 Wyf yw'n fwy o'i fwy o'r newydd i'w ddechrau'r gwahanol gwahanol, a ddyn nhw'n gweithio'r cyd-gylcheddau'r twyd. Dyna'r ddweud o'r cwestiwn i'w ymwneud ar gyfer y gwaith pwysigol yn gyffredinol. Dyna'r ddweud yn maedd y cyfnod, dyna'r ddweud yn eich gwneud. Felly, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio i'n gweithio, mae non tu'n dweud o'i enw, mae'n gweithio i'r ddweud i'r gweithio i'r ddweud o'i gweithio. Is he like Michael Jackson? Yeah he was alright I mean... it's such a hectic job that. It's just... How many people did he have around him? It was five of us all together. How organised are those pirates because you see them driving up their weewoods and boats next to these big tankers and he still managed to go on and take over? They're not master of the organiser but tongers are good at climbing. Not like little monkeys. What you're doing a lot of the bigger tankers is you wire it up with barbed wire. I remember going back to my locker and I had a voice mail and there was a guy on there. He said, hi my name is Chuck. Ac rwyf i'n meddwl chi'n gwneud yn gweithio i gael ymwaith i Morco a'r fondig i'r ffarnedig, ac yn fwy o'r ffarnedig fil unig, Mac Damon. Rwy'n meddwl chi eisiau yn gweithio. Rwy'n meddwl i'n mynd o'r cyfle, roedden nhw'n gweithio, a rydyn ni'n gweithio i gael y bydd. Mae'n iawn i'r gweithio i'r rhag, ond ond i'n gweithio i'r rhag, ond mae'r rhag i'r rhag, ond nid gwneud â'n gweithio i gael y bydd. Felly mae'n gwneud. Gwysgrifon, gyda Simon Newton. Yn gweithio ar y bobl. Gweithio, yn ddigon. Rydym nhw'n gweithio. Gweithio. Mae gweithio. Mae'r iawn yn amlŷ. So, gyda'r Armi, Gwyddech chi'n Armi, Mae'r sicurau'r unig? Mae'r sicurau'r unig. Mae'r sicurau'r unig. Cymru'r gwleidio gyda'r fudio sydd yn ei woldo. Mae'n cael ei gwell yn ymweld. Ymdweud o'r ystod. Yn mynd i, mae eisiau yn ei gweithio'r ysgol. Gweithio chi eisiau? Efallai, mae eich bod yw'r tynnu ymddech chi'n gweithio'r gweithio'r fudio yn ymgyrch gael. Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio, y dyma sydd yn cael ei wneud i'w gweithio. Ac y gofyn nhw'n ddylch i'n iawn i'ch ffordd o'r ffilm nhw, eich ddechrau swyddi a beth rym ni, ac mae'n eich ddweud hynny. Mae'n gymru yn ôl i wneud ar modern y dylliannod. Rhywb bod pawb a'r profiol, wedi bod yn ôl wedi gyfarfodiau am Niachau. Ja, wedi gweld yn Gyflau Maciel Jackson. Mae'r Ysbryd Gyflau Pawn. Ac oes fod yn gwahanol i'nelfennu gyda gynnydd. Mae wedi bod gyntaf a'r panffin. Gwyi'n gweld wedi bod yn cael eu ei stryig yn y 90s. Cynnyddio y sglu, mawr ymddiffol, arofi. Rydym yn mynd i fod wedi bod wedi gwasanaidd gyda dod i'r cyllid. 15 a 16 oedd. Nid fi'n gweld yma. Dwi wedi ddechrau cyfrif, dwy'r ymddiffol yma. Mae'r ddweud ychydig sy'n ei ddweud, fel draws. Roeddech chi'n cael ei fod. Roeddech chi'n cael ei gynethu yn gweithio. Mae hwn o'r arbob yn siaradau a gorfodd o'r ceg burth. A oeddo'n oedd hyn yn gweledd yn lle ei bod yn ei wneud. Roeddaeth chi'n cael eu meddwl a ac oeddo'n gweithio'r sefydliadau a i wiitho'n gweld oeddiol. A phobl yn gweld rhaid o bobl yn gweithio'n gweld oeddiol na'r gwah o'r newid. Yw'r gweld yno yw'r hoffa chi'n gweld. Ac mae'r ddechrau'r terfodol. Nad ydywb i'w dda chi gyd-famiaeth am fewn i'r cyfnod llawdau, ac rwyf i'r cwrdd ar gyfer cyfnod yn ei gweithio ar gwrth hwn. A gloedd wedyn rhaid i fynd i'n maen yn ddynnu'r ffaith. Mae gymorth fod yn ei gweithio ar gy各idedd. Sar satisfiedd yn sicrhau bod yn ei gweithio ar gy ffaith. Felly mae'r gweithio yn ei gweithio. Ac mae'n gweithio i fynd i fynd i'r gweithio, ac mae wedyn y gallu gweithio mewn gweithio. I went and got the engineering job they had all joined the army. I've got apprenticeship there. It wasn't really for me to be honest. I did probably maybe what I was sixteen then probably. Maybe about three years I scrapped more stuff than I actually sent out the door. So I was at a natural. Ha, mae hynny'n dwi'n fawr i amhiliadau. A'ch adeilad i'r rhaid o'r fawr i'r anharu ar gael, ond rôl ar想onidau, dwi'n ddechrau, mi'n iawn i'r byd y cyfleoedd busedd. A wneud ag fel y mae'r ar Canalion, rhaid i chi ddweud. Doedd dwi'n ddisgrifydd gyda ar Loweid Dawg, roi ddalnewch yn gweithio o'r 500lyf, Dwi wedi'n ddechrau ru. Ra, dwi wedi'n ddisgrifydd fel'n gweithio gan Canada, yna ddiwedd ar y cyfnod, a mae'n ddillwyddo i ddod hynny a'r arddangos. A oedd wedi'i wneud i'r 1970 ac 2003 ar y gyfer. Rwy'n fyddion yma yw'r hyn, i ddillaw y tro i'r hunain a'r hyn o'r hyn. Ond, ddillwyddo i'r rhai lad, roeddwn i'n meddwl i'r holl yma, gyda'r hynny ymlaen, ym bryd yn hynny, ychydig yn hynny o'r lad o'r holl yma. Fy fawr bod yn gweld fel y ddechrau gwahanol, ond ond na'r ddigon ni wedi bwysig yn gyfroed ym krydd. Felly, rwy'n wedi dweud bod rydyn ni'n gwybod eich cyflanch yn gyfle hi solaf. Rydyn ni'n ei ddechrau'n ddadl â'i ddod i'r bod yn ei ddweudio byddai'r rhan a'r ddwylliant i ddweudio rhan i'n gofynu, mae hynny'n byddai'n bod yn ôl yn gwneud i'r gwneud i'r ddweudio Inglinig? what was your training and stuff like for being, what you said you were a fat kid till when did you start losing weight getting fitter? So when it's all changed a bit now and I don't know so much about the military anymore so I finished nearly in 2003 so 17 years ago. At 24 years ago? What age are you now? 41. So it's a good one. That's it bro. Hydicais beth i'w meddwl i'r gwaith i weithio o'r r perfection ond yn y gallu'n bobl o'r gwellieunol 64 oed i weithio ac mae wir i'w meddwl i'w meddwl i weithio. Fydde i pa sy'n i'r gweithio wahanol. Yn y pethau i wneud hwnna i ymgai, yn y gymryd yn weithio mewn ffór i i wneud, mynd i'w meddwl i'n meddwl i'r llamp. Mae hodon yn mynd i'r maxim ar y cerddain. Mae'r dref ar y llamp, a hynny'n rydyn ni i'r llamp. Maybe people, grandparents, people you don't see all the time start maybe acknowledging that you've lost a bit of weight and then yeah I just carried on from there really. I think I lost it all in about six months. I went from something like around about a 22 stone which was about a 44 inch waist down to 13 stone with maybe a 33, 34 waist. That's some difference man. Yeah. When I do things, I mean I still do that now, I'm still a fat person I can put weight on quite easily but I can get it off as now. It's only what more now I'm weak. I'm weak nine of dieting now and I was a 41 inch waist over lockdown. So you're going to be up to 19 stone or something again? 34 now. I'm sick man. So you're obsessed with all or nothing kind of mentality? Yeah, if I want to get it off I just get it off and I'll say a lot of what I've got going on at the moment I can't be overweight. So what was it like then when you were, along with the dessert four years, five years? Yeah, just short of five years together. Where was the first place you went? Canada. What was that like? That was like most of it was training, life-fire training. I did range safety out there for just over a year. Yeah, that was, I learnt a lot, I was only young. I learnt a lot out there. Did you see any bad stuff in Iraq and stuff? Was there any Iraq? Iraq was a funny time because when I was there it kind of, it was near the end, when it switched from the end of the war into sort of like the second part of it it actually got worse rather than better. And I think everyone underestimated it slightly. And a job I actually had at the time was looking after a couple of American artists, using them as officials. And we were in civilian clothing at the time. We went into civilian clothing to do the job. And then after probably about not even six to eight weeks a lot of the military were getting attacked often. And we ended up having to go back into uniform because it started getting rougher and rougher. And around that time as well, private security companies started operating out in Iraq where a big company, I think it's changed name now, was Blackwater, which was an American company. A lot of their guys were getting dragged out of vehicles and, you know, certain firehung ambushed. It was happening quite a lot and it escalated quite quickly so then we went back into uniform. And around that time that's when I started seeing private security companies come out into Iraq. It's just kind of how I ended up in that job myself really. The private security is, they say the industry is worth over 250 billion a year. When did that really start kicking off? The private security has always been there? It has always been there but not to the extent it is today and certainly back in 2003 when we all kind of started doing it. It went off in a big way. A lot of the contracts out there were normally would have been any other previous conflict maybe would have been left up to the military to take care of it. It was privatised. So there was a lot more slots for private security contractors at that time. That's always been there. A lot of the guys, you know, have worked in Africa, Algeria and Nigeria. It's always been there but on a lot smaller scale and probably ever since 2003, middle east, it's really taken off now. I think there's a slight decline in it now as well. How so when you're saying so from plain clothes into putting your uniform on, is that a big difference where you're more protected or is it still a few for all? It really was just because if you're in uniform, you obviously stand out a lot more but at the same time we had, there's no point in being, we're in series and carrying a machine gun. So we were losing the sort of weapon capability by being dressed in series if you like. So we decided to go back in uniform, we could bear arms as normal and hoping that that was kind of benefitted slightly and it did. How dangerous is it Simon to do any private bodyguarding compared to being in