 As well as can be expected, this is what I always say, but yeah, no, I'm good. Very good. Hey, looking well. Trying to keep fit, it gets harder when you get to the grand old age of 78, which I am. Okay, 52, but that's old enough. Yeah, so it's not the old struggle, isn't it, when you're a bit older? He's different now though for us, isn't it? Because I'm not as old as you, obviously. By that I mean I'm 51. But like when I was a kid, Scott, there's no way a 51-year-old would be down the gym, smashing it, you know, going out, cracking ultramarophans, doing triathlon, wearing hoodies and running tops and baseball caps. When I was a kid, by the time you got to about 25, you were old, like really old. You're dressed in tweed, you had a hat, you didn't swear and stuff like... Times have changed, haven't they? Well, we were, people were older because if you joined the Corp, for instance, at 16 or 18 or 20, whatever people did, but you really only stayed to your 40, that was it. So when I was a young bootneck, 16 or 18 years old, you look at a sergeant major, when I was 70, you thought, they are super old. You know, it's like my dad, older than my dad, you know. And so you look at, I had this line in the sand forever, that 40-year-old, you know. And then when I reached 40 and started going plus, I was like... Still alive. And so I think you do draw a line in the sand at 40 being in the military, you know. And it's changed a bit now, I know, is it because they tend to go on a little bit further. It's mad that people I joined up with are still, they're just leaving now, but they've been serving up until now. So almost 35 years, many of them reached the, you know, rank of major and this sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. Gazz, who I was, did the nine mile with at the weekend, or the previous weekend, he's a colonel now. It's just, I find it absolutely, absolutely fascinating. Personally, I wouldn't swap the adventure I've been on across, well, the whole world and all the learning involved, sort of, for any position in any company. But have you found that yourself? Because you must have travelled quite a bit now. And yeah, I mean, you know, sorry, I should add, being a police officer, you see a side of life, I guess, that a lot of people don't. Well, it's funny, actually, I thought it was, well, time I left the Marines anyway, I thought it was quite tough. And actually, then I joined the police and I realised that that would toughen you up. You know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, in a big town or city centre, you know, going from fight to fight to fight, you soon have a different perspective on life, I tell you, you know, different from the colonel, better or worse, just certainly different. But I've had, like, these three sort of main careers, really, so I had the first element, 12 years, that's a lie, actually. I always exaggerate, Chris, it was 11 years, 11 months and nine days or something. So we'll say 12 years, 12 years in the core, about 18 years in the police. But I made a transition, started making the transition into sort of outdoor adventure and TV stuff, maybe 10 years into that. And then at the last eight years, solidly being in TV, doing, well, not just TV, events, guiding, mountaineering, all that sort of stuff, you know, but the TV is paying the mortgage, you know. So what you would join the core around the same time I would have, I'm assuming. 86. Oh, OK. July 86. Yeah, I was 88. 88 when training got really, really tough. You wouldn't know about that, mate. Well, as you know, it was always, always tougher when we did it. Just a few years before you. But hey, I'm glad it wasn't any tougher. So I sometimes do a few talks and I say, you know, I was one of the youngest marines. But there were so many young lads. I was, I don't know how I did actually, because I was 16 years and three and a half months. And I don't know what the rules were, because my birthday is in March, as of April, May, June, yeah, July, so nearly four months, so 16 and four months. So I'm sure there's people who were younger than that, but there couldn't have been too many younger than that, I don't think. What about you? How old are you? I was 18 when I joined. I think 17 when I went to recruit an office. Practically a man. Almost a grown-up. Yeah, you know, being a 16-year-old was a lot easier because we didn't have to run quite as far. And we used to get specialist treatment. You know, we used to get half a pint of milk a day, which gave us the edge on everyone else, really, as a junior. You've got your half a pint of milk. I don't know if you did it when you were in, but we got our milk every day. So that gave us the edge, that, you know, that was preferential treatment. Are you being serious now or taking a make? I thought the standards were the same across the board. Yeah, they're absolutely the same. But with the only difference being that, what we are, I think there's about 11 or 12 juniors in the troop who are under 17, under 18. So we got half a pint of milk and we had to go every morning. The commander test, did you get longer time? OK, OK. You have to carry the 84, you're only 16, it's a bit heavy for you. OK, so the point we're getting to is it. There's no, you know, there's no get out of jail free car for anybody. You either do it or you don't. Yeah. And officers have to do it all a quicker, obviously. Yeah, they do do it a bit quicker, some of the tests for all the tests. But I joined at 16. I think a few years before that and someone will probably comment, they used to have junior troops and the whole troop, I think, was made up of kids, you know, under 17. I can't come on on that, but mine was mixed. So we had, I don't know how many it was, maybe 52 people. And I think there was about 10 or 12 of us were 16 or certainly under 17. Yeah. So it's funny dynamic, you know, when you've been going straight from school and a child and then suddenly you're phoning with men. And, you know, but it was great. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Did that affect you then when he got to you, Nick, because you would have been too young to go on active service, would you not? Yeah, I did. So immediately I passed out of training, which was 27th of March, following year, so I was just 17 by three weeks. And so, of course, we did the beat up. I was at full two commando and company. We had to beat up for spearhead and we were off to Northern Ireland for sort of quick tour, six or seven weeks. So I did all the beat up and no one said anything to me. It was like, here we go. You know, and then about a week before I was going and Sergeant Major called me and said, yeah, a bit of an issue. You're not coming, you know, there's, I think, three of us in the company. And so, yeah, we're left behind, which was which was really shit because you've just done all this raw marine training. Yeah, you know, you go from the top of the ladder, you know, commando training, greenberry, then you go back to the bottom again, get to your commando unit and your squad, you know, whatever. And then this is your way, of course, as you know, to fit in, go on a tour and get established. But so, yeah, you can't go. So you're on a rare party and the lads will go off. Of course, when they come back, you know, whatever they felt of