like a flipping but she was a fit lady and she said oh what more heavies and smiled at me and laughed and introduced myself and that was the first conversation I had so when she said more heavies she meant obviously more protection you know so how was it before there was going on once the media and that started finding out where they were that sort of give a lot of unrest as well especially cameras could potentially be guns behind that are people trying to attack that was that always a concern yeah yeah you know the princess then she was the most well-known person in the world you know without shadow of a doubt and she was doing all the de-mining stuff she wanted to stop them doing landmines so there's there was people that she was obviously upset in there and various things and high net worth people stalkers she had a lot of stalkers and stuff like that that we knew about we had pictures of them and things like this so with the paparazzi they were so aggressive I think day two they started and then there was two of them and because we wouldn't let them into where they wanted to go on the beach because the beach is in France they're not private so they wanted to go on the beach or we wouldn't let them and I think we upset them a little bit one of my friends banged one out because they had protection with them as well some of them he had a protection why because they're so aggressive in what they're doing they know that people can get aggressive with the the cameraman so they call it Backwatch so they had some of them had their own protection so a friend of mine he banged out the protection guy and we we sent them on the way and they said right we're going to tell everybody now and they did and they were hundreds hundreds of them just, you know it was just insane at one stage I was looking and they must have been to our left maybe a hundred to our right maybe the same they must have been 50 volts just off the the beach the small small beach the fired beach and there was even a helicopter who went over because I think that then some of the iconic pictures you see of the princess there was one of me and her in a boat where she's whispering to me that made it all over the world some of them sold for a million euros so you can see why they were so aggressive to get in and getting your face and trying to take a compromising photo but or airbrush it which they did then I don't think they still do it now you never know I would house it I guess but there's a famous one of her saying she's pregnant in this like a leopard type print and we looked at it and we're going that's not her they altered the photograph and they made the story up frontline news Diana's pregnant it's going to sell all around the world yeah gonna make them a lot of money yeah because see when she's does she have any agreement with the press to say like take photos and then try and leave me alone or was it just a case that she had to surrender to what was around her yeah she did and we would speak to the princess in the morning she'd come down in the morning and I would chat to her on the beach that was her like routine and she said look this is what I'm gonna do this is this work she said I'll pose for photographs from we'll tell them they can get the photograph I can manage it they'll get the photograph and then they'll go and they're sort of like M.R. would be once they got the photograph they'd go into Santa Pay and they'd all get pissed and then they'd turn up later in the morning that's what they did so some of the pictures you've seen are sat on various things and just like reclining in the in the sunshine they'd take the photographs and be like look at her lapping it up she loves all this posing for the camera bastard's eh yeah and she only did it so that they'd go and the children could go and play in the sea so she couldn't be right for doing wrong can you imagine living in that life and she was a phenomenal woman like you said it was at the Halo Trust she changed her landmines like she'd walking down the street with landmines to change it then she was going seeing the kids with AIDS I know but like you said a lot of these high-end people they don't even touch you they don't even like to stand close to you no they're peasants the high-end people you're breathing my air go away but was she just such a kind soul as a lot of people say that like you say the most famous women on the planet probably to this day yeah was she as kind as she was when you've seen a lot of TV yes she was she'd speak to the to the chefs the cleaners she sent me a lovely letter after it so I'm you know that she wrote with her son's signature I'm thanking me for looking after her and imagine how busy she was taking time to do that that's amazing isn't it and when you met her she was a special person you know when you meet somebody with that charisma with that vibe you know and she was and this is we didn't have social media or anything then of course and the question is why did everybody love her because people could see what she was like and the media especially the media in the UK the tabloids then just destroyed her I just find it hard to believe that they could have wrote so many good things about her but chose not to bad news sells in the UK right yeah did she ever read the articles herself I think she did yeah there was there was one with a picture of her I think it was a sun newspaper or one of them there was a picture of her and a picture of Camilla so it was a beautiful picture of her and an awful picture of Camilla how can you do that to people and I think it said Charles chooses her over her that kind of thing it was headlines from page news I saw it in the newspaper that morning I thought oh my god what a bad position to put Camilla in and Prince Charles and the princess and they've got kids why would you do that sells papers right so I said to the princess I said have you seen the daily papers today because I wanted to just give her the heads up as to what was in and she said are you meaning the article in that paper and I said yeah like are you okay with it and she said well it's his choice I just changed the conversation great that says a lot about a person that doesn't it and you know and seeing her play with her boys what a great mother she was delighting in playing with the boys you could hear her hooting and hollering and she was a lovely lovely woman do you not get your boss felt though because did they not go dancing Princess Diana and Dodie you're okay with that I get you dancing you know when someone comes out your mouth and you go you dick why did you say that and she was