the army? That's a good question that I see because in the military obviously you're, you normally work in fairly sensible numbers in somewhere like Iraq. Equally you've got, normally you've got air support, you've also got medical cover, all sorts of different air assets and maybe quick reaction units around. Local, when you're private security you're very much normally on your own. We only carry a set amount of weapons, we don't have tanks, we don't have air support. The military did help us when we was private security at times but we wasn't always priority, obviously they had their own people to take care of. So they did send out helicopters for Medevac if needed and things like that but it wasn't always a guaranteed. So all the guys on the team I think about 12 guys on the team roughly depends on what job we was doing. Sometimes it might be a little more. How do you know how many people are sent on a certain job? Let's say it's a certain calibre I guess, a certain calibre a person in the world, high calibre. Is it right it's only going to take one or do you count maybe two, three on a private protection? It depends on where in the world and what the situation is really obviously. If you're talking about in London it just depends on it. It sends on so many different things on who it is, where they're going, what country you might be in. Certainly out in Iraq the number of vehicles even just to look after one person is always like minimum three vehicles which obviously that all needed manning as well. Whereas in London you might use two vehicles you might only use one. Has anybody ever tried to kill you on a private protection? In Iraq and now I mean I did convoys for a long time in Iraq as well so you're not actually looking after someone, you're looking after kit and equipment and because we were bringing it in from Jordan, Q8 surrounding borders of Iraq. If there was a lockdown inside Iraq it's too dangerous to go out. Our kit still come across the border. If it come across the border without us being there it gets stolen. So often we was always out regardless of any threat or risk level in certainly in Baghdad. We still had to go out so a lot of guys lost their lives on that job and we used to get hit often. It was never a case of if it was always when. Sometimes three or four times a day guys would get hit on convoys. What? Yeah. And yeah they still managed. Is it a buzz you get doing that to kind of keep on that job known at your life's at risk every day? I must do some sort of adrenaline rush as well. By the time I'd been on convoys I'd only been out in the military and I'd already done two years as a bodyguard if you like looking after someone out in Baghdad. So I've been around the whole environment for quite a long time. It was a step up in tempo. I'm not going to lie. Probably lost a lot of weight just sitting in the truck. But you kind of get used to the feeling of shitting yourself and it just becomes the norm to be honest. Did you just become immune of your nerves via? Yeah you don't. I didn't think much of it in the end. I mean you're always conscious it could be you and obviously quite often when you'd drive back to wherever it was you were staying and you'd hear one of either your camp or one of the other camps. One of the other lads had been killed again today or yesterday. And it wasn't every day people were getting put but for a private security contract the death rate was quite high. What about Afghanistan? Afghanistan was different for me. I worked for the foreign comm office. I looked after HMRC officers who were mentoring the Afghan drugs police out there. So because we were looking after life obviously there and it was government life then the restrictions on this were quite tough when it got rough. We did used to fly up and down a hold of the country, put our vehicles on a C130 and go out and visit all the city gate checkpoints to make sure the Afghans were searching vehicles for drugs properly and things like that. So it wasn't too bad to be honest. Certainly we lived in Kabul but used to fly afghan wide but certainly in Kabul used to get quite a large number of vehicle born IEDs which I was lucky but a couple of lads got hit by them. We was in armored cars they all survived a bit burnt up but I didn't find Afghanistan as bad. Again a lot of lads have lost their lives out there. What's the armored cars like so no bullets can get through stuff like that? Yeah I mean again in the right we had B6 armor I think I'm not a technical specialist in this but I know roughly a B6 armor which at the time sort of like near the top grade of what you're going to get. But even that you only get a certain amount of strike marks on the window before it may go through you know it's not 100% bulletproof. So what kind of tools would you have on you in Afghanistan and Iraq compared to UK? Are you allowed any guns or anything in UK? I don't carry anything no just use these. Hands? Yeah and it is open hands as well if you do that you're in trouble. What? Even if some of this self defends? It depends so it's kind of you can only meet force with force if someone's holding a gun to my face and I punched him and knocked him out then that would be alright because equally if I don't do that then he's going to shoot me. So that would be construed as okay if someone just got a little bit you know overzealous or maybe a little slap when I broke his nose that wouldn't be alright. What? Yeah so you have to be very careful and of course certainly on the celebrity front with that is hundreds of paps with you all the time so you can't get it wrong. Did they try and antagonise though for that kind of stuff? Not really and then we've been pretty good. You do get your boisterous one which can be a nuisance. It's more so when you're moving on their motorbikes and stuff they're getting away but when they're on foot not really I never really had any problems with them. So you've got the guns and tools in other places but in your case just hands? Yeah UK hands only. Have you got a licence to kill in any other countries? Yeah so any place I've carried firearms outside of the UK I've not needed a licence and that would be purely down to the country at the time saying that we don't need a licence to be there. So if you broke somebody's nose in a UK you can get done but if you killed somebody in another country it's fine? Yeah I mean we wasn't free for all you know right? Yeah of course. But it's definitely how it's different lives? It's very strict sort of thing but normally certainly private security you're not an attacking force you're not the military so you only fire to defend. So a lot of the time if you did fire you'd already been fired at you never sort of antagonised ourselves if anything we didn't want to trouble. Yeah it's not paparazzu here. Yeah exactly. Do you know what I mean over there you've got fucking guns and grenades? Yeah it's the ultimate price this day if you're not going to aim so you know you didn't want it. In fact if anything sometimes if you've got ambush and if you just try and drive out of it you wouldn't even return fire you just want to get out of it and get away. Did you ever get chased or anything? Uh not so much chased, ie deed, roadside bomb yeah, small arms yeah but not really you know it's not. One of the biggest fears I think certainly in Iraq in the early days was getting dragged from the vehicle. I know again a couple of guys from another private security American company in the early days they got dragged from their vehicle and paraded through town and they got hung off a fly over and set on fire. So not actually when I first went for the job that was a video they showed us that just to show you what you was getting into and if you didn't fancy going out there then you know now's the time to say. So those videos are real now you see videos maybe on the news when they've got the knives that they're throwing and they've got people screaming in the background. That happens? Yeah I mean I say yeah I've never been there luckily. But yeah I mean that's pretty much it they are genuine videos yeah obviously you don't get to see the worst bit because they cut it off normally but yeah I mean that is how it happens yeah. There's a lot of people who get taken and luckily you know UK and US special forces are pretty good at picking these people up now but unfortunately you know sometimes some do get missed. They ever get taken for ransom or stuff or they're just getting took to get killed? So when we was in that was a funny thing actually when we was in Iraq we used to drive past Fallujah. I think it's McTaddo I'll say that I used to put out on the radio there but it was a £5,000 sorry £5,000 reward for any Western that was called and taken into Fallujah. So we always had a price on our head anyway for if we were getting caught. But one of the main places that we catch you was in the main supply route because you was in the middle of the desert in the middle of nowhere. If I ambushed you and crippled you and you couldn't run anywhere because you were running out into the desert and that would be a good time when we would drag you across the road and take you away. That's good. A few quid. Yeah. Seen me up for that. Don't get me wrong though I'm a few of a price on my head but I thought I'd be more than £5,000. Is that what it was? £5,000. £5,000 isn't it? So when, through all that, did you have a struggle? I know a lot of the boys in the army and stuff like that, private protection, a struggle with PTSD? Yeah. I always say no if you ask people I work with, they might say different but now I've been lucky. I've been lucky. I'm very good at separating