 Mike, how are you, brother? Excellent, Chris. Thank you. Thanks for having us and look forward to the chat. Wow. Thank you for joining us. It's Sam. I was like a man with a bookcase behind him. Says a lot about you. Yeah, a lot of cookbooks. I thought you were going to say, 1984, brave new world, world swarms. No, they're in the other room. More importantly, did you come to that? Oh, yep. Yeah, I got my. I always have a nerf gun when you got a when you got a son in the house, you got to be, you got to be prepared. He's often seen leopard crawling around the house clearing rooms. He interrogates me from time to time. Yes. And more importantly, there's a war out there, but we're not going to talk about that now. Well, for, for our friends at home. Mike McCarthy is one of the most fascinating people I know. Circumstance, I think you know what the circumstances I'm referring to have brought us together. I'm fascinating to hear your story. Mike, and I'm just off the top of my head, military, Ilsburgo, Märchalen, in the spainry major, Hopkins, commercial aeroplane pilot base jumper, parachuting off of off,​​ structures for people that are that are the dope. I'm sure everyone knows what what base jumping in this days. Base jumpers jumped off the Eiffel tower Empire state Let's start from the beginning, Mike. How did you end up joining the military and what did you join? Well, I've been raised in a military family, so it was the only world I knew. My father was in the military, and every three years we'd sort of move around the place. He was in the Army Physical Training Corps, but he was with special forces, Marines and Airborne forces, so we were always with some interesting units. And then I spent six years of my childhood in Germany, so I really enjoyed that part of my childhood, especially I love Germany, and then I got sent back to boarding school in England and learned quite a bit about the world really from some of my teachers to, I guess not trust government, I guess was one of the best things I came out of school with. He had a great, great two teachers in particular, and then so when I left school, I left early, well I left at 16, and I just wanted to join the parachute regiment, but my father wouldn't let me join junior power because I was too young to join the adults, and so, and then we were up in Herefordshire, and by that time my father had retired from the Army and he was running a parachute school in Hereford. And one of the guys from the SAF, or lots of them used to jump there, was a lot of ex-military or serving military people, one of their favorite hobbies is skydiving. And so I remember a man at the time, a guy called Frank Collins, who then became a good friend. He was tapping out Morse code for me and I didn't know what Morse code was, and he was in, at the time he was in 264 Signal Squadron, which is part of the SAS. He went on to be badged, but, and so he said, oh, that's Morse code, it's telecommunications and he had got a trade, he went to military college for two years. So I said to my father because he didn't want me to become parachute regiment, maybe a wise thing, but I just wanted to be a power and I knew there were power signals because my friend Frank was in SAS signals. And so, so I, my father allowed me to join the military as long as I, you know, got myself a trade. So off I went to, you know, to Signal School up in Harrogate for two years. And then when I graduated from there, because they knew I wanted to be power signals, they sent me off to Water Shot and I did P company, which I really enjoyed. My training was with nine squadron, which are power engineers. And so when you get on to, if you've done pre pre power with nine squadron, by the time you get on to P company, it's, it's a lot easier. So nine squadron are quite tough. Anyway, so, so that was great. So I did three and a half years with airborne forces. I was really kind of a full time skydiver in the military, kind of part time soldier. And the only time I'd be back in my unit was when we're on exercise. And we were always served with the enroll battalion. There was always one battalion in Ireland one battalion in Germany and then the enroll battalion that was on standby to kind of move anywhere in the world was always based in order shots so we, you know, we serve them and work with them. So I'd always be off because I was on the, the, I ended up being on the, the Army parachute team and then the joint services parachute team, which was made up of sort of the best of the Marines airborne forces, well just the best skydivers in the army. And we ended up being the British team as well so I was doing a lot of skydiving, and then I'd be back in my unit for an exercise. And then so after half, you know, three years of that, I just thought I was just ready to go do more, more skydiving really. And then so I'd applied to leave because I was meant to be in it for a lot longer because the longer you sign up for the more money you get. But I'm just ready to buy myself out so. And at the time, I was with 565 real link detachment power signals which was that one of the smallest units in the army at the time as 18 of us. And so, so I'd applied to leave and suddenly the Falklands war came up. And so my lead got canceled because they needed our skills down there. I mean they need everybody down there doesn't matter if you're special forces or a cook, or whatever you do, everyone in the military is a symbiotic relationship and everybody needs each other so you know, so we were needed to do our bit. And, and I thought that's great it's like it's like a real exercise it's a war so why not that you know, and so although sailing down there we thought after diplomats will sort this out I mean it's 1982 you know we play football with Argentina there's not going to be a war. And but there was and so I just, you know, did my bit. And that was that's my war story really I did you know I didn't kill anyone I almost got killed myself my boss got killed, a few of my friends got killed. And so, you know that war is very messy business. But I, you know, so we all sail back and then sailing back. We had a choice. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you might but the stuff you're saying. And I think we've had this conversation before to me and you it's just our lives it's pretty normal. You know, you only get one life you got to live it to people listening that haven't maybe been in the military or, or even they've been in the military but they didn't experience combat. This stuff is just fascinating I mean, how did you get to the Falklands. I think we were with with five Brigade so we, the camera left first and we went down on the QE to, and we popped into into Freetown Sierra Leone to refuel. I think that's where the drugs came on board, because you know that's, that's, tell us more come on, this is the stuff we want to hear. And I want us to do research on it really I mean if you look at the, the amount of the drug and alcohol abuse in the American military and the British military. It's, it's, it's massive. And so I think there was definitely some of that in the Falklands war. But anyway, so that's what Freetown West Africa may have been for but they refueled they had to refuel there. And then, yeah, well, and then we transferred to the camera. And then we transferred to a naval ship and then we went into San Carlos and went in there and there was a marine engineers on the beach. And I remember the night before my boss who was the only guy in my unit that got killed a guy called Mike Forge major Mike Forge great guy. And I was with him the night he got killed. And, and luckily, you know, by God's grace narrowly escaped that and but he, yeah he said you know he's the biggest responsibility he felt he got us all together just before we got into the landing crafts the following day and he said you know my main responsibility, he felt was to get us all back alive. And him and one of our staff sergeants was the, were the only two of our unit that got killed. And then the next day when we were loading on to the, I went in with the girkers and when we're loading on to the landing craft which the Marines were running. And they'd secured the beach by that time. And I remember my burger it was like the heaviest burger and I'd ever carry it must I must have weighed over 100 pound it was so heavy. And, and I was lifting the thing up, it was you know just as a signal you've got to carry radios and batteries as well as ammunition and a whole bunch of other stuff. And, and I stood there next to this good guy was shorter than me, and I'm lifting up my burger and I thought, this is really heavy says ridiculous trying to carry this. And, and I looked at him I said, that's pretty heavy, how heavy is yours. And he let me lift up his and his was way heavier than mine. And this little guy, I mean, you know girkers are great fit fit fit men. And so we you know loaded into the landing craft with our weapons and Bergens. And it was just a day break and, and, you know, and we went and but nobody shot at us so we had a pleasant landing really compared to the people that are gone ahead of us. And then we had to walk to or tab or yonk to to goose green. And, and then along the way, a chopper came in and and I ended up gaining on it and got a lift to goose green. And then I was there. Sorry again I'm interrupting for people at home john explain what what the difference between tabbing and yonking is, is tabbing is a lot slower isn't it. Yeah, yeah. I think well, well Paris call it tabbing and the Marines call it yonking. And I think it's the same thing. So I think it's equally demanding. And, and we know that feeling and tactical advanced to battle or is that just something somebody made up. Yeah, that's what I don't know what yonking stands for. You only, you're obviously placed. You're only March physically exhausted they just took the e off it. Okay, I like tabbing tabbing sounds much nicer. Go on go on you're