known for dancing she was a good dancer and she danced with some of the top professional dancers and you know she obviously liked dancing Dodie on the other hand wasn't as gifted he was gifted in many things but dancing was perhaps something he needed to pay a bit more attention to so I just made a glib comment say something like I can't remember now what do you think about Dodie's dancing or something like that and she said Lee I remember this I didn't even understand what the word meant at the time she said Lee don't make me terse with you that was it and looked me right in the eye and I knew shut the fuck up Lee take it too far it's too far and you know when someone comes out and you're thinking because I would chat to her every day you see so yeah I apologised and gave myself a slap yeah because did her life what year was this 97 so that was the same year she passed she passed a few weeks after that yeah so because she wrote a letter to was it Paul Burrell's in 96 it says that they were going to kill her in a car accident was she ever in fear of her life did you ever feel that babe yeah she was yeah I spoke to Paul Burrell actually in London the other day and he was telling me about that same letter and he's got you know his own things I don't really read the news or I don't follow media or anything like that so you know I don't follow the Princess Diana stuff but yeah her friend Gianni Versace was killed and everybody thought it was a planned hit that you know looking at what happened in the security industry that's what everybody thought had happened it was a classic hit but it turned out it was something slightly different but I bumped into her on the top deck of the boat I was going to look for the security cabin we had an allocated security cabin on this massive boat so that we could get changed and just hang out you know if we went on the boat and they changed the security cabin and I was trying to find it and I was on this big open deck you know just old glass and there's only I walked in there and it was almost like as close as I am to you to the Princess with her back to me looking out over the over the harbour and she turned around she's been crying and a lot and she said have you heard about my friend and I said yes yeah we have you know it's awful what's happened you know I know you knew him I'm really sorry and she was crying and she said do you think they're going to do that to me do you think and I kind of like say no look at your team you're trying to calm her down and as she steps closer anybody else you just give them a hug right I think that's what she wanted to feel that but can you imagine if I had done that the paparazzi got a snap of that that would have been awful wouldn't it so all your human instincts wants to comfort somebody but you can't you got to step back and I had to step back and said look I've got to go now I'm really sorry if you need anything just you know give me a call and just walked out and shut the door see letters like that with her saying that she was fearful of her brakes getting cut and they were going to kill her next do you just get briefed on that as well or is that just something you hear through the media well at that time we were aware of it so you do your background when you work with somebody you always do your background checks on them and you profile them so you profile the person and look for anything like that so you just so you understand where they are coming from and what mindset they're in because if you're working with a client who is fearful of their life they're going to be more happy to work with you and your recommendations if you go on protect somebody who doesn't see the need for it they're not going to want it so it helps you pitch where your level of security will be but also it helps you understand their mindset what they're thinking but also it helps you understand what things they've encountered and what threats they feel against them and then you've got to try and work it all out and do a risk assessment on that you know were they happy together with the kids Harry and William could they enjoy it as a family or was it so difficult because you've got security you've got paparazzi you've got all the negative press could they enjoy being a family yeah they could yeah and with the fire security because we were all we'd worked for the family for a while so you change its stance say for example we were operating in London you've been a suit and a tie and all the rest of it if we went on holiday say to New York or wherever so now you've got to blend in so your security posture goes lower it's still there but nobody would know you're a security team so you're almost like a surveillance security team and you're watching them and you're close but you're dressing up to blend in and you know when you do it right and I've done this loads of times and you're in a situation where it could be at a meal it could be at a meeting and people come up to you and say and what do you do here you know are you a CEO of a company or something like that now you've got it right then because you don't know that your security you don't stand out which gives you an advantage you know so who was Prince William and Harry, how were they both as kids great kids, yeah Harry, naughty little boy mischievous boy, reminds me of a lot of my son Damon when he was little and William was like a thoughtful more thoughtful boy I was chatting with them on the boat we tried to sail off to various beaches that we knew the paps couldn't follow us and they would eventually catch us but you know the boat would go out and we'd say we've got an hour and a half here before they come and then we'd move so the boys would sit with all the security guys and chat to us because they were fascinated by the military at that young age and everyone was telling stories and they were telling us stories about what we'd done at school which I would never repeat because some of them were quite funny but yeah so we were chatting like we would chat with kids and I'd get on with kids I've got six kids so I love kids so at the end of the haul this is the last time you see Princess Diana did you ever have a feeling that did you ever worry for her life when she was leaving or was it just good vibes they had a good haul then it was just I'll see you soon yeah it was good vibes we were the security team we were bolstering up the team in America when I told him he went to America where he lived in you know in the Los Angeles area he used an American security team so one of our lads went over and we thought hang on why is somebody going over