And that is Who Dares Wins The Legendary FES film starring Lewis Collins. Every man wanted to be him, every woman wanted to be him as well. No, Lewis is a lad and a great character and you know he was the James Bond we never had. I'm delighted to have you on the show today. Great to be here, thank you for inviting me. Well I literally feel like the luckiest man in the world mate because I just get to meet the most fascinating people and just have the conversations about stuff that I want to and stuff that I consider not important, I mean not every conversation has to be important but they have to be more interesting than what soap opera is on the tally or just about football. Football is great but when you've got that mate that he only can talk about football it's like dude come on, you've got children, they want to know other stuff. So absolutely brilliant, shall we say a thank you? So I should just say Mark Ryan, Friends At Home, big Hollywood man has smashed out all the Transformers movies as our American brothers and sisters call them, films as we say in the UK, also a former intelligence operative and also which is quite relevant to the video that I did with John Hegan the other day which I suggest everybody watches, there'll be a link below if I write it down to remember it that is and that is who dares wins the legendary S.A.S. the classic all-time S.A.S. film starring our all-round hero Louis Collins, every man wanted to be him, every woman wanted to be him as well, something like that Mark isn't it? Lou was a lad and a great character and you know he was the James Bond we never had or with all due respect to Daniel Craig who I like and to Sean Connery if you're on and to Jason, Lou was the James Bond that we never had and should have been? Yes I loved it when Daniel Craig became James Bond because he wasn't the toffy nose toff that the summaries and the Hollywood had decided would represent James Bond because James Bond was a tough cookie he was orphaned a young age so he's like a lot of us a trauma sufferer from from birth or from from from youth or infancy I should say and of course he was a hard man. Well the books I before you even wrote will go off on a tangent the books are actually brilliant of course written by Ian Fleming who was an intelligence operator during the Second World War his brother is less famous but more actually more mysterious Peter Fleming actually worked directly for the London controlling section that was run by Churchill so Fleming's oldest brother Peter was involved with some of the most strange and the most interesting intelligence operations of the Second World War so Fleming drew a lot of that obviously that information and obviously the later information about Russians but probably the best one of the best spy novels ever written is from Russia with Love it's absolutely brilliant. Yes I like the old James Bond books it's very funny reading them now though because there's so much stuff you just you wouldn't get away with as a novelist and I've written two fiction books and you wouldn't get away with it from a political correctness point of view absolutely yeah and that's it's very dated some of it like every time he meets an animal in a nature it's a it's a man killer when actually no it dude that's just a fish you know it's a pretty pretty freaking tame Mr Fleming but he was he was linked to intelligence wasn't he? Peter or Ian sure you worked for Naval Intelligence during the war he worked if you want me to go off on this I will I mean there's a lot of discussion who M is in the books I prefer to believe that it was actually Sir Stuart Menzies M for Menzies who was Ed of MI6 or the Secret Intelligence Service SIS that's who he based M on but there are lots of things in the books that still ring true today I mean the Q department Q a lot of the weapons that were developed were the pattern room at Enfield where I was a frequent visitor and borrower of equipment when we used to do our training but also to go and look at the weapons and a lot of stuff that was developed and kind of shows up in the Bond films was in reality developed at Enfield Small Arms and by the pattern room so there's a lot of stuff in there which is based on based on you know fact I was on a snowboarding holiday and I became friends with it with a chat we're still friends to this day and his garage service the James Bond car the the the actual original and he gave me he sent me a photo of him pushing the red button Oh great great stuff I mean you know what a fantastic film franchise and great for Britain as well but no Fleming was a very interesting character and complex right but the books like who dares wins because we're probably going to go back to that in a minute who dares wins was of its period it was written for a certain time and place in British cinema probably couldn't be made now that film today Good morning gentlemen good morning any fun sir this exercise will take the form of a cross country pursuit terminating at the top of that easy now you two gentlemen will be given a one hour head start whatever better get going boy I'll tell you when we get going better get going sludge they're already here hey get off me and not you are shitting the professionals I prefer Doyle right now ask one question one question only now action be too difficult sorry what what are you gonna do ask one question one question only how many questions ask one question one question only or are you two alone can you borrow my phone are you two alone what E.T. go home are you two alone give a dog a phone are you two alone pass give me one on sport that's not the answer didn't hurt didn't hurt didn't hurt can you scratch my nose thank you I will and Fleming's books the original books and some of the early films Bond films are of their time you know they look terribly dated now but of their time they were you know groundbreaking and certainly there's a lot of stuff in there which is was prophetic in many ways yes I'm just gonna if you see me looking looking across mark I'm not being rude I'm um I'm just watching the horse racing no I'm just getting up on the other screen some pictures that I can flick up for for people at home so you'll just have to trust me that they're all good and decent and it doesn't say marks a knob it's all right people saying that anyway out there may don't worry about it yeah so just flashing a picture up of our man our man in um Barbados wasn't it I think Ian Fleming reside too because he's be a big fan of spearfishing yeah and he his house was called GoldenEye you know that's why the film is called GoldenEye because his home was called GoldenEye in the in the Bahamas yes so before we begin let's just give a special thank you to Martin Webster yeah Martin was on the podcast the other day it's a great episode folks we're waiting to air Martin was the chap who you might remember in the news of the world footage um a few years ago was on top of a building in Iraq and he was filming with his camera uh what looked to be an untoward beating of Iraqi civilians and after my chat with Martin I just had a got a completely different insight into that event he made a film called The Diary of a Disgraced Soldier I'll put a link for it below where you can watch it online folks very nice man and so yes so Martin big thank you Mark can we go straight into who dares wins them sure whatever you which way you want to go yeah let's go for that because I know a lot of our our viewers will be um interested I tried to get in the SAS um and I failed uh because I was too hard but you know yeah I can see that about you you've got you know it's your eyes mate can I mean immediately it's the one inch punch that I perfect it or is it the double that I that's what that's what frightens people yeah well it's that or the thousand-yard stare you've got to practice the thousand-yard glaring that's just that's just when I'm when I'm stoned I what let me give you the background to this because um I'm sure some of your listeners will be interested or or not but anyway I was doing a show in the west end called Evita and I was playing Shagavara and um uh I'm actually going to just change that oops it is I should have done that anyway you could probably edit that bit out that's right we'll we'll keep rolling um and I was doing a show in in the west end called Evita and I already met Lou I met Lou up in Manchester when he was doing the cuckoo waltz so we've been sort of pals on and off and I bumped we kept bumping into each other at do's in the west end and um during the day my family I come from a long line of military people I come like going back to my great grandfather we served all over the world my father and his four brothers three brothers all served in the second world I grew up in it with a history of people serving the first world world military medals and all kinds of stuff so um it was just a tradition in the family but I've gone into the music business uh and the entertainment industry and I was uh but as we all did in those days everybody was you know wanted to do something surf somewhere all of my pals on my mace were kind of involved so we used to go regularly to the breccan beacons and run up and down the pen and penifan and all that kind of stuff so we used to go up there and do that a lot um and I'd finish a show on a saturday night and we'd drive out to wales and go up and down the mountains and run around the mountains and come back and go back to the show on a on a monday night um and anyway I actually bumped into louis collins uh in the breccan beacons it's absolutely true story in the middle of nowhere with tom conti and a bunch of other people and ian sharp the director of udes wins and we literally bumped into each other in the middle of somewhere and um we got chatting it was raining of course we just said I said what are you what are you doing up here why are you up here now because I knew was it involved with tem para at the time as well um which he passed of course he'd be he had his cherry berry and um he said oh i'm training for this film i'm going to do called udes winsians directing it so i got chatting with in ian literally in the breccan beacons and i said what are you doing i said i'm playing shag of iron of each he said i'd love to come and see you so ian and lou and their respective partners came to see evita with me playing jay and afterwards um as we got towards more of the products of the film ian said i'd love you to be in this film a way to play this character one of the bad guys so i said okay fine so the last six to eight weeks i think it was six weeks of me playing shay in the west end i would drive to pinewood or wherever we were shooting and we shot my segments um in the film and uh as i say lou and i remained friends all the way up to when i was doing robin assured um we've been pals a long time and uh and i had quite a few adventures so uh that's how it all came about that was the reality why i got invited by ian to be involved with the film wow sorry i was just going to get a picture of chay up there for our younger friends out there who who um might not have been barrage one of the t-shirts that we were growing up i followed chay's story you know i followed it from argentina to to um cuba down to his delivery which he was executed in wasn't it yeah well it was yes he was off yes sadly i think maybe we we take that mark as maybe a podcast for another day because it's um i'm happy to talk about yeah any of that there's a whole show we're doing about just uvita in the background of that i have spent four years in that in the west end yeah and i've been to um when is aris and been to uvita's morse morseliam is that the right word the big congregate thing that they put families in yeah um but getting back to who dare's wins so you know louis yeah how did you you got to play can we say the bat i don't like to use the word bad guy but i don't don't yeah that's what it is right i was don't forget i'm playing shea i had a beard and long curly hair and i know it's weird now because you're going to go what did you once have hair and i once had a head of curly hair and um so i looked very very sort of uh mediterranean ish i was playing shea gavaras i ended up playing nazi and robin and sherwood and um that's also due to ean char and he obviously looked at me and went oh he's going to play like a bad guy you're one of the terrorists or something so um uh that's our cast because of the way basically i looked and also i was