SAS Operator & MI5 | Mick Hawkes | Ep. 332

Ex British military 24 years, 12 years 22 SAS (Including 6 years Covert operations). 2 years as a military advisor to the British Secret Intelligence Services in London (MI5 for Covert operations). Last 22 years in corporate security operating out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Sudan, Libya and the last 6 years in West Africa. Find Mick here: https://www.hawkesandco.uk/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️ https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.com Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured —————————————————————- Today's Sponsors: American Financing ⬇️ https://AmericanFinancing.net/teamhouse or call 866-889-8010 Disclaimer NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 50% OFF!!! StopBox USA⬇️ Get firearm security redesigned and save with BOGO the StopBox Pro AND 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code HOUSE at https://www.stopboxusa.com/HOUSE #stopboxpod Mando ⬇️ https://shopmando.com Promo code "TEAMHOUSE" for 40% off your starter pack. ____________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— To help support the show and for all bonus content including: https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ [email protected] Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:40Speaker 04

  Special Operations.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 3:00Jack Murphy?

  Hey, everyone. This is episode 332 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy and our guest on tonight's show is a very interesting person, Michael Hawks. But you go by Mick, right?

• 3:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, Mick, yeah, absolutely.

• 3:13Jack Murphy?

  So Mick spent a long career in the British military, including in the Special Air Service, deploying in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, all kinds of the Balkans, and then spent a second career in the gas and oil security field and private security contracting. He is also the author of the book, Life on the Edge, which is coming out probably next month, you know, in the near future. So many of you who are listening to this podcast, it's probably already available. If you're watching it when it just comes out, you may have to wait a month or so. Mick, thank you for joining us on the show today.

• 3:54Speaker 05

  My, my pleasure. I much appreciate it. Thanks for, thanks for inviting us.

• 4:00Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, man. So your book is an autobiography and we're kind of going to, you know, go through some of it on the interview today. And, you know, we like to ask our guests, you know, first off, you know, sort of how they grew up, what their upbringing was like, and how that kind of propelled them towards military service.

• 4:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, quite bizarre. So my father was in the army. He was a, we were called a crap out. So he wore a BlackBerry, um, normal raw signals, wasn't any special. Um, we deployed all over, um, UK and Germany. Um, I went to about ten, ten, twelve different schools. Um, but ended up being quite good at football, uh, if that makes sense. And I had no intention of joining the military, believe you me. Cause all the, all the people that I saw, uh, were quite, uh, quite rotund, alcoholically rotund, um, if that makes sense. Uh, so there

• 5:04Speaker 05

  was no, no, no inspiration really, uh, to, to join the military. Uh, and so all I ever wanted to do was be a professional footballer, um, which was going great because I played for every school that I went to, I played, played football for. Um, and then when we moved back to, so my mum and dad divorced when I was fifteen, we came back to the UK because we lived in Germany, uh, at the time, um, went back to UK and, uh, played for a small team in Lincoln, in Lincolnshire. And they got me a trial with a little team called Lincoln City, um, who, uh, sort of lower echelons really, uh, that's, they're not the Man Uniteds of the world, but, um, so I went for a trial with them and, uh, and

• 5:46Speaker 05

  they didn't pick me. And I was like, ah, hold on. What do you mean you're not picking me? I played left back, obviously left back in the changing room, uh, in their eyes. Uh, so I ne- I never got picked. And, uh, so I was quite, quite gutted. Uh, so what to do at fifteen and a half? Um, so I, uh, I then decided, well, you know, let's have a look at the military. And, uh, and literally I walked into a careers office and there was a big burly parachute man, uh, sat behind a desk, uh, and behind him, uh, was a massive picture, uh, of a C one thirty Hercules and a lot, a lot of people jumping out. And I, I just looked at the picture, looked at the individual who, who looked the part,

• 6:31Speaker 05

  to be quite frank. Um, you know, it was sold. Um, and he said, yeah, you know, sign on the dotted line here, like, you know, and, uh, and that was it. We, um, I, I joined the junior parachute regiment at sixteen years of age. Fantastic.

• 6:46Jack Murphy?

  You're a boy soldier.

• 6:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. And it, you know, I tell you what's bizarre. So I'd never actually finished a cross-country run in my life because, you know, I had a football on my arm and, you know, that, that long distance run, you know, what's all that about? I don't need to do that. So I'd never actually finished a cross-country run when I was at school. And then, and then we, I went down to Aldershot, joined the junior parachute regiment. And, and one of the first things we did was a 10-mile run, you know. And, and bizarrely, I came second. You know, I'm wondering where that came from. And I found out pretty quickly I was a bit of a natural runner. You know, I, to the extent that I've done a half marathon in 69 minutes,

• 7:30Speaker 05

  if that makes sense. And so really, really good runner. And, and that really sort of set myself, set myself up really for the rest of my career. But unfortunately, with the, the junior parachute regiment, so I was 16, went down there. Because I'd been to boarding school, so I, I got used to being away from home. Whereas a lot of the, a lot of the other kids, you know, this was their first time away. And, and it's the first time really that I'd seen, you know, older kids crying, crying at night, like, because they were homesick, I suppose. But, you know, thankfully, I never went through that. But during my time there,

• 8:13Speaker 05

  so I joined the cross-country team, fantastic. This will give me a bit of a flavour as the men, the mentality of a parachute regiment. So the junior parachute regiment, we, our cross-country team was quite good. However, we came second to the army catering tour. And, and what happened was, you know, you get your trophies at the end of it, and then we drove back to grounding barracks in, in Aldershot. Thank you that we were cockerhooed because we came second, and we had our, our first level trophy. And as we were getting off the bus, the RSM turned up, parachute regiment depot parrot, turned up with a, a big shiny bin.

• 8:56Speaker 05

  And basically, he said, listen, if you think coming second to the army catering corps is a positive thing, you can think again, every one of you, throw your trophies in the bin. And really, that was, you know, the competitiveness of the parachute regiment compared to other organisations. But it set me up in good stead, so I joined the gymnastic platoon, because they toured all around the country, doing gymnastic displays, great. And then at seventeen, you then go into normal recruit training. Did peak company.

• 9:41Speaker 05

  Week fourteen, we went on a run and I snapped my ankle pretty badly, because I tried to jump off a tank burn in Oldershaw, a place called Hankley Common. There was these about eight foot, nine foot high tank burns, and you know, you had to jump off and, you know, do what you perceived as being a para roll. But we weren't para trained, you know, we were still going through training, so I just landed like a, you know, like a bag of crap on the floor, I suppose. And my ankle snapped, and they sort of carried it. You know, in them days, there was no medical facilities, you know, we didn't have an ambulance

• 10:19Speaker 05

  with us, so, you know, it was carrying me back, basically, six miles back to camp. They manipulated my ankle into place, and then left it for three weeks, re-exrayed it, and then realised that it hadn't knitted properly, and it was, it had to be pinned. So they pinned the ankle, took me about another nine months to rehabilitation, and then I got called in ready to have a chat with a training major and a medical doctor.

• 10:54Speaker 05

  Just so you know, medical doctors are the bane of my life, and you'll understand as we go through. So this medical doctor decided that my parachute career was over. And I think just being a bit overzealous, I suppose, because I was a young kid, seventeen years of age, and they said, listen, you know, these are your options. And because of that mentality, you know, parachute regiment or nothing, I actually left the army for about four or five months, realised that that was a big mistake, went back to the same recruiting office. They said, listen, you've got a really good report here, you know, obviously you

• 11:37Speaker 05

  can't parachute. However, have you thought about being a commando? And I thought, I thought Royal Marines. And they went, well, the army have got commandos as well. So your options are Royal Artillery or Royal Engineers. So I decided to join the Royal Artillery and then spent, so went down, did the commando course, basically down in Plymouth, fantastic time, and then ended up going to Scotland, being posted up to sem battery in Albion, Scotland, for the next seven years. So it was, it was great.

• 12:14Jack Murphy?

  And with the Royal Artillery, you did a tour to Northern Ireland?

• 12:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, here we go. So when I did the commando course, everybody that was on that course was going to go to a battery down in Plymouth, because they wanted them to do a six-month tour over in Belize. Not for me. The battery that I wanted to go was up in Scotland, because they were going to Northern Ireland. So I found injury on my ankle. So we'd all, we'd all passed, basically. We were all about to get on a bus to go down to Leimston to do the Royal Marine commando tests, or the commando course as such, All Arms Commando.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  And I, and I just played on my ankle, you know, my ankle stub, but the instructors knew what was going on. They knew that I wanted to go arbro. They said, listen, make, you know, fair dues, but you're going to have to do the whole thing again. Um, I wasn't that bothered, to be honest, because I wanted to go to that battery. So unfortunately, they did the whole thing again, uh, which is fine. It kept you fit, fit. So, you know, no whingeing and whining about that. Um, ended up going to Scotland, where I wanted to go in the first place. Um, and we did a tour to South Almar, um, which at the time was quite, uh, quite interesting. Uh, two para, uh, went out there. They'd lost quite a few people at Warren Point, uh, eighteen, uh, eighteen young, uh, soldiers got killed,

• 13:47Speaker 05

  uh, Warren Point. So South Almar was, was quite a hotspot. Uh, so we had a place called Besbrook, um, and Newton Hamilton were our two areas of, of operation. Uh, a lot of it was a lot of rural work, uh, going out in the countryside, uh, looking for bits and bobs. And, uh, yeah, nothing happened. It was a very, very quiet tour. But what it, what it did teach me, um, later on in life, uh, was how, how very little, uh, good intelligence the normal British Army get given, or the green armor as we call it. Um, because they, all the, all the top intelligence, when it comes filtered down, goes to special

• 14:29Speaker 05

  forces, uh, or to the, or, or to the surveillance people. And then all the, all the crappy stuff gets filtered down to the, the normal British Army. So really, you, you're just sort of walking and, and hoping, uh, to pick up intelligence and, uh, and, you know, being lucky, um, you know, to, to find someone walking around with a gun, uh, to take on or whatever, like, you know, but it, it was, it was a bit hit and miss. But we had a very quiet tour, um, which were a bit of a bummer, uh, because you always want, want so much to happen. You know, that's, that's perks of joining the military, I suppose. Uh, but very quiet tour. Came back quite happy, you know, got my first operational tour out of the way.

• 15:10Jack Murphy?

  And then you got spun up for the Falklands also in this unit.

• 15:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I although I was in the artillery, I've never been on the guns in my life, you know, firing the gun.

• 15:21Jack Murphy?

  That's funny.

• 15:22Speaker 05

  You know, I fired the guns when I went through basic training, but I was very lucky that I ended up in the food party, the forward observation, and that's where my trade was really. And so when the Falklands came around, we were attached to, so it was four or five commando, who we were co-located with in Arbroath, Scotland anyway. So when it came to the Falklands, we were attached to four or five and specifically Yankee Company. So a little four man team attached to Yankee Company. If they needed any artillery support, we would give it to them. So we did the, we did the Yompa Cross, as they call it, or

• 16:03Speaker 05

  the Tabacross. So basically, we came ashore. It was, it was a quite, quite beach landing, I suppose. You know, we were expecting, expecting quite a, quite a heavy sort of hostile, you know, defence by the Argentinians, but there was no one there. And so it was quite, but then we, as soon as you get up to the high ground, you start dipping in, that's when the aircraft start coming over, the Argentinian aircraft. And that's when, that's, that's when you realise that you're in a, you're in a proper war, I suppose. And the very sad sight was watching a British brigad, the Antelope, actually get bombed and sank

• 16:48Speaker 05

  in San Carlos water directly in front of us. And there was a very brave individual went on there to try and detonate a, or to defuse a bomb. Unfortunately, the bomb went off and killed him outright, along with another person. But the vessel broke its back and quite a sad sight, I suppose. You know, watching a sort of a large vessel like that sink directly in front of you. So that, that was, you know, that, that got you into it as well. Two Para then made their move up to Goose Green. And then we, you know, we got the move then to start moving out, along with three Para, to make the push really over to Mount Kent.

• 17:37Speaker 05

  So got to Mount Kent, you know, so I told you I've got a pin in my ankle. Now, just before the Falklands, I actually went down there to try and get the pin taken out. So in the September, um, they couldn't get the pin out, so they buried it deeper. Uh, but it had left a bit of a mess on my ankle. So because of the, because of all the walking, uh, that you do on the Falklands and it, and it's, it's very boggy, peak bog. Um, my ankle went really gummy, um, septic and everything else. So when I was at Mount Kent, I, um, one of the guys said, listen mate, you know, go down there, go to the first aid post. You know, get it wrapped up and, uh, good to go, ready for the, for the battles, because we had the, all the main battles were coming up, like, you know.