then the head of security said I want some volunteers I think there's four people I put my name down because I wanted to go I've got a lot of family in the States so we knew before then that something was happening then when the princess told me she was going to live there it kind of made sense why Mr. Fired wanted a big security presence there so obviously possibly double up and look after the princess so both of them are going to live in America yeah and you're going to protect them as well apparently the house she looked at was Julie Andrews old house although they weren't going to live in the same house or in the same area so it just made sense and it just looked like a young love affair to us to me when you see somebody for the first time getting to know each other now everybody's got their own opinion but for me and I generally say as it is they were just a young couple he was obviously smitten by her and for the first time in years Dodie was like a different guy smiling happy I thought yeah good on ya good on ya mate so after that then 31st August I think 1997 was that when they were in the Rets yes were you not there that night? no no so when we left that that one stint in San Tropez we knew Trevor East Jones who was Dodie's bodyguard he was going with Dodie and the princess on a med cruise and another person had to go with them generally I just had one person with him who played our Dodie so nobody wanted to go because we were hanging man I was tired I think I slept for about 2 days after that one so we drew straws as to who would go it was about 5 of us drawing straws and one of the lads was on the boat we'd be isolated in there because he had the flu so he didn't give it anyone so one of the lads he drew his next S.A.S lad he drew the short straw and he went I guess that's Kez his name was Kez the guy who had the flu so he said right it's Kez that goes then so he told him he was pissed off he didn't know what we'd done but we said yeah you drew this short straw mate so I was thankful because I didn't want to go I was absolutely hanging tired you know we'd had a busy summer month of just really working hard because probably one of the most the biggest death probably ever on the planet because there's so much speculation so many conspiracy theories like why wasn't there security behind the car I think the driver as well Henry Paul as that he worked with MI6 as well as that there's so many things you know and I can only comment on what I saw and what I heard but all these conspiracy theories I think because there's so many holes in it and you know so many things that went wrong you know that car that went in they've never found a car and there's motorbikes that went in that they you know the security cameras were off it just leads for people to go well why did that happen why did the what's the problem with the blood when they first searched his flat they found two bottles of booze then when they searched it again a few days later they didn't have enough to stock a bar why did they miss it and I think actually I was reading through the coroner's inquest I gave evidence down there and I think the policeman using control of the search said yeah I agree it could have been put there after the first search so even those small things are enough for people to just grab a hold of them and go right well if that's wrong what about this they start looking then don't they I don't think we're ever going to know what happened in that tunnel I do say in the book I believe the intelligence services were there and why would they not be looking after you're watching what was happening I would be surprised if they weren't you might can you imagine right imagine this so you're the head of the intelligence services let's say in the UK for example and we're at a bit of a meeting and you say to your your heads of your department right so where's where's princess Diana now the mother of the heir to the throne and they go I've got a clue it's not going to happen is it you know it's that alone that they denied and my evidence about that was kind of not thrown out it was the barriers to try to belittle what I was saying and it didn't go too well for him actually but you know I think when people look at it and go right well the intelligence services have no idea what went on the cars was never found the security cameras were off there was motorbike scene going in there was this this this this this quite easily you can start saying hang on what's going on here and I think that's what's happened really I believe it was a tragic accident but I believe that there are people that knew what went on in that tunnel and I don't think we'll ever know and you know what as well you know James you know the secret secret people the secret and they don't want to be we don't want people to know what they do because they look after us they look after the country they look after our safety and they do an amazing job so I get it that they can't say that they're in certain places and I understand why and thank God that they're there to look after us all but I think it may have even been the French but I do believe that people in there and I believe it was the people on the motorbikes that's just my gut feeling because I'd stopped two guys in Santa Pe so we're whizzing through Santa Pe and they say whizzing we're not we're not speeding let's just let everybody understand that they see bodyguards whizzing around in cars and all the rest of it and speed kills and if you speed into an ambush you go into an ambush quicker so you that's that's you know that's for Hollywood so we're driving down and so we had a convoy of vehicles and we'd sent a couple cars out before so the paparazzi didn't know you know they might have followed one and said they're not in that one they're not in that one it's all black black windows so the convoy goes down this and we go down this narrow road just enough to get a car down maybe a foot and a half each side and I was in the last cars my plan my master plan so we were in the back car and armored car and as we got down this narrow road we stopped our armored open the doors so even if they pushed against us they'd push the doors back open on themselves onto the wall you know they couldn't get past and there was two guys came down on on different motorbikes the paparazzi were generally on molepeds and things like this couple high powered motorbikes dressed in a way the ex-military would dress in and they spoke to us in a way the ex-military would speak to us yeah you're right lads are you going to let us pass mucka which is a military term and we said lads