rocking up a goose green. Yeah, I didn't I didn't know what yonk meant actually, but um, so if we did and off we off we tabbed. And so I arrived in goose green in a helicopter. And then, and then I was there for a little bit I picked up myself a folding stock FN, because there was a big pile of weapons and guns creeping up on me so I've got to took care of him. Okay, and then so yeah I picked up myself a folding stock FN, because I thought, you know, because we had SLRs, and you couldn't do automatic burst and we were told that one of our threats certainly a signals. You know, radio rebroadcast stations and things like that are a prize target for, for, for an enemy so so I thought it'll be handy to have something where I could put on one on one tracer. And the FM which was you know 7.62 same as the SLR, but you could do automatic burst with an FN and I, I like the folding stock one because it took up less room. So I picked one of those up. There's just this massive pile of weapons where all the captured Argentinians have had to throw their, their weapons into. So yeah, it's great all these free guns. And then there was a show and I had to get around to Fitzroy. And there was a guy called Brian Hanrahan who was a BBC journalist. He was in Fitzroy and he had to get there as well so him and his two crew. They wanted to sail around. There was a boat there's like a little fishing boat in Fitzroy. I've got what it's called. And then that I got on that just myself Brian Hanrahan his two crew. There was a paratrooper up front with a big gun. And then the whole hold was full of gerkers. And then we got around in the night time and arrived in Fitzroy. And then, you know, got up, got set up in Fitzroy. Did you. So I didn't do too much tabbing. Did you take part in the battle of goose screen. No, no, we arrived a few days after that. So it all really been secured and, you know, they buried our brothers and. Yeah, so, you know, was it Mike Ford wasn't it. Well, well, well the only guy I knew well was the adjutant of two power Dave Woods and I knew him as a skydiver and brilliant, brilliant man great athlete, Scotsman, excellent guy. And, and then I yeah so that was the only guy knew personally as a friend. And he so he got killed in that battle. Was an amazing feat so I definitely study that if you're if you're interested. And it's only this year that I've discovered there's so many things about the Falklands war on YouTube. And even the encounter that almost cost me my life is actually recorded there. Which I don't think I've sent you but that was, that was a few weeks later. So I might get into that so yeah we arrived in Fitzroy. We just, you know, set up. I'm sorry keeping track is your two humble mate what how did you nearly. How did you nearly lose your life. How did major might get killed. Well with their Mike Forge yeah those. Two o'clock in the morning one morning. I forgot which, which mountain they were clearing. You know there's Mount Harriet and Mount Long Don and two sisters and a whole bunch of other stuff going on or kind of on the same night really Marines were doing their bit Paris were doing a bit good everybody was it was well obviously well coordinated as the British British Army, normally is. So, we were, we were meant to go forward up to two Paris lines myself and Mike Forge and go to a rebro station as well. Radio rebroadcast station and deliver something, you know, code cards I think I was given them anyway. So this gazelle came in to pick us up in Fitzroy. It was, you know, two o'clock in the morning. And so myself and Mike, you know he was my boss we got on the aircraft and then. And then the star sergeant another brilliant guy, guy called Joe Baker from from from Paris he had served earlier with Mike Forge in 16 power brigade. I was 21 at the time. And he didn't really pull rank on me but he, you know, he's a star sergeant. I'm just a power signaler. And, and he just, he had his Bergen on and his weapon. And, you know, we were literally about to take off, and he just came up to the aircraft and said, Mac, Mac, let me go with the boss, let me go with the boss. And, you know, I wasn't going to get into an argument then and then. Okay, no worries. And so I just gave him the wallet that I was supposed to deliver to the signals officer. And then picked up my weapon my Bergen got off the aircraft. And, and off it just took off with with two pilots on board, Mike and Joe Baker. And then it just went behind the hill and got shot down. And so everybody was killed with a lot of the stuff that I wasn't aware of at the time but we were just told the aircraft had been hit that there was an enemy patrol in the area some so Argentine special forces patrol. And so we took up all these defensive positions around Fitzroy. And yeah, so nothing happened to us that night so that was our boss gone and what our staff sergeant. And then I didn't find out the truth of that story until maybe 10 years later because I left, I left the military, and then you know shortly after we got back from the war. We went off doing war photography and a whole bunch of other stuff training for our militaries and in Southeast Asia and stuff. And then I became and then I tried to get out of that and I became a commercial pilot so I did all my training and then I came back, because I was commercial helicopter pilot I came back to England. And then I tried to I thought I need a bit of job security. So I thought I'd try and rejoin the British Army and the Army Air Corps. So, so I got sent off to Nether Haven because I was a skydiver and I became like a civilian parachute instructor. Whilst I was going through the process of rejoining the British Army as a helicopter pilot, I'd have to go through all the Army Air Corps training even though I was a commercial helicopter pilot, but that kind of helped me get in there. And then, and the guy who was the head of the Army Air Corps was also the pilot on the weekends for the Army Parachute Center in Nether Haven where I was working. And he knew that I was trying to rejoin and he liked me. And he said, Oh, come on. So on Monday, he said, Oh, you know, he was just flying Saturdays and Sundays, and great guy forgotten his name. And he was a Brigadier, I think. And so he, he invited me down to his office at the lower part of Nether Haven, because there was an Army Air Corps squadron based in Nether Haven. And so we're just chatting in his office and I'm telling him my war story about the Army Air Corps. And he looks at me. He says, Don't forget, I've been away for, you know, almost 10 years. And he said, Oh, you, I just told him my story, but he said, and he's looking at me like he says, Oh, you haven't heard that. I said, What? He said about what happened that night. And I said, No, you know, I left the Army in shortly after we got back. And apparently it was the mother of one of the pilots that was really pushing for the investigation. She wanted to know what happened to her son that night. You know, her son had died. So she was really pushing for the truth to come out. And eventually it came out that it was the British Navy. And so, you know, it was a false fire attack or whatever they call it. It was a blue on blue, right? It was a blue on blue. And so, yeah, it was a British naval officer made a decision to shoot what he thought was an enemy aircraft down with, I think it was a sea wolf or sea dart missile. And so, yeah, it was it was that so he told me the whole story and but I because it had been in the media but I was I was away all the time. So, so I'd missed out on that the truth of that and then and so I kind of committed a I was on my way into the army or and then I committed a social faux pas, should we say, and that's that stopped my my entry into the army. That's what it was. So we allowed to ask. It was just just. So I just, I, I, there were one of these the one of the students on on the course that I was teaching on up at the joint services parachute center as a female officer. And yeah, she just happened to be the, the girlfriend of the of the of the base dentist, the army dental call. So, you know, he just happened to be good friends with them with the guy who was processing my application to to join the army or and so I got this letter from this major. And, and it was all going very well, and I would have been accepted in and I just got this stinking letter and we will not accept men of your character into the army. So, you know, it's, it is what it is. And so, yeah, so, so I didn't get to rejoin. And then I just carried on with my my soldiering and my, you know, my war photography up until 1998, I guess that's when I got out of that did seven wars and six months in 1998. Like this week at one one stage at a time as I say you're awfully humble. I want to talk about the skydiving what it's like to become a commercial pilot. Did you say you've done mercenary work. The only I've trained. Yeah, I train the commandos of Singapore and then I train firm in South various units in the time military ties special forces. Prime Minister's close protection team and the Royal Guard, all in in in Thailand so I lived in Southeast Asia for about three to four years. But then during that time I was covering wars for Japanese television and HK and did some work for the BBC in wars in Burma and Laos, a few other things. Okay, can we can we go back to the skydiving then Mike and and can you tell us about your skydiving journey. I've just grown up in it so I did my first jump up in here for my 16th birthday. And my sister was two years older than me and she was a skydiver as well and she, she and my father was flying the airplane and another guy was dispatching me and my sister jumped out after me and flew around me and I was so happy I did my first parachute in those days was a static line jump from two and a half thousand feet. Whereas nowadays it would be, you know, you I think often the first jump is a tandem jump and then you do AFF, although you can