• 18:21Speaker 05

  And again, another medical doctor, um, decided that, that he was going to fly me instantly, fly me off. Um, to a place, uh, to a hospital ship called the Uganda. Um, and I just thought, I just looked at him, thought, oh no, I've just walked all the way over. Um, three peak bog getting here, we're about to start the battles and you want me to go, you want me to go sick. And, uh, so, so I, I ignored him, told him to go and get my kit, uh, totally ignored that. Strapped it up, a bit of proof in, you know, paracetamol, pat yourself on the head and, you know, get on with it. Uh, and that's what we did firstly, um, and the next day.

• 19:04Speaker 05

  Literally the day before we were moving out to, um, towards Two Sisters, one of the major. Uh, battle sites that we were going to be attacking, um, this doctor tried to hunt me down and found me. Um, and, uh, and ordered me to, uh, to pack my kit firstly. And thankfully, um, we had a major, uh, who was attached to us. Uh, he overrode him and said, listen, hoaxy, um, you know, he's happy to, you know, with his ankle, uh, let him get on with it. So thankfully overrode him, uh, and then we, we did the attacks and, and it was great because it was Two Sisters. Unfortunately, four or five lost all their mortars, so they didn't have any mortars for

• 19:47Speaker 05

  the attack, so they were very reliant really on artillery support. Some of the things we did artillery support, the danger close was flipping dangerous, because we were playing it by ear, you know, doing danger close on a training facility is totally different to doing it in warfare. So it was, you know, a lot of it was off the cuff, you know, keep your heads down, guys, because these rounds are going to come in.

• 20:14Jack Murphy?

  How close do you guys think you walked it in?

• 20:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, they were about thirty meters away from the closest.

• 20:22Jack Murphy?

  With artillery, that's really close, yeah.

• 20:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, but one, you know, one oh five, and this is, you know, I take my hat off, ready, so they, the guns came down at the other end, because not one of the rounds that were fired all night was off target, they were all spot on. And it was eight, but we weren't even using our own battery, it was eight battery, one of our sister batteries. Because of the, the way the batteries were, and the trajectory, we couldn't use our own battery, so we, we used our eight battery, and I tell you what, I take my hat off, because their gunnery skills was just spot on. Every now and then, you got a totally different round, so a illuminating round would go off, with a HE or, you know, or something else would go off.

• 21:09Speaker 05

  But the, the reason for that is, they were getting that short of ammunition, they were just chucking anything up the, up the gun, and it was, you know, fair, fair one, but we did have to curb the enthusiasm of the wrong range, because they ended up starting to use artillery like mortars, and you can't do that, we're an aerial weapon. So taking out a machine gun post is not going to happen, if that makes sense, and you had to be brutally honest to them, you know, why are you next in, guys? Take that with the, you know, your section and just get stuck in with your bayonets, because we couldn't afford to, to, you know, use all our ammunition up, because our next objective was Sapper Hill.

• 21:52Speaker 05

  And anyone that knows the Falklands, Sapper Hill is a long, flat running to hit the the last hill overlooking overlooking Stanley, and that was our that was our next objective. And we needed ammunition really, because we were getting really short, so having a sort of turkey enthused us, but it all went well, because just after that, the Argentinians, obviously, they they sort of were running off, retreating, we followed them, we followed them with the artillery. Quite bizarrely, when you actually put a load of rams down in front of the people that were retreating, they like to look in the halls, you know, where the thing went off.

• 22:37Speaker 05

  For some reason, they like to congregate and have a look, and when you're on the radio like that, repeat. And you send them, do I feel bad about that? You know, not at all, they're retreating, they're not surrendering, they're retreating. So these people could actually be going back to Sapper Hill, our next objective, and end up killing us, so no qualms about chasing, retreating enemy at all, you know. Thankfully, they surrendered, and that was it finished. Unfortunately for me, it meant that I, we came back on the Canberra, which was a more like a luxury liner, I suppose, painted white in a war zone, bizarrely.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  But I ended up, because my ankle was completely jammed up by then, I ended up three weeks in the, or two and a half weeks for the whole voyage, in the sick bay on antibiotics, drinking the odd sort of beer that the lads managed to sniff into, sniff into the sick bay, if that makes sense. Would I change it? Not at all. You know, it was the right call, because we're a four-man team, and going sick, people, people that go sick in a war zone, unless you've had your arm shot off, or you've lost your leg, it's a bit of a no-no, you know, get it strapped up and just get on with it, like, you know, if that makes sense.

• 24:06Speaker 05

  Because some of the people that were in Uganda... With people that had been burnt up really badly on some of the vessels, or some of the people that had been shot in the head and, and you know, you turned them out with your gummy ankle. That, it didn't sit right for me. And, and that's why we made the decision really to ignore the, ignore the, the exuberant officer, the medical guy again. And so that's the second time now that I've had issues with, with doctors. So that was the Falklands and it, it was great. Lot of respect for the Argentinians. And I thought they, they fought bravely and, and you know, as good as what they. Bear in mind that the Brits sent all their top people down there.

• 24:50Speaker 05

  You know, you had the S A S down there, S B S down there, two parachute battalions, uh, three war marine commando groups, um, with their artillery support and everything else. So, so it was quite a, quite a high powered British element that went down there. Uh, and, and we all knew that once we, once we got ashore, uh, there was only going to be one outcome, I suppose. Uh, but we were getting close to that, um, logistics nightmare of, uh, running out of, uh, ammunition. Uh, so thankfully the Argentinians, uh, surrendered, um, you know, perfectly on time, I suppose.

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• 29:03Jack Murphy?

  So it sounds like there are kind of like two themes in your military career, one being what you started doing as a forward observer, the sort of a scouting role, and then the other becoming mountainist, working in the mountains. And after the Falklands, you told me that you did five trips to Norway because your unit had sort of an Arctic warfare role at the time.

• 29:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, so because we were based up in our growth Scotland, so with four, five, we were the Arctic, we were in the Arctic role every year. So every, either late December or very early January, you deployed, three months, you deployed to Norway, and you ended up going up to the Arctic Circle for the, you know, for the final exercise, Narvik, that area. But at that time, Norway was fantastic because it was a dry cold. It was flipping freezing, but it was a dry cold. And when it's a dry cold, it's survivable, it's quite easy. As long as your admin's on the ball, you know, you're not going to lose your glove or, you know, your skis fall off or whatever, then it's manageable.

• 30:11Speaker 05

  The coldest place I've ever been, and Foxy, you know, you listen to Foxy's podcasts, you know, he alludes to it fantastically. Stelley Bridge Rangers in Wales is the coldest, and I've done five Norways, is the coldest I have ever been, because it's a wet, damp, miserable cold. And when you're on there for seven days and it's chucking down with rain, and it's the middle of winter, I'll tell you what, it really does test the, not only the morale, but the resilience of people.

• 30:46Jack Murphy?

  Yes.

• 30:48Speaker 05

  You go on exercises up in north of Scotland, up in the mountains up there, and again, same, same wet weather, miserable, I'll tell you what, it certainly makes a man ager.

• 31:02Jack Murphy?

  And then 1986, your first shot at SAS selection. Tell us about how like that comes about. Like, how does the SAS come on your radar and you start to think, you know, this is something I want to do?

• 31:15Speaker 05

  Falklands. Well, obviously, so when I was on the command of course, the Iranian embassy siege kicked in. And that was base one. So base one was on the back of my one. Base one. So that was when I first, when I first on the military, I thought SAS was something to do with postal, you know, special air service. I didn't have a clue they were special forces until they, until the Iranian embassy siege in 1986. And I happened to be on the command of course at that time down in Limston. So that, that pricked my, my interest up somewhat. Then the Falklands came about, Northern Ireland, seeing these people turn up.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  We're failing along here at Bez Brook Mill, driving in and out in sibbies. Again, you know, getting a, you know, feel for what they're, what they're doing. The Falklands, they had two, two squadrons active down there, G and D, doing a, doing a great job. Unfortunately, I, I never actually came into contact with the SAS teams because they were all doing their, doing their thing, if that makes sense. But, you know, it was obvious. And then we did, then we did an exercise up in the north of Scotland when it was chugging down with rain. And the SAS were up there also part of the exercise. And again, you just, you just knew that, you know, that's the place.

• 32:41Speaker 05

  If you wanted to get somewhat further out in your military career, going to the SAS is the obvious thing. Because there's only, there's only so many operations that you can do in the Green Army. Whereas a regiment, the SAS can be involved in everything. So if you're, if you're that way orientated, then doing SAS selection was the, was the right thing to do. If that makes sense. So 1986, about, or two, two or three years before that.

• 33:09Speaker 05

  I started training, because it's like most things on the hills, you know, if you're going to do a course, you study, you know, you do your homework and that lot. Your homework for the SAS is up on the hills, you know, so that you know the routes inside and out. Because if you know exactly where you're going to be going, it just means that it just takes a lot of pressure off it. If that makes sense. And some people are good at map reading, some people are not so good. So the people that are really good at map reading tend to do a winter course, you know, where the weather's right in front of you. And you can't see the diddly squat, so you know, you have to, your map reading's got beyond the ball.

• 33:51Speaker 05

  And in them days, it was great because there was no GPS, it was just map and compass and get on with it.

• 33:58Speaker 05

  And then the summer course, you know, in a way, because it was nice in the summer, well, talking about the UK here, so two weeks worth of summer, maybe. But because it's fairly decent weather, you know, some people can get away without being really good at map reading, if that makes sense. And unfortunately, with 1986, we had the horrendous weather. And it was, and of course, and for me, it was going great, up until

• 34:31Speaker 05

  the point where they said, right, we're going to have to cancel test week. Good if the weather's so bad. So we did a weapons week in the classroom and, you know, so doing stuff that we would have done the week after test week in the build-up ready to the jungle phase. So we did it a week early. But the weather didn't improve at all. So they said, listen, guys, we're just going to have to go for it. So the first route that we did, so we're looking at seven routes here that you have to do for test week. And the first one was was was pretty, pretty easy going, I suppose. And I was about the fourth one off the truck. And when you jumped off, they literally, the snow was up

• 35:12Speaker 05

  to your crutch. And you had forty five pound Bergen on you, your weapon. And then up down mountains, and away you go, like, you know. And quite hard going, to be honest, especially for the first person. You know, because he's he's trailblazing, mostly. But it's not a case of, you know, one person goes off and everybody follows them. They they've got about five different routes that you go off. So you you don't know which which way you're going to be going until you actually get to the checkpoint. And they say, right, this is your next grid. And because the guy who's directly in front of you might might be going to a different checkpoint. So so that just negates that, you know, everybody

• 35:54Speaker 05

  following it. But I got called off first for the the first, the second route. And it was a horrendous place called Ilan Valley, which was really boggy. And then you've got this sort of four foot of snow up to your crutch, you know, and off you go. So off I went, you know, as you do, crack on. And I got to the second last checkpoint, and they bizarrely, the training major, and the sergeant major, of course, sergeant major was there, waiting. And as I was coming in, they they just said, ah, Hopsey, step off, go and get yourself a nice, nice cup of tea over there. Nice bit of advice, go and get yourself a nice cup of tea. And then allow two people to to sort of get in front of

• 36:39Speaker 05

  me. And I looked at them and thought, is this a test? So so it was fantastic advice. But, you know, like I did, kid, I totally ignored it. Because I thought it was a test, you know. No, I'm I'm okay, you know, no problem. They went, okay, then. So I cracked on. And all I remember is going up to the final checkpoint, and bear in mind, the final checkpoint's on a high feature. And then, you know, it was all downhill then, down to, you know, the valley bottom, where the vehicles were, you know, piece of coke. And all I remember is waking up in a helicopter. And that is a quite a bizarre feeling, to be honest. And I was helicoptered back to

• 37:22Speaker 05

  Stade de Nines, going to the sick bay, and they kept me in there all night. Training major came in and said, you know, unfortunately, the doctor has not recommended that you continue the course. So basically, you failed.

• 37:38Jack Murphy?

  You went on hypothermic out on the course?

• 37:42Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 37:43Jack Murphy?

  You went hypothermic, I take it, out on the course?

• 37:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, hypothermic and delirious and exhaustion, everything else. But it's funny because the instructor who was up there on that checkpoint, he actually came in to see how I was. And he told me the story. He said, mate, when you came in, he said, you took your Bergen off, you got your map out correctly, I told you which way to go. I put my map away, sort of said, yeah, yeah, happy. And then I picked his Bergen up, not mine, picked his Bergen up, and then ran in the totally opposite direction to the way you told me to go. And that's when he knew there was something amiss here. So basically rugby.

• 38:26Jack Murphy?

  They start you, yeah, yeah.