you know we can't do that we said yeah we thought you said that anyway cheers anyway lads and just drove off no cameras nothing so my understanding of that was they were obviously watching the princes and the princes and why wouldn't they be? So MA5, MA6 were watching? Yeah but I mean you've got the you've got Harry and William one of them is going to take over as King as the monarch could you imagine just sending two policemen out into that shit show do you know what I mean? Yeah. Imagine the prince saying who's with my boys all got two policemen see when they left the rips why was there only like one bodyguard with them and none of them had seat belts on was that always the case not have seat belts on in case you were under attack as quick as you leave or should have had seat belts on as well? They should have had seat belts on yeah and Trevor had his on but is that why he's the only one survived? Yeah yeah it's I think that's, Trevor can't remember anything about it by the way he's just lost his memory on that and that must torment him and I remember he said to me Lee when I carried him out of the golf buggy to see Dolly's grave he's my size big guy but he just lost so much weight he was horrendously injured and he says this is the biggest thing that's happened in the world he said I was there and I can't remember anything of it you can see it was disturbing him you know it was very emotional and because it's such a fast moving environment people say you know sending the decoy car out you know was really bad policy but you know not having a backup car for when they moved but you can only call it shots if you're there right and we did do one vehicle moves we did do one vehicle moves on occasion for whatever reason because this is private security this isn't this isn't police or military you know so you know you've got to compromise and you've got to compromise with the clients as well because they've got their needs they pay the bills so you don't know what happened but Dolly didn't like wearing his seatbelt he was known for it he hated putting his seatbelt off and he would kick off and he did that with me once the first time I drove him and I said to him look so you put your seatbelt on please and he said no I don't wear my seatbelt I said I'm not starting the car till you do and you're late for your dad he says I'm not putting my seatbelt on I said right okay next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to call your father you can explain to him because he's mystified one of his big rules was everybody must wear a seatbelt he was really big on it and it's so tragic that it was that that killed his son something his father if you were driving the kids without a seatbelt on you'd get sacked because his dad said just stay here and then they wanted to leave at such a late time because they're route changed as well even going under that project shouldn't have have happened I don't know it's one of those things it's such a fast moving environment James unless you were there everybody's got an opinion on it but unless you were there at the time Trevor can't remember Kez has got his opinions on things but had the crash not happened we wouldn't be having this conversation so it's just an awful thing that happened because in the bridge I think seven nights they got the jail they get charged and then they got released because the driver was at Henry Paul they didn't say that he was drunk and then put the blame on to him like you say he's in the house that's just for the outsider if you're MI5 they're going to cover up everything nobody needs to know but for the outsider who then blamed him and says he was drunk and then they done the blood test and says yeah it was blood in his system or there was pharmaceutical drugs getting overturned 11 years later whatever and says that it wasn't drunk yeah I think with the bloods I think the French weren't I don't know if you want to prove something about anything you get enough experts you've got deep enough pockets you can change opinion on anything so there's that many experts there and all the rest of it but I think the way the police handled that evidence gathering left a lot of questions to be answered I think by the way they did it without getting into it I don't know the toxicologist and the carbon dioxide in his blood was a big issue they said it came from the airbag I just don't know I'm not an expert in that but what's interesting is at the end because they took blood from different parts of his body and it absorbs quicker in different parts anticipates quicker they can they can kind of say well we had I think it was twice the legal limit so what's the legal limit then I don't know it's not my bag this let's say it was a pint we had two we've had two pints we had four so it wasn't and you can see on the pictures he wasn't staggering drunk he was expecting but he was made out to be pissed out of his head and Trevor said to me and Kesson said to me as well he was not drunk we would not allow him to drive why would you why would you allow somebody pissed to drive and they were both sober by the way Kesson was a former police officer a police, a Royal Marine police guy so he was used to dealing with drunks and stuff and I think it was just it was just a horrible accident that I think that our intelligence services or the French were there and they should have been there I wouldn't expect them not to have been there and I think somebody's gone shit we can't be seen to be here and I think that caused a catalogue of things which allowed the conspiracy theorists to jump on the bandwagon so you think they've had to cover that up because MI5 are going to be watching like you say it's the future king's mama it's Diana and so they think they've been following it anyway it's just happened the paparazzi's crashed into them they've died, they've got out of there but then the cover-ups with the speed camera wasn't working, the cameras were off because it was a white fear it was a paparazzi man but there was marks on the side but again it's because I think the ambulance was like another two hours to get Diana to the hospital and that stopped twice when you put it all together it's a fucked up it is it's all fucked up and people are far more intelligent than me coming up with these conspiracy theories I just think it was an accident I think it was an accident I think we had people there at government level whether it's MI6 or French or whoever that saw what happened and just had to bug out there quick because I think Eric Pater as well he was the only witness there but they never used his evidence either