the tour, you know, they were part of that tour, operational tour. And it was quite difficult for a few months to fit back in there, you know, and start sort of building bridges again, you know, I think it was in the following year we went to Norway, usual winter deployment. Yeah, it's fine then, you know, three months and then you're back in. But so, yeah, it was, I was upset with that. Yeah, at the time. How did you find Norway, then, if you were so young? Again, you know, we used to have tent sheets in those days. We used to carry these seven tent sheets on your back. And again, if you're under 18, the lads are really kind. And they say you don't have to carry the tent sheets because you're under 18 or the Yelper sledge and actually don't have to ski so far. Yeah, I mean, God, I was five foot five and ten stone. No, I was five foot five and eight and a half stone. I wasn't much bigger when I was actually in Norway. And then, you know, three or four years later, I was trying to be a PTI. I was five foot ten and, you know, twelve stone. So that was the difference between a boy's body and a man's body. So, yeah, you know, I struggled. Always passing, always there with the team, but always at the back and, you know, struggling. But, yeah, it was it was good, though. It was good. Yeah, did you get out to Ireland in the end? Yeah, so I went to I became an LC about two years later. I went down to Paul and actually it was brilliant because, you know, we always say, don't we join the core and see the world? But probably you don't necessarily see that much of the world. But as an LC, I got a deployment on Intrepid. And so actually we went to, I don't know, the whole we did a mediterranean tour, world tour, you know. But just before that, also when I came back from that, I went back to Paul and then I went off to Northern Ireland, which was then called Snowney. And we did Carlinford Lock and Locknate. So I did in the end, a nine month tour, actually, I did six months ago and got extended, volunteered to stay out there because it was just a great job. So in the end, did sort of back to back tours there. But, you know, yeah, it's good, interesting. And what's your role there? Are you trying to stop weapons being transited across the lakes or the locks? The main role is tried to tolerate small ships routine with 20 Matlos. That's the hardest challenge. No, good, good lads, actually. Yeah, so I worked for Dominic Carlinford Lock and so we did boardings every day. We did our patrols, some land patrols and some on the water, OPs, you know. And, yes, trying to stop not just, I think, weapons, drugs, crew and activity as well as terrorist activity, but we did boardings. They were the bits that were great fun. You know, all the time of the day and night and all the weather conditions. We put the lads up on the on the boat, you know. Ships would only slow down to 10, 12, maybe 15 knots. They're all good fast boardings, nighttime, you know, exciting days, actually. Yeah, did you ever get out to Hong Kong? You know, I didn't. I was I went to the IT shed afterwards, which is the the old radar instructor team and all the boys and their old sweats, you know, honky fin and there was all dits and stories about Hong Kong and, yeah, no, I never went out there, actually, but I would have loved to. It was the one place I would have loved to have gone. Yeah, but they always have a lifetime anyway. They used to go out in the South China Sea and they'd have to stop the smugglers coming from the mainland and probably vice versa. Yes, quite quite that was quite a place and quite a role. What did you have any sort of finds or anything? Or do you have any successes or any hairy moments? Did we have any hairy moments? I don't know. Sometimes we get a couple of O.P. work, some O.P. work with some of the SB lads and they were always doing good ops. And that was quite exciting. We come under fire a couple of times, but only random, nothing really. I was squeezed between a couple of big firefights at the tour before me. One of the lads, I think, got shot on the L.C. lads called Frank Parker. It was maybe a year before got shot shot in the in over the backside or the leg, I think, opened up on. So, you know, it was amongst it, but we didn't really, you know, have too many contacts really, just in support of other people. Quite quiet. And what branch of the police did you join? Is that the right expression? Well, you joined just as a police officer, first of all. And of course, I became a PTI and I did seven or eight years, really finishing my time in the Corps as a PTI. So when I left the Marines to join the police, and by the way, I was sulking. I went up to Antarctica, I spent a year in Antarctica on board H was Endurance, brilliant draft. The sort of draft that you knew was brilliant when you're on it. You didn't have to look back later and go, it was shit. But now I look back, it was brilliant on it. I knew that it was like life changing and amazing. I was the only PTI responsible all for the fitness and stuff. And I just loved it. Expeditions, if you like mountaineering, brilliant. And then you get a preferential draft at the end of it. I put in four, I think, pool again as PTI. And the Corps decided that I was just due from a senior's, actually senior command course. So they thought they'd help me out by sending me to four, five commando, which was geographically the furthest place for my home. And so I showed them. I showed them and left Corps and joined the police. And I'm on the side of the major going, OK, see you then. You know, what? Surely, you know, you want to fight for me, no. So yeah, I joined the police. Just as a Bobby. And so I left the easy transition when you leave the Corps fitness wise and all that sort of stuff, you know, out of one uniform, into the next I went to Ashford Police Training College and 15 weeks and, you know, you're polishing shoes and ironing shirts and getting to police training. But the biggest step was diversity. The biggest step was to, you know, actually, you know, you've been in the core and the perhaps your levels of what's the word I'm trying to think of, really, interaction with others aren't as good as they could be. And, you know, you've got to stop working with lots of other people from lots of other backgrounds of communities and public course. And you have to sort of get a little bit of the bootnick mentality at your head straight away, which is not going to last very long. For instance, you can't just punch people in the face. That's a no, no, you have to have some rules and then you can punch people in the face. So it was it's quite difficult to make that transition. And a load of lads, bootnicks, mat loads, you know, army lads, they went by the wayside, you know, they just couldn't make that transition behaviour, you know, and it's only just being careful what you say and knowing your audience, I think. But actually, it was great. I did six or seven years front line policing and who wouldn't want to do that? You know, fast cars going to fights and really adrenaline all the time and new challenge. It was great. Yeah, you know, it was good. I nicked this one guy for murder, which is always a or attempted murder, you know, get the old murder badge. And it was funny, he was an ex-gurka and he'd stabbed someone and they