• 38:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know what I mean? And I was just a bit completely out of the game, like, so they, what they said was, listen, you need to, because they wrote me a fantastic report. They said, listen, get Hockstein back on the next course, which is going to be the August course. And I went back to Scotland, Arbroath, and thankfully, I suppose, and you know, trying to say this nicely, but I actually met my future wife, Kim, while I was up there in that sort of period. And it was, you know, I just sat looking in the mirror, really, and have a chat to myself, as you do, and thought, the SAS course is

• 39:11Speaker 05

  always going to be there. It's not very often you meet the perfect female, like, you know, if that makes sense, and the perfect girl. So I, for going back on selection, really, and I built a relationship with this lovely lady, like, you know, who ended up giving me four fantastic children, like, you know, so it was the right thing to do. So I then went back on selection in eighty-eight.

• 39:39Speaker 05

  Eighty eight, and then I was fortunate enough to to pass and the the reason I say fortunate, you know, one hundred and eighty people starting our course, twelve of us passed. And believe you me, you know, that that first bit running up down the hills, it takes a lot out your body. And we always say, if you if you can get yourself to, you know, test week, the start of test week with that zero injuries, good to go. It gives you a really good chance of actually getting through that selection phase, that that initial up down the hill phase. Because that, you know, that little phase, bear in mind that that's not the hardest

• 40:19Speaker 05

  part of selection by any means, but it's a way of getting the numbers to, you know, get to where they want it. And it it also gives those selection instructors, you know, they know that they you've done your homework, basically, because if you haven't done your homework and you, you know, you get lost on the hills and bizarre story, bizarre story. So I was coming over a hill, and this was on test week, coming over a hill, and I this there was a dog in front of me, you know, in the middle of nowhere. And I recognised that it was a little Jack Russell, and it belonged to one of the one of the directors, one of the instructors, because he had two of them. They were a pain in the backside,

• 41:02Speaker 05

  to be honest. But unbeknown to me, where his checkpoint was, a helicopter had come in, spooked the two dogs, and then just bomb bursted. As I was, so it managed to find one of them, but the other one was gone. And to be honest, speaking with him later, he actually said, I actually thought I'd lost the dog completely. But it was it was just sat in the middle of the track, and I thought, well, I recognise the dog, and I can't really leave him here. So with your burger, I just trapped him, sort of holding on to the two back legs, your weapon, and literally ran, ran up to the checkpoint where the DS was like, you know, and there you go, staff, there's your dog. No thanks whatsoever.

• 41:50Speaker 05

  But right, your next checkpoint is, okay then, thanks for that, you know, how are you going like, you know, bizarre, typical. So yeah, managed to get through that bit, obviously went to the jungle, by far the hardest part of selection, far none. Anyone that thinks we're not down hills is hard, you watch as you get in the jungle. Unfortunately, we had a fatality in the jungle, so that was a bit of a wake up call. And it was, we were doing a camp attack, and unfortunately, one of the lads had got a live round, mixed up with his, the blank ammunition, when we did the camp attack. So we did, we did ours

• 42:32Speaker 05

  in the morning, went really well. The camp attack went in, and you know, when you, you know, there's a live round's just gone off here, you know, all the blanks are going, and then this live round went. And basically what had happened was the guy fired the weapon, and he was literally about four feet away from a guy dressed up in Chinese uniform. He was, he was a young lad who was attached to the regiment. They've still got a plaque on the tree, over and there, in, in memory of this young lad. So no one, no one knew him really, but, you know, sad to say, that, that someone, someone died on training line, you know. And, and really, that, you know, that was, you know, the start of the

• 43:16Speaker 05

  SAS operations, because then you realise that, you know, the training that you do is right on the edge, because it has to be, if that makes sense. But when, when the guy pulled the trigger, the, the live round smacked into the back of a blank firing attachment, but a slither of the round had sort of fed its, fed its way round, down the side of the barrel. And it was this tiny slither that went straight through his heart, and he basically was dead before he hit the floor. So, quite bizarrely, all, all the, all the people that were on that camp attack, all had to hand their weapons in, the, the SIV.

• 43:57Speaker 05

  The military police turned up in the jungle with their suits on bizarrely. Um, bear in mind, it's in crappy conditions. So they, they turned up to take statements. Um, nothing to do with us, you know, we, we were, we were sort of out of the way. Uh, so all the other lads had to hand their weapons in. Uh, they got told to go and cut a length of, uh, you know, a bit of, bit of a tree trunk. Uh, that's going to be your weapon for that's 24 hours. And it just said they had to have it told. Um, and then fresh weapons were brought in the following day and then, and then it was just, you know, go on with it, crack on. Um, you know, just as per normal, like, you know. Managed to get to the end of that, uh, end of selection, uh, or the end of, um, that part of it.

• 44:41Speaker 05

  We were down to 12, 13, 14, 16 people. We were down to 16. Um, and then, uh, and then it was straight into combat survival. Bizarrely combat survival. So right near the end of the course and everybody knows what combat survival is, you know. Uh, you go on a run for a few days and then you, you know, you get a bit of a kicking and uh, bit of interrogation, all that sort of stuff. Um, but you know, no, nothing untoward, I suppose. But we, we lost four people, uh, bizarrely. Um, a guy got captured on the run, uh, and psyched himself out. Um, and thought, you know, if he's been captured, um, he's, uh, it means that he's failed. But actually quite a few people get captured on the run. And all you do is you get a bit, bit of a slapping.

• 45:24Speaker 05

  Um, and then, and then thrown back out on the run like, you know, go, go on with it. Don't get caught again, you muppet. Uh, and away you go like, you know, and then, uh, so that was, he went and he was a paratrooper. Bizarrely, uh, second one went, he hypo- hyperventilated in his mask, uh, when he was masked up, hyperventilated. Uh, third one didn't like the stress positions. Um, and it's funny because you're giggling away to yourself. Um, because all you could hear is this guy whinging and whining and moaning and everything else. Uh, and he just said, fuck it. Get me out of here. So he went and, you know, you're sort of chucking away yourself and whatever.

• 46:02Speaker 05

  Uh, and then the final one that was, um, in them days, it was the big five, name, rank, number, you know, date of birth, and that was it. Uh, something else, can't remember what it was. Um, and that, and that's all you were allowed to say, because it wasn't the old cover storage type thing. It was just a straight forward. POW. Yeah, absolutely, the old way. Um, and, um, and that's all you could say. So I actually thought I'd failed because I, someone, when I was in a stress position, uh, someone actually put a bit of bread in my hand, uh, and said, right, quickly, quickly put that down your throat. And so as you do, so I chucked it, chucked it down my throat and dropped it down. But I, I made the mistake of saying cheers mate.

• 46:44Speaker 05

  Oh, and, and all this act was playing in the, in my mind for the next three, three days. Um, cause I actually thought I'd failed. Um, cause I said cheers mate. Um, and another guy who came out, uh, same time as me, who, um, he nodded at question. Uh, so he actually thought he'd failed as well, you know, because if they're videoing you, uh, they could just manipulate that, that nod. Right, right. You know, you, you hit a slot with the children. Yes.

• 47:12Speaker 05

  Does that make sense? You know, and so we, we were, we were pretty good, really. We thought, now we've both failed here. And then this guy came up and, uh, said, oh, is that, is that, is that all that happened? And we sort of looked at him and went, yeah, why? Um, and then apparently he blabbed his, you know, told his life story. So me and this lad that thought we'd failed, we sort of looked at him and thought, yeah, actually I think we're gonna be okay there. So who failed? And that, and that was the fourth one that went like, you know, so. So it ended up with, uh, twelve of us, uh, that sort of passed. Um, went straight on to doing black kit just to get used to, you know, um, firing a weapon with a respirator on, um, you know, doing the anti-terrorist stuff and, and everything else. Um, and then we get called in.

• 47:56Speaker 05

  And then, and you get badgeed. And there's no airs and graces, you know, there's no big fancy parade, you're just sat there. RSN comes in, throws your beret over to you. Congratulations, well done. Any questions, no, I might, you know, head off. And then they, they read out what squadron, what battery, or what squadron you're going to go to. And thankfully, I wanted to go to B Squadron, Mountain Tree, and that's exactly what I got. So four of us ended up going to B Squadron, and it was great. So, and that, and that was the start of, you know, fantastic time really for me. I, I loved it, loved every minute of doing the SAS.

• 48:36Jack Murphy?

  And before long, you got shipped out for the Gulf War.

• 48:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, so a bit of a, so if, if I've got any negatives about the SAS, it's this little period here. And, and what it was, was B Squadron were on the anti-terrorism, on the, on the six-month build-up to the Gulf War. You had A and D squadrons that were actively going to be deployed to, to in theater, their dues. And then you had G Squadron, who were on standby squadron at the time, and they were actually in the desert, doing all the build-up really, so spent six months really, doing desert warfare.

• 49:20Speaker 05

  And, but then December, you know, so the, the build-up really, I suppose, was in the January. But in the December, they, we did our sort of change around. And B Squadron sort of, and what really should have happened was, they should have said, listen, B Squadron, you know, unfortunately, you're going to have to do another six months on the, on the anti-terrorism. You know, because, and G Squadron are already sort of, you know, already good to go. So let's leave them in theater. B Squadron, you know, although, you know, it's not nice to do an extra six months, but, you know, you understand quite well.

• 50:03Speaker 05

  But they didn't, and B Squadron deployed really, so went out in theater and were hunting, hunting for jobs. And I ended up as in an eight-man team really, up to the UAE to, to do a teaching task, doing anti-terrorism.

• 50:20Speaker 05

  For the UAE government as a favour really, for British forces using their facilities in the UAE. So it was a bit of a payback, I suppose, you know, well, while we're here, special forces will teach you all.

• 50:35Jack Murphy?

  We built this big coalition for the war, so.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. When you see the bigger picture of it, as an individual, pretty pissed off, you know, we should be up there fighting. And the pretense was that as an eight man team, if there was a lot of casualties, we would be airlifted and then sent straight up and take the casualties to this place. And we were happy with that. Literally two days before the ground war started, or sorry, the air war started, the CEO of T2SES came in, or came up to where we were, sat us down in the officers' mess and said, listen, guys, unfortunately, your war is going to be here. So we ended up, for the four months of the

• 51:21Speaker 05

  first Gulf War, we were sat watching it in the officers' mess in the UAE, in the middle of training, watching it all pan out on C and N. And when you're seeing, you know, T2SES guys from Braga 2-0 being captured, not knowing where they are and seeing this all play out, it's quite a tough watch, to be honest. And to be honest, looking back on it, a bit fiasco. You know, what the hell were British ones doing there in the first place? Should have had Jewish ones out there. So that was a bit of a raw thing for me. I didn't agree with it, but, you know, hey, we just get on with it. That passed. And then thankfully,

• 52:06Speaker 05

  you know, I was lucky enough to volunteer, really, to go to Northern Ireland, because I'd done a little stint with the regiment over in Northern Ireland, out of the hangar. Because when you're on the anti-terrorist team, when they need extra people to support the small team that they had over there, you got sort of flown over. So I got a bit of a taste for it. So totally different to the Northern Ireland that I did, Green Army. You know, this is now, you're playing with the big boys, mostly. And so I got a bit of a taste for it. So I thought, ah, I'll volunteer. To do the fourteen inch, as we call it.

• 52:48Speaker 05

  Nowadays, it's called the Surveillance and Reconnaissance Regiment, SRR, or as the SAS call it, the SAS We Jokes Regiment. So if you pass, if you fail SAS selection and you're half decent lads, they'll say, listen, have you thought about doing the Surveillance Course? If that makes sense. Bit of a dig really at the SRR. They're good lads, to be honest, but they're not SAS.

• 53:20Jack Murphy?

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• 55:54Speaker 05

  So anyway, so I did, I did the volunteer do the four tune in. So four people from the SAS. So they run two courses a year, six month courses. So four people, so each of the squadrons will put someone on that course. And it's a great skill to have, believe me, surveillance, the CTR, close target wrecking, and the CQB, close quarter battle, is that they are exceptional skills to have in your armoury. And it's why you do it. But what you do is you put yourself on a bit of a pedestal, because everybody likes to fail

• 56:33Speaker 05

  an SAS guy. So I got called in, you know, a guy who'd done the course before me. I said, listen, Mick, word of advice, when you go down there, shut your mouth.