certain things and it's not just anything in my life that's maybe not gone right for me. I'm very good at separating that and just putting it to one side. Equally, I do have a few issues from bangs. I can't stomach loud bangs at all now. Are you on edge? Yeah, not to the extent. I don't walk around scared every day but if a car backfires you'll see me jump, physically jump, probably leave the floor. Equally, it takes me maybe 15 or 20 seconds to properly get over that whereas you're probably not even full much of it. So I mean, that's nothing to be honest with you. If that's what I've got to come round about, I don't know why. Compared to some boys, we do a lot of homeless work, man. It's scary to see so many veterans on the street. It's fucking heartbreaking actually that people can get used as a pawn and just put down on the street like a piece of shit and not get the help that they need. Some guys, the other thing with it is that people don't know. I did, if you include the military, I did five or six years. You could argue on operations in the Middle East working between Afghanistan and Iraq. That's a long time to be exposed to that sort of work. Some guys have done longer. In fact, if I looked into it deep enough, there might even be one or two guys still doing it now from when I was there, nearly 20 years. But certainly with the PTSD thing, I think sometimes people don't realise that you can get PTSD in one day. Oh, of course. You don't need to go on a six month tour of the army and war fight or whatever. It affects everybody differently. So yeah, it's a big problem, but no, I don't have, I get your, you know, when I go to sleep and stuff, I get your dream of being shot or whatever. But it's not to the extent that I ever worry about going to sleep. Do you think exercise helps you? The gym for sure. I mean, over the years, I've had to see different people to talk about different things because the company I used to work for, if you got in any sort of bad trouble where you used to send you to psychiatric. I suppose it is that kind of thing. And everyone, any doctor I've spoken to about anything over the years, they've always said that it's the gym that really keeps me saying, yeah. And certainly my business, it's hectic, you know, but my security company now it's very, very busy. What is your security company? In what respect. The one you've got? Well, the name of it. Yeah, yeah. Scar is secure. So we're based in Palace Street down in Victoria, central London. Unless it's all private protection? Yeah, we do fire star hotels, high class events, bodyguards, a lot, a lot of, you know, close protection work, residential security, asset protection for people in the city and surveillance. So we cover a range of services really. Obviously at the moment with what's going on, the hospitality side of it with the events and the hotels are a little bit quiet, but the rest of it has been fairly solid. I've started in 2010. So we've been going a little while now. And it's growing. You know, it's even now, even today we've picked up, actually just picked up quite a big contract with, I won't say the name, but it's a film company in the States. Which, again, although we've kind of got that, we haven't started because of what's going on. So we're getting bits and pieces coming in, even through this period of time. It's been good. Yeah, it's good mate. You've just got to keep your head up off. Keep your head up off. Yeah, the water mate. It's actually a fucking weird time, but there's nothing else to do but soldier on. But even when the world's no more, I'm still plugging away. Yeah. So the only thing you can do. So when you started coming out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and you came out the army and went into the private kind of side of things. Was it easier or was it harder when you started getting the private protection in the UK? In the UK, yeah. So actually in between now, I've slaughtered, I've missed a little job out in between when I was actually in Afghanistan. We worked eight weeks on four weeks off. And it's actually on one of my four weeks off when I looked off to Michael Jackson. I just got back. I was in Edinburgh actually. I just got back a friend of mine who was on my rotation, lived in Edinburgh, and he said, do you want to come up for a couple of nights out or whatever? And I just got up there. I did one night out and then someone called me and said, did I want to work in London? At the time, I never really worked in London. And I knew that at the end of my Afghanistan stint, some days I ended up coming back here to work. I thought maybe it's a good idea to jump on and see what it's all about. And they wouldn't tell me who it was. And I just thought, I'll go and do it anyway. I started to get an early flight down. I think I went out that night, missed my flight in the morning, nearly missed the whole job. Because if it managed to get the next flight, got down, they had to buy a suit. So I didn't have time to go home and get a suit to go back to Heathrow to pick this guy up. And then it wasn't until we got there that they told us who it was. Then it was just a hectic, massively hectic. I can't remember if it was seven or 10 days now. What was he like, Michael Jackson? Yeah, he was all right. I mean, it's such a hectic job that it's just... How many people did he have round them? It was five of us all together. You know, he always has five or six. He can't move around. But every time he moved in there, we had four or five cars. But equally, you'd have about 12 taxis following you and all the fans have paid for the taxi for the whole day motorbikes following you. You know, it's just couldn't go anywhere without it. It's been an absolutely nightmare of a job really. I mean, it's a good one in terms of prestige, if you like. It's a close protection officer. What better person to look after that? Good for the CF, isn't it? Exactly, yeah. But the job was, you know, it's a tough one. And being my first one in London as well, I really sort of had to dig in on that one. Did you enjoy that then, realising from being a rat can get blew up, shot, took away and hung to then follow Michael Jackson. But even though there's not many shootings here for celebrities, the close protection kind of thing, was it still as stressful? Yeah, if not probably more stressful. By that stage anyway, I'd had enough of the shootings. I didn't care if I ever saw a shooting again. So it was a breath of fresh air. One thing I will say, for your first job, it's almost, in terms of people who could look after you, you could argue it's kind of the peak of your career. And I've just done that in my first job. So, you know, everything after that is a bit of a downer. How much your celebrity is that? I could have done that a little bit later on. But yeah, no, it was good. You know, I learnt how different it was. And to be fair, the fundamentals of it wasn't much different. So when you do the close protection for a celebrity, is it like a rota? Are you just getting planned to do what you do? Or is it all down to yours? Are there's like Michael Jackson's team called the shots? Or is it the boys? Yeah, so normally it depends on what they do. But certainly in their work hours, they've all got agents or managers. So you get a full run down of where they've got to be that day. It gets a bit more up to you maybe in the evenings because after work, any of their support staff managers, make-up artists, whatever might be around them all the time, they finish when the day's work's done. And then the fat person wants to go out of an evening for dinner. That's now my day out on my own because they go out and do that and you have to be with them everywhere they go. So the evenings could get hectic, which is a bit of a pain because you've only done 12 hours or 13 hours. So for celebrities like him, that's the kind of status. If he's got six or ten guards with him every day around the clock 24-7, they must spend millions and millions of pounds each year. Oh yeah, I mean obviously on that particular job, I haven't got a clue what they're charged for that, but yeah, it's got to be. And to be fair, everyone what was there, it was needed. I don't think there was anyone there which wasn't. Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, I've been with. It's been me, just me. The majority of the jobs you do in London, because we're not cheap, you know, it's just one guy. So yeah, that's the only job actually I've done where I've had more than just me. You've had the first job as well? Yeah, again. What was Kendall Jenner like? Yes, she was good. So that's quite a few number of years ago. Now I'm trying to think how old she was. I think she was maybe 18 or 19. I didn't know who she was. I don't know who any of these people were. Michael Jackson is probably the only one. I always have to Google people before I start. Better not fucking tell them that. Obviously I've got a bit of social media, but I don't watch TV. You know, I don't know. Yeah, just a job. Do you just go in there, blinkers on just to do the job? It's not as if you can fuck it. It's not like the Fully Bodyguard way. But it has his name, Kevin Corson on Whitney Houston. He fucking ends up shagging on that. Yeah, when you do these jobs, you've got to know who you're looking after. So you end up doing a lot of background research anyway. But I've never heard of Kendall Jenner till the day I picked off at the airport, really. What was Rita Ora? Rita Ora, she seems crazy. She's been around for a while, and she's really good. She's a good fan. I think the last job I did with her two or three years ago, went to Milan for Milan Fashion Week, was out there for a little bit. Was Conor McGregor no there? No. That week, no. I've seen the two together at a party. I don't know if it was in Milan Fashion Week. Yeah, no, it's good. I've done a job for two years now. You're missing it. Why? I've done 17 years. I've got a big chunk out somewhere to be honest with you. I've been between that. I did maritime security as well for just over, probably on and off for two years. What's that? So basically, all the tankers and LPG tankers would go down like the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea around there. It used to get... The pilots? Yeah, taken over by pirates quite often. So we started going on there. Originally we went on there, it wasn't armed. It was just a security team on there to help the captain with what to do should we get attacked. And then as that also progressively got worse so we started carrying firearms on that as well. What was that like? Did you ever get attacked? It's fought with problems. Sometimes you go away on a two-week job and I think once I come back like eight weeks later and obviously when you're at sea as well your phone doesn't work. It's all a bit of a nuisance to me. No signal or nothing? Yeah, not really. Sometimes you can use your ship's email system but generally you try not to get too involved in what the ship and the captain are doing. But I did transits where we had a couple of Japanese warships taking us down so we had nothing to do really because we had them there. I've done other ones on a gunboat for nearly eight weeks and that was probably the worst trip I've ever experienced. However, at the same time I always remember that trip. Why? Just because it was crap. It was awful. The conditions were awful. We were out there a lot longer than we were meant to be. The boat sort of just... you couldn't eat, holding the plate because it's just horrendous. There's nothing good about it. But I'm glad I've done it because it was a bit of a test if you like and every overlad so on it I think it was for this on that. We'll still talk about it today so it must have been something. How organised are those pirates because you see them driving up their wee wooden boats next to these big tankers and they still manage to go on and take over? They're not massively organised but they are good at climbing. A lot of monkeys. What you're doing a lot of the bigger tankers is you wire it up with barbed wire. So you normally get, depending on where you get on the vessel, you might get three days before you start getting into sort of troublesome water. So you spend that time wiring up the whole of the vessel which again is not a great job because it's burning hot out there normally. You're wearing gloves, barbed razor wire, you know, a amount of cuts you get putting that stuff up. And equally to go into port series in Egypt you've not had any wire. So you have to take it all down after as well which again is another nuisance. But I only did maritime security because it's part of the private security world at the time and I've kind of been ticking all the boxes and you know, done a bit of everything and I didn't want to miss out on that, basically. Obviously I've had to do courses and that for that as well. See survival courses and the ship security officer courses. I had to go and do work down in Port but that's one of my main reasons why I don't miss it. I've kind of ticked heavy box. You completed that? Yeah, but I'm sure there is one or two other things out there that you can do but nothing I want to do. I've ticked heavy box I want to do. But a relaxation now about your team? Yeah, I've still got the company obviously. I'm still involved in it to a certain extent. More on the business side now is what I do on that. Most people don't really see me. In fact, a lot of people probably don't even know I'm involved in that business. We've got a lot of guys at work first. They probably don't even know I'm involved. I'm very much in your office on the business side a bit. But I enjoy that now. I do like doing that and obviously with this other stuff I've got going on with the action magazines and everything else it gives me time to do that as well. Yeah. Busy man. Yeah, he's at the moment. Half five wake up bed at 11 I think at the moment. Seven days a week. Fuck that man. Yeah. Fuck that man. As much as I'm busy with my work cost me, add a wee nap before you come up mate. I can't see anyone getting done at the moment. So add a wee nap so the net you just he went in after I kept so the die. So see if somebody was climbing up that boat if you get the right can you blast them? Shoot them? Yeah, once we get on board once they go on board we used to carry two types of weapons in the game with shotguns if they got on board and then we add like a I can't remember what it was some sort of sniper rifle without a scope I think when they were further off but never I never never had to get that. Cos I had a boy on a few of them were on a boat and they had guns but they all get charged with the guns so they did a few years ago in India. Oh, yeah. They went ashore with them. Yeah, they get done man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're all done I think five or six years in India in jail man. Yeah, that's a big problem even though they think I know you're talking about and I think they had weapon permits, yeah. They fucked them over man. They made it something. Yeah, they ended up spending four years or something in India. We kind of had the same problem at Seychelles. We was looking after a survey vessel but we was on a small gun boat because they didn't want the client vessel. They didn't want the weapons and ammunition on their boat. So we had them on ours and we went to the Seychelles to Bunker which basically means go and refuel the ship and supplies and everything else and they went in first and we've been on this thing that's been tipping around for days and days and days. Great. Finally, you know, get to go and Seychelles, honeymoon destination and then we had to sit 12 miles out because we had weapons on board so we anchored up for another two weeks at the Seychelles and couldn't go ashore. Yeah. Would you never do the ACS or anything like that when you were coming out on me? Would you never do the training for that 20 years ago? Ah. Yeah, I mean that was my that would have been my that would have been my progression when actually when I left after Iraq I got the opportunity to go to stay on with your army and go to a go to a unit which was along those lines and I'd just been offered a job in London to work back in Iraq and at the time you know, it was on like 10 grand a month or something I can't remember what I got paid in the army now but it was like two maybe I don't know and obviously the money it won me over. Faces done up. Yeah and actually when I finished with the military I kind of had a I kind of had a bit of a deal that I was going to do a two year leave of absence going to the private security work buy a house because the money was obviously quite good back then and then go back to the army because I still have only been 25, 26 years old when I've gone back to the army and I love the army I had no other reason to finish doing it and I had loads of different things mapped out I wanted to do within it it just all come to an end I think when I started the private security job in Iraq it just went on you know one thing to another when I did three years there in Afghanistan and so on and so on I was like no I'm not going back to the army now it's done How did you get into the acting then because you've been in like Sherlock Holmes you've been a stunt double far as a buck two star? Dave Batista The wrestler? He's a big lump, no I do twice size of me I don't even know how I got that but He's a bit of a fucking 22 I had to wear his costume and I was like his shoulders on it with down bought my elbows so when I was in Iraq private security there was a guy there a lot older than me and he used to run the army where all the weapons were kept on out on our place and he was the security adviser for the film Troy and I was just talking to him one day and he mentioned about that and I thought oh film work that sounds interesting and I just asked him a bit more about it and he gave me a mobile number of someone to call in London wrote it down on the card I put it in a day sack in my room and left it obviously that was like 2006 I then did the time in Afghanistan I then come back to London I did various jobs in London and then around 2010 in fact the first job I had in London there was a house provided with it for the whole of the security team it wouldn't just for me but all the lads who were on that security team could use the house so that's when I moved up into London at the end of that when that job finished I started my business at about the same time that job finished I thought well I need to get an apartment somewhere around here because I'm staying up in London now I got a flat share at the time with someone else who was in the industry I remember when I was unpacking my kit that card dropped out my bag and I thought oh I forgot about that and I looked at it and I thought actually I'm living in London now as well and I said this place was in Shepard's Bush so I thought I'll give them a call so the next day I called them up and they said you know they've sent me a link something on an email like 25 pages of stuff to fill out and everything like that so there was another lad with me he wanted to do it as well he sent me that there's all sorts of stuff on there and I thought well if I don't do it I'm not going to get a look in at doing anything with film