said, yeah, you know, go go to this job and he's been stabbed in the back of a cabin. I get there and I arrive. It's right outside the front of a pub of about 300 people in the garden and open the taxi and there's this guy on the floor, blood everywhere, lying there with my colleague and she sort of starts giving him first aid and the taxi driver says, behind you, behind you, you know, and there is this guy ready for action. And it's funny because if you read some of these statements, they go, oh, the lad, the police officer was amazing, really muscular, massive police officer, got to be six for eight. You know, and he rolled across the front of the taxi cab and he grabbed this guy by the throat, punched the knife out of his hand, threw him over his shoulder and a judo throw and stood on the back of his head and said, you know, one in custody murder. You know, it was all very exciting. And that was literally the landlord's statement. But in fact, I've walked around the front of the car, but we put my hand on the taxi. The guy was crying, who committed the crime and he didn't have a knife. He had one of those big carving forks, you know, that you do Sunday roast with. Obviously, he still did a bit of damage and he fell to the floor himself onto his knees and dropped the knife, the fork. And I just grabbed his wrist and then he fell onto the floor. I mean, he literally put himself onto his front, but now he's gone back. And that was it. I'll tell you what, Scott, let's go for the other story. We'll do a bit of editing. Wow, incredible. Yes, I was I listened to Ann Middleton's book. A couple of years back when he was saying he he joined the police for a while. Did he? Yeah. And. It was a very short lived career. I don't think he got through training because of what you were saying. And it wasn't that according to his account, it wasn't that he'd done anything particularly bad. But he said to I'm guessing it would be a seek. At breakfast one day in training, he said, you're going to wear that thing every day. Right. And of course. The sad nature of society is it was just a genuine question, especially if you're going to be a policeman and you're supposed to wear a helmet and this kind of stuff. And yeah, I think he was quickly on some sort of warning. Well, it wouldn't take much. I mean, that wouldn't have gotten chucked out. But accumulation of a few, you know, things. You do have to get switched on quite I made loads of faux pas and people took me to one side and get out of quite word. And it went on for a while, actually, because your training is two years. You do this probationary period. And that's the time when you can really get it wrong. So luckily, I was super lucky. My first sergeant was an ex-bootneck guy called Jeff Brooks. He's dead now. Nice guy. And he just took me shut the office door. It's funny. You know, he didn't exactly grab me by the throat, but he sort of a nose to nose of, you know, you know, this is this is not the call. This is the police keeping those clean, you know, stop being a twat. You know, your police officer now and I'm going to be on top of you, like a, you know, whatever, a giant hammer if you start stepping out of line. But it was great because every time I did go over the top, you know, it was like not just bootneck mentality, but PTI as well. So guess what? I'm a bit over the top. I'm full of confidence, you know, and extra of a, you know, some cracking jokes and funnies all the time, which funny old thing, Chris, some people didn't find funny. So you adapt and then, you know, I became a sergeant and then you suddenly got really adapt because you're supervising, you know, 20 people. Hey, Scott, I've got a brilliant joke for you, right? How do you drown a PTI? No, it's impossible, I think. Put a mirror on the bottom of the pool. Do you know what? I tell this, I remember time. Is it true? I couldn't walk past a mirror without looking in it. Now I dare look in it. We've all been there. We were all in there now. Yes. So I'm actually more fascinated to hear about your travels and your adventures and how you, I mean, you've got Pasigone on your hat. I'm going to guess a lot of people probably don't even know where that is. No disrespect if you do know where it is. But Southern part of Argentina, very rugged wasteland, but ideal for adventure programs and I think there's sort of, well, it ends in Tierra del Fuego, which is where you have to go if you want to expedition to Antarctica, or at least that's one of the routes. Oshuaia down there on the very southern tip, it's a little bit sort of like the Falklands when you're down there. And it's similar as if you've got to the very north point of Scotland. So John O'Groats, it's that really beautiful, unique, but almost barren and desolate sort of feeling. So I just went on a bit of a tangent there, but you can see I love traveling and, or I'm pleased that I've done a fair bit of it. At what point did you start to get involved in the television stuff? Well, just on the travel quickly course, I did a bit in the core and then my year in Antarctica, you go down all the coasts of South America. We went to Buenos Aires and Montevideo and down to Uruguay. We went on a little expedition in Uruguay, a course over to South Georgia, had six weeks in South Georgia, then Antarctica on the back of the other side. So I did a lot of travel there. But what I found is in the police, I went from police officer to police sergeant and then I was a police trainer. So I started doing some farms and taser and self-defense officer safety training and PSU and all this sort of stuff. And with all those skills from police officer and the training elements particularly, because I tell you this, the big thing that comes into TV is risk and risk assessment. I'll come back to that. So what the police did is they made me go on a national risk assessment course from fact to health and safety call called NEBOSH. People may not have heard of it. You might have heard of all sorts of health and safety qualifications. NEBOSH is the front runner. NEBOSH, you know, throughout the UK, that is your expertise in sort of health and safety. And that was like six months of my life. I'll never get back. They sent me to university one day a week to do this NEBOSH. And once you pass your NEBOSH exam, you then have to start talking like this and being unreasonable about taking any sort of risks. So that was a really good certificate. But basically everything I'd done in the call, particularly as a PTI, and then the police sort of gave me all these tools, which are going to be very useful in not so much TV, but the TV and the outdoors. And so, you know, you're already there. You can work with helicopters. You can work with boats. You can do risk assessments, your first aid and medic stuff, which in the police is really high as well. And then just all you experienced travel. And of course as a PTI, I was already not a mountain guide, but a mountain leader, you know, and we used to have to do what's called a jet smile and a UEL and SPA and all these qualifications for climbing and absailing and mountaineering. So you've got it all if you're going to work in extreme environments. And the first place I went to, to work with Bear anyway, my first real outdoor show was in Sumatra. And I was still in the police