• 56:47Speaker 05

  Even though someone who's teaching you hasn't got the same experience as what you've got, just shut your mouth and allow them to, you know, it's their toy, actually. Um, and, and so that was attitude. I went, I went down there with the, the perfect attitude. You know, yeah, yeah. And, and just, you know, stick your thumb and just get on with it like that. Um, I was lucky enough to pass the course and, and again, the reason I say that is how the hell I never failed, I don't know. Uh, because when we used to do all the surveillance, um, at the end of it, um, they would bring the target in that you've been following, um, and they would say, right, um, you know, let's have, right, you know, what did you see

• 57:27Speaker 05

  as a target? What did you see of it? Well, um, Mick, you know, I saw you do this and, um, oh Mick, and you, you know, and it was, everything was at me and I was like, hold on, am I the only one on this flipping surveillance course or what? And so I actually, and this went on, on and on. Uh, and I, I thought, I don't know, how the hell did I pass that course? So I went in for an, an interview with a training major and, uh, he said, right, Mick, how, how'd you feel? Congratulations, first of all, for passing, well done. Um, I went, to be honest, I said, I'm shocked I'm here. He said, well, why? I said, well, you were in some of them briefings, uh, you know, it was as if I was the only one on the course, you know, I'm getting picked out for everything, you know, I'm obviously

• 58:12Speaker 05

  not that good. And, uh, he went, Mick, uh, bear in mind that the course has been run in Hereford. Um, uh, he says, all you're doing, you're getting stuck in, uh, and, and we can see that you're getting stuck in there. There's some of the people in this, on this course now that never got stuck in. And if you don't get stuck in, in a, you know, a nice, safe environment like Hereford, you've got fat chance of getting stuck in when you're working against hard terrorists over in Northern Ireland. He said, so we can, we can rein you in, uh, if that makes sense. Um, some of the people here that we've got with us now, uh, you know, are, are gonna need a bit of a gentle push to get them out there. And he said that, and that's why you passed. So, so I took, I took that on board,

• 58:57Speaker 05

  really. Um, went over to Northern Ireland for, um, eighteen month, you know, it was a six month course. Uh, I was lucky enough to, to do North Belfast, um, The markets and Short Strand area, which was sort of classed as South Belfast. And we had a bit of the West Belfast as well. So I had a really active, you know, and we were, the Shankill, the Ardoine, the Tigers' Bay. All these sort of areas were very closely, closely connected between the Protestants and the Catholics. If that makes sense. So I spoke with a, you know, British accent, you know. What the fuck are you looking at?

• 59:40Speaker 05

  And I never once attempted to speak with a Belfast accent. And because why, why would you try and pretend to be someone you're not? Because, you know, if a Belfast local speaks to me and I try and speak, you know, Irish. They're gonna, they're gonna look at me straight away and think, you know what, you're not from here. So I, I just used to, and bear in mind that my hair was a lot longer than what it is now. It was practically on my shoulders. I had a big gold earring in my ear, big pirate thing. And, and my sort of cover ready was I was a chipping. So I had lots of bits of wood in my car. Every now and then I would walk out and I'd have my carpenter belt on.

• 1:00:25Speaker 05

  You know, nails all over the place and that was my cover thing, you know. And, and you were always one up. So you weren't working in twos, like MI5, you know, there's three people in a car. In Northern Ireland, you're on your own. So if you get yourself in the shit, you need to get yourself out of it, if that makes sense. And, and it was great and I absolutely loved it. What I found out was I was not the technical whiz kid. So some of these people had fantastic, you know, the cameras all in the car and all that sort of. Yeah, I didn't have any, you know what? No, that's not my, that's not my game. But what I was good at was getting out of the car and following these people and being right behind them.

• 1:01:08Speaker 05

  And, you know, and getting stuck in and finding out where. And it is horses for courses, you know, because every, every unit needs people that are quite ballsy, I suppose. And because my, my get out of jail card was always a pistol. You know what I mean? So, you know, if push comes to shove, that's going to get me out of trouble every time, like, you know, so. And, and unlike the, the Northern Ireland Police.

• 1:01:36Speaker 05

  Their surveillance teams, E four A, who are the most bravest individuals I've ever met, because they're, they're, they're working in an environment where they live, if that makes sense, whereas British Army people, you know, with our little fancy long hair and we're only there for eighteen months, and then we're out of it. So we, we could really push the envelope, if that makes sense, knowing that my family is back in, back in Hereford, you know, not living somewhere else. So, so I, I literally took my hat off to those, you know, the E four A surveillance operators for the, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, extremely brave individuals, same, same as the normal, the normal police force. Thankfully,

• 1:02:20Speaker 05

  we, we had quite a, quite a successful time. We managed to put quite a few bad people away, if that makes sense. And, and bear in mind, you know, this is not about, you know, working against the IRA, this is working against bad people. And unfortunately, the IRA just happened to be worse than most people. So a lot of our work is obviously against the IRA. But, you know, we, we've done a lot of successful operations against a potent community as well. You know, if they're planning, planning something, and they're carrying a weapon to intent on killing somebody, then, you know, we're going to take them on, because they're literally, they're bad people carrying a weapon, and, and this, that. So, so it

• 1:03:02Speaker 05

  was, it was, it was a fantastic tour, really enjoyed it. And that's where I got my Queen's Award, Queen's combination for bravery, for, for operations over there. So that was a nice little touch to, to get that when you came back. But I literally finished, oh yeah. So because my hair was so long, every time I came or flew back into Birmingham Airport, I used to get dragged aside by the Customs Immigration or whatever, like, you know, because for some reason, they, they, I looked like a drug runner.

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  And as soon as you pulled your army ID card out, they're like, and go, hold on, you're not army. Yeah, actually I am. But, you know, and it was great. So thoroughly enjoyed it. But came back and it was straight into back on to the anti-terrorist team. And that's, to be honest, that's why the SAS are good at what they do. Because the diversity in their roles is just staggering, you know, from long hair, shave it all off, anti-terrorist team, finish anti-terrorist team, Bosnia, away you go. And so you've got individuals who can adapt to any environment and get on with it and make it, even with crappy equipment

• 1:04:21Speaker 05

  and, you know, bad communication, they'll make it work. Because that's the key thing about an SAS individual, like, you know, and it's, it's quite unique. You know, some of the things that they can, they can come up with and make it work. And it's great.

• 1:04:38Jack Murphy?

  So tell us about taking some of your undercover experience and surveillance experience to the Balkans.

• 1:04:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it's quite interesting, actually. Because a lot of the work you do is intelligence gathering. That's one of the main roles of it. And bear in mind that we were still part of the UN at the time, because we were lucky enough to be over there. When it was UN, first three months was a UN tour. And then overnight, you just paint the wagon, you know, take that blue, well, actually, we never, ever, never, ever wore UN equipment at all. And the reason, the reason we did it is we worked in four-man teams all around the country. And if we were to follow the UN mandates, you know, where you're blueberry and all

• 1:05:27Speaker 05

  that crap, you'd never get any work done. Because, you know, you're following a mandate that was completely flawed, if that makes sense. So we didn't do that. So we didn't wear. Didn't wear berries, never wore body armour. Um, the reason being is a lot of our work was working with the frontline troops. And, and if you're working with frontline troops and you turn up with your fancy body armour on and your big blue helmet, looking a complete dick, um, you lose, you lose the street cred straight away. These people have got no interest. Uh, so we used to dress how they dressed, you know, you know, they looked like a bag of crap. We looked like a bag of crap. You know, I mean, it's just that, you know, street cred, uh, if that makes sense.

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  And, and, and, you know, you can do a lot of things. If you're not dressed as UN, you can get away with a lot more stuff as well, uh, by doing your job. Cause ultimately your job is to get as much intelligence that the normal UN can't get. And get that sent down to Sarajevo, to one of the generals, General Jackson or General Smith or whoever, uh, whoever the general was down there. And, and that's your role and it's quite a ballsy, quite a ballsy thing to do, you know? And, and we always up, so if, if I'm talking to a major in the Serb Army or a major in the Muslim Army, instantly I'm a colonel, you know, or lieutenant colonel. You just up your rank so that you're, cause, cause that's the only way of getting the respect of these people.

• 1:06:55Speaker 05

  Now I don't look like a lieutenant colonel and I certainly don't speak like a lieutenant colonel. But, you know, that, that's just the way you, you, you go about your business life, you know, and away you go. Um, but some really interesting stuff comes in it. So the Serbian side of it, um, is great, um, that you can, however, yeah. So a lot of a situational awareness and all that lot. Uh, but unfortunately, uh, it backfired. We're in this sort of non-UN look about us. Uh, cause I was working with Billy Billingham, uh, who there's wins. Um, most Americans will probably recognise him. Billy was a, Billy's a great friend of mine. Uh, we're in the same troop, mountain troop, beastwood mountain troop. Uh, Billy had sort of joined about two years after me, uh, something like that.

• 1:07:41Speaker 05

  But I'd been away, uh, so Billy deployed instantly when beastwood went out there. Uh, and I was delayed, uh, about three weeks. Um, and I think, I think I was on a course or can't remember what it was, but, but I was delayed. So I came out there three weeks after the boys had been out there. So when I got there, Billy was showing us around, getting used to the area. And we got asked to set up a meeting between two generals, Serb general and a Muslim general, General Dudakovic from Fire Corps, quite hardcore Muslim general, actually. Quite a decent individual, but quite hardcore, just get on with it. And the Serb general, so we did the recce, we should do a little recce beforehand.

• 1:08:26Speaker 05

  So we went down there the day before to the location, which was just outside a place called Sandski Mosque, if people know sort of Bosnia. And we recognised, we did a recce, went down and spoke to the frontline troops, both Muslim and the Serbs, had a chat with them, quick Slavovic coffee, I mean, had a quick sort of drink with them, a quick hello, blah, blah, blah. Listen, guys, we're going to see you tomorrow, we'll pop down for a chat tomorrow. So the next day, we set the meeting up, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it was a UN meeting. So the four man team, two of our guys stayed at the meeting.

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  UN were doing all the, you know, doing their thing, whatever they do, UN, doing their thing. And then we had two warrior vehicles. One was on the Muslim side of it, which was from the light infantry, British unit, infantry unit. And then the other one was sort of pushed down towards the Serb side, and about a kilometre into no man's land. So me and Billy, you know, looking like a bag of crap, you know, no berries on, just pistols. We walked past the checkpoint, which is where the light infantry were, banged on those things, said, listen, guys, we're just going down for a quick chat with the Serbs. Infantry looked at us and thought we were mad as haters.

• 1:09:52Speaker 05

  Caught down to the frontline troops to, you know, expecting to meet the same people that we were supposed to see the day before. And then just walked it up, you could see everything had changed now, it was different, different troops. And we should have put two and two together and thought, if they're gonna bring the jungle up, they're gonna bring their top troops up as well. And we never fact, we never factored that in at all. So my situation awareness, straight out the window. And so got down there, as you do, you know, because again, quite ballsy, you know, what you're trying to do. Got there and all of a sudden, you know, we were surrounded. And there's eight or nine Serbs pointing AK-47s at you. Not a lot you can do, you know, you're not gonna take them on.

• 1:10:35Speaker 05

  Two of you with pistols, you're not gonna take, you know, eight and up. Who already got the weapons in their hands and good to go. So it was, you know, just, hey, listen guys, you know, trying to calm it all down, yes, later. So they then took us into a small building, took our pistols, all our spare magazines, ID card. We had maps and notebooks with us, but thankfully, they're all sterile. There's nothing written on there whatsoever, which is, which is good. Spent about an hour doing quick interrogation talk, and we were both together. They then decided that they were gonna drive us about forty-five minutes further down the, down the line

• 1:11:21Speaker 05

  to a place called Priodor, and which was, you know, heavily Serb area. So they, they put us in the back of a vehicle, a little four by four vehicle. There was a, a major who was driving, who spoke really good English. And then there was a big, big Burly chap, sat, you know, in the, in the passenger seat with an AK-47. Me and Billy were on the back seat and we were sort of whispering, as you do, sort of. This guy, the English guy, sorry, the guy who spoke English, said something in Serb to the, the big Burly guy, who literally spanned round on a suit and then cocked his AK-47 in our faces.

• 1:12:04Speaker 05

  Me and Billy sort of, actually we looked over, and I don't know what it was, but we both started laughing. And the reason being is, you expect someone on the front line to have a weapon already cocked. And military mentality taking over, you're like, hold on.

• 1:12:22Speaker 05

  If I'd known that he didn't have a round in the chamber, we could have flipping jumped him. So, so that, you know, and I think a lot of it was um nervousness as well, if that makes sense. But anyway, so, so being laughed at didn't go down too well for this individual. So forty minutes further up there, we got to a camp basically and off we went. Now, because I'd done two years in Northern Ireland, we do the cover story. You get captured, what are you training, go through a cover story. So, so I had a rough, you know, I knew what, what was coming, if that makes sense.

• 1:13:02Speaker 05

  And I, and my cover story was great, you know, I'd only been in country two weeks and I'm just a driver. And, and that was my cover story, you know, they, they didn't know that, you know, I was actually senior to Billy. So got there, I got dragged in first for interrogation, pulled us in and I just stuck with that story. Listen, I know nothing, I've only been here two weeks, I'm a driver. And I just, and that was it, and they tried to get more out of you. No, no, no, nothing, I haven't got a clue, sorry. And anyway, the throws out, disgust, and then poor old Billy got dragged in. Now Billy had been on a serbo kraat course, so learnt a bit of serbo kraat. And made the mistake of trying to answer in serbo kraat.

• 1:13:47Speaker 05

  And as soon as he, as soon as he did that, they put two and two together. And, you know, I was the, the thipping outside in the, you know, the corridor that knew nothing, the driver. So a bit of a waste of space out there. This is the person that we're going to concentrate on.