so I filled it all out the other guy decided he didn't want to do it because it's too much like I've worked so he'd give it a rest and then I did the whole lot and then they've replied to me saying that they got it but this was like maybe September time of 2010 I think and they said that we're not thanks for everything but we're not taking on until August next year so I thought I had a bit of a pain but then I thought well I've set the seed now you know it's there so come August next year I'll just forget about it now until it comes around and I was in the gym back in the days where I could leave my phone in a locker when I was trying to can't do it anymore it's too many people after me all the time they always want something so I can't or if I get a job in it's got to be done I can't like three hours later so I remember going back to my locker and I had a voicemail and there was a guy on there he said hi my name's Chuck I was wondering if you'd be available to fly out to Morocco on Monday to take part in the Green Zone film Mac Damon I said wind up because they told me they told me August and a few of the lans of this job I was on as well they knew I'd done it so I thought someone's winding me up so I thought I don't know and I looked at it I listened to it again this is before iPhone as well we're going back to an old Nokia or whatever and I think I googled a number and it came up in Shepard's bush so I thought oh mate I think this is it this is the one get all excited guess where I'm going now like now you're not I got that and I rang him up he said is the jig I think if I fly Monday I still had one day left on the job but I was on I actually finished on the Tuesday so I said to one of the lans I got like I think it's like two months or six or eight weeks in Morocco I don't want to lose it just because of one day on this job can you cover me and he said yeah and I literally flew straight out to Morocco on that Monday and then I think it's six or eight weeks I was going for doing that and that's like my first ever film How was Mac Damon? He was good he wasn't there for the whole thing he came on and off throughout the time there but yeah yeah I mean all Jason Isaacs was in as well he was good Paul Gringos was director it's good fun but one of the things I liked about it was when we was doing a lot of the scenes you're running around shooting and no one was shooting back it was exactly like it was in Iraq but just without the hassle of the worry of it all So your first fucking close protection you were with Michael Jackson and the first film set you were with Mac Damon I didn't really plan it where else did you go after that I mean every other film set you were thinking shit actors I don't know yeah my expectations are high what an actor he is yeah he's great and they've done good role hunting man was unbelievable I mean is it Ben Afflecht unbelievable film yeah I mean he's done some great ones he did all the boom series but he's really really good and Sherlock come along as well was that Guy Ritchie director in that one? yeah Guy Ritchie that was I actually missed a little bit of that I did too many things at once I did a load of filming down at Shattom Dockyard and then there was a gap of maybe three weeks or it might have been a little bit longer in that four or five weeks and because of the continuity you can't just bin it halfway through and I went away on a ship did maritime security which was only maybe a ten day job and I got stuck on it so I didn't turn that off I didn't turn that off for the next part of the film I mean I can't want to get it in Shatman fucking god damn shit sorry was it Jude Law in that? yeah yeah what a story he's got yeah he's a character from Bang on the Gear cos he was a heavy actor when he was younger and then he fucked it and then he's pulled it back again to be one of the biggest highest grossing earners in yeah I mean always people Guy Ritchie as well he's so good what a story he's got as well Guy Ritchie man what is it gentlemen he's the latest one he's done some good ones so we've seen you're in with all these big guns you're trying network as well trying getting in without harassing them yeah I mean there's a fine line of networking being a pain in the ass man and I'm quite lucky that I always anything I do wherever I go providing I've got the time if you're only on a job for one day just keep your mouth shut to the job guy cos you're not going to achieve getting in with someone so when I'm wanting to think over any significant amount of time quite often I look a bit different to what the other people do there which obviously is a straight way it allows me to stand out slightly just do as you're told that's the biggest thing so many people don't if you do as you're told you stand out in an instant anyway I'll learn that quite quickly in the end I ended up with some quite good parts just because I did as I was told but yeah I do that seems to get me a lot there's a couple of directors one in LA at the moment who was doing a film this year it's been put back now and actually he offered me a couple of parts and that was I think it's going to be I can't remember his name Lawrence Fishburne he's been in lots of different so I'm trying to think what films he's been I'm terrible with films if I showed you a picture you'd know the previous film he'd done was Lawrence Fishburne and Nicholas Cage so I mean he's knocked out some good films and then there's another guy here who's I'm hoping to have a meeting with him in December I don't really meet these people to get work as such I meet them to get an understanding because all actors have been actors as well get an understanding of what things I can expect to do and not to do and they've all been very helpful so far Did you do acting classes or anything? So no I've done I've done a few short films and stuff like that just to get a bit of time in really but equally I've got an acting diploma to do actually in two weeks time which is a month at Pinewood to start with and then we'll see what happens after that Is that like an intents course? Yeah very But you'll be used to that shit? Isn't it crazy? You'll probably be used to fucking standing in a rack trying to get fucking your head blown off but then you go on to an acting class and you shit yourself I think I've got an email from today and said can you make sure you watch when Harry met Sally before you turn up That's going to be the hardest bit of the whole course I think I've watched that but I mean I'll do it if it's Harry who's Sally I'm more likely to be in it So how do you throw your life going through a British army close protection starting your own business How's your what's your life like in a daily routine what's your up at 5am you says what do you do? Yeah at the moment it's a little bit different because I've obviously lost a lot of time over this lockdown period and stuff so I've got two fitness shoots in November which is almost a week after the acting diploma so I've got to try and I've got about another inch to lose on my waist at the moment which I'll do by then easily but I've got to try and keep that up over the period I'm doing the acting so at the moment it's been pretty brutal I've been doing gym at half five in the morning for an hour then home breakfast shower change we'll keep my kit together and I'll go to the gym again for nine to do weights from nine to a half ten and straight to the office from that gym office till five straight back home back to the gym for an hour again doing cardio again and then at home by half eight called a girlfriend to go to sleep Foxy I do a jog in the morning and I think I've done that Tom but on top of that as well I eat six to eight times a day calories 4,000, 5,000 calories a day all I do is no carbs Monday to Friday even carbs at weekends so by today and tomorrow I'm hanging out that's fucking discipline to the highest level so no breads, no pastas, no nothing no I don't eat anything like that do you know what once I'm doing it so how's your energy levels then? low but I've been doing it for so long now I've probably first started quite a late dieter I've probably started dieting properly when I was 36 so last year I did men's fitness and a magazine called train as well so GQ, in fact I did fitness in GQ you've all got it? so Vogue, which is how it's kind of started for me back in 2006 when I used to look after Bella Hadid Vogue picked me up as a real style style of London fashion week and they reported on me quite often when I was with these models because of what I wear which is nothing exceptional by the way it's just made for what I don't expect to see so that's how it kind of started and more and more people are getting interested on top of that I've branded Jason Slatham all the time I mean don't get me wrong there's a lot worse people to be branded as I'm not moaning too much but that is always coming up in articles obviously previously I had done film work and I had been around the film and I've done a couple of adverts and I've obviously doubled in for Dave as well so I've kind of been around the film side of it I get stopped in the street some days particularly at the moment because I'm a bit leaner and people will say excuse me excuse me you turn around and they're like I think I realise and they're a little bit disheveled after this you know it's not him so I get sort of branded without slightly and people said over the years you look like someone should be in a film you look like someone should be in a film and I think that's kind of spurred me on because I do enjoy doing that so that's what's spurred me on to maybe push that side a bit more and obviously