so there's a lot of question marks everywhere but I think as Al Fayed I believe the son was killed yes he does, yeah it tore in the part massively and the whole family and living through that this is what people don't understand that Dodie died his son the brothers of these children so I went through the whole thing with the family you know and grief is grief isn't it and then the princess obviously died it was such a sad time for her family but it was interesting that she told me that she'd gone to the highest level in government and asked them to create a build to calm this down and she was told in certain circumstances no we're not going to do it I didn't cry in front of them I waited till I got back in my car to cry yeah but was that not Tony Blair that never done that she wanted to take away the paparazzi or get security but Tony Blair signed it to say no but yet he was speaking out of funeral I know why did that happen when I saw that I was like this is fucked up yeah and she said to her well if I take the paparazzi off you they're going to come for me I fucked up is that who said that but who said that to her Tony Blair so he says if I take the paparazzi on you they'll come for me yeah my government fuck mate she was so upset when she was telling me you know and I don't have an opinion on Tony Blair I don't have an opinion on the government I can only say what I heard and what I saw and that's it but and people are people aren't they at the highest level people are normal people and they're in it for their own agenda what they can get out of it mad innit fucking mad mate sad as well man but there's just so much speculation around that because there's still especially 25th year anniversary and there's still never been answers but like you say that higher archy higher power you're never going to get the answers and that's why there's always speculation because who says what's right or what's wrong you don't really know because there was never an inquest either which should have been is that not law that if a British person passes away over abroad then there should be an inquest if there's speculation around the death yeah there's so much I've spoken to a very very senior policeman about this and they have their opinions and you know I don't kind of trouble my mind with that it's just like the JFK thing very same isn't it you know he was short I get that but I think when the criminal trial went on and years and years later you had the coroner's inquest two different things but I think that set the presidents that criminal trial that went ahead and then when the coroner's inquest went on I had two people from Scotland Yard here they stayed here for three days questioning me for three days and they were great guys by the way I think had that level of inquest had gone on at the first trial various things might have unfolded differently but you'll never know the tunnel as well they don't open that up for hours after the crash jet cleaned it, jet washed it and then you get Prince Harry saying that he had to leave because he didn't want to end up like his mum so what I mean and it's sad there's so much madness goes on but again it's for the human mind that still you're intrigued by it 25 years later we're still talking about that now what would your full run down be on at all in your own professional manner yeah I think it's it's an incident that happened and they'll be talking after it long after we've gone but I think some people make their living out of it aren't they it's a princess Diana I mean I think that's why I've been on so many shows all over the world because people love the princess they still do if they can get her picture on the front of their magazine it sells that magazine like crazy on that newspaper so she's still people you know the people's princess and people just loved her you know it's just crazy isn't it there was rumours that she was pregnant we did a sweepstake to see who she was because we looked and we were like she's not pregnant but you never know so we did a bit of a sweepstake but no we didn't she didn't show any signs of being pregnant and again if a female was pregnant at that young young stages or early stages you wouldn't know where did you hear the news that she had passed away so I'd got where I'd been I'd gone by I think I was actually back in Santa I went back to Santa to play for a couple of weeks and it was like a walk in the park man because it was just a family there I was like yes this is brilliant and I came back home I think I slept for a couple of days and then I had a barbeque at my house and invited all my family around and on this one particular night I I started to clean up near midnight of course which I never do I'd just go to bed you know I don't know why I did it then I had Sky News on and I heard it on Sky News and I went to my phone I'd missed loads of calls so I called the operations room the ops room and then I was getting a run down real time of what was happening before it even hit the news because I thought I packed my bag and stuff which I didn't have to do actually which was a blessing really because I think it was very upsetting for the guys there going over to Paris and doing all that stuff and I went back about two weeks later with all the funerals and that was going on all that kind of stuff you know it's incredible the outpouring of grief was just insane millions and millions of mourners millions how was it for you did you ever feel that if you were there you could have saved it from happening as a guy who protects that you'd always feel as if you would protect the person you're with but did you ever get sleepless nights that what if you were there no I didn't you know because I just accepted the fact I wasn't there you can only fix what you can fix right so I know some people have but I certainly didn't so Trevor Rhys Jones who's a friend of yours he was only survivor on the crash how long after the crash did you get to see him so I he came out hospital and it was weeks later and he came down to the family home and Mr. Fire had built like this beautiful thing you know in memory of his son and it's probably about half a mile from the actual house but in the grounds you know so I took Donnie a tennis you know the tennis boogies you know they use on the tennis courts and that's tennis what I'm saying golf golf what am I talking about my head's flipping and whizzing golf boogies and I drove Trevor around and you know when you see somebody and you think fuck you know I don't know you his face was fucked man and he must have lost three four stone weight so I kind of picked