and basically I needed 33 days off. So I took a bit of annual leave and I said to my boss, can I have some unpaid leave? You know, it's just one trip in a sort of lifetime. He said, yeah, yeah, take it. So I went to Sumatra for 33 days down in Indonesia, beautiful, rugged, amazing part of the world. Yes. Funny enough, one of the few parts of the world I haven't really experienced, obviously, been in Thailand and Southeast Asia, but yes, looks quite exotic is the feeling I get when I think about that part of the world. I know, it is great. But once you get down there, you know, very few roads, all jungle tracks, you know, you've got extreme jungle conditions there. But it's amazing. And we did one show in the jungle and one show on the coast. But great. And at the same time as doing the TV, I then started to start working or my own company, which at the time was called Yonk Training and Consultancy. And I started doing guiding. So yeah, little trips in North Wales and then that's quickly spread over to the Alps and then that quickly spread to places like Nepal, of course. And so I was working every time I could get any time off at all in TV and if I had any more available time when I was doing my own company stuff and gradually easing down the police. So after I'd used up all my leave and the police weren't happy anymore for unpaid leave, I started taking a day off a week. So I was part-time. And then two days, then three days until I got to the very bare minimum, which was 16 hours. Bit like being a PTI then. Exactly the same. We were slightly smaller biceps. And, you know, so that went on and of course had to make the leap and head out. But, you know, the last eight years particularly have opened up for me because I've had more time available now working in the industry full-time. And there's no doubt about it. You know, people say to me, oh, you've got the best job in the world. And I have Chris. I have because what I tend to do, it's not just me, there's a team of two or three of us. We usually divide up, but there'll be a series and we'll have to film two shows using a location. And a good example is next week I'm off for two or three weeks to Mammoth Mountains in the States. And, you know, I'll have two weeks with a fixer who sort of knows the area quite well and I'll go to 25 locations, hide the mountains and the gorges and the lakes and I'll try and find some amazing sort of journeys. You know, I'm looking for a waterfall and then quite close to it is a little cave system and maybe just in the next valley is a lake. And then the next valley, you know, is a really rugged mountain rock face. And then I sort of bring it all together, you know, and try to get some ideas. So I've got this A to B to C to D journey. And then we put other bits in there as well. And then so that's week one or two. And then I'll come home a couple of weeks later to go back out again. And this time I'll just take a buddy one of my boys and we'll test everything. So we'll climb the rock face. I'll up sail down the waterfall. You know, we'll paraglide from the top of that mountain and test those bits and pieces just to make sure that, you know, our crew can get up there and do it because they have to be on the same terrain, you know. And of course the cast, the stars and the presenters can do it as well. And make sure it's safe. So we're putting all those protocols in. Then phase three is to filming. We get out there. Then it runs at a million miles an hour and then our job world changes from wrecking scout to looking after the crew as they bounce around and try and cross the same terrain as the presenters. So I'm going to dive in there with a question. Have you had crew that you just wanted to throttle because they were so useless? Sorry, I've gone straight in with a negative there, folks. I've had to execute several crew members and we've left them buried under dry riverbeds. No, you know, first of all, these TV crews, a lot of them, if you, you know, you might be brilliant at your job at sound or audio or light wherever it is or cameraman. But actually on the train we are in, sometimes the train is very, very difficult and sometimes they're extreme environments. You know, sometimes we are in the middle of nowhere. It's taken two or three days to get there and helicopter bumps and you are in extreme locations. Other times they look extreme, but actually they're not so bad. But the crew that we work with a lot usually are pretty good on their feet and they know what they're doing. In fact, the crew that I work with, 99% of the time, these guys are bloody good. You know, they bounce from rock to rock. In fact, sometimes they move a bit fast and take a few, too many risks in order to, you know, to get that shot. And so sometimes it's just a matter of putting them on a rope and calming them down a bit, but they're highly talented, not just in the job role that they do, but the movement on the train as well. But now and again you get a new member in and actually before Christmas I was in Moab and we had an almost entirely new team really and it's a big, big difference. But then you just adjust the way that you deal with people on the ground, slow it down, give lots more safety briefs, clip on a safety rope a bit more often than you would with the other guys and getting to, you know, learn as they go along. We had a cameraman actually never been in a helicopter and we just had to do some GV. So he's going to fly up and down and do some beauty shots, you know, over the camera. So he sat with his legs down there over the side and I've clipped him on. And so he can't go anywhere, you know, he's got, you know, he's strapped in if you like, but his feet are hanging over side doors off. And of course I'm just sitting next to him on my phone just reading my emails, you know. And I noticed as we start to bank the helicopter he's leaning out the aircraft, his bum's off the ground because he's going with the helicopter. He's getting sort of fixated on the ground and, you know, he can't really go anywhere. He's had about three inches of movement, but it was just funny to see. And he put the camera down like that and he was like, oh, that was really weird. So just by putting a hand on his shoulder he gave him a bit more confidence and he was fine. But, you know, you only need one or two rides in the helicopter then it becomes normal, you know. And we get shipped around so much. It's just a bus, it's just a taxi, isn't it? I think we used to call him cabs, didn't we? It's an incredibly expensive one, though. It is, and on those shows they buy them out for the whole day, you know, three or four days and at three, three and a half thousand an hour, whatever it is, dollars, you know, it's a lot of cost. But the pilots love being called taxi drivers. They're really keen on that. I bet you have to resist the urge to say, look, I'm taking this baby up. Well, the main guy we use in the UK will bank some GB helicopters. He's a legend. He's an ex-Matlow pilot. Famous for landing his links on a warship and the links to sign to slip over the side into the ocean. That was him. But I tell you this, he is a phenomenal pilot. You know, of course he is, all that military background and he puts this all over the place. You know, we definitely go places that other helicopters wouldn't