obviously playing shea so um i ended up playing one of the bad guys and lou was desperate to shoot me that is absolutely true he was all the way through the film it was i'm trying to have it rewritten so at the end i can shoot you which then became a joke um but i was actually shot by a stuntman called terry forestall who was also uh in the special forces and uh forestall died uh during a parachuting accident as his base jump accident some years ago but terry was uh was the actually the person that shot me in the face but lou was desperate to do it so he but he never did he never got to shoot me can we just um just just go back there a sec did you say an sas guy that died in a base jump yeah terry forestall was a member of the regiment he wasn't that chap that was on a documentary on a television was he i don't know which documentary are you referring to i was chatting the other day with one of my base jumping friends about this i'm not sure if it was mike mccarthy um yeah i can't quite remember well there was two tip tipping is it was one guy tip tipping was a guy that was killed in a parachuting accident yeah and i've had an andy guest on the podcast who was um in the raw marines freefall display team and right they were um i was asking them if they knew i saw a documentary about 10 years ago probably 15 years ago now and it was an sas guy parachuting up there in norway where they jump off the cliffs in the in the base jump yeah and he turned he was turning to his mates and going do you know i don't quite feel right about it you know and there is a key a key sign of like where you shouldn't be throwing yourself you know and of course yeah well say of course but ultimately he this chap died and now now that you mentioned i just wondered if it could be the same person well it might have been because what the case was um followed a look for a couple of days because what happened was he was brushed against the cliff face he was forced against the cliff face by the the wind and he ended up on a ledge and he he already got two broken legs uh telly from a previous stunt that went wrong from on a motorbike so yeah he re-broke his legs and so he was on this cliff face but it was too windy to get a chopper in so he was literally on this cliff face um waiting to be rescued but they couldn't get to him and from what i understand he either decided to get off the cliff and try and open his spare chute or whatever it already got already fell off the cliff whatever he slipped off the cliff base and and he's very sadly was he was killed in the accident oh yes is that thing isn't it it's better to die being a you know living like a tiger than it is to live live as a coward telly was uh telly was a good stuntman and um you know as with all of these things and i know plenty of people martin grace for instance we met good palomino over the years martin grace was also uh one of the best bond stunt men ever he got injured quite seriously on a bond film and broke his legs um and uh you know you you want to go out shining you don't want to go out you know with a whimper and um these guys understand risk you know and what i didn't understand about that was and it does happen in this business a lot you you do a risky thing once and it works and you've got it in the can hopefully you've got it filmed and then they'll go back could you give me another one and that is always when the accidents happen is when you just go beyond that one thing of of safety and that is when and it can sometimes be fatal and telly was a stuntman telly forestal yeah yeah i'm just going to get a picture up i've i've got one here of him throwing himself off a off a scaffold i don't know if that's meant to be an explosion going off behind him i'm guessing it is probably that's how the martin grace or telly forestal yeah fun funny enough there's very few photos of him on the internet which i suppose you expect from a stuntman because they're generally not supposed to be seen are they all there and all they hide their faces you'll notice there's a lot of this going on you know you see who dares wins in fact martin grace was the double for louis collins in uh who dares wins you'll see him a lot where in the scene where i get on the bus behind louis there's a scene where lou then gets off the bus and he's almost run down by a car but it's actually uh martin grace his stunt double and the other scene where he jumps onto the boat where he runs and i'm chasing him on the motorbike and he jumps on the boat that was also martin grace so you know that's the connection there is between the stunt guys martin grace and then telly and and lou and martin grace has done indiana jones am i right yeah did everything he did a picture of him out he's got a very quintessential english gentleman look doesn't he yeah but he was irish i got no very irish and if there's anyone that puts their foot in their mouth mate yeah that's me well don't don't worry about it sorry ireland there we go but there he is brilliant brilliant so yes it's back back to the film then um what's it like to know louis then i was going to say what's he like but that's i'm not into dishing dirt on people but but maybe there's some stuff people would like to know about the the legendary side of his character um um which i'm sure lou lou passed away a few years ago as you know and and i think he made an interesting decision for an actor in his life and and he'd done everything you know he'd been a big star with professionals obviously and he did houdes wins and then he had he did some other films afterwards and he worked on he worked to on films afterwards after houdes wins um but i think he got to a point where he wanted to break the mold and go off in a different direction so he went to california and started a computer business and i think he did a few bits and pieces here and there and he did some fan conventions but really i think he became a family man and he and michelle have got like three sons and and he seemed very happy i mean we even though we were pals for over a decade before he got married to michelle um and we had lots of adventures and stuff where he got into all kinds of trouble um he once he'd done that he kind of made himself a bit of a recluse and i was asked i have been asked many times to write stuff for his all various autobiographies that have been attempted and i've always said to the writer do you have louis's permission to do this um and they went no and i said well if you get louis's permission um i'm happy to tell you stories i said but i won't if he doesn't want it i mean it's different if he's coming from me because it's my personal impressions and experiences and i'm free to talk about my experiences with him as a bloke um but i don't want to write it or speculate about anything else about it because i don't want to spread i wouldn't want to be seen to be spreading this just came up recently with an interview i did about him you know it's why anybody would think i would do that i don't know now louis um a complex man um but actually in a way simple man he was very fun loving he was very full of jolly james and actually a master of comedic one-liners and timing and i know people don't get that from him probably in some of the work that he's done but he was a very funny fun loving you know big softy really um and i think he probably like all of us do at some point proceeding said okay well let's find out if i could be a para let's find out so he did do his full para training with tem para and the man that trained him as a personal friend of mine called john neumann who was one para and when when they were up at finchley which i've slept on that drill or floor once or twice and lou passed p company and he he got through and he got his jerry berry and he got his wings so i respect him for that i respect anybody that's done any service that's thrown themselves in or volunteer i never have a bad word for anybody that's done that unless they've been stupid in which case then you just got to say look mate you know wind in mark can i just chip in here i mean no disrespect to anyone it's just not who i want to be but we did have a subscriber the other day said he didn't actually pass his jumps course he he he i think injured his leg on the third jump and the guy that was writing this knows the the ds on the course so the staff i'm not trying to be controversial i'm just knowledge that the chap out there that that said that that that he sounded like he knew what he's talking about is what i'm trying to say but well ask him this this person you can ask him if he knew colour sergeant john neumann b e m and i know from john that he did get his wings and he went back and completed the course and did the seven jumps now there may be some as i've heard myself i've heard everything even people from my side of the business i've had every story from oh lou got beaten up in the special forces club and was kicked they got the chick kicked out of him and all that and got thrown out on the street i have asked people in the regiment do you know this story have you ever heard a story about louis connor's getting beaten up in the special forces club because this bloke said it and i don't believe it because i don't think lou's like that and he said i've asked people they've gone never heard that story but you can ask rusty the story about him going to herford and there might be a few jars in the bar if you like at herford because that's the true story i know that's a true story so a lot of people have got stories about um what they think they know about people i can only tell you what i know and so i was told by john neumann that he completed his course he got his wings and he got his bearing yeah and everybody knows if if two two sas try to rough up louis collins he just turned around and beat him all up i've seen the film i've seen the film you know lou could handle himself don't get me wrong lou lou could handle himself lou was very physical and he knew how to throw a punch and he certainly wasn't backwards in coming forwards you know and like a lot of people i'll just name drop but it's true um ray winston all of these guys that have got that persona um in their film career doesn't mean they go out looking for trouble but people go looking for them people want to go oh i beat up bodhi in the pub or i beat up bodhi in the club or whatever and suddenly from what may have been a bit of pushing and shoving in a bit of you know sharp words turns of oh no you got the shit kicked out of him well i can tell you the same thing with ray ray knows how to throw a punch ray box for england so ray knows how to throw a punch right uh lou knew how to throw a punch now he may well have got a bit leary and he makes he may have been asked to leave i don't know but i've never come across anybody told me that they kicked the crap out of him it's you know i i kind of had the the same thing a little bit but it's usually just online chatter people don't know you you know what i mean they assume they know you because they've seen you but lou lou i i i've not heard that myself should we just clear up then not not that it's our job to and again not that i really care but did he pass select sas selection is that is that the rumor is friends at home um that lou passed sas selection whether that be through the reserves i'm guessing through the reserves and then was denied a place in the regiment because of his fame well i think a lot of it comes from the misunderstanding of what that means and so let me let me clear that up first of all he went on selection for two one sas which is the reservist element artist rifles they're now a different role than what they did originally during this period they had a different role in europe than what they have now but two one sas he went on selection four and my understanding is he per he passed the first phase it's like anything it's like people think you become a member of the intelligence corps they just hand you a water ppk a tuxedo and say off you go you now speak german or something off you know it's not the way it works mechanically what happened from loose old mouth to me was that he passed the first phase which was probably the beacons phase the physical phase and running up and down phase because the next phase would have been jungle he would have gone to belize and he would have then gone through a resistance to interrogation phase which i don't think he got up to i think he got up to the first physical phase and he