still do static line jumps as well. So, so I've done a few thousand jumps which is not a lot these days. I mean, I think my brother's done 18,000 jumps, and he's running a school in Thailand, a commercial school and there are guys with way more jumps than him. So, so yeah, so yeah, I've done lots of that but yeah, mostly were you frightened on this first jump, how did you feel was the plane was going up. Yeah, I mean, even though I've been I'd grown up in it and I'd seen a lot of it and I've been in the airplane over the years with skydivers and, and the Red Devils in Germany they used to come over every year and so you know my father was working at school, an army skydiving school there were back then it wasn't called skydiving at school sport parachuting. But the American influence on the sport is big and so it became skydiving. And, and yeah, but it's of course it's it's everything you know your brain is telling you you should not be doing this but you know you trust the training and you trust the equipment. And it's, it's a, it's a brilliant, brilliant experience and it's for a lot of people that the most exciting thing they've ever done. And, and the standard of training is very, very high. Certainly within the British and the American sphere, not only for beginners but for, for, for highly skilled people, it's, it's the training is very good and the equipment is very, very good. I do get killed but it's, it's pretty rare. I think more people are getting killed landing these days because the parachutes are so advanced and base jumping still kills people but, but it's, it's a relatively safe sport. I'd say cycling is more dangerous than than skydiving. Yeah, when I, when I skydived. There was a couple of skydivers at the base I was jumping from and I'm not suggesting anybody does this I'm just telling you what they did. They used to just pack their shoots in any, any. Mess that they could and shove it into the canister, right. Obviously they had the, the, the, the little drug shoot to put it out was in the right place. And, and they were just, they just wanted to see what, you know, for people listening, when you pack a skydiving shoot or any parachute it's done in a very set procedure. It's almost, well it is it's clinical. You have a pot of elastic bands that you, you tie the, the, the, what's the word I'm looking for the strings that the lines, the lines sorry, you know they're tied up in a certain way. I think it comes out in, in a, in probably like about five different stages with these guys were just no shove it in. Let's see what happens and they couldn't, they couldn't get this the modern skydiving canopy to malfunction. The guy called Ian Marshall when we're at Nether Haven you know when I was in my 19, I guess, a guy called Ian Marshall from the parachute regiment I think he was the guy that developed that that packing method called the trash pack. And because I was with the joint services canopy relative work team which is where you fly parachutes into each other and create these big stacks and then you do rotations as well. And we were training for the world championships at Nether Haven, and he developed this packing method in Marshall, which became known as the trash pack and it was it ensured that we could as we deployed out of the aircraft. And so the parachute would open on heading because that was very important with canopy relative work is that your canopy opens on heading, and then that became very important in base jumping as well so Ian's great contribution to skydiving would be the trash pack method which is now the standard method. So just opening on heading is very, very important. And so you don't fly into other people on deployment and also for base jumping very, very important you know you want to be facing away from the cliff when you, when you, when you jump off it, which always go well. And did you have any near near accidents when you were skydiving. Yeah, I never had any serious injuries. Did you do all your reserve. Yeah, I did. A few times, you know, in a few thousand jumps and what canopy relative work was was because we were very much in, as we were training for the world championships we were really pushing the envelope and trying to be as fast as possible. And I remember on one of them where we were doing rotations like four man rotation, like four of you get together. And then the top person peels off, which was another development of Ian Marshall is actually for rotating because other teams around the world was sort of going off to the side and then coming in at the bottom. Whereas Ian came up with this idea of going over the back and that really gave us the cutting edge. But it was, it was, you know, quite dangerous and if the top jumper doesn't lift his legs up high enough, he'll catch the leading edge of the canopy beneath him and he'll tow that canopy with him. And that happened one time, I think with with with us. And so all three of you end up wrapped together so you have these and you know you're falling very very fast, but you're all but you're all trapped you all your parachutes are all tangled up together. And so I was on one of those. And it's an accident you know you know it can happen. And so all three of us were just hurtling towards the earth. And luckily enough we were high enough and all three of us had to cut away. And when you and because you're all spinning around and flying into across each other. So you have to coordinate it well and you're kind of screaming who's going to cut away first. And so you don't, you don't want to cut away and then fall on top of someone. And then shoot away doesn't it. Yeah, you have yet to like a three rings called a three ring circus and it's, it's what attaches your rises to to the parachute, and then you, you have a little pad down here on the right. And then you pull that. And then that detaches you from the three, you know from from the rises which are attached to the lines and the rest of the canopy. And you're free for but of course you don't want to fall on to someone else when you do that because you could kill them. And so it's quite a. Yeah, you've got to be a little bit cool, but you know, you know, keep low and move fast in moments like that. And so I was on one of those, and all three of us survived and, and the person who caused the, the accident was very humble. And because you have to be because we all make mistakes. It's not a way, Mike, is there a few kind of heart beating seconds that you just pray that your reserve is going to open okay because obviously if it doesn't, this game over. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah, sure. I mean you rely on and once with them. When you reserve packed. I don't know, you always back then, you know, you, you would get a rigor to pack your reserve, and then they would sign off so they were like highly qualified. You know, parachute maintenance experts and so they would, they would pack your reserve for you and then they would put a lead seal on it. And, and you would have to have that lead seal on, you know, you couldn't get on an aircraft without your reserve parachute having been packed by a licensed rigor. So, you know, the testing and the safety checks in skydiving as in aviation, taken very, very serious, you know, as a mechanic, you know, you don't get to just fix an airplane and then let it go off and fly. You know, every, everything you've done, have done needs to be signed off by the senior engineer aircraft engineer, you know, within the maintenance facility so there's so many checks safety checks in, in military and civil aviation and in skydiving so, but accidents still happen and it's normally human error that causes these things, but that the safety checks are really there in place and are very well respected. And were these were these the days before. Is it called Cyrus, which is the automatic scissors. There's the AODs or automatic opening devices. And the other side, there's different ones of them. Yeah, they were just kind of coming in then and I never had one I mean some people would have them, but they were very expensive. Now it's very common. And so that way, if you do get knocked out or, you know, for whatever reason don't open your parachute often, you know, you might be so engrossed and with what you're doing skydiving you kind of forget that the earth is rapidly approaching and the AAD will fire off once you get I think it's below 1500 feet or something and you can set it and it's. And so that's what all people would have now most people would have those that they're not as expensive as they used to be. And I've been out of the skydiving game since 1998, we did a big thing in Russia, we did a big 300 way in Russia jumping out of Russian helicopters, and it was after that I for all sorts of reasons. I just decided to get out of skydiving after building that big thing in Russia. Thanks to the everybody else on it and also the Russian Air Force but with the MI 26 helicopters, but then I continued with skydiving as but as a skydiving pilot as a skydiver driver so I was working in America just dropping skydivers out of bigger airplanes so. Let's let's let's stick with the skydiving and we'll talk about the flying because I just find this stuff fascinating mate. So, how do you put, well, when was your first base jump do you just go straight and do one or do you have to do a load of training. It was it was base jumping hadn't happened in England and a friend of mine came back from California and he had jumped off Yosemite, a beautiful big wall in well El Capitan, it's a big wall in Yosemite National Park and it was Hank Donnellan, who was a civilian and was a dear friend of mine. And he died base jumping some years later, but. And so we all, and I was in the army at the time. So my, my first base jump was when fact, I think all my early base jumps were as a soldier. I did my, my first base jump in uniform. Off a big mass somewhere near Ipswich. And so yeah, we'd base it's buildings