• 1:14:01Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, and, and poor old Billy, so Billy got dragged out. I was expecting to now go in, Billy went back in again, out, in. I tell you what, so, so they never touched me at all. Although I was getting a bit of a hard time sat outside, you know, because, you know, as they do, you know, threaten you with knives and, you know, put a, put a knife in you, you know, typical, normal, you know.

• 1:14:28Speaker 05

  Psychological, whatever, but nothing untoward, if that makes sense, you know, you you knew that they weren't gonna kill you, you know, why would they? But it was just intimidation. So you can live with that, so just just get on with it like that. But poor old Billy was getting dragged in and out. And then eventually, we managed to get fairly close together. And then and and we sort of leaned over and, you know, Billy said, hang on, mate, what did what did you tell him? And I went, sorry, mate, but I just said I'm the driver. Billy looked at me, yeah, but I'm the driver.

• 1:14:59Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Speaker 05

  You lose, you lose, mate. You know, you're going there first, you're gonna you're obviously gonna get your cover story out the way first, like, you know, so, yeah, so, um, it was good. But we eventually we got released because they they the front line, the two other guys reported us missing. The general down in down in Sarajevo said, listen, go into the meeting now and arrest the served general and threaten him, we're taking him back to the Muslim lines. And this guy pooped his pants, got on the sat phone and got us released straight away, if that makes sense. So we were walking, yeah, we were walking back, basically, having got our kit back, you know, so went through where the warrior vehicle was, right, lads, yeah, we're we're back now. And then the infantry sort of shook their head, what

• 1:15:45Speaker 05

  the hell? Um, you know, and we were talking, thinking, that wasn't a major drama, you know, that for us, some of some of the stuff that we do in Bosnia, you know, you expect to be either shot at.

• 1:15:58Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59Speaker 05

  Or taken prisoner, at a bare minimum, to be quite frank. Because some of the stuff that we used to get away with was just just ballsing to the point of, you know, you're really pushing the envelope here. So being captured was for us, you know, was, you know, so the next day, you just get up, have a shower, and out you go, again, doing your normal job, like, you know, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't wasn't a big issue.

• 1:16:25Jack Murphy?

  Did uh, did you ever find out why they detained you like that? Was there a specific reason? Or is it just like one guy had a wild hair up his ass, thought he was a tough guy, and I'm gonna detain these Brits?

• 1:16:36Speaker 05

  No, uh, no, we spoke to him. Because we actually, we actually spoke to the major. So when it became, when when you went finished, and it became major, the individual that interrogated us became our. Became our liaison officer, if that makes sense, bizarrely. And yeah, and especially we spooked them because we didn't look like UN. And we had no UN kit on us and all of a sudden these strange people.

• 1:17:07Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, so they correctly identified you as special something or other.

• 1:17:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, but they never got it out of us that we were, because being in mind that Grozny and, and not Sarah, but Shrebatica. We had, we had SAS teams there that were actually bringing in fast jets. And the BBC, typical BBC, they actually recorded an SAS team bringing in and, and, you know, and broadcast it on the World Service. And the Serbs obviously knew that, so the Serbs knew that the SAS were capable of bringing in fast air jets.

• 1:17:48Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:49Speaker 05

  So, so for them to get two SAS guys prisoner, but they never got anything out of us, they, they never cottoned on, you know, they played it by ear and, and, you know, got released like, you know, but quite bizarrely, so nobody knew. So apart from the other two lads, the major in charge of B Squadron and a probably another couple of people, they were the only people that knew that we'd been captured, none, none of the other, you know, just, because we just kept it nice and quiet, you know, just get on with it like, you know. So when, when Billy came on Who Dares Wins on TV, he alluded to the fact that he'd been captured, you know, and started talking about it like, you know, and anyway, so he was getting

• 1:18:34Speaker 05

  phone calls from members of B Squadron back in, back in the UK, hold on Billy, you've never been captured. He went, actually, you know, we were captured in Bosnia. Because we, we just kept it quiet, because whereas at the time, you know, in that era, it wa, it wasn't a big drama, you know what I mean? Yeah, captured, you get a bit of a kicking and a bit of rib tickling with a knife and, you know, getting threatened, we'd cut your head off and that stuff, but, you know, normal stuff that you would expect, to, to be quite frank, you know, wasn't, wasn't a big issue. So, yeah, and that, and that's, you know, the attitude that we had, I suppose. But it was a great talk, you know, we sort of finished on that. And then for me, for me it was.

• 1:19:18Speaker 05

  Straight over to MI5 bizarrely. So again, this is where that diversity comes in. And you know, you just finished a six month tour in Bosnia. Um, you know, doing the stuff that we were doing there, like, you know, and then, and then all of a sudden go back to UK. And then, then working with MI5 for two years, like, you know, so it was, it was an interesting time.

• 1:19:40Jack Murphy?

  So what is it like? I, I mean, you guys in the, in the UK have a slightly different system than us. You know, MI5 is sort of like Britain's, as I think of it, their domestic intelligence service.

• 1:19:53Jack Murphy?

  Roughly equivalent to our FBI. What's it like as a, as an active duty SAS soldier to be sort of seconded to MI5?

• 1:20:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was, uh, it was quite disappointing, I suppose.

• 1:20:09Speaker 05

  And in my mind, you're, you're used to doing surveillance in Northern Ireland against bad people.

• 1:20:13Jack Murphy?

  In Bosnia.

• 1:20:14Speaker 05

  Where your, your, yeah, your skills need to be on, on point, uh, if, if that makes sense. Um, and, uh, and then all of a sudden you're following people around London. Uh, people up in Liverpool, uh, where you, you didn't really need that same. Um, sort of third party awareness about you, you know, you weren't in a staunch Catholic estate, you know, you just. In London. Uh, so they, yeah, so the surveillance skills of MI5, I personally. Uh, thought was not, not fantastic, uh, if that makes sense compared to what we were used to. Uh, and, and I had a few run ins, uh, with them, um.

• 1:20:56Speaker 05

  You know, we were following Russian diplomats on a, on a Sunday. And Russian diplomats, they, they like to do car boot sales, uh, all around the, you know, Kent and all that area around Essex. Um, and we were following these people and it, it just, you know, you go, hold on. You know, following Russians doing, you know, I've just been following, you know, bad people in Northern Ireland and now I'm doing. So again, you, you know, you had to, you know, shut your mouth and, uh, just, just crack on with it, like, you know, but. You know, there was a couple of really good jobs. I, I learned quite a lot of MI5, the way they operate. Um, you know, and, and it wasn't, wasn't the most exciting of two years, but it, but it was.

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• 1:22:39Speaker 05

  It's been important to use really. Again, it's a learning curve and you're there representing 22SS in a major organization, if that makes sense. And the people there were just fantastic. A lot of veterinary people, really good people, not paid a fantastic amount of money, but doing a great service really for the government, really, stopping major terrorism, if that makes sense. So, yeah, it was different. It wasn't as intense as the 18-month that you'd spent in Belfast. Because, believe you me, Belfast surveillance, totally different

• 1:23:24Speaker 05

  to doing surveillance all over the UK, mainland UK.

• 1:23:27Jack Murphy?

  But you were chasing around some IRA and some Albanians around the Greater London area.

• 1:23:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, so the IRA was setting up, it just so happened that the IRA had a cell operating predominantly out of the West London area. And this went on for quite a while this surveillance, and this is where, basically when I came back, I said, listen, we're working for the wrong people. Because, you know, MI5 don't carry weapons. So we don't carry weapons because you're working with MI5. Then you've got the anti-terrorist team and the special branch all armed up. So as soon as the job was getting really interesting, someone pointed out that the IRA cell might be carrying weapon.

• 1:24:19Speaker 05

  And as soon as that came up, MI5 got finned. You know, sorry, you can't operate against them because you're unarmed. And we, you know, we were biting, you know, hold on. You know, this is our bread and butter now, this is where we're going to get stuck in, like, you know. And we sort of, so when I basically went back here, I literally said, you know, maybe we should be working for someone else because working with MI5, because they're unarmed, you're not actually going to be at the forefront of that, you know, that job, if that makes sense, that's going to go down to the anti-terrorist team and, you know, their surveillance team and the special branch, which is the people that we should be working with, to be quite frank. So, yeah, it was an interesting series.

• 1:25:01Speaker 05

  But, you know, did I really gain a lot out of it? No, I don't think I did, apart from learning London, like the back of my hand, which is good, and meeting some fantastic people. But professionally, yeah, I didn't, you know, I didn't really learn a lot, to be quite frank.

• 1:25:20Jack Murphy?

  You guys during this timeframe had IRA guys shot, though, right? As a follow-up, as part of your investigation?

• 1:25:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, so that's where it all finished. But so basically, the IRA cell were meeting. Uh, in a, in a safe house, uh, in, uh, or they thought was a safe house, like hotel. Um, in, uh, signal, um, anyway, west, western part of, uh, London. And, uh, and, and basically the, the police decided to go in, uh, and, and make a hard arrest, uh, if that makes sense. Um, and unfortunately, when they make the hard arrest, um, you know, there's a good chance that someone's gonna pull the trigger. Uh, and what happened was, uh, unlike SAS where we, we, when we gain entry, it's generally in, in one door.

• 1:26:11Speaker 05

  Uh, so you, you know, you blow the door in and you're in there. Um, the, the police don't have the, the, um, satisfaction of having explosive entry. Um, you know, they're not allowed to use it, whereas we can. So, you know, there's a lot of banging of doors and, you know, making holes in the door and so quite a lot of confusion and a grenade, you know, smoke grenade gets thrown in there. And it, and in all the confusion, uh, confusion, I suppose, uh, one of the IRA guys got shot dead and unfortunately, uh, he was unarmed. Uh, so that, that caused a few, a few dramas as well. When you've got two teams coming in two different doors,

• 1:26:51Speaker 05

  shouting and everything else, you know, the, the IRA guy is not, he's not gonna have a clue what, what, what is supposed to do, I suppose. Uh, so that, that caused a bit of a, bit of a gnaw. I bet. Uh, on the inquest, um, you know, as, uh, you know, wire shot dead, uh, if that makes sense, but no, call me old fashioned, but you know, if you're an IRA cell, working on mainland Europe, uh, mainland, you know, Britain, uh, then you're, you're up to no good, uh, if that makes sense. So, uh, zero sympathy, I suppose, you know, it, it, if that's, if that's the profession, uh, that you intend to do, that's the same as, you know, they. We're getting a lot of bad press at the moment, because incidents are happening in Northern Ireland.

• 1:27:35Speaker 05

  And, you know, because, you know, SAS are quite robust in their actions. And when you're dealing with hardcore terrorists, and you come face to face with them, generally there's only one outcome, I suppose, and you just get on with it like, you know, same as Gibraltar. Exactly the same, you know, these people were there to murder innocent people. You know, they were there to blow up a band, a military band. But by positioning the car where they were gonna put that car, the blast radius would have wiped out quite a few civilian people. And people tend to forget that, and thankfully, they were dispatched before they could actually do their deadly deed, if that makes sense.

• 1:28:21Speaker 05

  Is that a bad thing? No, not at all. You know, they, again, these people were intent on harming individuals, other people. And I can honestly say that every IRA terrorist who was actually shot dead by special forces, predominantly SAS, the world is a safer place, to be honest. Because that is a bad person who was intent on killing quite a few other people, you know, so no sympathy whatsoever.

• 1:28:51Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, the targeting civilians is kind of like beyond the pale. That's kind of like, there's, whatever your politics are, that's taking it too far.

• 1:29:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'd say what's frustrating is the IRA at the moment and Sinn Fein, that what they're trying to do is change history of the troubles. We all know about the, you know, the Good Friday Agreement, and then all the IRA terrorists got released. You know, you had the Shankill bombing eighteen months before that. Peace talks come out and then these people that blew up, you know, eight people or whatever, nine people in the Shankill bombing, now released out walking the streets. Yet you've got British troops who are being hounded by, you know, incident. You know, I put a post on LinkedIn and I said, you know, there's a big difference between

• 1:29:45Speaker 05

  an IRA terrorist and a soldier, a British soldier. Because a British soldier wakes up in the morning over in Northern Ireland without the thought that he's now going to be going out and killing someone. An IRA terrorist does that, they plan that weeks in advance. IRA, the army, we just respond to a situation not of our making. And unfortunately, sometimes innocent people get killed. But certainly the military guy, you know, when he's reacting to a situation, which is not of his making, you know, he's just dealing with it. You know, unfortunately, innocent people do get killed and they, you know, the British

• 1:30:27Speaker 05

  Army are not, you know, they're not whiter than white, you know, some people have been killed, you know, unfortunately, accidentally. But it's not the intent of a British soldier to go out and murder people, you know, it just happens because they're reacting to a situation. Slightly different to an IRA terrorist, you know, they go out and they plan on murdering lots of people. Big difference.