even consider. But, you know, he is amazing, very good. It's funny to think when they chucked all those Hueys into the bloody Indian Ocean or the South Pacific after Vietnam, literally they were just pushing them off the aircraft carriers, weren't they? It's just a massive surplus of helicopters. But they were so basic they probably were worth, you know, five thousand pounds or something. You lose the links. That's a few million quids worth going over the side. I'm guessing. Yeah. And let's not forget about the two, the pilot and navigator. They're probably quite a good commodity. Yes. Yes. And when you're flying, you're also flying a lot. Are you in the castle class or do they put you up, put you up front? Yeah, a bit of a boner contention. And so I'll air it on this, on this media now. You know, I go cattle class all the time, which annoys me because, you know, some of the directors and producers and other people, they don't fine and they maybe aren't the right to be up front, you know, earn a bit more money and all that sort of stuff. But it makes me laugh. They then get to location and they, in their contract, they've usually got a day off to a co-form, you know, jet lag and old wanker chops here. That, you know, seven o'clock in the morning, straight in the car, starting the recce process. And actually an hour later, I could be tying knots and rigging up cells and tear a hinge, you know. And so it's one of my bug bears. But yeah, unfortunately I'm in the back in cattle class, which doesn't mean too bad recently because there's no one in the back. So just before Christmas to Moab, I just stretched out across five chairs, you know, because there was like 11 people flying to the States. But I'm sure we'd be back to normal now. So yeah, it's a bit annoying, but of course it's super extravagant, isn't it? Business class compared to being in the back end. Yeah. Well, if you're flying the whole crew out at business class or first class or whatever they call it, that's an awful lot of money, isn't it? That's going to put the production costs through the roof. I sort of get it. But anyway, that's my little bug bear. But you know, they're the bosses. Nothing's ever going to change, you know, and that's the way it is. And that's how life is. But yeah, you know, we get treated well. Don't get me wrong. We get all our expenses, of course, all our fuel and taxis and accommodation. And we get what's called a per diem, a little daily sort of rate, as well as all your foods like $25, get coffees and stuff. And you know, so you don't have to keep going until you want it. So you know what? We get treated well. We get treated well. Scott, I've heard a few things, right? And I have to ask you, is Bear Grylls actually a bear? That's exactly the first question that I thought he was going to ask actually, because I'd already prepped for it. So is he a grizzly or a brown bear? Or a polar bear perhaps? Do you know what? I will say this, you know, he's a TV presenter. That's what he will say first and foremost. You know, that's what he does. He's bloody good at it. And you know, he's got his journey and what he's done over the last 20 or 30 years. And it's controversial, anyone on TV. I mean, TV is cheated. You know, TV, to get the pictures that you see has to be to a degree cheated. It was not like we could go away from what we did years and years ago and have 30 days filming for two shows. Now we have to do the same thing in four days, you know? And so we can't go to a mega extreme environment, for instance, miles away from anywhere, costing much money, and we can't be filming the shit out of everything. And the whole of TV is the same. I worked with Gordon Ramsay last week on the show. And of course it is, you know, if it doesn't happen on TV in front of the camera, then it doesn't happen. And so people who love him or love him, you know, they do Middleton in a different way. What I would say about Bear is that he's bloody talented. He's good on the ground, you know, his movement and his fitness. And, you know, he is one of the good guys. He's a truly nice guy. He's always trying to do the right thing. And if you just, you know, he's an honorary colonel in the Marines. I know he gets maybe a bit of grief at that, but actually, you know, he's doing it for the right reasons. He's doing it because his dad was in the Corps and he wants to try and help the Corps with its recruitment, you know, and he's doing his bit. Same with the Scouts, you know, and he really is committed to those charities. The Scouts, the Corps, and I think Tusk is the other one he does at the moment with the Rhino. He puts a lot of time and effort into it. So, you know, he's one of the good guys. And, you know, yeah, I like him. I like him a lot. And he's incredibly successful and good at what he does. What can I say? What's his real name then? Because I know, Bear, I've heard him explain the nickname. Is it Reginald? Barry. Barry. No. His real name is Edward. Oh, of course it is. Edward Grylls, yeah. Because when I go, when I go to the, I do some talk sometimes, you know, people are like, they're introducing you, they're not really that interested. And they go, now we're going to our next guest speaker. He works for Barry Gryllis. His name is Stephen Hetfield. That's me, you know, they always get it wrong, Bear's name. And my name as well. Which is funny. But yeah, you know, I know the story as well, but yeah, he's good lad. He's a good lad. I read an interesting story years ago. You might, you might even have heard it yourself, but it was Matt Dickinson. And he set off to film one of Brian Blessed's, I think many attempts on Everest. And it was back when I think Brian tried to do it in all the traditional gear that Mallory and you know, that kind of era would have won. And when Brian got to X amount of 1000 feet and decided to pull out, they had no documentary. So Matt Dickinson, he was just, I'll say just, I don't mean that rudely, but he was the cameraman. And when they said, well Matt, why don't you go up and we'll make the documentary about you. And so he ended up on the top of Everest. And I think it might have been that year of what they refer to as the killer storm as well. I remember watching it and I remember him carrying on and doing it. And yeah, no, I think it was Brian by blessed. Oh Brian, mind you, he must have been about 105 years old. Yes. I know art is ever changing by art. I mean, media. But do you think that format will change? Because I think when you're 18 years old and you watch a Bear Grylls program, you're like, oh my God, he's just done this and he's just done. When you get a bit older, you kind of, especially if you, it's a bit like, I mean, I've written books for 12 odd years. And so when all the books about the Gulf War came out, you just know as an offer going, right, oh, okay. Yeah, no names mentioned, but you just, and I just wonder if that kind of format of hyping everything right now I'm going to do this and now I'm going to, whether that will, maybe it will need to change because people will get fed up with the kind of, the disingenuousness of it. Can I say that? Yeah, you can. And I agree with it. You know what, when we did the born survivor shows, the man versus wild, you know, it was pretty wild as in, there wasn't that much preparation, not