some of the opportunities I've had already with being in films if there's a small chink in the armour I'd like to expose it but you're perfect for a kind of guide-acture films I don't know how your acting is but what kind of film would you like to I've done, I mean I've been a prison in mate before I've been a prison officer before military I've been in a couple of gangster things one American one it's always at some bodyguard I've been a couple of times Do you not mind being tarred with that brush or trying something different push the boat a bit I'm not three years at acting school so for me to be a bodyguard on screen he's perfect for you all I'm really doing at the moment and certainly for this acting department is working on my dialogue making sure that that side of what I do is right but in terms of the actual acting itself most of the stuff I get it's just not acting for me it's pretty normal all the weapons handling running around, jumping shooting quite often on film sets in fact I've actually helped directors start off to stand by where I would stand and normally that's that's good enough for them so there's a lot for me to be able to put back in doing those type of movies How's the models and stuff to work with are they up here in the house or are they okay they work hard for youngins they work really hard, they do a lot of hours they're great to be honest I've never had a problem with anyone I've looked after at the end of the day I don't have to look after anyone so if I think someone's going to be a nuisance or I do a day with something I'm not putting up with this You've worked with my boy Dizzy Rasko he's an absolute resident love Dizzy so shout out to Dizzy Dizzy's always great as well because he's so easy to work with and he's just such a nice guy so laid back man but he's work ethic setting on Twitter years in industry and he's still kicking on so this he's got a new album coming out which he'll actually plug October I think it's out of the 9 for the 13th 20 years later man he's still producing yeah no he's great and he's got a good team around they're all well suited they're all very nice I don't think he would fuck about with any of Dizzy's even when the interviewers even know I love that interviewer but you can tell it wouldn't take any shit he's obviously been in the industry too long he knows only what he should be getting I'm third in line on that job so there's a guy, a good friend of mine I still do a little bit I haven't done anything for a while certainly this year I've got two really good friends who look after people pretty much full time who are both celebrities and because of that celebrities are a bit of a creature habit and they like the same people so often all those guys are full time there is one or two others that jump on those people if you like and obviously sometimes I do do it and the only reason why I still do it now really is to help them out so you get a phone call for the business and it was a mega star you go fuck it I'm going to take that job yeah no if it's taking like so Dizzy and Halsey the two I still jump on every now and then if needed because they're both friends of mine that said job so I still do it but outside of that now certainly with this film contract we've just got with my security company we'll require a number of list celebrities over the next couple of years looking after I won't get involved the more I do with this stuff as well and more I do in films if the filming takes off for me in the way that I want it to I can't be walking down the road next to someone who maybe isn't known and people start coming up to me I'm going to be looking after the guy it's not going to work so that's why I've taken a side step now a few big films and four people are coming up and asking for your picture I know that's why I've taken a side step now from doing that and I'm glad I've done that because for me it was a private security industry for all that time it's changed a lot it's not something I particularly enjoy as much as I used to now but equally I can't it's made me a small fortune to be honest with you over the years of all the different things I've done and I've been around the world as well I've been in so many different countries private planes? yeah on some occasions yeah boats, planes it's all everything's paid for obviously so I've had a good run I've got nothing bad to say about it it's not for me anymore but I've got nothing bad to say about it yeah it's been looking back I mean to be honest with you looking back I've surprised how much I've done you forget, just get on with it and do it because we have done it when you actually do the life and people looking for them outside they think oh that's a great life but nothing really fucking changes done at all I was talking to I don't know who I had on the show I was talking to Pablo Escobar's sons direct like PR today and he was saying yeah I was like what was it like it doesn't feel anything the same as people tell me how well I'm doing it it doesn't feel, I just do it it just feels fucking normal so even you working with the top celebrities and shit even though it's still good talking about it but for you it's kind of fucking it yeah it's another day at work isn't it really would you ever write a book? we've touched on that at the moment I could do it's enough one of my problems with it at the moment is the reason why I've held back slightly on it is one because of time I physically can't really do much more at the moment six hours sleep so I just want to start eating into that but two I feel that at the moment I'm kind of tinkering on something new you know with the action thing do I do a book on the private security thing which I don't really want to particularly do because there's so many books out there now of army and out in Iraq Afghanistan and shooting up books and that which is a great read I don't really want to go into that I think if I did a book now I'd like to maybe try and achieve something over the next five or ten years in the action world and do it more as a life book all the different things that I've been through and hopefully you know I'll still hopefully be a business owner as well as being a established actor if I'm lucky you know blah blah blah rather than being a bodyguard the same kingdom story there's a lot of it out there there's a lot of stuff we did out there you know I'm sure it's interesting to a lot of people for me it's again that was a great job but sometimes things are better left left in the past how does it feel for you to talk about the stuff in the past because even though like you see you can block it out and train hard but even though all that emotional shit there's still seen a lot of nasty shit do you get drained out of anything I don't I don't really talk about that much and for a simple reason if you're talking about it to someone who doesn't know about it it can sound like you're bloating because some of it can be a bit far fetched but you can get involved in so if someone is generally interested because they've got an interest in the Middle East and they know maybe other soldiers or privates I might touch on certain but I'll never really go into real big detail because sometimes it just sounds like you're big timing all the time and you just cut the things I've done in the past and I just don't tell anyone no one's ever going to breathe that so yeah I don't really if people are interested and they ask me about it I'm happy, it's not a secret by any special imagination not a secret but it's just it is what it is isn't it it's just another part of what I've done I don't really see it as a issue Cos you've left that? Yeah and there's hundreds of guys who've been private security contracts there's not only one and Afghanistan, Falklands if you want to go back that way it's not I'm not unique so I don't like to come across I think I may be because I'm certainly not And you're still in contact with a few of the boys from 20 years ago? Yeah very few, I mean a lot of them some of them stayed in a lot longer but most majority now I've only got one friend who's still in the army and he wasn't in with me but he joined up about a year before me so obviously he's done really well but the majority of the guys I mean it's a different thing now I remember Iraq with the military it's been amazing if I went back to one of the countries now would I be able to take a different thing different people, different setup it's always things are never the same when you go back you can even do it on holiday, you've gone on holiday you have an amazing holiday because you're with the right people you go back there next year maybe with a different set of people something strange isn't it but you remember that time you went before so I don't ever wish I could have times again unless it could be the same and obviously things can't things are always going to be once I've done it I've done it Where's the best place you've ever been in the world? I don't get welled over with places that much I don't really like to go back to the same place twice I'll go off for a living in Canada in Toronto so that's obviously a place that I end up going a lot because she's there but if I can I like to you probably see why in my career I get bored easily I have to move on and do something more and more and more indifferent so it's the same when I go why spend four or five grand on holiday or whatever and go back to the same hotel and sleep in the same bed, eat the same lobster buy the same pool with the same annoying people where we were last year so there's how many other countries I haven't been to so I like to try and change every time but I'll