• 1:30:52Jack Murphy?

  So from there, you spent your two final years in the SAS in the training cell, both for 14th Intelligence Company and SAS?

• 1:31:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it was running the close quarter of Arsenal. Fantastic job, really. And it was me and another SAS guy, Kev Smith. Rest in peace, who unfortunately passed away about four years ago with a heart attack. But we ran it and it was fantastic. We had a great time. And it was good because we actually changed the whole course. Because the course that we took over, all the situational awareness stuff that you do on it, was actually really realistic. You know, people get really hurt going through these scenarios. Because ultimately, we're taking soldiers, training them up,

• 1:31:46Speaker 05

  picking them up and then putting them into an environment where they need to be up and running straight away. So all the training that we do is really right on the edge, you know. And we've had people nearly shot in the head and all this sort of thing. We don't have safety arcs, you know. We used to go down to Sandy Bridge with the normal British Army to take over ranges. And the range wardens would be down there. And you'd go down there once a year to sort of fill out your forms and stuff. And they'd say, "Right, I've got all your templates and all the British Army are handing their templates over." You know, we'd turn up with a cup of coffee in our hand saying, "Yeah, sorry, no templates." "Sorry, who are you?"

• 1:32:33Speaker 05

  And everybody knows that, you know, because we can't afford our templates, you know. Because some of the stuff that we're doing is actually quite risky. So you just get on with it and just make it up as you're going along. You know, I know it sounds a bit callous, but some of the drills that you have to sort of pass across, there's no time really to have these safety arcs. Because you're dealing with people that you expect to be able to do this on the streets. Uh in Belfast, so have to be a a certain level, uh if that makes sense, you know, those are not kids. It's funny, uh we we nearly had a fatality uh on the ranges, uh and it was two people

• 1:33:17Speaker 05

  firing down the street on the same side of the street, and it was a female and a paratrooper of all things. And they the parachute was at the front, uh and he was kneeling down firing his pistol. And then they the girl was behind him, um firing over the top of his head.

• 1:33:33Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:33Speaker 05

  Um because she's the woman stood up behind. And the and the drill is is, you know, before you actually make your move, you just take a quick glance so that you you've got eye contact with the the girl behind you. Um she sort of acknowledges acknowledges that you're now going to stand up. So she basically puts her weapon up, um allows him to run past. And then she goes down in the kneeling position and continues firing. And it is quite a simple drill, uh if that makes sense.

• 1:34:04Jack Murphy?

  You we we used to teach back way back when, I guess now, I mean, we used to teach that if somebody's in the kneeling position and you're shooting over their head, you actually come up over the top of them so your arms are over their head so that if they stand up, they're not going to be in the line of fire.

• 1:34:20Speaker 05

  No, we don't do that. The the reason we don't do it is you're in doorways. Um and because you're in, you know, if you're on the street, you're you're in one doorway, uh and the other one's in another doorway. Uh so there there could be about five feet between there between you. And that's why you need that eye contact there, if that makes sense. And there's a lot of lot of trust here.

• 1:34:42Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:42Speaker 05

  Uh if that makes. Anyway, so it it goes. But unfortunately, now, every every drill that we run, we we always get it videoed, uh so we can play it back and blah blah blah. So anyway, what happened was the the paratrooper.

• 1:34:57Speaker 05

  Instead of turning around and looking, he literally stood up as she fired. Oof. And uh, and literally the, the bullet reached his, his hair. Oh man. Parting through his hair, if that makes sense. Anyway, so, so and she, she was flapping, you know, she was really cut up about it. So we said, listen, you know, crack on, let's change round, just carry on. Cause we needed, we need, especially her. We needed her to just, you know.

• 1:35:24Speaker 05

  Build the confidence, yes. Get, get back into it like, you know, get, get back on the horse and. But that, that evening, uh, we, we actually got the footage, uh, of a, you know, and we, and we saw how close that bullet was. And uh, and we thought, right, it, there's a good opportunity now. So we, we got the whole course, uh, so some of the courses are doing surveillance. Some of the courses are doing close target wrecking. Our lot were doing CQB. So we've got them all in the course and, and bear in mind that the, the Rangers, we were the most laid back training team. Cause it's been Feb, you know, and, you know, having a good laugh and everything else. But as soon as you step on that range, hey.

• 1:36:06Speaker 05

  You know, RoboCop, you're good to go, like, you know. So fairly relaxed, but now we're working. So you need to start switching on. So we, we, uh, we took them all back, uh, we got them in the cinema, showed them the footage. This party and everybody thought flipping hell, you know, th- this guy was millimeter, millimeters ready from, from getting the back of his head. Or the front of his head shot off like, you know. And then, and when we said so, you know, let's not make a big drama out of this, but. You just need to know the simple facts of life. You mess up on surveillance, you're gonna get a slap on the wrist. You mess up on CQB, you're gonna get a slap on the wrist. You mess up on that range.

• 1:36:50Speaker 05

  You're gonna blow someone's head off like that. And it wasn't the girl's fault at all, it was the individual that was at the front, the paratrooper, who was at fault. And he understood that, if that makes sense. But it's so easy to do. And like I say, when you're teaching normal army people, females, paratroopers, whoever, you're trying to get them to a level very similar to the SAS, if that makes sense. But you've only got a certain amount of time to do it. So the learning curve is absolutely massive. You know, you get these people on normal on the range, doing your normal sort of drills initially. And then when you start to bring in, you know, different things, running down the side of a street,

• 1:37:34Speaker 05

  car drills, you know, firing in a car and all the other things. But then you do all the situational awareness stuff as well, which is all blank firing, obviously. But it's where people get battered. You know, we have a civilian population and people. And what you do is you don't just throw people in the deep end. It's, you know, a slow build up. So you do 11 days worth of situational awareness, you know, so, you know, one situation per day. And it's a slow build up really of what they would be doing in Northern Ireland. You know, what someone walking up to you asking you the time, you know, how are you gonna react? Or whatever.

• 1:38:17Speaker 05

  And it's just seeing how this individual's gonna react to a bit of stress. And it all builds up to getting billed in and battered, chucked in the back of a car and driven around and then interrogated and stuff like that. Like, so it's quite hairy and quite, people do get hurt. But it's realistic and it has to be. Because ultimately, soon as these people finish a course and they're past, bang, they're straight over in Belfast. And you mess up in Belfast, you know, you're gonna end up getting yourself killed. As we saw with them two civils guys who got slaughtered in West Belfast.

• 1:38:56Jack Murphy?

  In the car.

• 1:38:56Speaker 05

  A few years ago.

• 1:38:58Jack Murphy?

  Are you talking, I'm thinking about years ago, um, in the, there's video of it. The surveillance team that got caught in the middle of a funeral procession.

• 1:39:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't a surveillance team. It was two, two signals guys. One of them was leaving, uh, one of them, uh, was, uh, was just turning up. And the one who was leaving decided for some bizarre reason, uh, to drive him around certain areas. And it just ended up in West Belfast, um, in a place that was a no-go area. And that's why, because everybody run around and went, hold on, is that the surveillance team? No, it's not our people. Is that the SAS? No, no, you know, they're not there. And, and that's why nobody went into, because they actually thought, um, it was a Protestant.

• 1:39:48Speaker 05

  Because, because the Protestant had already attacked the funeral, um, a few months before. They actually thought it was a similar thing. Uh, so all, all they did was they actually, you know, when it pushed come to shove, it was two, two signals lads, uh, ready. So all they had was a pistol. You know, if, if that had been an SAS car, let's not count it. Um, because the firepower that's in that car, um, would have been horrendous. Because the guys wouldn't have waited, they'd, they'd have just gone for it like, you know, if that makes sense. So. But it, but it changed, it changed the mindset of, um, of how you went about, you know, so, you know, in future generations, in fact, if you're ever in that situation again,

• 1:40:31Speaker 05

  basically you've just got to start taking people out. So whoever is the, the ringleader that's, that's using all the, you know, all that, just shoot them in the face. You know, put him down and, and, and just try and, try and calm the rest of the people down. But, you know, it, it completely changed the, the way that we went about our, our training and the, and our outlook. If you, you know, if ever you got put in that, uh, that position yourself, like, you know, but horrendous, uh, to be honest. And, uh, I just really unfortunate that it was two, two signals lads in the wrong place.

• 1:41:04Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, the wrong.

• 1:41:06Speaker 05

  At the wrong time.

• 1:41:08Jack Murphy?

  Talk to us about retirement a little bit and you know, as you you enter to, you know, I the Brits call it the circuit, the private security circuit, you start working in gas and oil security.

• 1:41:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I mean, the very first job I got was actually looking after the agricole of all things. So literally been out a couple of months, got asked to run it in in central, central Asia, looking after the agricole. Really interesting because it was working with presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, setting up meetings with the massoud and you know, from from way back before he got assassinated about a year later, to be honest. But it was a really interesting job and really opened my eyes up to the civilian

• 1:42:00Speaker 05

  market. But it wasn't something that I really wanted to pursue. I'm not really mad keen on close protection and stuff like that. So I ended up getting myself into gas and oil and I managed to get a job in Kazakhstan for four years, Chevron, Texas, we're out there. It was a multinational. So I was the Western Security Manager. Really lucky how I got the job because I was competing against people that had been out the army for quite a while. Literally, I'd been out about four months already. So didn't have any, any paperwork, no, no templates. And we all, there's six of us and we all had

• 1:42:42Speaker 05

  to go out to Kazakhstan, of all places, to, to do a security assessment of the site, write a security assessment. And then the following week, another guy went. So you all went at a different time and I was the last one to go. Got out there, spoke to the people that we are supposed to be working with, and found out what their troubles were, what the issues were, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Probably wrote the worst report out of all of them. You know, I didn't have anything to sort of play with. But they actually said to me, you know, they said at the end of it, right, who you've seen the six guys now, who do you want to work with? And they went, well, Mick. Because Mick was the only one that actually spoke to him.

• 1:43:27Speaker 05

  All the other people had gone out there, you know, got a write a report. And actually forgot the fundamentals of winning the hearts and minds of, you know, talking to people. And and that's how I got the job really. Um, so ended up doing six weeks on, two weeks off for um, four and a bit years. And and it nine eleven went through. And two weeks after nine eleven, um, I flew back to the UK. Um, two weeks at home, flew back. Um, we were um, on an Italian uh charter flight. Uh, and we cut the corner, the bottom corner of Russia.

• 1:44:08Speaker 05

  And I looked out the window and there was two MiG fighters escorting our plane. And they they diverted us into Moscow. And then and the only thing that was playing on my mind was that Japanese uh seven four seven that got shot down over Sakhalin Island um, about four years before uh by Russian uh fighter jets. When they they blew the the Japanese uh seven four seven out there. And I just thought, oh, here we go. So they they forced us to land and what what had happened was the Italian charter company. Because everyone was on high alert because of nine eleven. Um, the charter company had neglected uh to inform Russian authority that they were using their airspace to to fly over.

• 1:44:53Speaker 05

  And because they didn't have authority, they the Russians sent up aircraft and so they they um took the aircraft, uh commandeered it, stuck us on another aircraft and flew us down south of the country. We then got on a bus and and sort of over the border uh back into Kazakhstan, which is quite interesting. Um, so did that for four years, um fantastic job. Um, it then it then came to a halt and then ended up going to um Equatorial Guinea. You've got to tell us, yeah, you've got to tell us the story, Mick. Yeah, it was a was it basically a one year contract really um to to do this.

• 1:45:31Speaker 05

  But as it happened, uh Simon Mann uh decided that uh it was going to do that attempted coup. Um, and he wasn't, he wasn't in Equatorial Guinea, he was out of country. Uh, but there was, there was uh Ming and another guy uh working at Marathon Oil, uh of all places. It was planned in Zimbabwe, right? Yeah, absolutely, because that's where the aircraft got stopped. Yeah. And they all got arrested. But I had quite a few run-ins with the authorities. I'm not a big fan of corruption. So we had a J C B stolen. So I recovered it. You know, what they'd done is they'd sort of painted it a different color, but, you know,

• 1:46:16Speaker 05

  they'd neglected to take the number of the engine. So I've got two lads from Texas to come down there with a big pickup vehicle. And we dragged this J C B all the way back. And, you know, anyway, the police came in, you know, corrupt to the core. Police came in and said, listen, you need to give us the J C B back because we're, you know, we've got it under surveillance. I went, no, you never. Because otherwise you would have stopped me down there. I said, we don't need your help anymore. We've recovered our own equipment. And then for the next five days, a more senior policeman was coming in to give me a bit of a bollocking.