him out the car and held him to the thing and he was just like it was like a 90 year old man you know how much trauma he had and that's when you know when I spoke to Trevor and he was very emotional that's always I but yeah I've seen him since and yeah he's a great guy a real professional guy and you know if somebody was to say look somebody's gonna look after your family I would choose Trevor because he's such a good bloke you know how hard does that to see a brother suffer like that on a job try to protect people but then the effects it has on the people who do protect it is the more you see it James the more you're okay with it you know a lot of my you know quite a few of my friends have killed themselves and and when you're trying to help them through it you know the self medicating with which we all have with various things and it's all sad that really proud men, men's men can crumble like that and kill themselves how fucked up is that so after that the death of Diana and Doddy you're supposed to go to America change your life looking after princess and a man after that happens then what's the steps for your life then did you totally transform it in a different life because did you just stay close protection yeah that was one of the biggest changing points in my life so what happened then was the family you know they were in mourning some of the security guys left some got posted to different places and I went back out to Santa Pei for a few months to look after the villa there the guy who was looking after I think his dad had died or something so I volunteered to go there and it was good really it was just a couple of months of just chilling out really so the rich people of the world in all their places all over the world they'll generally have a security person there they can trust you know just keep an eye on it so after that there's a place a vacancy came in a village called Bowles Hall which is near Lairg in the middle of Scotland in the middle of the country this tiny little village because Mr. Fireday's got his castle and he's got all his hunting and fishing estates about another hour north of that and the lad that was there the security lad he had to he was moving somewhere London or something so I spoke to my mate Paul Hanley Greaves who gave me the job and I knew he was leaving and I said Paul sent me there I want to go there but not only that I wanted to get my boy Damon because he was struggling with his mother he was getting a bit out of control she couldn't handle him so I thought right if he can come with me I can look after him and sort him out square him away and so he said no the boss won't let you do that I said he'll never know will he I've been out in Santa Fe now I'm off his raid I'll just send me there and I badgered him he said for fuck's sake leave right go so I went there my boy came to live with me Damon was probably about 11 then and I was living there you know the Tom Selleck you know the Magnum I was at the Magnum of the Highlands mate hunting, fishing Dave's great just getting into the community there's just one pub few houses doing things in the community and I obviously look keeping an eye out on his estate and then we had a security team in the castle which I didn't go to so I'm just living the life of Riley there having a great time and what happened then was I went down to the castle I think the family were coming up to stay we had a big meeting and we always did and I then there were some members of the Guinness family coming in to come up to the estate where I lived and the security team used to ferry VIPs about you know but they were too busy preparing for the fired family coming so I said look I'll do it I'll do the trip so I go down to pick the Guinness family up and I met Kate there who's now my wife and the plane was delayed and we got talking in the airport it's a tiny airport in Inverness then tiny little airport and we got chatting and I got the Guinness team and one of the CEOs of one of his companies was there Mark he was called and I got them together and I said Mark I hope you don't feel like this is unprofessional I said see that lady over there I said I've just got to go and get a number is that okay and he went yes he says come on go for it son so I got Kate's number and then we met and then we started seeing each other went to Ibiza had a great time there and then Mr. Fied visited so he came up to Rose Hall and he had a little shop there that he gave the village rent-free so they could have stuff there and people could mix some money and I thought shit I've got to get out of the way so he was there my cottage was opposite and one of the boys came obviously Lee the boss wants to see you and your boy and okay we go over he buys my boy everything in the shop he says Lee what are you doing here and I said I've been here for like 18 months and he went no no no you come down to London and work with me and my family the boys like you and I said so I've got my boy here he's in school I'll get your house we'll put him to school sort all that out and that was the change then because I didn't want I didn't want that for him I didn't want him to grow up in that lifestyle and I was happy there and I just met Kate so I left I left the employment of the fire family then so was he going to put your kid through private school with his own sons and a big house in London did you see though your son struggling because the father figure wasn't around yes yeah that's why I brought him back because he's a very strong minded guy then when you see the stuff he's done in sport and at the highest level he's one of these guys he's going to do it same as yourself though yeah pretty much and we did that when he was 17, 18 big style because I didn't know what I know now and we often talk about it and bringing up boys you know is difficult and Kate she did a lot of research about bringing up boys and the testosterone through those years and once I began to understand it as a father I sometimes think to myself you fucked that right up Lee but you only know what you know right but now knowing what I do know with my boys now my twins who are 11 and my boy who's 17 I can manage myself better and see to their needs rather than mine so it was a great lesson but Damon and I were like best friends so it was a tough decision but not a tough decision and we're here to leave the Al Fayed because you've worked for it you've not worked for Tom Cruise in that as well well during the Fayed years and after I've worked with quite a few celebrities but because Dodie was into the film production we'd have these people coming through