probably say up with it for holiday probably Maldives or Thailand Is it nice in Maldives? I've always looked at it but I don't know if I'd be too bored there The thing with it is it's nice, don't do it too long, it's boring but equally I think in six years it'll be underwater because the seas rising they're all the small islands so if you don't get it in soon it's going to make your mind up for you anyway and you won't be going there's a Tibet something quite heat-n-am I've always looked at those places I'm not very good at bearing in mind my background, aren't we good at roughing it anymore I've just locked you down I can't stomach it these days obviously you do what you've got to do and I could if I had to but given the choice I'm more of a hotel man Would you ever do any of the SCS shows? Well I've actually written a show that went out to various production companies in the UK and States as well I think it went to National History Channel Discovery Channel and National Geographic out there and another production company is here which is kind of it's basically a bodyguard show to see if you had what it took to be a professional bodyguard that got it got knocked back and the reason why it got knocked back is because they tried doing it before at Middleton and for some reason it didn't get picked up so at the moment it's been shelved I have had two two companies interested in me repitching it in 18 months so I haven't given up hope on it obviously if I was to get someone to take that on then I would be involved in that myself so I would the bigger your stock becomes and the more acting jobs then people just want to work with you anyway so it's just like because I've got things in the backbender that I know are going to be mega but if I promoted them two years ago I've published them two years ago I've tried to network with them people that have said nah but now I'm growing a platform so any idea or any vision I have people are kind of I want to work with them because my stuff is getting worse the stuff I produced two years ago the documentaries are still getting worse because the more traffic goes towards they go fuck me that's amazing but it's just all about it's constant networking, constant hustle that's why I've got a good I think you've spoken to already my PR and that's why we've pushed the PR so much because it's helped me even get better acting parts because I'm more known to people now so yeah it's great for that I've actually got a fashion label as well which I've done nothing with yet but again if my exposure does get bigger and bigger it's too early now but I've got a number of things in the pipeline which like you just said sit on them for now and use them at the right time sometimes I want everything done yesterday but you can ruin it can't you if you go too early you've got to hold back it's just all about you're clearly head screwed on you've clearly got vision clothing brands on protection company you're fucking flying doing the acting and I always believe everything is limitless it's all down to the individual how far they want to get everything I do or try to do the best and even if it's not the best of that it's the best I can do at least and I've always been like that and I'm a bit of a slow grower with a lot of things like that and I'm not like my security company about ten years now maybe I'm sure people have started a security company and got to where I am now in five years but I always get there it doesn't get binned I always get there and even if it takes me longer I always get there and I'm aware some things take me longer than other people but I don't care because I always get there but they tend to see the ones who grow faster the ones who burn out quicker so it is because of this consistency everything is just about pushing the boundaries and baby steps as long as you're pushing it inch by inch every day then nothing else matters so it doesn't matter if it's ten years, twenty years if you want to make it, it's fucking hard to maintain so it doesn't matter and that's the other thing, the foundations have got to be good because you can be a flash in the pan otherwise that's why my foot's on the floor because if I quit, there's thousands other people out there doing podcasts I want to be the elite, not just UK but worldwide and I'm buying one cost to do it and that's the thing isn't it? because when I started off in Glasgow because my accents different from where I used to speak two or three years ago no quieting down but slow it down and speak a bit more properly just to have people going he's fucking talking differently I just wanted to have a different audience wider audience, London, Manchester, Liverpool don't want to be one dimensional listen I'll complete the fucking world stage if I need to get a fucking rocket to the moon and interview aliens I'll do it just to take it to a different fucking level everything I've done and I've noticed that if you keep plugging away regardless something will give in the end so anyone I know doesn't get on with something because I don't really give it a chance just keep smashing away, put the hours in keep smashing away and then in the end the amount of people looking at me see some of the stuff I've done and they see it as I don't know, I've rung up Michael Jackson's manager and said can I look after him tomorrow and I've just rung up a film company and they've just put me in a film it's all been engineered right from the very early days of me meeting people the day I spoke to the guy in the army about working on films there was another six guys there with me no one else asked for a card with a number on it I think it's how you present yourself as well do you believe in the manifestation the love attraction visualising and what you think and stuff like that the other thing I get when it's come to the bodyguard side I look like what people think a bodyguard should look like and that's helped me now it has you've still got to be good but people do have a perception of what a bodyguard might look like because of the films or whatever and often they're a lot taller than I am but you're suited and booted Hermes built on top of the range the kettle on the wrist you've got to promote yourself because you're thinking if they're getting pat to you and if I'm looking in a fucking free piece suit that's the way I'd be thinking if anyone wants to have any photograph looking shit fuck that fat guy at 6 feet 8 I want this fucking guy from London that's the thing it's making a difference isn't it your skills and your ability might be as good as the other guy but if you can pull something that he hasn't got then great but I'll be honest with you I never did it for that I've always dressed like that when I went to work I would have worn whether Bella or Kendall or anyone else was in or not I didn't have a particular set of kit just for fun and sometimes people I think I did I used to just dress up for these things but it was just my normal clothes it wasn't really making an effort but look where the jobs it's got modelling the front page of magazines I've done something like 25 magazines I think I've got New York Post coming out this Sunday which is a print edition once I've done this not the next lot of fitness shoots in November we're looking to try and do a front cover next year so I haven't done it I'm going to be a little bit careful with the fitness stuff I don't want to be known as fitness person because how many hacks have I got I can't do everything so I like to do front cover and I'm probably going to ease up on the fitness I've got quite a lot of fitness stuff out there at the moment does that mean when you can ease up on that you're eating can ease up eat more carbs I've got the show reel at the end of it to send out to different directors and producers so I can't be fattening that and the thing is you never know when you'll be I got called for a photo shoot the other week that's for New York Post I sent it for talk throughout if I'm not somewhere near where I am now I never know when I'm going to get a call I can't I have to be very careful now because we've just taken off a lot more now than what it has done previously for me so more so than ever now and I see my show reel and I look like this and then they want to cast me for a part in the need bomb film when I'm 20 stone every year you know I've lost the part so I've got a... so you need to keep on your A game I haven't got to be as lean as I'm going to be for the shoot I can come back a little bit but I can't get it before you do a shoot which are cut like do you drop your carbs, do you drop your calories I can't drop that any more than I am at the moment you must be fucking drained no carbs for five days not even about a sweet potato or nothing the biggest thing is you don't sleep your carbs make you tired obviously so I don't really sleep that much so I really have to force it and I do get six hours sleep at night but when you're training obviously your muscles really grow when you're asleep so I'd deal sleep for bodybuilders 12 hours because I haven't got time for that 12 hours? if you had a good one a nap in your afternoon a lot of them unless I fall asleep in your office which has been known but but it works for me I'll get where I am, I'm just under a 34 waist now I'll probably go down to a 30 or a lowest I've been to 28 what do you know about 15 stone I don't know, in kilos I'm 95 fucking big unit but yeah so I mean d-boxing or anything no, I've never done any martial arts I've never really martial arts boxing, MMA all that stuff it's great as a sport, it's a great discipline it's great to keep fit it's a bit of a little bit of a illusion