passed that and that's when they realized that having bodi you know if he ever did actually couldn't really fulfill the role because he would have been he was two-eyed profile he told me that himself and he said that one of the psis came to him and said mate you're two-eyed profile everybody knows who you are we'd love to carry on and it's great it's been great for the lads to work with you but it just is not going to work because you you everybody knows your face i guess we should point out we were doing a lot of work in northern island then weren't we and well two one wasn't um the the the actual the reality of it is is that a reservist can work for the british government in war zones it's it's a fallacy that ta soldiers don't don't serve overseas they do and in the old days he used to be able to take what was called an s type engagement which basically meant you were temporarily made a regular soldier and so you became like in the gulf war there was plenty trust me there was more than reservists and you would imagine serving in the gulf and there was more reservists serving during the bosnia campaign people don't i know people don't think this i don't know reservists don't learn regulars don't like it but that's true the truth is the british army cannot function without its reservist element that's a fact it's a pure fact and under now under recently what the changes the british army more than ever cannot function without its reserves so um uh two one had a role which was in europe in those days um which it's probably it's a matter of public knowledge now but if you've ever heard the expression gladius or any or uh gladio or any of those operations where left behind troops were spread all out over you know europe to take on the russians from behind that's what they're part of their role was part of their role so it's changed a bit now so but lu was a british you know uh married housewise favorite and so he probably he was just to my profile he told me that himself and to be honest with you i think he took it on the chin i don't think he was bitter about it you know i think he was kind of like i get it i understand you know um so that's that's the story that lu told me i mean i'm sure there's plenty of other people out there they're going to come up with oh he's wrong that's not the whatever i can only tell you what louis connys told me himself yeah i i sympathize with him because did i tell you i didn't get in the sas um yes you did say that yeah but you know but but there's a lot of it is about if your face fits and you can ask rusty this you can ask any of the boys this there's a lot of personal um what can i say choices are made about who they think the whole have you ever the expression the gray man well that's a um that's a very often quoted term isn't it with respect to getting into the sas or the intelligence core being the gray man don't get noticed yeah don't get noticed and um yeah being the gray man for the regiment is very important but it's also true for in core and various what is now the the special reconnaissance regiment i mean that thing would be the gray man we don't get don't stand out and don't well lou stood out he was fit i can tell you that louis a very very fit man yes he's also i think what we don't know what we don't realize about slavery especially in this sort of x-factor culture where you can be a hairdresser one day into next day you're a you're a number one selling artist is these folks they've done this from a very young age they're incredibly talented aren't they most most actors if you put them in an opera or theater or music they can sing they can dance they can do impressions they're they're they're quite funny they have a uh that can we say they're in touch with their feminine self which i i say is a positive thing and yet here's here's this guy that's got got all these qualities that i've just mentioned but also that he can smash it out with the sas i respect him for trying i really do i respect anybody that tries and i respect anybody that's gone through any of the basic training and have put themselves into the firing line it's uh i think we all do it for various reasons and i say for me it was a it was a looking back at a family tradition i didn't really have much choice to just volunteer it was was one of those things but now lou lou is sometimes is maligned but for most people that knew him and knew why he did it i think we all have respect for him yes i'm wearing my adidas top in um in homage to lou today because pretty sure he wore one of these in the professionals he always was quite cool so i can tell you this who dares wings and i know this from people in you know i lived in california now for you know i have homes in a couple of places but i lived in california for 25 years i still do and obviously you know many people in law enforcement and in the intelligence business their security business who dares wins is studied was studied by everything from the intelligence community to law enforcement in terms of the psychology of it the techniques i know swat cops um that studied it for the use of the flashbangs which in those days were completely uh a new distraction devices so um the whole thing of mp5 uh i shan't really well i could tell say his name phil singleton who was mr sas mp5 representative around the world um he uh a lot of people were like no that everything from the weapons to the to the tactics to the psychology of the stock arm syndrome everything was used in that film was studied by people in the business wow how how well guys you didn't go so deep these are lovely conversations how how well was the film received um well it was kind of a mixed bank because i think again and again i'm not i don't need to defend this it was a film of its time if you recall there was a big thing because margaret factored in two things that were sort of you know very british one was sending the the the task force down to reclaim the forklands islands and the other was obviously the iranian embassy siege and it was a tough decision to make but it was the right decision to make and everybody got behind it went well so that was a that was one of the reasons that the film was made and it wasn't meant to be jingoistic in the sense of you know you know it was it was meant to follow on from a film called the wild geese the producer that produced dude's wins also produced wild geese and so it was supposed to be that you know a type of film that appealed to a type of audience at a certain time which he which he did and um you've got to see it from that point of view although we got a you got a lot of stick because for some reason they apparently used a cnd sign during some of the filming of the crowd at the beginning of the film there was various signs peace signs that we used and i don't think the writer george marx dean who i met who also wrote the prisoner and i can both have written about the prisoner um uh intended it to be a slight on cnd or the peace movement it was actually meant to be the symbol of the disrespect for the peace movement by people that were trying to use it for different meet different reasons so it what it was to show a the juxtaposition of the peace movement against the idea that we should be able to defend ourselves and britain should be able to defend democracy so it wasn't having a go at cnd he was trying to say the other side of this that the argument is that you can have peace and as long as you are be prepared to defend yourself that's great but if you disarm us we can't defend ourselves you will get abused and so i think that was part of the message that george was trying to say in the film um and it got twisted into knowing that we're bashing cnd which we weren't taught how did military but so how did the sas take take this film do they do they take it as legendary it was was it scoffed at was it how was it at the time i think the best review is by rusty firm um who went through the film the techniques the actual house clearing techniques that they practiced at the killing house a pretty a pretty spot on actually you don't forget these are the days we're running around with a respirator s6 respirator and a browning eye power um this was all revolutionary stuff it had never been seen before and the use of flashbangs and distraction devices that were first used in mogadishu i believe um taken out by the regiment to this concept of having a distraction device the flashbangs that was all new stuff had never been done before and it was a tremendous risk the actual raid itself people go yeah but it was so well planned and all that kind of stuff it could have been but there was a lot of unknowns and the unsung heroes in that situation were actually the negotiator i've i've met trevor lock i've taught to trevor lock so i know what the situation was inside the actual embassy and the actual vz 63 not the scorpion but the other cheque machine gun that one of the guys had i've handled that weapon so there was a lot of risks that were taken in terms of and they the regiment carried off that raid brilliantly so i think the film itself was seen as a um the techniques and everything were were seen as pretty spot on and at the end of the day lu did go to ariford and did go to the killing house with ian sharp and they studied the techniques and put it into the film so there's a lot of stuff in there that people go like even the wall imploding where we end up being shot i got shot in the house in in the muse that where the implode the wall you can talk about whether it was physically possible to do that or not but the removal of the bricks to put in the listening devices again i know where those actual listening devices are um that was all real they actually did that they actually removed the bricks so they could get listening devices through the walls so they knew where people were so there was a lot of it technically which was spot on yes it's interesting um i read somewhere i've read a fair bit about the scs the formation of the scs uh kernel main so paddy main um i like i'm not a warmunger and i'm a i think there's better ways let's say but i do like reading the old military stuff because it's i like real life i like to spend my if i'm gonna read i want to read real life stuff because there's so much exciting stuff out there and um i did read somewhere that a significant proportion of sas operations go tits up basically which if you think of the nature of what these men are willing to do they're all willing to not come back aren't they which is a brave thing in itself and by this i refer to all of our all of our armed forces um but the embassy my gosh it it it all could have gone so wrong couldn't it i mean there were things that that didn't go to plan they say no no plan survives first contact with the enemy um with the enemy we had the guy hung up on the rope which was just unexpected he's but but on fire on a rope um when that charge went off in the famous bbc clip it almost looked like it took the guys out and then it was it was a significant amount of time before they got back in through that window certainly enough time to execute most of the hostages um and again i mean there's no justice about i'm just saying that this it it could have had a very different outcome couldn't it well one of them as we know um at an rdg5 russian hand grenade which he didn't he didn't pull the pin on it wasn't till later on that he was coming down the stairs that one of the lads saw that he had a grenade and whacked him on the back of the egg with his mp5 and then he got then he was they were shot because he was trying to pull the pin out but if he'd have pulled that pin out in the room where the hostages were as soon as he heard that first bang there would have been lots more dead hostages and he just didn't do it we will never know why you know we don't know why i i think i know why because again i i got some insights from trevor lock about his battle with our own number one terrorist at the back when the guy put his foot through the window um and a lot of that is to do with the stock home syndrome and uh anyway if if he'd have pulled the pin on that grenade which we know he had or picked up the little submachine gun that they had and decided to execute people it would have been a very different story yes and i um oh yes very much and i've had robin um was cool yeah robin horse full has been on the podcast i think three three times now and he was one of the chaps at the bottom of the stairs that put