all the time and we'd look after them and take them about and you know that kind of stuff and that scene I just don't like it's not my bag some of them are very needy extremely needy lots and lots of needy but the best one this is funny Jean-Claude Van Damme right fucking hell mate I've nothing against the guy I think he's actually quite good fun but I've looked after him a couple of times with Fayed when he came down and he screwed them up with us because we were like Fayed's bodyguard team most people shit themselves when they came into our just about my size you know six foot two or something and all fit and with bearing you know so it was quite a good team and so he'd just sit quietly in the car put his makeup on do whatever he had a big cocaine problem which is which is a problem a lot of people have and it's well documented so I'm not saying stuff out of turn here so people have got to have their own space put the makeup on to take the cocaine to do what they got to do and you've got to work with them rather than put your opinions on them that's why a lot of guys struggle in this and they can't cope working with these people because they have opinions on their lives and I say to my teams now and I train teams all over the world now and you know I still work in security operations but managing it now I say to people how dare you have an opinion on anyone we're here to keep them safe if you have an opinion on their life just make it right for them so Van Dam was coming over to do a fly on the wall documentary right and there was a friend of mine that was running it and he was going to various locations doing various stuff and I got a call and he said Lee I need your help and I says what do you need John he says I need some close protection for the Van Dam documentary I'm doing I said okay I can help you and he said come in and he says day after tomorrow and I went shit you've got problems mate so I said right find me the itinerary I'll see what it was it was about a week so I looked at the itinerary and I said right mate he's not going to get in that helicopter he's only got one engine he's not going to go there he's not going to go there he won't go there and he won't do that he said well he's got to he's contracted to you're going to have to take that out and take that out and I said it's going to be a bit of a nightmare for you so he says right I need security so I've got one guy I knew God bless him a very good friend of mine Rock and if you listen to this Rock I love you man so he's one of the hardest men I've ever met in my life he's fucking nails great CP operator not the best at organising so I put him on the job I put my friend Jack Morley who's died God bless him, he's a Scotland international rugby player he played rugby for Scotland cricket for Scotland and he did kickboxing for Scotland great guy, huge monster of a man very intelligent he's done some great stuff in his life and in his career so I put Jack down to look after Rock I put Rock there to look after Van Damme and I put a team around them so the waiting at the airport in Birmingham for him to fly in he's not on the flight he's flown from Hong Kong he's not on the flight Rock's on this, I said you can't lose him we've not even picked him up yet fucking find him in the airport he says he's not on the flight playing there, I checked the itinerary he's not there, I've been airside he's not here, shit what am I going to do nobody could contact his PA so Rock stood outside the airport thinking what the fuck are we going to do all of a sudden this car pulls up Van Damme gets out goes cheers mate, he'd hitched a lift he'd gone to the wrong airport his flight was to the wrong airport he'd hitched a lift from London to Birmingham check that, how funny is that so he gets out and the show goes on and it's drama after drama because he wouldn't change the itinerary so he's got to get a shower in between he's got to take his flipping cocaine he's got to put his make, he's got to have time to do that and in the end we're in this big show in London and he's just come from this event and my mate's there, he's about his size and he's got his tux on and all the rest of it Van Damme walks in, madder's bollocks with his sweaty shirt on that he's just been doing some kind of martial arts demo goes into this place and he throws a shirt at my mate he says give me the fucking tux and we had to give him the tux and he sat there at this dinner with a sweaty t-shirt on a pair of joggers laughed my head off but I think it was about three days in Jack my friend he says Lee, we've got a big situation down here I says what, he says Van Damme's been an absolute dick Rock's going to fucking kill him he's going up to his room now to fucking smash him I'm like stop him now, we won't get paid so I said get him on the phone, I talked him down I'm going to fucking kill him, I said no you're not I will not pay you if you fucking smash up the VIP and I talked him down, thank god Rock, thanks mate That's not good for business So what's life like now, working with the biggest names on the planet like being through it, a bit of trauma yourself a bit of pain from being bullied to being a native Dan that's unbelievable career and stories but how's life like now Yeah life's really good life is really good, we've got our martial arts that we do, that's our passion I've got various things going on in Somalia we've got some stuff going on in Saudi we've got some stuff we're waiting for Mali to quiet down a bit, we've got some work there, I do organise close protection for VIP's and I'm very choosy who I touch now so they've got to fit my criteria they've got me fitting theirs so I've got some great people I work with that look after people I've got a close protection training school that we're just about to launch in Spain which is super exciting so we've got all that going on and we do a lot of work with the community here we work with challenged children we work with kids who have opted out some of it we do for free some of it my team get paid for so that's nice looking after some of these kids they've just been forgotten by the system I could cry for them you know and you look at them and you think what's happened to you where are you going to go I know where they're going to go some of these kids so it's really fulfilling working with them I think I'm going down to Birmingham to work with some kids who are in gangs I love doing that because if you go in to see some of these kids as a tough guy, kickboxer, bodyguard all that you can speak to them in a different way to say look I've been where you I went from