and tenors spans, which means bridges and earth BSE. So that's what base jumping is. And in order to get your base number you have to do all four. Can I just ask you a question. So those of us that have done the balloon jump. Would that count as a base jump, even though you're, you're hooked, you're hooked up to the balloon. Well, I mean, maybe what you could do instead of building could you just say balloon I suppose, because it is, I guess it is a fixed object jumping that's what base jumping is it's fixed objects, like a building antenna span a bridge or an earth. And I don't know why they should just call it babe really be a be but they call it, which would be nice so you know babe jump well maybe you shouldn't do that. But um, yeah, that would get confusing. So you can't call it babe jumping but anyway so instead of bridge they just say span so it's BSE, but but a balloon is tethered as well. And so in a way it is a fixed up, you know, it is a fixed object so I guess you could call balloon jumping which I love when I you know when I was with with the Paras we used to have the every summer they'd be down on Queens Avenue that the, what they called anyway the Air Force would turn up with with their instructors and the balloon would go up every day. It was brilliant and you could turn up. If you're an airborne soldier, you could just turn up and show your ID and they would just give you a rig and it was great because you didn't have to pack them. So they would just give you a rig and four of you would go up with a PJ I that's what I sort of remember a parachute jump instructor and RF PJ I and often a lot of them was the PJ is was skydivers. And because they used to teach on the weekends, the, the RF sport parachute center in. Gosh, what was it called Western on the green. And so, you know, some of them knew me so they would let you sort of do a backflip out the out the out of the balloon but the balloon jumping. We used to love it so quiet and scary so that was very much like a base jump. It's and it's, it's more, it's more nerve wracking than jumping out of a C 130 because in the C 130, you know, the whole thing is your low level, it stinks of vomit, and it's noisy. And it's fast and you're just being thrown out, you know, go, go, go. And so it's, you don't have time to be overly nervous but on a balloon jump. Yes, wonderful and I'm, I'd love some, you know, civilian commercial operation to be set up, just jumping out from from a balloon I mean it's such a beautiful experience. They got rid of it. They got rid of it. I think they thought it was too expensive. They now have like a little caravan, you know little Cessna caravan or whatever they call it the sky van. No, no, it's a Cessna caravan. Oh, no, well a sky van Cessna caravan something else but sky they use a sky van I would have thought they I used to fly a thing called a Casa 212, which is a beautiful airplane. And it's kind of like a mini hook it's got a tailgate, it's a bit bigger than a sky van but sky vans are lovely aircraft. I feel, I've had, you know, I've had the pleasure of talking to a few of my para brothers on the show. And when they say that they haven't done a balloon jump because it's now it's the sky van. It makes me to feel two things my makes me feel old. It also makes me feel incredibly privileged to have done two balloon jumps because that that's gone now that that won't be coming back. It makes you feel more of a man. It makes me feel a unique part of parish, you know military parachuting history. I don't know. I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, I mean, it's not about expense. I don't know what it is about. Maybe it's just. Maybe it's just part of the liberal agenda to feminise the men don't let them jump. We're going to talk more about that in the in the second part of our production here but there was the program I'm sure you watched it called the parrots back in the 70s might have been early 80s. My cousin and I used to go to Lincolnshire and visit my cousins up then we would sit. And there was there was one part of the parrots, which was I don't know they're saying eight part series where they had their balloon jump. And there was a black lad in it. I think this is I think you can find this on YouTube. And the interviewer says says to this chat. As he's going up in the blue, he says, how are you feeling? And he goes, I'm absolutely crap in myself. Like it was like a brummy, a brummy accent or something in my cousin, just on the old VHS video we just rewound that bit and we played it about 50 times over. And that and laughed every time, laughed every time we did. Jumping then. My gosh, the first time you did it had you because now it's all done, you get specialist parachutes they're designed to open very quickly to keep you facing the direction you jump. So if there's a gust of wind, it doesn't spin you around and you hit say a rock face because then that's pretty much unless you're lucky to bounce off it and catch air. It's pretty much game over. But back in the early days, it was your traditional parachute wasn't it were your traditional skydiving shoot. That was another, another thing again hey. Yeah, I mean it's once again the whole packing method was really important when we started base jumping in. It was the first one to do all four, you know the building antenna span and the earth so I got my my base number the Americans were organizing it so now you can still, you have to do all four to get your, your base number so my base number is base 24. So there was a bit of a race on to get the first four in England. And so, and I was in the army as well so we were sneaking off. We did we did the antenna up and we had to climb this thousand foot antenna in. In fact, there was a, there was a marine, it was actually great story. It was myself, two civilians, and we were supposed to meet this marine. Great guy, very very experienced skydiver and soldier. Andy guest, great guy. And so he met up with us. What he was supposed to meet us there but he didn't turn up. So we climbed up this antenna, and all three of us jumped off, we did the first base jump, and then we got down, and then we see another guy. The first person and it was Andy so Andy's climbing up. And so he eventually jumped off as well so all four of us did the first base jump that that day. And hopefully Andy still alive and really really fine person. And then you have them we there was the building so we jumped off a building in London. And then there was the bridge was the was the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol. It was 168 feet. No, I've forgotten how high that is. Maybe it's a bit higher than that. So that's the, the leaning tower pieces 168 I think I think it's 240 feet I think Clifton suspension bridge so we did that. And then the earth was within Marshal once again, he was on the job with me, he didn't jump it but he was with me. And, and that was beachy head in Southern England so I jumped off that. And that was that was the first four. And I got banned from the British Parachute Association, it came out that I was based jumping and, and the whole bunch of stuff kind of hit the fan. Yeah, so your, your shoot then were you just using a regular skydiving shoot and did you make any alterations to the way you packed it. I think we used to pack slider down because we wanted it to open really quickly because the sliders used to kind of slow, I mean, parachute so quickly but you don't want to open too quickly because you know you're going from 120 miles an hour to next to nothing. Very quickly and you know split second so you can really damage your back as sometimes we have done you know if you have a real fast opening it can be quite painful. And so the slide is there to kind of give you a kind of a stage opening. But when you're based jumping, you know you don't want to you want it to open as quickly as possible, especially when you're jumping off really low things. I think I did the lowest parachute jump at the time which was off the leaning tower piece that's 168 feet, and it just opened. It just opened as I did a nice flare and hit the ground but, but I'd worked that I worked it out because I'd found a bridge that was a similar height in England or a road bridge. There was, I think it was about 172 feet. And I didn't jump off it myself but I threw my parachute off it with with a weight that was the same weight as me and it just opened as it hit the ground so I knew it was possible. That was about as scientific as I got, but yeah so we use the same pattern we just use regular skydiving parachutes now there are parachutes that are made, especially for base jumping that you wouldn't use the skydiving. But back then we were just, that's all we had. But the packing method was was was the key thing. And the, the, the first fatality in base jumping was that USA or UK, or somewhere else. Yeah I don't know I, I should imagine it was in. It would have been in, in America. Yeah my friend Frank Collins, sorry not Frank as another dear friend. Yeah, Frank Dinellen, another Frank, let's be Frank. I think he was the first fatality in in England. Yeah it's kind of a sad, ridiculous sad, very sad story but he. I was actually I was it was in the middle of the Falklands war. And we got newspapers, somehow in Fitzroy, there was a mail delivery and these newspapers are right. And, and, you know, wasn't reading them but someone said to me Mac Mac know someone just died base jumping in England. And I thought well it's more than it'd be someone I knew. And it was. It was my son newspaper I think. And there we are you know in the middle of this war and reading this newspaper. And yeah it was my friend Frank Collins and he died jumping off this bridge. I'm sorry this building the same building that I jumped off. A year earlier maybe called trellis towers in London I think I'm not sure where it is in North London somewhere near made of ale maybe. But anyway trellis towers at the time I think it was