some rounds into this this uh unfortunate gentleman um and also we're going to get rusty well as you know because we've both just been speaking to him but he's he's um he's going to come on soon and he's quite aware as to uh the defense landscape let's say where where where we're heading as as europe so i'm keen to to probe him probe in there but back to the film mark what what what were there any bloopers on it were the stuff that went wrong were there any accidents it it was quite deep were there any um service personnel that did the stunts or is that all taken care of by stuntmen no there were advisors from the regiment on the set uh i said i said i did a blooper i said stuntmen you know i'll say that anymore it's stunt stunt persons or stunt performers there were um people on the set and hanging around let's put it that way usually in the bar but uh where i was with other people um who were serving with the regiment at the time that is true um i won't they put anonymous at the end of the film so i won't name them for various reasons um but there were people involved and as i say lu did go to Ereford and was was guested around uh uh and shown around and shown some of the techniques so there was a certain amount of cooperation with the filming um although the stunt team themselves was run by guy called Bob Simmons Bob was one of the original James Bond stunt coordinators and he coordinated the action per se in the little bits of stunts that we did and obviously we had the choppers ministry defense lenders the um little scout helicopters um there was a couple of times when things got hairy particularly up in Snowdonia when we were filming the scene because i was up there with Lou during that period um Ian had got them on the edge of a cliff and Morris Roeves who is the officer that jumps out of the helicopter wow that chopper pilot i believe his name was John Cowie but there was actually more than one chopper pilot but anyway the weather was atrocious and how he managed to hold that skype that scout helicopter on that edge i don't know he did tremendous skill and i remember they only tried it twice again because he was like we don't need to be not trying this again and um Morris almost fell out of the helicopter he almost fell out of it and he told me afterwards in the bar he said i was terrified he said literally because he still was from vertigo he thought he was just going to fall out so he was riding the skin hanging on and he was literally hovering above trying to land this helicopter in this gale and um basically he fell out of the helicopter and uh we got away with it though but but other than the actor that got the got his nose broken um during the interrogation scene by accident Lou landed a bunch on somebody um and uh it was it was a pure accident there was nothing about it he just clunked the guy in the wind and he had a big adult he said and you can look if you look carefully you can see the difference in the body shape um for the guy in the hood and and the smock uh other than that really there wasn't really any any damage there was nobody injured seriously i'm just going to chip in here mark and say friends at home if you haven't seen this film and you'd like to i'm going to put a link uh below this video where you can buy the dvd so treat yourself have a saturday night in and um watch this classic mark i'm conscious of your your your valuable time so let's um i'm good you can go as long as you like if you want to shop it up whatever you need to do good man good man so um should we talk about the the incor your work in that and if you can give some examples of any daring do that that goes on or well i'll let me i'll preface by doing this my i i don't regret anything i did with the intelligence core and i learned a lot and it gave me a lot of experience which later on when i moved to california because of my then clearance i ended up becoming a licensed private investigator so i was a security consultant and a p.i for 20 years in california got to work with a lot of people so i owe a lot to the intelligence core and i guess it was kind of a unique situation because the company that i was a member of um had some very interesting jobs and were support to a lot of interesting areas of the defense world so um one of them was support to the special forces and one of my endearing memories you've been a royal marine might you know get this was um serving with uh pool um on hms fearless in a force 10 gale and we lost uh contact radio contact we were bobbing about in the north sea and we lost contact with entire squadron for 24 hours everybody was panicking like mad going where are they and as you may or may not be you know they have had a couple of special boats that were designed for certain tasks were very expensive and very fast anyway we'd lost them couldn't speak to anybody and um there was a certain amount of panic going on and uh i remember being what was called then there was the head shed on the on the superstructure of fearless and the literally hms fearless used to corkscrew through the water like this it didn't go up and down like that it didn't go from side to side it corkscrew and i had to go to the loo in the middle of the night like three a.m in the middle of this storm and normally i would have gone through the bridge and down into the superstructure but as i walked towards the bridge actually on the deck fearless try not to fall overboard um i saw that the bridge was full of people with gold stuff all over and hats and all that kind of stuff um and navy ships were retiring broken from the storm so i thought oh i better not go in there that looks like it's very serious i'll go down the ladder so i ended up crawling down one of the superstructures ladders of the boat um and as i was crawling down the ladder fearless rolled like almost at 45 degrees and all i could see was the north sea below me literally and as i was hanging on to this ladder i thought don't let go you billy will never find you you are destined to be fish food so i was hanging on to this ladder and as i was hanging on to the ladder as you do in these moments i saw this line of effervescence going off behind the back of hms fearless disappearing off into the moonlight was this of like almost lit pathway following the boat and i looked and i went wow that's what you know the effervescence of the ocean i've never seen that before and then i looked a bit harder and it was actually boats little boats little inflatable boats and some not quite so little inflatable boats or trying to follow hms fearless so i climbed back up the ladder and i went back to the edge and i said is there any news on the chaps that we can't get contact with and i said no we've got no range we've lost we're really on communications i said you better come with me boss so we went out the back of the boat to the helicopter deck i went i think that's probably part of your squadron trying to get back to the boat because i'm not being funny the waves in the north sea at a force 10 you're talking 20 30 foot waves so these guys were out there bobbing about the 24 hours desperately trying to get somebody's attention on the back of the boat and that i'm looking at that and going you guys have got you got arts as big as lions hearts as big as lions man because i would not want to be out in that sea in those conditions in an inflatable boat can i mean anyway so that's one of the little stories i tell about you know my respect for guys that get out of c 130s in parachute in the ocean and jump in a rubber boat no go tearing about i have a lot of respect for me and sorry mark i i missed the beginning but because i was trying to get an image up with did you say that was the sbs yes cool yes it i won't name squadron i won't name the squadron because i don't want to you know for them to be embarrassed by what i just said no but it's it brings it home doesn't it playing on the ocean it's it's such incredible adventure but it's also bloody deadly isn't it so separates the men from the boys i'll tell you that i mean even if you know what an isbo suit is maybe if you ever got to wear an isbo suit an isolation suit when you're being transferred from A to B just trying to wear a rubber suit an isolation suit with all your webbing and your kit and everything else strapped to you that alone and you're looking down at the ocean is a sobering thought because this is the the thing i was going to mention about the um the modern role of our of not just sf but all forces is you could see that the clobber the guys had to wear at the embassy was a lot of things you know pistol here knife here grenades here anyone that's ever worn a respirator i'll tell you your vision is so limited absolutely and you and it's so hard to breathe as soon as you start puffing it it becomes really hard work um you just want to take the thing off and yet now you've got guys doing the same thing with a bloody laptop strapped to them gps uh uh infrared goggles okay guys i'm being a bit you know i'm being a bit inventive here but but people get what i mean it's it's the the the amount of kit that the modern soldier has compared to back in the day and you've still got to have all your basic you know all your basic kit it it's and you've got to climb up and down ladders and it weighs so much you've got body armor on for a start which they didn't really have so much back in the day no ten pounds ceramic plate you know in the front of your all behind no the amount of kit that people are carrying now as opposed to say the second world war even i mean you know your basic infantry soldier is carrying you know seventy or eighty pounds worth of kit let alone before they start getting handed mortars you know bombs and shit like that they carry as well and all your ammunition you know it's it's it's a miracle they're going to stand up let alone you know fighting any of it yes it is just before we move on mark sorry i was just wanting to get a see if there's a more modern um photo what did you think of um the film then six days i thought it was pretty good i know um he got a bit of stick because it's only telling one story from from one point of view but that's all the film was trying to do i don't think i know he got some stick from some of the other lads and i guess that they felt that their story wasn't represented in that film because it's seen as a group effort and um uh but i don't think the film was trying to show that it wasn't a group effort i think he was just showing one blokes experience from one story because the only one flaw as you know the different teams at different flaws and have control of different areas so that you know basically they had their own killboxes where you go that's your flaw that's your flaw that's your flaw that's your job back and so um he was telling his story from what their experience was on that flaw and what they what their job was um so i didn't think it was a bad film you know um there's a lot of look as you know in the military there's a lot of not just very dark humor but sometimes there's a lot of not i wouldn't say backstabbing although there is i suppose but there's a lot of you know people want to tell different stories in different ways that's why i don't get involved with that when people say you know leucon has got beaten up the special forces club i go i don't i've never heard that story and i've never talked to anybody that has heard that story either and or from the regiment so you know um i don't really i i i don't believe it i've had some of it myself made trust me i've had some of that as self people want to snipe and they want to have a little go because they see you you know having a different career or talking about other stuff uh it's water off this duck's back i'll tell you that i don't give a monkeys what anybody thinks about that i don't care say what you like you know i know i was there i you know i mean i was on fearless so i can i can talk about that i can talk about who dares with that what anybody else thinks of me of what i say about it is irrelevant let's come on then to um black sails and and we talked earlier a little bit about the history of of piracy sure and the links to modern freemasonry sure well you know the piracy's you know were were that were originally pirates they were privateers they were actually given a charter by elizabeth oh hello that's my agent probably my mum yes huggles to huggles snugly bugle yes yes yes i had a big breakfast yes i am full up yes no no i'm