that much planning in the early days anyway. I didn't do too many of them. I only did a couple. And, you know, it was all a bit sort of, wow, he's been the head of a snake and all this sort of stuff. And it was entertainment and a few outrageous survival techniques, you know, which you could do like drinking your own urine, you know, you'd never do that. But actually, you know, you know, never ever drink your own urine, bears their drinking their own urine. If you then read between a rock and a hard place when Aaron Rollinson cut his own arm off, you know, he did drink his own urine doing that. And so, you know, if nothing else, it kept his morale going, just wet his lips and no doubt, it wasn't doing very much good, but, you know, he survived and whatever reason. So, yeah, I think you're right. Bear, I know he's still like that to degree. We've got lots of new programs. They're doing this, you versus wild, which is interactive. And that has really taken the world by storm, actually. You know, should Bear jump off a waterfall or shall we, you know, abseil down the waterfall and they've both brought their pros and cons, how you decide, you press the red button. And if you get so many decisions wrong, you can, you know, bear gets rescued or in the last one, I think he gets eaten by hippo or something, you know. And so there's all that sort of thing, but honestly, not just bear, I actually think that we're all fed up or we've had enough of. I think to degree, don't get me wrong here. I don't want it to be so, but the military guys and the sort of maybe not pointed particularly at Milton, but you know, the big bearded military, Afghanistan, taking nothing away from those guys at all. But I know the TV industry is sort of searching for, you know, a bit more diversity in their adventures. And so they're looking at sort of different areas because, you know, the faster viewers, everything's dangerous, it could kill you. I think people are really pressing towards experience and education and learning and all that sort of stuff. And quite happily see, you know, a female adventurer who hasn't been in the military and he wasn't gun-ho and sort of extrovert, plotting along, having great adventures as well. You know, I'm in a different format. You know, every time I talked to a TV company three years ago, it was all about escape and evasion, you know, sort of these adventures which are like jump out of helicopters and all that sort of stuff. And I just think, I don't know, I think it's time for change to move on and, you know, change the formats completely. But the trouble is those old formats at the moment, Chris, they still put bums on seats. TV companies are scared to take a risk. They're scared to get a new format and go, wow, this is so new, let's get it on there. They'd rather just go, we know Middleton's going to put two million on Channel Four's seat in, you know, or Foxy, I think, has got a new show coming out and he, to a degree as well, you know, put some bums on seats and again, massive respect to those guys, great what they do. And I love any bootneck or serviceman who can make a second career out of the media and go through it. But I don't know, maybe, you know, we do have to look at these formats. It's the world of reality TV almost, isn't it? It's not quite reality TV, but, you know, it's sort of... You've got to remember, well, we've got to remember that, I'm going to talk about young men now. I mean, I could talk about young women just with equal passion and defence. But young men look around them to a society of overweight fanies. They were perfectly content to just do a job for 40, you know, work in a cool centre, sit behind a computer, and I mean this no disrespect with what was used to be called women's work. And they do that. They don't get out. They don't get the adventure. The furthest they get is they put the light chron on a Saturday and they go out on their mountain bike and they're racer. Perhaps a bit of that, oh, I wanted to join the Marines, but this kind of thing. And you can understand why young men look to people like Bear and the Ant Middletons and they just must be open-eyed and sort of living vicariously through these stories, because the average life for someone now just isn't really, it's risk adverse. It's cotton-walled. You can't even say the F word without getting a barrage of whatever. So am I making sense? They must look at these guys and think they're absolute legends, whereas you and I know, you can buy around a world ticket for a grand and a half, maybe it's a bit more. You can end up in Patagonia. This company is doing guided tours up Akinagua. You can get into the Amazon. You can fish for piranhas. You can stay overnight in shelters there. I mean, I'll backpack every single, through every single country in America from Alaska down to Ushuaia there on the southern tip of Argentina, just backpack with my cooker in my, you know, I used to cook for cheap so I could make my money last. I did my first skydive on that round-the-world trip. I did that in New Zealand, in Taupo. Subsequently went back to get my pilot license and skydiving license in Florida, all this sort of stuff. It's not, it's accessible, isn't it? But I think, I don't know if the whole Xbox thing has something to do with giving people this false sense of adrenaline, but without actually giving them the goods which cements in your mind the strategies, the techniques and the philosophies that make you understand that it's all available to get out there and smash it. I agree with what you said. And actually, you know, what you're doing, that's a proper adventure. It's a field of, you know, potential danger on your own or even if you have someone else, you know. And I always used to think in the Marines, okay, in the core, you might be Afghanistan, you might be in Iraq and there's different things, you know, there's bullets flying, there's people getting their limbs blown off. But my point is that actually, you've got support mechanism as an adventure, whereas you've got accommodation and food and you're gonna get paid. And when I joined the police, it was the same. And then when I, in the TV role, guess what, I've got the old production company in the hotel or at least a nice campsite and it's all supported. What you do or what you've done is totally unsupported, you know, going across the world and whatever you've done. That's a real adventure. We're no backup. When you talk about Xbox, people like taking all the risks on the back of a computer. There's never, you know, nothing can go wrong. Okay, they might lose the game and they start again. And people do get, I know a couple of grown-ups nearly my age who spend maybe five hours a day on a computer and they live in the dream. But there's no consequences. And even to a degree what I do and have done, there's no consequences. What you do and what you've done when you have a proper adventure and you go backpacking or cycling or anywhere, you know, whether it's New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, anywhere. You know, you've got that risk, the real risk of running out of money, getting lost and these are the minor ones. And then you know what the big ones are, you know, it's injury, death, you know, either coming across wildlife or coming across or being attacked by