the tallest apartment building in in Europe which is why we jumped off it. We jumped off that and did a, you know, a very successful jump and, and so Frank jumped off it. Again later, which cost him his life and he what has happened is he had, it was, you know static line again, and he had like you went when you pack your rig for base jumping you would you put your the static line through the loop which kind of closes the four flaps and keeps everything together. And then you put a, you would put, especially if you're transporting it around in your car in your power back. You would tie a little piece of string on it a little break tie to secure it so it wouldn't pull out accidentally. And, and anyway so he was doing this this jump and a friend of ours was with him, and what that friend should have done was looking is just before he was about to climb up and jump off the wall. And then he touched his static line to a strong point. And then he would jump and then it would snap the the static line we just snapped the, the, the, the break tie in but what what he let his pull up cord in there. And so the pull up cord, even though the break tie would break the pull up cord would, would still hold the flaps together so that the parachute wouldn't deploy. So, so Frank, and it wasn't Frank's fault Frank was an experienced skydiver and done a few base jumps. And he was the guy that jump that brought base jumping to England really because his jump of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. So in many ways you could say that he was the Godfather or the grandfather of base jumping in England. And so he fell away from the building, and the break tie broke the static line came away but the parachute didn't deploy, because what was holding everything together was the pull up cord. So if he'd had a good pre jump check which he didn't that that mistake would have been seen. And so he whistled in, you know, but hit the ground and died instant death. And so the tragedy was he actually got married the day before, and his pregnant wife witnessed the whole thing. So she was carrying a child at the time. Who's now my godson. But I learned about all of this in the middle of a war in the South Atlantic. So that was that was the first fatality I became intimately aware of. That bad news. Can you tell us about the Empire. But all these things it's always safety first you know if you're going to do something dangerous you want to be surrounded by people who are always thinking about safety first, you know, whatever you're doing, you know, So when I when I skydived in America. There was one of the one of the guys I was jumping with. They were in an airplane. And the camera camera person so someone that was really into filming skydiving which is a whole nother kind of discipline again you know people take it really serious to filming. And this jumper had taken it so seriously that they got into the plane, and nobody had noticed they forgot to put their parachute on. Right. I know that sounds crazy, but they're so like fiddle with the camera is it set up right you know, I'm not I think this was the days before memory sticks and memory cards it was some, they were just just coming in but you know, so they have they ever the shutter button, you hold it in your mouth, and you just bite it to click the camera, right, so you can keep keep your hands at all this kind of stuff. Yeah they were so intent on checking their equipment that they jumped out the plane, not really realizing they didn't have a shoe on. It's a relief really. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, the Empire State. Yeah, that was a good gateway into, you know, finding out what's really going on but yeah I was, I mean as a civilian so I was teaching. You know the FF, you know skydiving instructor in in Florida in the wintertime in 1986. And then after that, I wanted to, well there's few things I wanted to, I was, I was studying Senator Joseph McCarthy. But anyway, so I wanted to, you know, go and jump off something in in New York and I set my, my heart on jumping off the Empire State building so after a season of, of, you know, skydiving and you know teaching skydiving and doing it for fun as well as teaching is also but I decided to go up to New York in April 1986 with a friend of mine who was a former officer with the South African military guy called Alistair Boyd great guy. And, and he never he was a skydiver he wasn't that experienced as a skydiver and certainly no base jumping. And so his first base jump I took him up an antenna and in Florida and throw him off the top of that. And he did, as he jumped off counting a thousand one thousand two, you know, I said just fall for, you know, for three seconds and then deploy your parachute. And it was a big 1500 foot antenna. And, and as he jumped off he did this perfect spread eagle forward he did a complete 360 forward loop, because he's a big guy. And I thought, Oh, no, you know, it's going to be horrible. I'm watching him he went off first, because I was, I was his instructor so I wanted to coach him well, you know, make sure he's pushing off at the, in the right way and we did a bunch of training on on the ground. Sorry for friends at home with we've got an audio issue and I'm sorry to keep going on about it but podcasts is is all audio is what people listen to so we've got to keep stopping and trying to work out what our technology problem is Mike sorry back to you mate. Yeah, so we took Alistair up the up this antenna 1500 foot antenna in Florida. And he launched himself off. He went off first because I was his coach. And, and he was did this perfect spread eagle, but he's a big, big lad and he went into this forward roll and did a complete 360 a complete front loop. And I thought, no, you know, he's going to die. And, but he came back out face to earth and deployed his parachute and it opened perfectly. And off he went and so that was his first base jump. And, you know, he wasn't that an experienced skydiver and no base jumping experience. So then we went off to New York. He was up for the adventure. And, and I, you know, I picked the Empire State Building, it was the most iconic building in New York. You know, this was the Twin Towers were still alive and well at the time. But nothing is, but not as beautiful and as iconic as the Empire State Building. There's no other way how to do it. And, and you couldn't get parachutes into the elevator. So we just wore our parachutes, you know, we can then pull, you know, put a put our rigs on, pulled our trousers over the harness. So you couldn't see the harness. We put, you know, we had just normal shirts and stuff put the so the rig could be seen, but we wore coats we wore these big trench coats. And, and there are a couple of women waiting to go up the the Eiffel, the Empire State Building as well. And so I just said, look, you know, we're going to do this thing for a film but we need you to sort of help us not be not get caught. So we shuffled into the elevator, but they are because our parent we look like, you know, Quasimodo or the hunchback of Notre Dame. And because we had these big trench coats on but you could see that we had, you know, we had a hunchback because of our rigs. And so we got these girls to young women to put put their arms under the coats and kind of round our back so we was that was what was distorting our body shape. And so they we shuffled into the into the elevator. And then, and off we went up to the 86th floor which is the public viewing platform it's, it's, if you see the King Kong film it's the it's the bit just below it's the top most it's not the highest floor, but it's the 86th floor there's other floors you can access, but not as a civilian not as a member of the public. And it's got them. It's got a big, big fences and they're with spikes kind of pointing in to stop people because people have tried to climb I think that there've been a few suicides off it. Over the years so that that was a security to prevent people from climbing, you know from throwing themselves off and committing suicide. So that was what that was there for. So, but I knew we could climb that. And so the right man and there was a little bit of a wind on that day, just a little bit of a headwind. And I wanted to go off facing the, the World Trade Center you're facing lower Manhattan. And, and so I, you know, and Alistair was just, you know, going on my command so, so we just stood by the fence. And I said, I'll let you know when is the time to, to, to start climbing the fence. And so I just gave the signal, we throw, throw off our coats. These, you know, these young women were with us but we just throw off our coats. And then we started climbing as soon as we started climbing the Tannoy, you know, the, the, the public address system started blaring get off the fence, get off the fence, you know, because they're monitoring it all the time in the security room and and everyone's panicking everyone's screaming you know, is this couple of suicide maniacs about to kill themselves and so everyone's shouting get off the fence and and so we just climbed down the other side and there's these kind of parapets along the front I think it's four or five of them I think so I stood on one and and I was just stood on the other couple away from me. And I'm not you know I he just knew he had to follow me. And so we put on our static lines because we needed as much altitude canopy time as possible because there's, there's nowhere to land it's just all streets and other buildings. So there's no green fields or you know parks or anything. So I knew we had to land in the streets. And it was, you know, sort of rush hour. So the streets were very very busy. It was the first thing in the morning in Manhattan. And so, um, so I just jumped off and you know the canopy open pretty quickly, because it was static line. And then I cleared from in front of them. And so I went off and then I started turning left and heading towards