not playing with a big voice don't worry all right i gotta go mum love you bye bye sorry that's mummy kins she just she likes to check up on me in podcast just to uh sorry go on so uh yeah the history of of pirates is it grew out of um private the privateers who were given a charter by elizabeth the first to raid anybody basically the but spanish and mainly the dutch where i am at the moment and anybody that challenged the the british naval presence around the world they were given a a charter to attack and steal and rob and sink anybody else that they wanted to once peace broke out in europe and we were peace with the french and the and the spanish and suddenly those people that had gone around the world doing that became outlaws and then they became the book of the pirates we actually mentioned this very briefly in um black sails and we're talking about um edinburgh and the powers that be in edinburgh and about our friends it was all to do with the scottish world claim against elizabeth and all that kind of stuff um but it uh that was the background to it and but these very very skilled sailors that literally sailed around the world in these small wooden ships and managed to navigate you know around the world suddenly became outlaws so they went working for themselves so the the pirates themselves the whole thing of the cross bones um flag has a long tradition within linked to the masonic tradition um elizabeth used various people i mean wilson and was invented the first intelligence group if you like and in fact the intelligence corps badges are the two the the house of langston house of yorkshire the the royal rose so the the actual history of intelligence gathering goes all the way back to washington and very much to john d of course the occultist who um had a mirror from which he basically said he could see the future so he was forecasting technically tactically what he thought the spanish or the french would do but really he was he had a uh it was the first deception operation because he wasn't seeing into the future he had a network of spies in all the royal houses so he was being forewarned of what the french or the dutch or the new spanish were going to do before they did it so that's the basic of the history of all this and because i guess the masonic tradition is secretive if you like it was seen as a natural adjunct to the intelligence type things because they had their own codes if you like they had their own ciphers they had their own language in a way um and it grew out and that's where piracy grew out of can we can we start then um without getting too complicated because i don't want to to lose people that are not familiar with this history but how does it go back to the the crusades um and the knights template and roman the roman catholic church and this kind of this kind of narrative well the Templars obviously grew out of the Cistercian monasteries in yorkshire which there are several massive Cistercian monasteries and uh the Templars grew out of the Cistercian tradition and around york where the exchequer was kept during the 11th late 11th 12th century um there are seven knights Templar perceptories so britain was very much involved with the whole knights Templar uh thing in Britain obviously the french were as well it was throughout europe but in britain um their role in terms of uh moving money about was that money was deposited in york at the exchequer the knights Templars would give you a bit of paper you were going your crusade or on your pilgrimage and you cashed that in they invented the first cashiers check they were also though tremendous uh merchants and they had a very strong relationship with the assassins we talked about this in robin who showed where the assassins the assassins um had a trading relationship with the knights Templar and they exchanged things like the astrolabe the navigation device the astrolabe was an arabic invention which then the crusaders then adopted for their own naval navigation processes but medicines hospitalers they traded a lot of esoteric ideas about various spiritual things going back you know hundreds of years thousands of years so there was a big exchange of information between the Templars and various esoteric arabic groups during in during the crusades but the Templars own massive fleets of ships which they traded and sailed the oceans with which suddenly kind of just disappeared once they were excommunicated because the catholic church wanted to remove them as a lenders of money to royal houses in europe which they were um the Templars lent all the royal houses including the english royal house um lots of money and people wanted to not have to pay them back the money so they all went along with the idea well let's excommunicate and take all their treasures and then we don't have to pay them back and that's what happened um in england as well um one of the men who is buried in the temple church in the temple in london which is named after the nice temple in london the temple in london is named after the temple church which is there and a lot of famous Templars are buried there uh but um the the royal house the royal houses owed them lots of money and this was the best way to not have to pay them back that money was to excommunicate them and of course the um catholic church the pope's papacy in Rome went along with that yes so you had the knights in the crusades so going into the the middle east to fight for um fight for Jerusalem i'm just trying to keep this really simple to fight basically against the arabic world um obviously Jerusalem being a a hot spot whoever controls that is well let's let's just not go there but then on their return they were tasked with overseeing the building of cathedrals and as such in in in europe which is my understanding where they picked up a lot of the masonic esoteric um knowledge from the stone masons hence you know obviously free masons from the stone masons that were making these magnificent buildings then around about this time the roman catholic church as you said ex outlawed them and so they spread they they they found out as it were hidden the monasteries which is why there's a link between the esoteric symbolism and and in and certain monasteries i'm on thin ground here but i'm trying i'm trying to keep it going but like what um and then a percentage of them took to the high seas and the it's why today you hear talk of skull and bones which is Yale's free masonic society of which gosh it seems pretty much every american person of note is is a member of skull and bones so john carry the bush family um etc etc all the yes so and um yeah it says a lot about democracy doesn't it when the global leaders are all member of secret cults well let's let's just back up for a minute because i think i can i just finish with a point i was getting to is the symbol of skull and bone society is the skull and crossbones yes yeah absolutely yeah well um but let's back up for just a second let's go to uh molt cigar where one of the one of the last temple of strongholds was molt cigar in in kappa our country and the cat is called kappa because that was the kappa religion which was a spiritual element of the christian church the cathars at molt cigar where most of them did the last stand against the crusade but instigated and paid for by the church in Rome for instance they had things like women could be priests they were very forward thinking the cathars believed even though it was a a templeer stronghold that women could be priests they could own property which they weren't allowed to do we don't forget in this period women had a lot of power within this and the pope in Rome and the pauline thought didn't like this he didn't agree with them so that was one of the other reasons empowering women in many many ways and so um that was where the one of the last battles actually took place against the cathars and they were all wiped out they were put to the sword so there was a crusade paid for against another christian group that had a slightly different view of christianity kind of somehow reflected today in many ways uh in some issues um so one state actually uh disappeared yes some of them went back to the cistercian monasteries now for instance fountains abbey in yorkshire which i visited many times as on its i guess it's the right transit of the church a huge green man figure on the outside of the church so on the outside of the actual abbey there's a huge pagan green man face right it was there originally built why was it allowed well because the old christian church didn't see satanic demonism stuff in nature worship it was all part of a spirituality and in fountains abbey the green man face on the outside of the church goes through the window and inside he turns into an angel so as an advertising ploy that abbey went we understand you may have reverence for old traditions and nature and all that kind of stuff but in here you're welcome because it's all part of our spiritual belief system it doesn't matter whether you believe this or believe that it's we're all creatures under god so come into the house of god and in that particular one not that we know now um the angel is holding a what we believe is a dated thing where the synod of whitby changed all the dates of the pagan christmas and easter to align with christian dates and nothing to do with christianity easter's got nothing to do with christ christmas has nothing to do with christianity no you know we're talking about the mid summer the mid winter solstice has nothing to do with when jesus was born it's the mid it's the mid winter solstice december 21st the coming of the new yes gosh it gets very deep i've got a chap i watch a lot john st julian it's very good at explaining esoteric language as in the scriptures yeah it's fascinating what you know healing people think mark of the beast and they they think oh it's this chip that people are going to have in this microchip that's that will come i'm not i'm not saying the microchip will come there's people have already volunteered for it um but it's no it's it's a reference to the mark of the beast is a number the number nine and depending on which way you come from it whether you come from the light side or the dark side it's numerology and it symbolizes whether you live in your beast yourself so your dev you know whether the devil controls you or whether you you're you're in control of your spiritual self so the god or whatever people want to call that that power for good in the world i mean i don't believe in the devil i don't believe the devil as in the christian tradition exists devil simply means stranger in a lot of languages and so the idea of satan satan as we talked about earlier on the devil to me i've seen the the the devils work if you want to see that alive and well in human beings i don't need to i don't need to believe that there's some supernatural creature out there doing this human beings and men can do quite the most horrendous things to each other you don't need a devil to provoke that it's within the human nature to actually do the most evil deeds i don't believe we need to create a demonic creature you know what i mean to do that so just my personal opinion yeah it's quite fascinating because um this is the whole thing it's all supposed to be confusing because while everyone's confused about it and everyone's saying well i've got a god i've got the devil i know i know it's easy to tell it oh it's the sun right it's it's a it's a huge i wish i knew a cleverer world let's say conflagration but that's not the right word it's a huge it's a huge mixing of all those things because it's supposed to confuse people meanwhile while you're all confused you're divided from your pure spirit you know you're you're and a given example when you're when you relapse on drugs which i've done several times in my my life uh oh my god you see it clear as day and if you wanted to use a metaphor you'd say the devil's got me you physically feel that feeling that you are out of control of your life and the dark forces of bloody got you again they've got and you see your life disappearing because you see your relationships deteriorating you see your health going you see your moral structure of what you there's no way you'd have done a certain thing this week but this week it's just become you know the the the norm and yeah i i mark as you can probably tell i find the whole thing absolutely fascinating i can see why it's been simplified to a god and the