• 1:46:57Speaker 05

  But anyway, at the end of it, the company got fined forty thousand dollars for interfering in a police investigation, corrupt to the core. The next one was a lad from Texas came in, flew in. He had a live round in the bottom of his bag because he used to go hunting. And you know, these drips that you've got. Yeah, yeah. Very easy, you know what I mean? We've all been there. And anyway, so flew from Texas into, or Houston, into Ecuador, Guinea. When it went through the X-ray machine, they made a big drama out of it, massive drama out of it. So the poor lad was absolutely cracking himself.

• 1:47:41Speaker 05

  So I went down there, went down there to help him.

• 1:47:45Speaker 07

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• 1:48:45Speaker 05

  And they said, "Listen, give me the bullet." And I said, "Right." And it was, you know, 10.62 compared to, you know, 10.62 short. A difference. And I said, "Listen, this is a genuine mistake, blah, blah, blah. You know, let's not make a drama out of this." And they said, "Okay, no problem at all. Forty thousand pounds, forty thousand dollar fine, again." For some reason, forty thousand seemed to be the... Magic number. Yeah, magic number. And the company paid for it. And I said, "Listen, you know, what's going on here?" They said, "Every time you pay this fine, they're just going to find you all the time." Yeah, yeah. It's easy money for them like that.

• 1:49:26Speaker 05

  So, you know, I've got a reputation of not, not being too nice to the local authorities. So then, then you have the coup sort of kicked in. And it was just a great excuse really to, to get rid of this noisy individual getting kicked out of country. I had a massive run-in with the president's son as well. Oh, my life. So the president's son decided to turn up at Marathon Oil, Marathon Oil at their sports facility, drinking alcohol. And anyway, so, and bear in mind that two weeks before, we'd actually had a presidential visit. And it all went fantastic, you know, proper protocols were followed and everything else. So I found out, you know, all the gates were open.

• 1:50:12Speaker 05

  And I was like, "All right, hold on. How come the gates are open? President's son here, you know, blah, blah, blah." I went, "Hold on. What the hell is he doing there?" And it was a Playboy guy who eventually got arrested by the French anyway. But he was, he was down at the... So I went down there, and before I could get hold of the president's son, his bodyguard sort of intervened. And I said, "Listen, wind your neck in, but, you know, president's son needs to..." Needs to go, uh, cause you're not following protocol. Anyway, so we managed to kick him out, uh, and, and obviously that didn't go down too well. Um, so then you had the queue, uh, and it was just, so I ended up getting, uh, walked out the country and quite bizarrely,

• 1:50:56Speaker 05

  uh, when I joined SPM offshore, um, for 15 years, one of the first locations that they sent me, Equatorial Guinea. And as I was flying in, um, I just thought, what if they're gonna remember me? And, uh, it doesn't happen. When, when I got kicked out, there was no, um, there was no electronic, um, stuff at the airport. It was, was really old fashioned. When I flew in the second time, um, literally four years later, um, it was all electronic. So, so there was no, I didn't have to worry about it, if that makes sense. And then actually, I've been back four times, uh, since and, and never had any issues. But, but unfortunately, when you're dealing with West Africa, um, massive amount of corruption goes with that.

• 1:51:41Speaker 05

  Uh, and you just, you just gotta work with it and just get on with it. And, and living in Nigeria for six years, um, believe you me, I know every scam off my heart. Um, because honestly, every day you're getting some sort of scam coming up like those, you just end up getting, being immune to it. And I love Nigeria. Um, never ever class Nigeria as being dangerous. As long as you do a bit of due diligence, have compliance and your own ability, uh, and just get on with it, low profile. Um, Nigeria is quite acceptable. You know, just, just do it like, you know. Um, but I tell you what, it's flipping difficult, really, really difficult to operate because of the corruption. Um, you know, every, everything

• 1:52:24Speaker 05

  is cash in hand. Um, quite bizarrely, SPM offshore sent down a compliance, uh, female.

• 1:52:33Speaker 05

  So she'd been to Monaco, she'd been up to Rotterdam, over to Malaysia, over to Houston. She then came down to Lagos and tried to give the same presentation to the people in Lagos about how we can operate. And at the end of it, we just thought, we might as well leave. Because everything you just said there, we are not going to be able to operate here. And actually, two years later, we ended up packing up and going back, like, you know, leaving. Quite a difficult environment to operate, you know, without crossing that line of paying, you know, cash in hand, you know, to get, you know, police escort, for instance.

• 1:53:18Speaker 05

  You know, if you want a police escort, you need to pay cash in hand, otherwise they're not going to turn up, like, you know. And S B M up as a big no-no. No, you can't do that. Well, you know, otherwise, we're not going to get a police escort then.

• 1:53:32Jack Murphy?

  You also got to spend three years living the good life in Monaco.

• 1:53:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:41Jack Murphy?

  That's a cushy retirement job.

• 1:53:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, after Nigeria, I mean, the reason I was in Nigeria in the first place is when I took over as head of security for S B M offshore, that, you know, the headquarters were in Monaco. And, you know, I'm quite an active, you know, I'm not a sat behind a desk type, security manager. And literally, I said, listen, if you want me to be head of security, I'll do it in Lagos, Nigeria. Particularly because that's our problem zone, you know, all the issues that we're having, security-wise, is all in Nigeria. So it's much easier for me to, you know, it didn't stop me flying over to Brazil, down

• 1:54:24Speaker 05

  to the office in Houston. We used to do quite a lot of training work in Houston, active shooter, was a big thing that we used to tense. We used to go over to China, Malaysia, Singapore. All over, all over West Africa, Angola, Ecuador, Oregon, Europe, all over, it was fantastic. Myanmar, or the old Burma. So, but I was based in Nigeria, because that was our, that was our problem solved. Followed by, followed by Brazil, followed by Guyana, because Guyana was just, just opening up, if that makes sense. And there was quite a few issues there, so off we went.

• 1:55:06Speaker 05

  And then they, literally after six years, they said, listen mate, we're going to close it down. And you have to come back to Monaco. And, okay then. So reluctantly, bizarrely, I ended up sort of, Monaco for three years. And then, the good thing about Monaco, for me, at the time, there was a lot of attacks in, in Europe. Brussels, Paris attacks, all that sort of stuff. From, from about 2013, 14, 15, and there was a lot going on all around Europe. So we, we developed this active shooter. And it's very much based on the American, you know, run high fight.

• 1:55:47Speaker 05

  And the Britain, the British do run high itself, you know, what, what, what, that's all about, I had no idea. So we ignore that, and so we followed the American way of, of run high fight. And, and it was good because we, we managed to get to all the, all the officers that we had, including Houston. So that everybody, no matter what office you were in, if there was an active shooter situation, you responded in exactly the same way. And the reason we got, we got offered, because I went, I went to Houston about eighteen months ago to do active shooter training. And I think they actually liked the British mentality, which is very much, just get on with it.

• 1:56:33Speaker 05

  Because they were, this company were on the seventh floor of a multi-storey building. And their, and their security team had gone in there from the US. And recommended all these fancy ballistic doors and all that sort of stuff. Which, which is great if you've got lots of money. But common sense says, listen, you don't need that.

• 1:56:58Speaker 05

  So uh, so we, we uh, did a lot of situational awareness training with them. Um, identified they, you know, toilets, for instance, are always inward opening doors. Uh, no windows. So get yourself a nice truck, industrial truck. Bang that. Uh, so your toilet is actually a safe location. But, you know, stick a chalk under the door, get someone to lie on the floor with their foot on that chalk so that no one's gonna force the door open. And you lay down just in case someone does fire around through the, through the door. Uh, because people tend to fire through doors, not down, uh, if that makes sense. And, and uh, you know, if you study active shooting and you know active shooter better than anyone over in the States.

• 1:57:43Speaker 05

  Uh, these people don't hang about because they know they're on the clock. Soon as they start pulling the trigger, they're on the clock. Um, and they know that. Uh, so they're not gonna be hanging about spending five minutes trying to get into a door. Um, you know, when they could just move on and, and, you know, try and shoot other people, uh, if that makes sense. So, so we got quite, uh, quite good at, uh, doing what we do. So what, what we're trying to do now is, is get it over, uh, to the, you know, to the UK. But unfortunately with the UK, we've got a very negative, um, attitude to security.

• 1:58:15Jack Murphy?

  Hmm.

• 1:58:16Speaker 05

  It's very, uh, it's not very proactive.

• 1:58:19Jack Murphy?

  Like that doesn't happen here.

• 1:58:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, unfortunately, we're, we're not. We're ripe for a real terrorist attack over here, um, unfortunately. Um, because, you know, terrorists know, you know, we, we, there's a lot of people, uh, walking around the UK. Uh, who have come off these boats, uh, there's no due diligence done on them. Uh, you know, you, you've got it in the States as well, but, you know, it's even worse over here because we're a smaller country. Um, you know, the London, for instance, uh, you know, is, is not British. Uh, you know, and, and we've got no idea who these people are. So, uh, if we have a major terrorist incident over here, a lot of people are gonna get hurt, uh, unfortunately.

• 1:59:00Speaker 05

  But trying to, trying to get people to understand that you, you, you need to, to go through active shooter. Uh, and active shooter also means, you know, people with knives as well. You know, we've got a real bad. Um, record over here with people with knives, you know, people harp on about the U S with guns. We can't talk, uh, because it overhares knives. Uh, so, you know, so we call it, um, you know, ram- knife rampage. And it's the same as active shooter, you know, knife, gun, same drills, you know, you need, uh, same mentality of dealing with it, like, you know, and, and it's not the nicest subject to teach, uh, because ultimately, you know, people need to be aware that to survive

• 1:59:44Speaker 05

  an active shooter situation, you may have to take another person's life, uh, if that makes sense. And that, and that's just, that's just the way it is. That's the nature of the, the training, I suppose.

• 1:59:56Jack Murphy?

  And, and you teach these courses with your daughter, which is very interesting. Um, tell us about that and, and about where people can go to find you guys, um, if they want to actually get this type of training.

• 2:00:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. So where, so when, when we're teaching, um, when we're doing personal safety situation awareness training, um, I use my daughter really, because a lot of it is we, we like to get into schools and colleges to get the, uh, get the kids at a young age so that when they're sort of living in school, they, they understand, you know, the big wide world, if that makes sense. And the, the reason I use my daughter is, uh, she, uh, has got a great mentality. Um, she's got three brothers, uh, who were, who were all in the military. So she's of the same ilk, uh, as the boys, but she's a girly girly. And, and youngsters, uh, and females specifically, they relate to, you know, what she does. Uh, so she does all

• 2:00:53Speaker 05

  the breakaway, um, and plan B. Uh, and plan B is, you know, if that breakaway doesn't work, you know, here's how to quickly dislocate a jaw or, you know, snap a, snap an elbow or someone's grabbing you. But we don't teach that to kids. Um, so up until the age of 15, they, it's just, um, the breakaway. Because you can't teach a 15-year-old plan B, because otherwise you create monsters. Um, they'll, they'll go out and practice it on each other, you know, snapping each other's jaws and all that sort of stuff. But as you get older, um, you know, You know, and and things get a bit more serious. And you need to be able to do that. So so doing that. So um we've got a website.

• 2:01:37Speaker 05

  Um W W W dot Hawkes and A N D Co dot U K. Um and it's uh basically we're into farm security. That's a big thing uh because I used to break into farms in Northern Ireland, uh terrorist people's farms. Um so we we actually got really good at covertly uh getting into not only farms uh but you know offices and businesses and stuff like that. And when you're covertly breaking in, it's a bit like the uh physical penetration testing. Um it's a lot harder to covertly break into somewhere than it is to, you know, smash smash your way into whatever, like, you know. So we actually got quite quite good.

• 2:02:22Speaker 05

  Um and I live in rural Hereford. I actually live on a farm here. Um this is the farm cottage. Um and and I just thought, hold on, you know, that that gamekeeper, uh poacher gamekeeper mentality. You know, so we can actually help the farmers over here. Uh because unfortunately for UK farmers, um they're following a a a strategy that that leaves farms wide open. Because it's all geared towards the police recovering a rec- uh recovering an equipment. Uh as opposed to stopping the the theft in the first place. So the strategy that we use over here unfortunately leaves all the farms wide open. Uh so our philosophy is, you know, let's put an arm around the farmers and help

• 2:03:05Speaker 05

  the farmers stop stop it initially. So um so we're quite do- we're we're quite niche in what we do and a lot of that is because of my background. But predominantly it's teaching um situation, personal situation awareness. Because ninety percent of the UK, over ninety percent of the UK, have got no awareness about them whatsoever. So we need to break into that. We need to, you know, start chipping away at that that figure. Uh because when when there's an active terrorist threat, uh the police automatically um or the government will say, right, we need you to be more aware. More aware to a population that's nine percent not aware.

• 2:03:50Speaker 05

  So that's never gonna work, if that makes sense, you know, if someone says be aware. You need to know what, you know, be aware means and how you go about it. And with situation awareness, you know, it's not, someone can tell you about situation awareness. But it's normally someone like yourself or myself, ex-military people or ex-police. Who have got a lot of experience and used in situation awareness. And you can then pass that on to people. But then you're very reliant on them practicing it and practice, practice, practice. And become, until it becomes second nature, you know, and that's when you know that you're on that. But you, you know, you can't just read a book and say, yeah, I'm situation aware now.