Fifth Avenue. I think the Empire State Boomers on 34th Street, 34th and fifth, and then, and then Alice had jumped off and he opened this is guide only done one base jump before and not a lot of skydiving, but such a, you know, had complete faith in me which is not the most, the best thing but in this instance I knew what I was doing but it always always check your instructor. But yeah, I'm quite reliable in, you know, challenging moments, but anyway, so he jumped off after me and then, and then so I'm coming into land on Fifth Avenue and in Manhattan, the avenues go with all the traffic, and then they stop and then all the streets go. And just by God's grace, so beautiful as I came in as I thought well because there's all these cars going there's nowhere to land I was going to have to land in between two row, but the red lights went on and all the cars stopped. And suddenly there's this clear beautiful area like much bigger than a boxing room, you know it's a cross streets and and I just flared came into the lovely landing. And I knew that Alistair was right behind me. So I knew I had to kind of clear out the way, you know, really quickly because I knew he was just following me he's very very obedient, and certainly was able to land correctly. And, and my mistake was I did I should have collapsed my parachute, but in way it was kind of maybe it was all part of the, the big plan but um, but instead I just move forward and because I was moving forward my parachute stayed inflated. And it hooked on a traffic signal. And, and just, you know, collapsed and I couldn't put I couldn't pull it down it was it was hooked onto this traffic signal. Alistair came in and did a beautiful landing, picked up his canopy and disappeared just ran off because that was the briefing I said right you land, and you just get out of there. And we just, we just get a cab back to where we were staying. And that's another story where we were staying, but um, he's disappeared. All right the wind blew my office door open. It's a sign it's fine. And so I, so I thought I don't, I'm not going to give run away from my parachute I mean it's my, it's my rig you know it's my, my best friend so I, I kind of stayed with it. And I'm trying to pull the thing off, and then the police came, you know the NYPD turned up. And then in touch with the NYPD. And so they, you know, detained me. And, and in loads of people came up and everyone was very friendly and they everyone thought it was very cool and but everyone was very frustrated because now all the traffic was blocked and there's lots of honking of horns. And then Alistair very coolly, they backed up a truck, and because they wanted to know who the other guy was the police I said I don't know just some guy I met you know I know some, some skydiver you know, I don't know who he is. And, and, but Alistair they backed up a truck. And so whilst I'm being, you know interrogated by these, these, these two police officers. The truck comes up and backs up and then Alistair climbs on top of the truck unhooks the parachute. Obviously he'd stashed his rig away by this time unhooks my canopy that drops down to the road I pick it all up, and Alistair then disappears again. So good soldier, you know, South African Defense Force. Don't, don't let you down when when things kick off but so he came back he could have easily just run off, but he took the risk, came back into the into the picture and still, you know help me and then when carried on with his mission was was to get away from the area and back to where we were staying. And so I then I got detained and I got you know handcuffed when I didn't get handcuffed they put me in a police car and I got taken to the local precinct. And that the, the, the sergeant of the precinct as we walked in is screaming at me you know get cuffs on that man get cuffs on that man. And the two guys are, you know, arrested me were very, very apologetic that they had to put handcuffs on me. They put me in a cell with this with this African American, who's a little bit out of it. And so we're stuck in the cell together. And, and he said, Well, what are you here for. And I just, I just jumped off the Empire State Building with a parachute. And yeah, he couldn't believe it. He thought it was correct. So that really made his day and then I was eventually, you know I was in there for a few hours, and then I was eventually released. And when I got out of the police, the police station there was a podium had been set up and there was all this media there to talk to me and which you know I wasn't expecting but they wanted me to say something. It became a catalyst for many, many other adventures. And then they say it's what are you going to do now and I said well you know I've got nowhere to live but you know I'm trying to kind of get back to Europe and find out of money so hopefully I'll find a way and. And then so that went out over the over the networks, and this lovely Jewish woman heard it and she rang up the, the television station, and said you know if he if he needs somewhere to stay, I can give him an apartment. Lovely lady Janet Wolf who is a big shareholder of Philip Morris tobacco I think she'd been a minor film star in Hollywood in the 30s or 40s and. And so she became a dear friend, and so she gave me my own apartment, overlooking central part for the next six months, but I learned a lot from her. Just through, you know, as a friend, and you know she I learned a lot about Edward Bernays and how, you know, he is a nephew of Sigmund Freud got got America through the film industry, you know drinking tobacco and and drinking tobacco smoking tobacco and so that's you know there's always tobacco and alcohol in all these these films and there are still to this day. And then my lawyer was another good Jewish guy guy called Stanley Thutman, and he represented me for free because I then had to wait until the court case. And so, so I learned through his circle of friends I learned a lot about the corruption of the American legal system who captured that iconic photograph of you jumping. Yeah that I forgotten who took that photograph of the of the Empire State Building jump but it was the same company, Sigma, which is a French news agency, and they, and they they covered the Eiffel tower jump that I've done a couple of years earlier about 18 months after the Falklands war. And the guy that took the photograph of me jumping off the Eiffel tower. And he took that photograph and he was the photographer who was first on the scene when Princess Diana died or didn't die in the tunnel but died sooner late late later in when she crashed in the tunnel in Paris and it was a Jack long within lots of cameras and camera man turned up and but Jack because he was an experienced war photographer as well. He put down his cameras everybody else was taking photographs, they were called the Paris six is Jack was the one they let go, because he put down his cameras and got in and try to stop the bleeding and just try to do first aid and there's a horrible scene but so that was Jack. So Sigma covered, so I, Sigma covered the jump in Paris and then so a couple of years later, I recruited them to cover the jump in New York. And you're flying career, Mike, when did you have your first flying lesson? Well, I guess you might maybe my first lesson was when I was at boarding school and our boarding school had the Army Air Corps we had our own squadron, 2330 squadron of the Army Air Corps which is like the Scouts like the C Scouts. So I, my first lesson, maybe was in was in a chipmunk. And, you know, it was a, it was an RAF trainer or it was at the time so beautiful little two seater low wing single engine aircraft so that was, but my first lesson as an adult was in, I guess I started my, my training in, in Texas in Fort Worth, Texas, sometime in the 80s. And then I kind of stopped it all and went back into soldiering and war photography. And then in the 90s, early 90s, I think, I forgot we have to look at my logbook but I then, you know, got out of what I was doing filming and training soldiers and skydivers but it's like I try to get a career change now. So I went on a, I did a six month course in Florida, and I did my commercial, my commercial helicopter license first which is unusual normally you start with fixed wing, but I did my commercial helicopter training in Florida. And then I transferred to fixed wing so I did my helicopter stuff then I went to single engine and fixed wing aircraft and multi engine fixed wing aircraft and my instrument rating and so I did all of that in six months so whereabouts in Florida mate. My helicopter stuff was, and single engine fixed wing aircraft was all in, in DeLan, which DeLan Florida which is also brilliant skydiving. So I was skydiving and flying, but mostly that six months I was mostly flying all the time. I was doing helicopters and fixed wing jumping in and out of and then I did all my fixed wing train, sorry, my multi engine training I did in my, my instructors name for multi engine was a guy called trip whack of the third. It was an unusual name, but and there's been three of them. And so he was trip whack of the third giant man and so I did. I did my multi engine training with him in Daytona. I learned to fly in Fort Pierce. Okay, yeah in Florida. Yeah, and I learned to skydive in Sebastian. Brilliant. Yeah, I've flown there and skydive there as well. It's a great part of the world. It really is Sebastian was such a I'm not sure what it is to this day but Sebastian was very, I mean DeLand and Zephyr Hills with a big commercial operations in Florida and then Sebastian opened up and has done brilliant work. I mean, Andy Grimway was the guy that owned Sebastian and he was a great character and and still is alive and well. Oh, hang on. He's English, right. Yep. Kind of a fairly shortage stocky guy with dark hair. Yeah, stocky. He was quite the rogue and but a big, big guy I think as I remember him. I haven't seen him for years. What