devil you know polarities of it okay i'm going to give you a quick five larity that is the word let me give you a quick five minutes on recovery i spent i was licensed private investigator and i worked with a company in fact i still own the company i spent a decade in my life working in recovery in los angeles so i've worked with everybody that is famous it's had drug problems in ollywood just about everybody that you can think of some of them are no longer with us and some of them have survived and gone on and you never even know that they had an issue with substances but i spent almost a decade literally chasing rescuing working sitting working out with a lot of celebrities and getting them out of the the trouble they had got into with substances so to me yes it's a very difficult thing and i'll say one quick story because it is true and it was about the bottom you've ever you've been in recovery have you heard about hitting the bottom yes hitting rock bottom right let me tell you a quick story so i've been sent to new york to try it with another guy to try and recover a very very famous celebrity we were guested by actually sting and and his wife because they were trying to help us because the new the situation truly truly stylish thank you very much indeed for your support in these areas and we couldn't get this person that they'd already apparently gotten off on a plane already head of bat so i was heading back to los angeles to go back to the recovery place which i think has now been taken over by somebody else and i was picked up by one of the guys we're sitting with this this gentleman back in this uh in this van going back to los angeles and he said oh he said you're a normie i said yeah i'm a normie he said okay i said can i talk to you about that i said sure he said so he talked about being a normie and about having a glass of wine or a few beers and being able to stop and all that kind of stuff is a normie is that that means someone who's not experienced addiction is it well he means somebody that has a normal tolerance for anything that other people think is addictive so i mean for instance i can have a glass of wine i can have half a bottle of wine then i can stop i don't need to wake up today and need another bottle of wine or you know whatever i don't i've never smoked a joint never smoked i've never been interested never done any drugs at all in my and when i was being cleared you will understand that they were fascinated by the point that i kept saying i've never done any drugs they were going you must have done drugs everybody's done drugs i said i drink i've had a drink i've even been drunk i admit to that it's not illegal but i don't need a drink every day so i i just have a glass of wine with dinner or whatever doesn't worry me if i don't get another glass of wine for six months it wouldn't worry me right i'd rather have a cup of tea so anyway he was asking me about that so when i asked you a question he said sure i said i hear a lot about the bottom and and i just want to clarify it because i he said sure i'll tell you about my story i said he said i was in south central i was delivering my last deliveries of drugs for the day it was a Friday night i was dealing so i was in my Cadillac with two of my friends in the car which sold a lot of stuff that day delivering stuff and so i got a lot of cash and i've got some drugs left over for us because the whole point of selling the drugs is so that we have money for our drugs for the weekend so that we can get loaded i went okay i understand that i've heard that story before so he said we're in my car in the back of the car i do my last delivery get the cash get the stuff i'm sat in the back of the Cadillac i've got two guys riding shotgun one driving the car and the guy you know being the guard okay so we put into this alley and he said i'm sitting with two guys i went to school with now i've got a bunch of money and i've got a bunch of drugs and we're gonna party right he said these two guys in the front of the car i've known all my life turned around and emptied their weapons into me he said i have a bullet hole here i have a bullet hole here i have a bullet hole here he said i was shot five times and they dragged me out of my own car took my money took my drugs left me in the gutter to bleed to death and drove away and stole my car i said so there i am lying in the gutter and i've lost my car my drugs my money and two my best friends just shot me and i said shit that's that's the bottom and he went that wasn't the bottom it got worse from me and i went i don't need to hear anything else i said that he said that wasn't the bottom so you know i worked a lot in this area and some of the people that have made it and i celebrate the fact that they've made it and they got cleaned and they have good lives and the people that didn't you know i i couldn't do it after a while to be honest with you but i had to i had to walk away because i was losing people that were talented smart i cared for them and i couldn't save them we couldn't save them and nobody can they can only save themselves like you as you know the only person that saved you in the end is you you have people around you and support you and help you and guide you but at the end of the day it's your decision yes yes very much we say drug free on this show mate not clean okay drug free then sorry not lecture mark it's just people need to understand there's nothing dirty about having a mental health condition no i mean we then they use it in la because of that connotation it comes from a 12 step program we know that and a lot of the language it comes from that program as much as the good work they do they they tear they tear a lot of it down by stigmatizing all of us with mental health by using words like clean so the connotation is that we're dirty and i got it from that i go they they make this polarity that it's a decision you make one day and then you have to be substance free the day after for the rest of your life it's a process and yeah exactly so and it's a very clever process and there's a lot to be learned and gained from it which which we overlook as a society um the only issue i'd say there is if if you're dying and your children are being abused that can't be happening those two scenarios and then the 12 step program his that's that's i'd say that's a good option then right but yeah for youngsters that are just dabbling and i just i toughed it out mate you know i toughed it out on my own no help from any i'm not saying anyone else follows my story you know you you guys live your lives i i'm just talking about my situation and um and yeah i can't complain how it i can't complain how it all worked out and i guess i have respect i have a very good friend that i worked with who um was seriously alcoholic and he came from a line of alcoholics and i we talked about this is we're having this conversation now and i said to him how did you do it he said i just i did one day decide i want a life and i want a career i just have to stop drinking and again i said to me said well define this for me he said i'm not like you right if i had a glass of wine i want a bottle if i have had a bottle i want another bottle and then i want another bottle and i will not stop until i'm unconscious and he said i'll get up the next morning and i want to start again he said it's just a difference it's in my blood and so i said and you what did you do he said cold turkey did it just made that decision he said maybe one day in the future i'll be able to sit down have a glass of wine but i can't now and i would i would totally respect that and i respect the fact that if you did the same thing for you it was your decision and i respect it yeah i'd never a lot of people jump to conclusions with me and they they see our christ is back on the meth and i just tell him the truth mate i'll never stopped you know i i i never had an issue with substances in fact to be honest i don't want to talk too much about them because a lot of it you know there was a lot of negative but there was also a bloody lot of positive there is a reason people do them right what i had an issue with was was that my childhood trauma which was never ever diagnosed never dealt with i was allowed to go into the military and carry a machine gun as someone that had come from a seriously damaged childhood right which is you know i think you wouldn't probably wouldn't get a shotgun license if if you knew a lot of our state state of mind is i don't mean out outwardly i mean what we're what we're going through on the inside and um and that childhood trauma i masked it as an adult with substances i didn't know i was in i just thought i was drinking with the lads or i was going to a rave or a dance party and isn't this great and but i knew that i liked it too much and of course that's because unbeknown to me i spent uh 25 years of my life living with trauma and i didn't i didn't know it because nobody talked about it and doctors didn't understand it families brushed everything under the carpet so you've always got this feeling that's an invisible feeling that you're different you know life's different for you things just everyone else's clothes look better than yours you know they fit them better everyone's family just looks after them better everyone's school comes easier to to most people you know exams i couldn't pass exams i couldn't sit in school mark you know i was just to me my school was looking out the window and i loved it it's all i did i just looked out the window and dreamt of traveling the world and going on adventures and and um yeah sorry i don't know how we got to this point but we were talking about recovery yeah and and for me it was you know getting balance back in my life is all i ever tried to do when i had my moment of enlightenment which for some people might be um or my epiphany you could say which set me on the path i believe to enlightenment your epiphany is your point at which your life is the lowest and then you suddenly realize why it's so low you suddenly realize what you've been you know or what your addictive psychology has been telling you and it's and it's been wrong and it's that that moment that that people know they've got to change and the great thing about that moment is you never can go back in that thought in your head once you decide to change you you might lapse relapse it's kind of normal um but but my point to people is is is the substances is never the problem there's always been beer around there's always been a weed that grows in a field there's always been laboratory technicians mixing up chemicals in a lot that's that's always here it would always be that that's not the the issue is internally is your temple yeah is it something like that mark come on i'm kind of making sense aren't i roughly no i think of all the conversations i've had with people you know about these things it always stems from usually probably from some kind of childhood trauma awesome a thing of self-worth or you use the word masking of something that they believe that they they may not even be aware of it until much later on so the whole recovery process literally is a step by step and yeah i sure i know people would have seen you know i need to do something and they've relapsed or they've had another thing but but it's a process of rebuilding um and for some people it's a very difficult struggle and some people don't make it and i know people that haven't made it and that's that is it's tough that is tough working in that business i have not again i have nothing but respectful people counselors and people that work in recovery that hang with it and stay there um and and see three put people through because it's a very tough emotionally challenging thing to do you've got a very human side to you mark i tell you that and i thank you for it because when you are down in that position any people like you you know not people not people are going to judge and tell you what to do because like i've been trying to do it's like my it's a go back to martin for a second that's why i supported martin's uh this latest film because it is about post-traumatic stress trauma um and about soldiers coming back from bosnia and or for instance the the sandbox where we've we've got soldiers in america that have done nine tens to us they've spent most of their young adult life and well into their you know later adult life in war zones and we used to base it uh on the pacific figures where