• 2:04:35Speaker 05

  You know, because you need to go out there and continually doing it and doing it and doing it. And, and the teaching is all about, you know, all the pitfalls that I went through. What didn't work, what works, you know, because you're passing on your, your experience really. To, to a lot of other people, so, yeah, it's, it's been tough. It's been a tough two years trying to break into a market. I, I haven't properly worked in two years over here. I've done the odd job, the odd school, but trying to get a contractor over. One, because I'm old school, I'm actually quite loud on LinkedIn. I don't like embassy halls, I don't like, you know, you know.

• 2:05:19Speaker 05

  People that are running the, the business, security and stuff like that. I totally disagree with because they're not, they're not willing to, to improve, you know. But we've, we've got a bad reputation. Because we've got, you know, a security organization who was supposed to be, you know, implementing. You know, good procedures and, and it's not working, you know, and so.

• 2:05:45Speaker 05

  Is my, is my vocals sort of, you know, is that, is that knocking me back somewhat possibly? Um, but you know, they always say never ever uh lower your standards just because other people are that low. Um, you know, always maintain your sort of high standards and try and pass that on. So should we do penetration testing? Um, which is all born out of, you know, so classic one here. Um, so penetration testing, terrorist people's houses. Uh criminals in London, um embassies, um the uh commander Marsevich. I, I actually did a target pack uh on a lot of his compound in Belgrade uh on the proviso of snacking him.

• 2:06:30Speaker 05

  So all the jobs that I've done, physical penetration testing, um being captured was not an option at all. And, and you know, to just get on with it, you try and go to a security company and say, listen mate, I, I, I know physical penetrations. Have you, have you got this certificate? Uh, no. Uh, but I can, you know, I've done this and done, you know, I've done jobs where, you know, getting captured will get you killed, uh if, if that makes sense. But it just seems to be at the moment, you know, you need tick box, you, you need this, that and the other. Um, and unfortunately, experience and um competency uh seems to be a, a thing of the past nowadays.

• 2:07:13Speaker 05

  You know, it's, it's, we're a, we're a bit of a dying breed, uh if, if that makes sense. In, in an environment where, you know, security is not really thought of as, as being a priority sadly.

• 2:07:27Jack Murphy?

  Well, tell us about the book, Life on the Edge, hopefully gonna be out next month. Um, what, I, I mean, I think it's largely about what we've been talking about on this interview so far. Um, but you know, tell us about the book and where people will be able to find it.

• 2:07:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, so the book was born out of an idea and then speaking to a lady called, God rest her soul really, Nicole Johnson. And we got together really, and the meeting, the initial meeting was all about her telling me to to push off, because she doesn't, she doesn't write excess air sports. But when we, when we started talking and I said, listen, I don't want a Bravo two zero, I just want an autobiography, but highlighting, you know, all the difficult situations that we've been in and how we've managed to resolve it and, you know, get around it by using resilience really,

• 2:08:28Speaker 05

  and a positive mindset. From the early ages of fifteen, you know, not getting picked to play football, oh, okay then, I'll join the army. You know, breaking, you know, you can't parachute, okay, I'll be your commander. And I ended up parachuting anyway, you know, so it's having that resilience. A lot of it was all about family as well, so it's, it's, it's all the emotions of, you know, being a family man. Being on operations and doing bad things and then coming home and picking your kids up from, from school. Having the night before been on, been on a serious operation. And my ex-wife was brilliant, you know, because it was a great way of bringing you back down to normality.

• 2:09:11Speaker 05

  You know, doing that, you know, getting flown back by helicopter. Mick, go and pick the kids up. Yeah, okay. You know, and that's why I, you know, quite a strong mentality, I suppose, and don't. So the book's all about helping people, based on our life story and the things that we went through. And what was right, and we've highlighted all the, you know, how we managed to get, you know, get where we are. So it's really about helping people that hit a brick wall in life and, you know, how to get around that brick wall by just being, you know, a bit more resilient and everything else. So that, so it's not a Bravo two zero.

• 2:09:54Speaker 05

  It's not specific on operations. It's, you know, how that managed to get you through. Uh, John, John, try and...

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• 2:11:04Speaker 05

  Uh, situations and stuff like that, so... But, you know, because Nicole, Nicole died in March last year, so that, that put the book on the back burner somewhat. Uh, because I wasn't, I wasn't really interested. Because we'd worked together, you know, spent hours and hours and hours doing the recordings and, and getting it all written up. Um, and it's, it's a co-written book as opposed to a ghostwriter. And, uh, and, and because she went through a real bad illness, unfortunately passed away, uh, last March, and then, and then, uh, and then sort of around about August time, she, uh, she, uh,

• 2:11:44Speaker 05

  about August, really, we, we got together with the, uh, with the husband, um, and, uh, sort of chatted away, and, and he said, "Listen, Meg", you know, it was her, one of her dying wishes, really, was to get the book finished. So, so that, that, that then sort of set us out on a second challenge, really, is to get the book finished. So we've managed to get a new author now, uh, who knows Nicole, uh, so, and she's read the book, um... She's happy with it. She she comes from a military background, uh which is which is great as well. So she understands the mentality. Uh so we needed to finish really. Uh in December, we finished the the final uh the final chapter, uh which is great. We've also added a more a

• 2:12:26Speaker 05

  memorial sort of uh page uh at the start of the book uh to to honour uh Nicole. So the book really is is not only helping people, but it's also to honour uh Nicole Johnson as well, uh if that makes sense. And I'd so I'd like to think that it's uh, you know, it's going to appeal to quite a few people, certainly military people, uh because everybody likes a SAS book, you know, greenberry book or whatever, you know, because that's what people like to read. Um but hopefully it'll appeal to the civilian market as well, uh and uh and people, vulnerable people. Um because we we've got a bit of a reputation at the moment of helping people. Um so, you know, people ring

• 2:13:10Speaker 05

  up last week, um a vulnerable lady uh from Bruges in Belgium, um her her helper, uh care worker, uh got in touch with us and said, Matt, can you spend a couple of hours, you know, during this time, um talking about how she can keep herself out of trouble and stuff like that, you know, about her situation with my personal safety stuff.

• 2:13:35Jack Murphy?

  That's good.

• 2:13:36Speaker 05

  Uh and we do that free of charge and they they, you know, kind of sent over some Belgium chocolates that I gave to my ex-wife and daughter um as a as a thank you. Uh because it's the same as farmers, you know, we we had a farm um lost forty thousand pounds worth of stock. Um they rang up, said, Matt, can you can you help us out? But, you know, how much is it going to cost me? And I said, listen, you've you've just lost forty thousand pounds worth of uh stock. I'm not going to charge you money to come down and help you. I said, but I need fuel, so you know, pay for my fuel to get down there and make me a bacon sandwich when we're done there and we'll, we'll, we'll help you out, like, you know. And, and that's, and that's, you know, what we do.

• 2:14:21Speaker 05

  It's, it's not the greatest business model in the world. But it's, but it's, it's just a way really of, of helping.

• 2:14:29Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, but you like what you're doing.

• 2:14:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, it would be great if we could sort of suddenly get a contract where actually busy, you know, and I'm hoping that we can actually bang the door down of the farming industry because farmers really do need help. And they need practical help, you know, practical solutions, not, not, you know, follow the website recommendations, that, that, you know, to a non-security person, that means nothing, like, you know.

• 2:14:59Jack Murphy?

  Mick, thank you very much for doing this interview tonight. Really appreciate it. Do, do we have any questions? So Dimitri will ask, some of our viewers will have some questions for you.

• 2:15:10Speaker 09

  Uh, from Mark H. Um, I'd love to hear about Mick's time with 14INT. Was, was that part of the Force Research Unit?

• 2:15:23Speaker 05

  No, that's a, it's a totally different organization. Uh, Force Research really, uh, was all about developing, um, sources. Uh, totally different. 14INT, uh, was the, the meat and, uh, or the bread and butter of surveillance, following bad people, uh, and, and ultimately stopping, uh, stopping terrorist attacks, uh, if that makes sense. But Force Research, totally different organization.

• 2:15:52Speaker 09

  Uh, Mark also asks, what do you think about the news coming out about the steak knife inquiry from last year?

• 2:16:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's interesting. There's two sides to every story, I suppose. And I don't think the real story will ever come out. You know, because he was playing both sides, if that makes sense. And I'm very surprised that the IRA didn't, as soon as the IRA found out, that they didn't take him out straight away, if that makes sense. But it's one of them things that's going to take a long time before everything's been revealed.

• 2:16:31Speaker 09

  Uh, one more from Mark. Did he have, do you have any thoughts on Ian Hurst and his accounts of his time in Northern Ireland?

• 2:16:41Speaker 05

  Sorry, uh, sorry, question again, Mick.

• 2:16:43Speaker 09

  Uh, any thoughts on Ian Hurst and his accounts of his time in Northern Ireland?

• 2:16:48Speaker 05

  Ian Hurst, uh, not really. You know, a lot of people have, um, you know, their ideas and different, you know. It's funny, someone said to me the other day, Mick, getting in the farm industry, if you was to work over in Northern Ireland, would you help a staunch Republican Catholic, farmer, you know, who detested the army? And the answer is yes, I would. Um, I would actually help farmers who were, used to be terrorists. Um, why? Because I'm there to help the farmer, not his religion or his affinity to whatever, if that makes sense.

• 2:17:31Speaker 05

  So, yeah, the, you know, Northern Ireland's quite a complex subject. Um, depending on what side of the, what side of the sphere you're on, you know. And, you know, and one automatically assumes that the SAS were all about fighting the IRA. That's not the case. The SAS were active bad people. Um, and if, you know, it just so happened that the IRA were more proactive. Uh, but, you know, boys have been after prostitutes as well, so.

• 2:18:01Speaker 09

  Alrighty, one last one from M. Corbin. Would you mind sharing some of your tattoos? The work looks really good.

• 2:18:09Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 2:18:10Speaker 09

  Sharing some of your tattoo work, somebody in the audience said that they look really cool.

• 2:18:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, so that it's the wall old school. Basically, I've got my life story on my arm. So I've got 26, 26 bullet holes because I've been shot at 26 times in my military career. So, so basically I've got a life story going up and all down my back and but they're all, they're called them old school tats. If that makes sense.

• 2:18:41Jack Murphy?

  Are those, are they poppies?

• 2:18:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:18:45Jack Murphy?

  It has like a world, there's like a World War One reference for the Brits, right?

• 2:18:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, poppies and, and, yeah, so basically, it's funny, when I, when I left the military, I have blood group opus on my arm, two eyes on my bottom and a small little spider on here. And, and since I've left the military, I, I decided to cover, cover that and, and it just, it just grew. Tattoos are, yeah, they're very addictive.

• 2:19:17Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, they are.

• 2:19:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, but, because my daughter's got tattoos and, and I said, she wanted one when she was 18. And I said, yes, you can have a tattoo, but it has to have some sort of meaning. You know, don't go in there, just get a little fancy picture. That means nothing. You know, get something that when you look at it, you know, so for me, the poppies, people died. All the roses are for my kids, for kids and stuff like that, commando dagger, parachute and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, it means something to me. Anyone else, it means nothing.

• 2:19:54Jack Murphy?

  So Mick, thank you again. I just want to tell folks out there, please check out a friend of the show, Casa Carabeo Cigars, provide us with cigars and it's a small veteran owned business, casacarabeo.com, please go check them out, appreciate it. Mick, this has been awesome, man. Thank you for sharing your story with us. I hope people will go and check out your book. I want to check it out when it comes out, Life on the Edge. I think what people will be able to go find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and so on.

• 2:20:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. It's gonna go hard copy and softback, but it's also gonna go out on audio as well.

• 2:20:38Speaker 09

  Great, great.

• 2:20:39Speaker 05

  On Amazon.

• 2:20:40Speaker 09

  And Mick, we'll put your website for your for your security company down in the description as well. So if anybody's in the UK or anywhere on the world, check that out. The link is in the description.

• 2:20:50Speaker 05

  Fantastic. Really much appreciated.

• 2:20:53Jack Murphy?

  Thank you, Mick. And we will see all of you guys next week. Thank you for joining us tonight. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show. If you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this, you can check out our Patreon. It is patreon.com/the team house. And for $5 a month, you can get access to all of these episodes of The Team House ad free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast, Eyes On, with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, Mick Mulroy. That one, you will also get all of those episodes ad free. And you support the channel and the show, and we really appreciate

• 2:21:36Jack Murphy?

  it. The Patreon members are literally what has helped this company, this small business, survive, especially during our early years. And you are what continues to help this thing going, even as we navigate the.

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