someone, you know, their real risk and real challenges. So that's amazing thing there. When we do the TV sometimes, yeah, we do do some big stunts. We do take a few chances. But do you know what? When you see Bear sort of out of something and he's tied the rope around a stinger net or bush and it's pretty much backed up with a couple of safety votes here and there. So it's not too bad really. But my big thing to everyone is go and have an adventure. That's when I finish all my talks, I just go go and have an adventure and don't have to, you know, do exactly what other people done, what you've done. All they've got to do is head off to Wales for weekend. You know, take their bivvy bag, do a bit of wild camping, you know, break a few rules maybe and have an adventure. Funny enough in everything I've done across 85 countries now. I've done 86. Did I say 85? I meant 86 and a half. You've done me, you've done me. But I can, for people listening, it's a very simple set of rules. All of them are telling now I've broken them. But it's like, don't go on a beach at night. That is just a golden rule in any, can we say impoverished country, you just attract trouble if you go on a beach at night and this is, we had a terrible incident when I was on HMS Invincible, one of our, one of our friends had to endure in Barbados. Don't buy drugs. That is another like fun or whatever that word is, that the risk just becomes exponential in that scenario. Watch the currents when you're swimming. That's another one that gets a lot of people. And there's a lot of small kind of tips like in the Americas, what can happen is some will come up to you and point at your backpack and you'll look and there's like mayonnaise on it or mustard, right? And you're like, huh? And then of course this guy goes, ah, let me help you and they take your back and you think, ah, this can't think of the word, but this guy's come to help me. And of course they're not, they're just going through all your pockets at light and speed in the marketplaces. You never have your passport in a pocket. Anything, it's all got to be down the pants or something because you're just going to get, and it's clever the way they pick pocket and have someone with a blanket over their arm. Someone will come up behind you, you feel them undo the button on your cargo trousers or whatever and they're quick. They're out with the passport. They shove it under this blanket of the guy in front. He takes it like that and goes that way. So while you're shouting at this senorita or this senora, she's got nothing. She's sort of in the clear. I've just made it sound like travelling is really dangerous. It's super dangerous. Start at home, play Xbox. But the danger of not doing it is way, way, way. Many people go travelling. It's absolutely fine. Just stay away from those areas that I said and it's the odds of well in your favour of dying a happy life. Let's say that knowing you've lived your dreams. You've got to learn, haven't you? It's the adult learning cycle kicking in so you can get caught out when you're younger if it's your first time travelling. But actually, when you've been on a couple of little expeditions, I always say start slowly. Don't bite off too much. People got no experience. They go, I know I'm going to walk around the world or I'm going to go across Patagonia or I'm going to do this. And I just think, just start a little bit. Get your skills together. There's nothing wrong with doing a bit of training. Do a bit of first aid training. There's lots of companies that provide a little one day and two day courses to give this advice that actually you've just been talking about. But go on a little adventure on the Isle of Wight in the New Forest and then maybe progress, do something in Europe and then actually, bang, let's go for it. Let's go for a biggie. I think that's a... And then you learn. You start to learn as you go along and that's going to make it a little bit less painful, I think, rather than just throwing it all in. I know it's a fantastic thing to do. Come on, let's just walk across Uruguay. It'd be fine. What could go wrong? Let's just take a backpack and a packet of matches. But when it does go wrong, it can go horribly wrong. I tell what I love as well, these new in-reaches, these in-reach minis you can get now. Have you heard of the in-reach, Chris? I've heard of it. You have to refresh my aging memory about what it actually is. Well, it's just a tiny little box, transmitter, GPS, emergency thing, American thing, Garmin, I think it is. And yeah, if you hit the red button, don't get me wrong. You're not going to get special forces coming, but they know exactly where you are and they can organise a rescue. You pay a set free for it. You can put it on sleep and pay like $7 a month. And then when it's activated, as in you're going away, it's like maybe $30. I don't know what the exact costs are. But you can text on it as well. The great thing is it's satellite GPS anywhere. You're not waiting for a phone signal. This thing will work everywhere on the globe. So it's the in-reach. And I think the new one's the mini-in-reach, which is a little one. I might be totally wrong, but great bit of kid. I've got the old in-reach, which is great. Because one of the issues in the Americas is a lot of people go up, say, they go up to see the crater of a volcano in the jungle. They come down. All you've got to do is take the wrong path. And very quickly, you're totally disorientated. And people will walk for days thinking, oh, maybe it's this way. And some get rescued, fortunately. But many, many haven't. Yeah, no. It's easy done, isn't it? Easy done. So Scott, to finish off, what's next on your exciting planner? Well, I was thinking of early retirement. You look too old for that. Shouldn't you have done that already? Do you know what? I do want to ease down a little bit. I've been in the lockdown, had the odd job. Luckily, quite a big job, which has kept me ticking over, paying the mortgage. But I've managed to get out and do loads of paragliding and paramotoring, which is my love now. So every flyable day I'm out. And you know, people say you were tired and you just die immediately because you've got nothing on. Nothing on. I've got loads on. You know, I'll be back on the bike. I love riding my bike and still in the gym and going on little mini expeditions and climbing. You know, that's what I love to do. So, you know, that's cool. I just need a few more pennies for maybe just a little bit longer. So the TV world is just starting to pick up again. It's sort of picked up already at Christmas in the UK, because most of the stuff that I'm attached to is worldwide. So it's just starting to open up. And then I've got a job starting next week in, say, Mammoth Mountains for a couple of weeks. And then I've got three or four more good TV shows to wreck in Scout before Christmas, which will tick me over nicely. But after Christmas, I'd like to, you know, do more mountaineering and just ease down a little bit if I can afford to do so. I mean, when is it, Chris, the right time to, you know, enough is enough. You know, when have you made enough money? I'm not a millionaire by any stretch. But, you know, just keep going. I'll just do another job. Well, that's quite a big job. I'll just keep going. And for me, it's