a man can spend 30 odd days in a combat environment before he's emotionally traumatized for life but we've had guys that have been there both america and britain now they've been there for like four or five tours well that's going to take a bit of recovery to get them and and they can deny it and they can say no i'm fine don't worry about it but really that um flashback which i have witnessed myself of a veteran having a flashback a violent flashback due to post-traumatic stress trauma i've been the victim of that myself um uh i'm not a victim but i was you know i became the focus of the flashback um it's very real and we are not dealing with that well at all both in britain and in america uh it's it's people don't want to talk about it it's a bit more open that's the point of in the states than it is in the uk but we need to have more support for veterans particularly after this last you know decade in in uh in iraq and afghanistan and various other places i mean boznia was the one that triggered a lot of people for lots of reasons but you know we don't need to talk about that anyway i'm supporting that i'm supporting martins project because it's it is about that yes it's very fascinating just to chat with martin like we did on the podcast it it's a whole narrative that most people would never understand and it's okay not everyone's supposed to understand everything in in life but it is integral to the whole narrative if if you're one of these people that thinks forces are heroes then you need to understand trauma right the dry you know the you need to understand you need to understand that these heroes are putting their lives on on the line in whatever i know i know the last 20 years are not really a good example but but folks get what i'm saying but many of these people joined having experienced childhood trauma they then get it compounded by experiencing the military and then you leave and find out that you were just a number and no one care you know you you feel no one cares about you on top of that you get pressure of stuff like bills mortgages payments jobs dealing with a boss social media paying you're trying to pay your bloody phone bill through the complicated technology that you get now and and that all that that stress of the trauma it rises up absolutely you start self-medicating with alcohol because temporary that just gives you it just pushes this shit away from you the next thing you know you're doing that every night then it's then the cycle starts your life falls away from you your partner says honey i love you but the kids can't be seeing this i'm taking it we're going we're going to their nans so suddenly you've lost the one thing in your life that was good that's your children you know and your girlfriend or your or your wife uh on top of that you're a square peg in a round hole because you always were right this is why we're experiencing a veteran suicide epidemic these are 22 a day at one point and on top of that imagine if you you know you've been sent into a theater of war you've had to do the ultimate in inax let's say and then you find out people like tony bradge is laughing at you because they played you all they played you all along and they've got fucking mega rich off the back of your soup you know what's going to be your you taking your life or people coming back with no legs no eyes this kind of stuff yo if you hero worship the forces you need to wake up and and this this is the stuff you need to get a grip with we need to take responsibility where we're sending these brave young men and women and then we need to take responsibility when they come home that's the more important even more important yeah what a great conversation mark thank you no you're welcome right you know yes yes good right let's let's move let let can we just talk um um gosh everything you you you've experienced in this wonderful life mate is just fascinating I think we're going to have to do another show because it's it's too much it's going to we're going to lose people if we go on for too long which is a shame because I know that they want to hear this but let's be honest in this modern day and age now that we're out of the uh the you know what period people aren't going to have three hours to watch this fascinating chat so probably going to do it in two parts let it into two episodes yes you want to talk about transformers it's if you want to really get some people going you can talk about eight new fos and I'll talk about transformers what's the connection there mate well um obviously transformers is about aliens it's about a an alien race which is a mechanical race and I was asked about this at a convention somebody said well transformers is about toys that I said no it's about it's about consciousness and we're like what do you mean it's about well the aliens or or automated machines that have a spark i.e a soul and the people are going well it's going to become more and more open that there's something going on that the US military the Department of Defense knows something that are not telling everybody else about and of course last week there was yet another release of a film uh by the american navy of an unidentified flying object or an unidentified aerial phenomena um that they go we don't know what this is but it looks suspiciously like a an aircraft that doesn't belong to us or some kind of vehicle that we don't know what it is we can discuss that if you like but um in transformers we talk about an alien presence on earth which doesn't look like a human being and it's actually mechanical it's a machine with its own consciousness that can transform itself into different mechanical shapes so um the more we talk about transformers we really talking about uh the phenomena of alien intelligence and consciousness um shall I just clarify for our friends at home that I you think i'm talking to mark i'm actually talking to bumblebee yes bumblebee yes no this is bumblebee in the transformers me and giles no yes can I give you my technique just quickly because I like to be the voice of reason because there's so much um confusion purpose there's so much order out of chaos can we call it it's it's yet another distraction to take people's focus off the money supply you know everyone argues about religion color black lives aliens uh celebrities doing this which which you know a lot of this plays a function but the the main thing that the uh the powers that we don't want you to focus on is the money supply that that keeps us all enslaved to them um so I have no doubt we're going to get alien stuff coming out in the media because it's just another thing that's just going to divide the world and you know these people are masters at at this game divide and conquer leaders have been doing it for thousands upon thousands of years so that would be my take mark are you you're not going to tell me now that you're a what do they call it a believer or something like this oh I I certainly think there's a very interesting spin on why the american department of defense would have said these are real gun camera pictures of taken from an f-18 hornet super hornet of an object that we don't really understand what it is and where it came from now it moves now that may have been true or not I have to believe the opposite of that I think it's very likely is something that we've developed and and are flying and this is some kind of psychological deflection um thing I I agree with you in that sense that it's a deflection uh from possibly an awkward truth which is that the uh we are further advanced in these scientific discoveries than we know about because of the money it's actually what you just said but for different reason I think that possibly that the technical side of what we are capable of doing is so far strips oil and gas and our present the way we control society and cultures at the moment which is all based on petrodollars and all that kind of stuff if we discover that there was actually a source of energy that was free and cheap and clean all of that would go out the window so the city of london would be out of business probably overnight so I think there is a certain element of deflection and distraction look over there look over there I'm just showing people at home guys there's there's kind of like a glowing clue in this picture do I get to see the picture though I'm just flashing it if CNN and CNN are behind it or Fox or whoever the network is it's it's not in your best interest folks to believe in it I it's that's my take on it you know these are the people that have just brought you 20 years of slaughter in the middle east and no disrespect but you all fell for it now they want you to believe that there's little green men that are going to come and farm us in our beds and it's I don't think they want they want you to believe that but you know what I mean yes yes well we've had all the x files haven't we and the what do you call it what is it when they take you up to their spaceship they mean the anal probe yeah they probe probe you with things and all this sort of stuff can we say anal probe on this yes we can say I think there's a lot of distraction going on for not I didn't mean that word actually that actually means to probe someone anally doesn't it I meant I meant okay you can say blimey if you like I didn't I didn't hear the word so you know what you said oh something I'll probably go to um to youtube jail mate so I'm not going to say it again put it out bleep it out you'll be fine um no I think there is distraction in it but anyway the transformers the whole point of the transformers is about a alien sentient race that comes to for refuge uh on planet earth and makes its its home here and ends up defending and in many ways the robots themselves the transformers themselves and view the best and the worst of of human character for instance Optimus Prime is seen as this father protective figure of of the Autobots bumblebee and I've been asked this again about the character and asked what why bumblebee is so popular is because he he is an embodiment of everything which is kind and fair and loyal in human nature there's many things within the character that are very human and the for me one of the great successes of the franchise was that they were able to take these basically digital models because we only ever built one actual robot so we only ever built one transformer and that was bumblebee and he's at the studios he's at paramount studios um and he was too big he was two and a half tons a mate of mine chris built him and he was two tons of car parts and they took too long to move him around the set so everything else is CGI so it was to me it was a miracle that they were able to imbue these characters that you see on the screen that are actually there I have to imagine that they're there when we're doing the dialogue with whoever it is with Anthony Hopkins or any of the actors that are there um uh and at my warboard or any of these guys you know um we we have to imagine that they're there and put them in the on the screen in our heads and uh they managed to make these characters particularly bumblebee very human and very relatable to their their their sense of of of loyalty in their sense of of caring is very similar to human traits and even the awkward ones the ones that have got you know ratchet and all these different characters have human characters that we can relate to so that's one of the reasons that the franchise was so successful I mean five films a decade ended up being on the set with Michael Bay on and off um you you know what I'm going to ask you to do don't you oh god I'm going to be cheesy um cheesy host gotta do the voice mate come on I've got I've got bumblebee up on the picture I'll jump him up and down as you're talking ah the mission to speak sir I wish to stay with the boy that was bumblebee one of the other ones which was always got a laugh for me was I was in the studio one day doing this character and Michael looked at me said who is that I said it's my mate Ray Winston he went oh I thought I recognized that but he said do it again I went behold the glory on the jetfire I'm a mercenary do-bringer you know so I was like doing I was doing Ray Markey oh yeah Markey what's going on my son how are you we're gonna get together come on then come okay what's going on um so I was doing Ray Moddo for jetfire but I also I've done on the set I've been everybody I was I was Optimus Brian I was the lockdown lockdown was my