do you have owned Sebastian in 2005. I don't know. I think maybe not. I think maybe not. I mean I last time I was flying in Sebastian would have been I was on a Casa 212. I flew down there. I was working for a company in North Carolina and and we operated Casa 212 and Twin Otters and King Air's all around America. And and so I was down there I think in maybe 1999 2000. I don't think Andy was running it then I'm not sure I can't remember. Yeah, but he's alive and well. Now I've got a photo of the chap who ran it when I was there. He was an English guy. These get marines there funny enough on R&R. They just go and they go and do their AFS. Yep. To our great public there you have no idea what a recipe for shenanigans that is. You can guarantee they all would have jumped naked. When the marines turn up at the civilian skydiving operations, they're always very popular. They're always a lot of fun. And they're obviously the fittest people on the drop zone that day. And now the marines, you know, British forces generally make a very welcome in the skydiving scene in America and and I think certainly bring a lot of fun to it and a little bit of maybe lots of social faux pas as well. But that's why they're loved. Did you have any near misses when you were flying? Yeah, well, yes, a few. Yeah, I've been in a few plane crashes. And this is where peer pressure is a dangerous thing and it's caught me out a couple of times in my life where you know you shouldn't be doing something. But your friends around you are saying it'll be okay, it'll be okay, but everything inside of you and this has happened twice in my life. I'm thinking no, no way we should not be doing this. But I ignore that little voice inside of me that that that voice is there to protect us. And the one time I was training the close protection team of the Prime Minister's bodyguard in and the guard of the Royal Family in Thailand. There's one of the units I was training and I was teaching them skydiving and microlight flying. And so one of the students had been a bad landing in the microlight and it damaged it. So I had to repair it. And I've done the test flights but it just wasn't well, you know, it wasn't really ready to go back into training, you know flight training so we went back to the skydiving program. But in Thailand they have this Memorial Day parade every year for all the soldiers that have died in, in, you know, wars that the Thai army have fought. So I had this big parade at this at the place where I was training these guys and they had a massive runway for for C 130s. And my friend who was at the time he was like the personal bodyguard for the Prime Minister and wherever the Prime Minister of Thailand went my friend Yod, who's since been killed would kind of travel with him. And so and he was running the team that I was training. And so he wanted to impress the senior commander of the Thai military he was coming to the parade they were going to have this massive parade on the on the on the base. And he wanted to show off all the microlight training, and he wanted me to fly the microlight and for him to jump out of it. And I said no no no that we there's no way we should be flying this aircraft just forget about it let's just focus would do it would jump out of a Huey helicopter would do that would do the parachute display for the boss for the big general. And but we're not going to do the microlight flying. He said no no no. Because that was my nickname Monkate, which means dead on the spot in Thai. And oh no we must, we must do it. And please please do one more flight so I thought okay. So I took the aircraft out the hangar. It was a two seater microlight made Pegasus made by a British company really, really good aircraft and maybe maybe it's not made by any it might be made Americans but it's a really really nice aircraft. And so I took it from flight around the. Well that was a plan I would take this thing off so it's a big long runway, so I, you know, launched the microlight took off. And I could, I knew the center of gravity and I knew the whole thing it shifted and when you, when you, when your stall speed. Kind of increases when when you're in a turn in an aircraft. So and I knew if I if I made a turn, I was right on the edge of the store flying sort of, even though I was, I was climbing. And I got into straight and leveled it was so close to the store. I thought I don't want to go into a turn, because I'm going to stall the aircraft and so I thought I've got to, I'll just land, because it was a long long runway. So I thought I'll just land the aircraft, no way am I going to go flying with this thing it's ridiculous I knew it was wrong anyway, and. And. Oh no sorry. I actually did I did a turn but I so I did the turn. I did the loop around the the and but it was very close to the store I did the loop around the camp came into land, and I made the decision I thought no way should I be flying this. So now I'm taxing back to the hangar and there's my friend yard, and he's got his helmet on he's got his rig on, and, and all, all these seniors off officers around him, and he comes up to me and I switched the engine off he goes my cat team, we must go it look good it look good everything was fine. I said no way you are we are certain this thing is not good it's bad enough with me in it. If I put another another bit of weight in it with you on board. It would be safe to fly. And I knew I'd made the right decision, but peer pressure kicked in, and my brain left the room. And, and I said okay, getting the back so with the microlight you know the pilots in the front and the student or the passengers in the back and it's got a rear, it's got an engine the propellers at the back you know it's big heavy engine behind you. So I got in I went back to the taxi door from should be doing this but in the noise I'll do it I'll be very sensible and. And so, so we took off. And I noticed straight away that things are changed you know all that extra weight. I thought no there's no way I'm not going to go into a turn I'm not going to go around the camp what he wanted me to fly up to a few thousand feet. I just think well know what I didn't realize he wanted me to fly low level over the crowd drop off what he I didn't realize this but he put all these flowers in these big bags, and he was going to throw them out and it was kind of a Buddhist thing to throw the flowers out all over the crowd, and then we're going to fly around and go up to the, he was about to tell me all this are over the, we're going to be able to communicate through the helmets, you know we are wide up together. And, and then we're going to fly up to a few thousand feet and he was going to jump out and be the hero and land in front of the commander of the Thai military, but we didn't get that far so I did I made this decision I thought right I've got to just, I've just got to gently I've just got to bring into land, you know just keep keep going straight ahead, and land the aircraft, and as I reduce the power. It kind of dropped the nose dropped, and then the aircraft just twisted around and went right right onto its back. And so, and this happened at about 1000 feet. And it just dropped like a stone, and there was nothing I could do I'm trying to, you know, I lost all control of the aircraft and we were just whistling towards the ground. And I thought this is it this is the end. And, but what was fortunate if we didn't hit the hard runway it's a big wide runway, but just the sides of the runway was kind of like this and kind of sand and stone pebbles. And so the aircraft hit that and that's what saved us really but I kind of as we hit it was a big flash and I was unconscious for a few seconds. And then as I wake up I'm in a lot of pain, because I dislocated my hip. So I'm still upside down in my harness with a dislocated hip might my hip is now here and my leg is across me kind of very painful thing, a dislocated hip. And so I released my harness and just kind of dropped onto the ground. And then your run he's laughing his head off. And yeah, laughing his head off kind of in shock really and and he's kind of broken his hand still got his rig on. And I actually see that all I saw just that first second was there was all this red and yellow around me and I thought the engine had come through and taken his head off. And there was just blood and guts all around me and I was kind of in an altered state you know just coming around from, from being unconscious. And I thought, Oh my God, you know, I've killed your I've killed your and then I heard this laughing and yards wandering around in shock as well, and with a broken hand. And, and so he was alive so I was relieved. And then they and then there's ambulance and there's everyone running and it was right in front of this massive parade. It was quite quite funny in a way. And, and that's peer pressure, but they had to get me in the ambulance and take me off to the local hospital and then they casual back me by military helicopter to Bangkok and there was a there was a war going on at the time, up in Laos with the time when lots of guys were being flown in and getting limbs amputated not so I got treated really well in this hospital. But they couldn't get me in the door of the ambulance with this dislocated hip my legs sticking out. And so that's kind of twist me into the ambulance, and which sort of added to the pain but um, so peer pressure is a dangerous thing and you have to be aware when it's coming your way and stand your ground, I would say, and, and obey that little voice inside you that saying, don't do this. Yes. And I've ignored it before as well so once one other time. Let's come on then and talk about your war corresponding because that that all sounds fairly near the knuckle and I think exciting probably an understatement what. How did that come about. Yeah, well the first war I did I was 24. And it was just after the the Eiffel Tower jump. Because Sigma were a news agency in Paris, and