that because you're a good boxer you're going to be a good bodyguard it hasn't massively got a place in the industry those things so what's the difference then from when you're bodyguarding through do you know all the techniques like is it grappling or whatever grappling people yeah I mean most of the stuff certainly in London nine times out of ten it's a bit of a question to come with someone I'll move the person I'm looking after I won't even touch anyone else just get away from it create a bit of distance obviously on an odd occasion maybe you get someone to grab you've only got to grab their hands you've only got to push them away one good hard shove that can create a meter maybe more depending on the size of them which is enough if you're moving the other way as well you've just created two meters in less than a second that's enough to get away you're not in the middle of nowhere it's always out of hundreds of other people around you you get involved I've never really needed to be quadruple black belt backflip kick just not needed it and to be fair I haven't got time can't do everything the guys I do know who do that they've got passion for it as well they love doing it they've been doing it since they were a child I've got to do a limited amount of fighting for film work but it's all pub rule stuff really so through it you've got all your visions for the future but what do you want to do is mainly the acting stuff to get any films in yeah as time goes on I'd like to push that because if I don't get a decent slot in something bare I won't feel like I've tickled but I've done it so I will make that happen even if I'm 75 and I'll get in something I'll make that happen much further I go on once I've done something I don't lose interest but if I don't see that as the next stage to go on with it I'll be in it if I think I've done all I can do with it I'll be in it there's a lot I can do with acting obviously so it should last a while but equally I think in the long run what I'll probably do is end up directing thank you I'd like to go to I mean just writing this TV show lately as well and sending it to I've got some really good feedback on that as well the context was right and I didn't do that much with vision to sort of look to see how to write one I've never written one before I just typed it out but I've got I have a good idea and a vision of what things should be and how storyline I don't know if I'll be a writer or just a director or both I don't know but I'd maybe when we're talking yeah but it's exciting that you've got these visions I think right I'm going to get a major part that I'm going to write my own film, my own show it's brilliant because I come with visions now I'm at the stage I was very good we're coming up with ideas and having to tell anybody I needed approval but now it's a case I don't know what I've got this idea I know this is going to work there's no cunt going to stop me to what I'm going to do it's good that the fact that you've been front line on the private security to then sitting in the office and now you want to go front line and acting I'm actually quite doing it if you're just going to mess around and be the same as everybody else anyone can do that I've wasted my time doing it and I need to make a difference Where are the people who get a hold of you social media platforms? I'm not a big user of Facebook I keep getting told that's an old person seeing these days I don't know my nephews and all that and you've got instagram these days but my instagram's at simon.newtons so it's quite simple but yeah that's actually all I use I don't use twitter, I don't have a youtube and I've got a website as well which is simonnewtonlondon.com which we've just changed now I've put a video page on there because I've stuff like this now I've been doing it Working people, people need a wee bit of protection because I've got a lot of fucking guys on the shore that probably need a bit of backup sometimes how do they get a hold of you So you can go to simonnewtonlondon.com and in the contact page there's it says how to get to the security enquiries but equally escarwyssecure.com is where you'll find the company obviously you can just get us food there and it finds man 24 hours a day For anybody that's maybe struggling or simon maybe battling PTSD or wanting maybe mental health kind of side of things what advice would you give them for a man who's been through it himself seeing a lot of shit and still plugging away and he's got big plans for the future you clearly got your head screwed on your shoulders that you can slip into bad habits but for anybody watching what would you kind of say to them? Speak out it's always the biggest one of anything PTSD if you see anyone say do anything it's always speak out and even on my Facebook now there's a lot of ex-military guys and some of them I don't even know and I reckon once a week I get another regimental badge come up with RIP so and so because he's going to take his own life and every time that person's not said anything no one's been aware that's going to happen so I'm one of ten million people who say speak out every day and I wish I know saying speak out's not enough because people still aren't doing it so it's not working but it's still better than not saying it but equally I do wish there was a formula what could make these people speak out because it really is certainly these days now PTSD is not it's not found upon it shouldn't be a tough thing to talk about even majority of people it might have been branded as a military thing back in the day PTSD but it's everything mental health massive anyway mental health in general it's massive these days that's one thing you do come across and private security in London I've come across a lot of mental health people who just not not wired up correctly at all general public when I've been looking after people there's a lot of death threats to people we look after get a lot of stalkers, they're all mental health so it's a massive problem and that's not military people that's just normal public so speak out work through it I'm not a doctor I don't understand exactly how it works but what I do know is some PTSD could affect you and it might not affect me so therefore it's got to be something obviously to do the way your brain works it's not given to everybody and it's got to be a way for you to be able to control that somehow and even if you can't remove it control it to still lead a fairly sensible life and achieve, everyone can achieve good point mate and sorry last question so 15 years ago we never had social media now we have was there a big difference then coming from the private security then now people know where guests are and celebrities are to 15 years ago to become more difficult when I was Michael Jackson at 2006 I think I just heard of an email address at the time I think I got my first email address and that's the event at that time and the only coverage from what I really remember was MTV and the Sunday newspaper in the morning in terms of being a nuisance for Bodyguard obviously if you're with a client let's say Michael Jackson is around today and he had Twitter and he tweets I'm in the Royal Albert Hall now that's great isn't it if no one's there and no one knows you we normally say to all the celebrity people we look after don't post especially Instagram stories as a classic I've had it before where they've been on the plane and they've done their first class seat going to London and it all gets worked out so we try and stop it equally it doesn't always work sometimes people still do it because not on purpose it's not really thinking it does cause a problem no it is a big problem my social media now for me it's massive for me now it really has helped me move on certainly in the acting thing and all the pictures on my on my social media there's nothing that's not on Google there's nothing really on there although there's a lot of security pictures of my previous life if you like there's nothing on there that you can't can you chat on though your just your ties what was it's not coming even when I do these articles I don't talk about the people it's interesting to people I've looked after these people I get that but when it comes up what colour pants is my face don't ask me I don't get involved in that it's not just the protocol thing but I don't talk about things like that about my mates it's no one else's business is it but if they're wanting to do that I do cross that even asking about what they like you're not really in any bold relationship to protect there's always like that with people I look to you got on better with some than the others but at the end of the day you was there to do your professional buddy guy to do the job and that's also like although 17 years later I'm not doing it anymore I'd never ruin that now I'd never start going she was like this and he was like that and ruin the 17 years I've had of a good service sector looking in or somebody that's maybe on a magazine they go well he's speaking out about so people don't like that I've never outed anybody I've never told anybody because don't get me wrong I feel it fire back a couple of times but is there a fucking any point do you know what I mean because and I think I look forward to seeing your journey brother and what you're going to achieve and what films you're going to do if you're going to direct something and some Scottish guy man you know my number brother it's been an absolute pleasure brother look forward to seeing your journey cool take care check out more of my podcasts on the right and be sure to like 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