not about the money. It's about weeks away from home. And actually, for the first time this year, it's been quite nice being home a bit more after spending a long time away from home. You know, the last eight or 10 years, I've probably done at least 200 days a year out the country. Wow. And, you know, that is probably for a good eight years of those 10. So you've got kids. Oh, he's like, he's a man. He's like 23, 24 soon. Okay. So that's not too much of a sacrifice in that area then. Yeah. No, he's doing his own thing, but that's okay. Have you ever thought of Everest? Is that anything that you do? Do you know what? I think every mountaineer, you know, on any capacity, but particularly professional mountaineer, would think of Everest at some point. And we all poo poo at it. We go, well, you know, it's too commercial. Just pay you $50,000 and off you go. And it's not really a mountain climate site. It's more of a yomp and all this lot. But the truth is in the back of your mind, you always think yourself it would be quite nice. Yeah. To go on Everest and summit because, you know, just the way it is. Although I often said to people in talks, there's a million other mountains, which are great to climb. And I've done a few biggies myself, you know, and been to Nepal three or four times now. But actually it's always in the back of the mind. What I've always hoped for is that might be a TV job and they need some safety on it. And then I can do it for free and get paid to do it. Because taking sort of three months out of your life and 50 grand, whether or not you get it, you know, it's for charity or you manage to get some funding, you know, it's quite a big, old blip. But yeah, maybe it will still be there. I'd certainly take it on if it was a TV job for sure. Would you go up? Yeah, I've got a few issues there actually that have come to life. First of all, I've just realized I've got low blood pressure. Or I don't know. A sports doctor might tell you know Chris, it's because you're athletic. But my, I'm like 120 over 67 at the moment, it's just technically puts you in that box. I don't know if you've got any, I don't really know what that is Scott, because I'm not like a, you know, it's not something I've ever really had to consider before, but where it affected me is I did a triathlon on Sunday. And the pre swim, I just went just chuck myself in a sea the day before just to see the temperature. And bloody hell. What, what, what looked, what you would describe as Reinhardt syndrome is I could see where the blood had drained from my toes and my fingers leaving almost a yellow waxy like skin as if it's just about to go frostbite that kind of weird feeling. And that it's, it's concerns like that that I'd have to get, I'd have to get sorted out before I could consider putting my body into that, that, that sort of temperature. I mean that is, that is low blood pressure, but of course you are fit as well. And that will have a bearing on it, but that is quite low and circulation. I know you're going to go and see what the scores with it, but I mean, I'm getting a super fit. Yeah, well, I'm, yeah, I've never considered myself as a fit person, but for my age, I suppose I should say that I am. But yeah, it's presenting quite a challenge really with respect to get into the bottom of it, because I'm not obviously not big on going to doctors and I'm certainly not big on taking pharmaceuticals. But I am big on diet and breathing and I'm looking at this cold water immersion that seems to be really, really pot, but I have a cold shower every day anyway, so. I mean Bear's big on that Bear every, for about two or three years Bear will take a nice bath or a lake swim, I mean, all time. He loves it and he swears by it, you know. Definitely. Yes, I'm also starting a charity. So one of the things in the back of my mind might be to somehow amalgamate a trip to Everest or trip up Everest into it. So maybe our paths will will cross in the future, Scott. Oh yeah, no. Bring me in. I'd love it. Yeah. I'd love to go back to Nepal again. Again, it is quite, depends where you go of course, but that, you know, the valleys which are you go Everest and you head up to Khambra ishfall that way or you go on a perna side. That's what people mostly do. Actually, there's so many other places to go into bed and Nepal worth investigating. So I'd love to go back maybe next year and try and do something. Because, you know, people always think a higher is harder. And yes, you've got the altitude issues, but actually, you know, you can get some amazing invigorating challenging climbs much lower down, you know, which are good fun. So yeah. Wasn't it Annapurna? I've read a great book recently. I'm sure it is Annapurna. One of the first 8000 meter peaks to be to be climbed in the Himalayas. Yeah. You look at the names like Herzog. Yes, that's the gentleman. Yes. And they almost all bloody killed themselves. Didn't they? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, things haven't changed much now. But yeah, that's great book. Yes, it was. Yeah. Definitely. There are a lot of versions because I think a few different people have written about that. And Herzog was the main guy. He was the guy who wrote the book, but he had a couple of French mountain guys. They all fell out as well. They all hate each other. Yeah. Who knows what went on the mountain. I should say for our friends at home, my charity idea isn't just I started charity so I can climb Everest. No. My charity is, I don't know, what I want to sort of encourage people that are struggling a bit with life and what's helped me over the years and break down a few barriers and phobias and maybe tweak a few paradigms just to open up the future for people. And I've been thinking about doing it through adventure sport. And so things like rowing the ocean perhaps or climbing a mountain, this kind of stuff. I'll just chuck that in there before I'm... Great. It was all super worthwhile. And I like to do a bit more for charities as well because it's such a good way to live your life and do adventures. It's not all about chasing the dollar. I'm sort of done doing that really. Everything I want to do now has to be... It's really sound cheesy, but for fun or the great good, that's how I feel now with it. Because you can just chase the dollar and chase the dollar and when's enough. Yes, definitely. Scott, stay on the line while I click off record and I can thank you properly. But for the purposes of this interview, you've heard this a few times before. I'm now turning off the tape. No. Massive thank you, Royal. Absolute... As you can tell, I love all this sort of stuff. It's just... For me, it's a fascinating area alive. It combines travel with the media, with adventure and a bit of art or production work thrown in. So thank you for coming and enlightening us as to what goes on behind the scenes of a Bear Grylls production. Well, I know I've really enjoyed it, Chris. Thanks for asking me. And there's a few more dits you can drag out on me on another occasion. Yes, let's do that. Perhaps we can do a live Q&A together. They're always quite popular. Yeah, I know. I'd love to. Definitely. For our friends at home, much love to you all. Look after yourselves. If you could like and subscribe, that will really help. And we'll see you next time.