favorite the Lamborghini bumblebee was was a great character to play and we had a lot of fun with bumblebee um but he honestly called lockdown he's honest his name is lockdown correct the character on the fourth film was the Lamborghini that was the one of the most interesting characters actually uh was lockdown and lockdown was the um basically a bounty hunter that hunted the other Autobots through the universe and he was a very cold mercenary um amoral character that didn't care about the Autobots or the Decepticons um and in fact his first line is um Autobots Decepticons always causing a mess wherever I go in the universe is he the dude that looks like an advanced version of Robocop um he sort of was a big sort of um he had a green face with a gun that came out of his head and uh and a hook and uh he flew in with his spaceship he had his own spaceship which he rounded the universe capturing taking prisoner or the Autobots so they could all be returned back to their own planet so a lockdown was a um was a fascinating character to play and I think it's actually one of the fan favorites you know you humans always making a mess and then I have to clean it up friends at home if you're watching tell me if the chap I put is this lockdown what are your thoughts and um good kudos mate I mean you know smashing it there in Hollywood by blockbuster movies there was um I got I got approached by it might have been CNN actually uh anyway some media companies wanted an interview because while margill bay was in hong kong filming one of the one of the scenes that took place in Hong Kong um a load of Hong Kong triads rocked up on the set and started demanding protection money yeah yeah well they were they are my old bosses I I worked for the 14k when I lived in Wan Chai uh I was only a or the limit I should say in my experience was I was a nightclub dormant for them but of course I'm kind of the closest link the media's got to that world in in or I certainly was at that time and they they they used to phone me up for interviews about or they um there's a there's a game called sleeping dogs it's very realistic actually but it's all triad gameplay set in Hong Kong and I was the I was the promotion sky for that so I did all the interviews you know Chris how does this game compare to working for the real triads my god it's it's so realistic it's unreal but yes um sorry we got went a bit off track there but you you're obviously familiar with that when this extort this attempted extortion that got it got huge yeah well but it didn't go anywhere and to be honest with you the Chinese government were more concerned about how the film looked and what references there were to the central government than there were about the Chinese triads in Hong Kong let me tell you there was more there was more of that about the Chinese government and threatening to sue them over the use of a hotel you know it's like anything they paramount everybody thinks a paramount are just going to write you a check if you threaten with anything and you know without putting without putting too fine a point too fine a point on it the film industry is a bit like the mafia and it's all right so trying to threaten paramount was a little bit like uh no guys you don't you don't understand um anyway the Chinese government got their way and a line was added into the film to to protect them but to be honest with I think Bay is perfectly capable of of aiming somebody off the set anyway in his own right he's always got a he's got a security team with him run by my mate my old pal Harry Humphries a top man give Harry a quick plug so Harry always always got guys around the set you know looking after people but Michael's not that type of guy he's not something that's going to go here his 20 books disappear he's not like that either I think he hit somebody over the head with an air with an air cleaner or somewhere a fan or something somebody came up and threatened him with a knife and he smacked him over the head with with something you know Bay would do that he's a kind of guy I heard something about that yes yes I'm just flashing some pictures of me in Hong Kong up on the screen there we go guys just to keep you all interested not that Mark's not riveting I can't I can't see I can't see your screen so you'll have to watch your podcast mate oh gosh I have to sit through this all again slip me slip me a tenner I will um I'll send you a link for it okay well that's interesting working for the child I liked Hong Kong I enjoyed my time there so but it was after after the Chinese had taken over so the garrison there had been moved out and it was all now you know filled with Chinese troops and stuff but I have to say when I was there they stayed out of the way now I know they're much more involved and you know there's all kinds of unrest and stuff going on but it wasn't when I was there so it was in that period it was a garrison there's lots of things going on in in Hong Kong in Taymar Barracks it would have been a ship's company because it's a HMS Taymar wasn't it was the was the historic navy building there I did go down to look at it because I thought well I wondered what if they demolished it or something but I actually went down there just to look at the garrison just to say well I've seen it I was never in it but I wanted to go and it's still there it's still the historic building that it was the last time I was there anyway yeah I'll get a picture of it up I I hid out there my first few trips to Hong Kong I used to smuggle myself in to flash my ID card and I'd go and stay there for free which in you know Hong Kong's not the cheapest uh not the cheapest place in the world let me get let me there's not there's not very glamorous picture of it online um so I used to go and stay in in Taymar which is pretty much central isn't it if you you know Hong Kong yeah um until the time the adjudant which is a which is an army term folks so it all gets a bit confusing but the adjudant found out I was stowing away there and uh he said report to me right away through do you understand I said yes sir of course I understood whether I reported to him right away was a separate issue as far as I'm concerned and I I literally ran out of the place with all my rucksack it's all in my my book eating smoke folks which is one of the books up you can see up here or you can in a second and uh yeah I ran away from HMS Taymar with my burger on and my briefcase in my hand and and that was it I was out with the British military for for good then and on my own two feet and we all know how that panned out oh life you gotta laugh so Mark listen absolutely fantastic um let's come back another time because I'd like to chat Che Guevara with you sure uh Ray Winston MK ultra which is a fascinating topic that's the CIA uh Monarch project isn't it the the um the brainwashing mind control thing with the the butterfly symbology it was though officially acknowledged and apologized for by Bill Clinton I mean he did actually come out and go yes we did do this it was it was a crime and well if you think about it they have to do that because they can't admit to it still going on and that's a different conversation yes but the notion that what they came out and said is oh yeah we did have that project in the 50s but we discontinued it right well if you were able to brainwash people in powerful places so the heads of state in other nations or Hollywood celebs what whatever people in in positions of influence like you're really going to ditch that program I I'd be a bit skeptical of that mark but well well there's a conversation to be had have you ever heard the expression v2k v2k it sounds like a comedian v2k no v2k yeah what does it mean voice to school uh enlighten me do some research and when we when we chat next time we'll talk about it okay yes v2k voice to school hey you're giving someone homework that hated homework yeah it's the subject I've been approached to do a new tv show a documentary which we're in discussions about at the moment um called mind wars about the uses and abuses of various psychological warfare things so um you bringing this up about mk ultra and that's why it jumped into my mind because one of the projects they asked me about was Havana syndrome um and this if you know what the Havana syndrome is but also the the thing of voice to school so yeah I'm getting it now ties in with the targeted people thing doesn't it there's a whole bunch of stuff about all of that yeah yeah let's let's do that in our next combo which I am already looking forward to it's been a pleasure it's been a pleasure I hope you've got enough material to chop it together do you have any books out mark anything like this you'd like to promote uh I've got a book out it's called hold fast which is actually it came from um black my time in black sales where I had hold fast on my knuckles mr for mr gates and then the it was suggested by the art department they put hold fast and um it was and it is basically the story of my life from me leaving the UK to uh my 20 years in in Los Angeles and I'm going to probably do a follow-up to it which is the first 20 years in London with Evita and who dares wins and all that Robin Assure would again which I mentioned which I didn't really cover much in the book so um I wanted to cover the last 20 years so I might go backwards now and cover more of that information um I thought at the time that people wouldn't be able to be interested in it but it turns out that people are more interested in that period of the 80s late 70s and 80s than I imagine so hold fast is my autobiography that's how I've also written three books about the psychology of the imagery in tarot cards so there's wildwood tarot greenwood tarot uh wild magic which is all about the synchronicity of tarot cards that's a whole other conversation to me my therapies we talked about that earlier on um was writing these books about human nature and human nature in in in the natural world so tarot cards to me were my way of processing information in a way that I could manage it and understanding human human nature so that's how it started and it was um it's been very successful so I mean wildwood tarot is probably one of the best selling tarot decks of the last 50 years 30 years anyway so anyway you know yes wildwood tarot greenwood tarot wild magic any of those books the pilgrim comic book graphic novel which is about psychic spies and about special forces people who have um special powers who were then recruited to do special work for the intelligence community the pilgrim is available that's out there somewhere and based on all kinds of things most of them you know some of the things that we've just been talking about my gosh how fascinating and um yes I'm not going to dive into why you've had to write these under your uh intelligence pseudonym but for people watching this is a man who has had a past so we are just going to stick with the name mark ryan um yes I'm going to say no more otherwise the boys are going to be abseiling down my balcony and it's the best it's the best it's for the best yes I haven't even got a balcony so that's going to be interesting yeah we'll still find a way through the front door with a ranger over the ladder on top usually but that's you know mark listen stay on the line so I can thank you properly but for the purposes of the recording massive thanks mate I've absolutely thoroughly enjoyed this conversation um and look forward to having many many more um I like I like to keep my hand in in hollywood you know what I'm saying so yeah it's a curious place you know a lot of people knock it but I have to be it's been very kind to me I mean I mean that hollywood and los angeles has been kind to me I'll always be grateful for them welcoming and giving me a shot my first shot was on phrasier you know the tv show phrasier and you know I've always been grateful since so I love it there southern california is fantastic anyway brilliant brilliant brilliant thank you again mate to our friends at home massive love to you all please look after yourselves please be kind to each other and if you can like and subscribe especially as I flash the flashy thing up three times end for you I will love you even more so see you next time thank you take care be well everybody hello friend I hope this finds you well my name is chris thrall I'm a former rawnry's commando and I fought my way back from chronic trauma 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