so I had some good connections there. And it was that I was at the time when I was studying and I was trying to figure out, you know, why we have these wars. And that was a continuation of a catalyst actually when I was nine years of age I remember coming back to London to visit my grandmother, who lived in this house she'd left. Island, the year the war broke out with my father who's age four at the time they'd moved to London into an area which was called little island at the time it's not little island anymore. So that's where Ford Motor Company were so that are still I think. And so lots of Irish people were getting jobs with Ford Motor Company so that's why my family moved there or my, my, my grandparents with with their children. And, and so she, you know, raise these children, because my, my, my grandfather died, kind of a few years after the Second World War. We raised six children, very devout Catholic woman in the same house. And so we would visit them, we'd come back from Germany at Christmas time. And I remember the age of nine stood opposite the house, and it was the streets that have been bombed by the German Air Force. And I guess in response to the British Air Force bombing Germany first. You know, they, they were focused on the industrial parts of London. And so Dagenham was was one of those. And, and so, you know, she lived, and so many of those houses have been destroyed. And so I remember as a nine year old thinking, and we were living in Germany I really love Germany and I love the German people. We traveled all over the country and Austrian Switzerland and Italy on our summer holidays. And I remember thinking, well, why would the nice German people want to kind of bomb the nice British people like, why would they want to do that and so as a nine year old I was beginning to think there must be something terribly wrong. And so I continued my studies throughout my early adulthood and then I thought I'd get into war photography after the Falklands war. The first war I covered was the, was with Eritrea and Ethiopia at the time. And, and so I went I wanted to, I kind of wanted to find out what was really going on. And they had a big famine and I knew because I'm an Irishman so I knew that that, you know, crops do fail, and they had a massive famine in Ireland in the, in the mid 1800s, which, you know, millions died and millions were, many were pushed out into into elsewhere in the, the bankers empire known as the British Empire into North America and elsewhere but so I just felt that there was something going on about this famine. And because the family one second. So yeah, regarding famines and you know the famine that I was aware of was the, you know, the, the Irish famine and back in the mid 1800s and crops do fail but, but famines are rigged. I mean, you know, famines are man made, but crops do fail. And so I knew that, you know, and millions died in the Irish famine and were displaced into other parts of the, the bankers empire known as the British Empire so it's a tragedy for my nation for the Irish. And there's actually a great book by Chris Fogarty it's called the perfect Holocaust because at the time in the 18 mid 1800s it was called a Holocaust. And so this is a very good book very well researched, no conspiracy theory just studying the data and, you know, the official record of the Empire, you know, half the British Empire was in in Ireland at the time or sorry half the British army was in in in Ireland at the time you know the biggest empire the world's ever known half its military forces were stationed in Ireland, and they were called food removal regiments. And that's, that's kind of what led me I guess to study the, the family in Ethiopia so I went there over the winter of 84 and 85, and to, to try and figure out what was really going on with Western aid food. So I went behind enemy lines us with the air train people's liberation front and documenting their side of the story. So I went behind enemy lines to document the misuse of the Western aid food so a lot of Western aid was flooding into to to Ethiopia. And it was primarily feeding the Ethiopian army, because the Ethiopian army was getting weapons from the Soviet Union at the time, but they weren't getting any food so they rigged this famine. But there was definitely big problems with with food in in that part of Africa at the time but it could have been dealt with a lot better. And if the food had been distributed correctly would have saved a lot of lives, but they use that to get all this food. And there's other mainstream media isn't putting it out this way. So I went there and so I documented the misuse of Western aid food and Tigray and traders would come into Ethiopian hell territory, they would, the officers would sell surplus food to, which was meant to be given to starving people that they would sell it to Tigray and and then these long camel trains with eight sacks of grain, each would would move through Eritrean hell land, and the Eritreans would take some of it because they were that you know they were malnourished as well, but they were fighting a war. And so they would take some of the food. The rest of the food would then the vast majority of it would be being sold by these Tigray and traders into the markets of Sudan. So I came, I came back from that with this story of the misuse of Western aid food that I documented. And I, I've done lots of interviews with these Tigray and traders and Ethiopian prisoners of war and you know it was my it was my first war as a photojournalist. And I filmed you know people dying whole bunch of stuff. In what I wrote a song about it. How, how were they dying. I mean, it's starvation of starvation I mean those soldiers getting killed as well but what was the saddest was the, you know, people dying of starvation. But yeah I saw very interesting things. Just a whole bunch of stuff about that war. But the big that the story that I sold was to the Sunday Times of London was the misuse of Western aid food. So I went in there and you know they debrief me I spoke to them for a few hours, told them everything about what I'd experienced and I had photographs to prove it. And they bought the photographs, and they put they just put one photograph in there, photograph of camels with with sacks of grain. And, and they told a different story. They told a different story to the one I told them. And then live aid came on the big concert with Bob Geldorf and all of that. And it's just it's without telling what was really going on, you know the misuse of Western aid food. And so the crime continued and live aid, you know, a lot of good people around live aid but that they weren't telling the whole story. And so, yeah, that was, you know, and so that's when I began to realize that the media's rigged. Sorry, Michael, I've just got my mail arrived this morning, and there's an obviously that the perfect Holocaust by Chris Fogarty is an excellent read if you want to understand famine, and how they're rigged. But I just got this other wonderful book just in the mail. So yeah, very, very much looking forward to getting that and I'm not I'm speaking to the manner wrote it so look at that. I just arrived my son just handed me the envelope. And so that will be my next read. I speak to the man who wrote it every day that's because I'm losing I'm losing the plot. So just to finish off before we go to the other platform. You've seen an awful lot in your life. Mike, and I don't want to talk about your learning here because that's why we're going to go to the other platform but how's it affected you on a mental health level. I think I'm perfectly normal. But yeah, I mean all these things affect you and you know your day is a constant stream of your of your memories. But I try not to be you know I do reflect on things and and and to many ways on other people that are no longer with us it's good to to think of our friends that have been lost along the way, but I'm not consumed by it, and I'm more and you know I don't drink alcohol I'm not against it. I do, you know, on special occasions maybe meeting up with old friends and family or and certainly on Christmas day and Easter Sunday I'll have a bit of wine. But as a daily weekly drinker I keep that out of my life I think that many ways alcohol takes away the part of you that protects you so. You know I think it's a good medicine at certain times but I think is if it's a habit. It's, I think it lessens you. And so I'd recommend you're keeping physically fit and eating good food and lots of water and lots of, you know, the right amount of sleep and lots of fresh air. So, I think, rather me consumed by my past. I'm more inspired by my vision of the future and the work that I need to do, along with many, many people, and that numbers rising around the world that do have more love they have more truth and they do have better ideas. And so it's about bringing those people together and to be to become a formidable force and and that's it because it's it's happening on our watch and we're, we have a formidable enemy and they're obsessed with hate and with deception and bad ideas so we really have to be about love, truth, and better ideas for the sake of all peoples of the world. And that's, that's the movement we're caught up in. And I love it. We must carry on and do our best. Mike, well, very well said. Thank you for everything you've you've enlightened us with so far. Thank you for watching Life. Hence the name of the podcast. So, massive love to you. Please like and subscribe. Thank you. Hello, friend. I hope this finds you well. I'm a former Royal Marines Commando and I fought my way back from chronic trauma and addiction to live, work, and travel in 80 countries across all seven continents, achieving all of my dreams and goals along the way. Now I pass my simple system on to other people, but I can only help you if you like and subscribe. So please do so because you get one life and if you live it right, one is enough.