school I didn't take my exams or anything I took a couple of exams waterway I hardly went to school in the later years and some of my friends off the council they died of drugs and all the rest of that kind of stuff that it's about so when you can talk to them like we're chatting now and say look guys come here there's a different way there is a different way to do this and I'll tell you my story and if it just inspires some of them to go you know I'm big on affirmations I write it in the book you know meditations and affirmations and it can change your life and for some of these kids you know there was one kid and he was one of the last physics I did and we'll do six at maximum because some of these kids they can't even speak to you and you know they've all got issues and one kid he had this really deformed leg and he had lots of issues and I said to him like well let's well I'm going to show you how to do affirmations now so you can be the best that you can be whatever you want to be one kid wanted to be a joiner but he knew he was shit everyone told him he was shit he was thick so we started to tell him to right let's make a little life plan for you let's set some affirmations that you can say to yourself because you are good you are special there's only one of you in the world, one of you and you can be whatever you want to be and this kid so they're always kind of saying what kind of jobs they want to do or what they'd like to do or maybe go to college but they haven't got the they've got nothing so this kid says I want to get married this kid's only 16 and I said well what's the issue mate and he says everyone told me nobody will marry me look at me look at the fucking state of me mad yeah it's sad isn't it yeah so I spent about I don't know half an hour with him telling him all the good points he had all the good stuff he had in his life and you see like the cloud lifts and this kid goes I can't get married can't I say fucking right you can mate now what else do you want to do practically and I'm about a belief in you yeah yeah working people buy your book late so you can buy it online Amazon how was it writing the book it was it was interesting and it it took me back to dark places that I didn't really want to go back to you know because in the book there's two occasions when lots of occasions where it's been close where I nearly died and you make peace with yourself and I know we were talking about it earlier in those situations the smiley one was fucking horrendous but the one in Libya just took it to a next level one of them and so we're standing too on the roof of this fucking place and everyone's in their stand to positions because we think we're going to get attacked and speaking to your mates that you've worked with closely you know I think it was four or five of us and we knew that ISIS wanted to grab grab us and obviously behead us like normal format for them isn't it you know putting the orange jumpsuit and fuck you up and that would be a worse nightmare wouldn't it so we're we're talking to each other we're talking rationally right guys the guy who was in charge of the ammunition the dick didn't order enough ammunition so we only had about three magazines each for our rifles maybe two magazines for our pistols went to the Armory and said like break out the ammunition he says that's it like you fucking asshole so we're on the roof deciding who was going to shoot who with your last rounds but not in a frying way in a real cool clear way because in those situations you know you're worrying about yourself your ego your bills your this there you worry about nothing everything is clear the clarity of mind is insane you've said goodbye to everybody yourself you obviously didn't say it's okay or phone anybody up but you've made your peace you've left your video you've done all that now I can get on with this shit now I can start working and that feeling of clarity is very similar to combat sport times by about a million and once you felt it a couple of times it's a comfortable place to be in that's mad innit crazy so see if you're under attack and you know you're going to a warzone do you have to do a video before for your family to say you love them I don't but what I do is when I go out I always do a journal so I'll either do a video journal or I'll do a journal and I write my stuff in there and one day I'll sit and watch them with Kate but what you do on some of the well a lot of the jobs is you do a proof of life thing so I write down everything about my life and Kate writes as well different things that we know only she knows that I know and we'll have our things if they have to prove I'm alive they will come to Kate and go through my proof of life and they'll ask questions to establish them if I'm alive so imagine Kate going through that just that alone is nails innit yeah it's madness just before we finish up brother I know you're big on mental health I know you've lost friends through mental health I know you've battled yourself sometimes with mental health for anybody that's struggling themself it's tough it's tough James you know the government saves us help out there there's not enough but it's a start now people with mental health issues this is what I would say to a lot of people is look you can turn this shit around there's books out there you can buy and it might sound a bit crap but you can take ownership of it you can go in search of things you can read about inspirational people who've been in the same situation as you look how they've done it and be proactive you don't have to lie back and say the government shit they're not helping me well yeah okay we get that now what are you going to do about it as a person come on I can get out there as dark as it may seem just try one thing and see because there's not a lot of help out there people are lost aren't they when you down that dark place where you don't give a fuck whether you're dying or not you just really don't care and you can't get out of it and you want to get out of it but you know what's happening and you just go down that fucking tunnel right and it's got to be at some stage you've got to go fucking stop let me get something positive in my life now whether it's a video, whether it's a song whether it's something and just start that proactive thing with you standing up there and going you know what I can fucking beat this shit yeah that's the name Lee, we're coming on the day brother I thoroughly enjoyed it I'll leave the link in the description for your book as well but great story mate, I wish you all the best for the future thank you, God bless you