#314. Special Forces Legend Exposes £180M Cocaine Operation - Greg Barden

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1:19That's oliveandjune.com slash DIYGel20. Code DIYGel20 for 20 % off your first gel mani system. Publicly known job off the coast of Africa. We attract this boat from South America. They had met up with the mothership, offloaded. £180 million worth of cocaine. How quick do you have to think in terms of, it's either me or him. If he comes back with a shooter or stuff, he's like, bang, goodnight. That's what your training's for, isn't it? You build up that, I wouldn't call it a sixth sentence, but you're on it. And your instincts take over because you've trained so much. You're not thinking. It's a huge part of what SF is all about, as well, actually, and staying calm and choosing what fights.

2:02What was that feeling like, knowing that you're the youngest ever person to get into the Special Forces? Yeah, well, I knew there was still hard work to go, you know, sort of giving farmers money to burn their poppies. To stop the heroin coming over. Why were we in Afghanistan? Well, you don't want to go there with me. Really? You're angry, you look back and go, why were we sent there? That wasn't mine. Have you ever been in a position where you've been close to losing your life? I thought about this a lot. I got threatened in a very different way to what I ever, ever expected and to what I trained for, and that was a...

2:33Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host, Dodge, and I'm the founder of Bournemouth 7s, the world's largest sport and music festival. On this podcast, I speak to proper characters who have all lived eventful lives. Do us a favour and hit that follow button and be sure to check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Dodge Woodall, where we've now had over 100 million views. Greg, welcome to the show, mate. Good to see you, mate. Yeah, really good. It has been a long time. Last time I saw you were at Bath Rugby. It must have been last year. yeah i vaguely remember that but obviously we go back yeah further than that yeah we do back to our rugby days yeah that's right amazing amazing it's lovely to have you here mate yeah thank you for having yeah let's roll the way back how did you end up becoming the youngest ever person to get into the special boat service yeah well i think that that has to go back to um my granddad primarily um he was a 10 pound pom um moved in to australia or emigrated to australia and in the 70s took my mum out there with him they literally you know took your old belongings put it in a five by five meter part of a ship and shipped entire families out to to pop populate australia back in the day and stuff long story short um mum met dad i was born in australia um grew up there for the first two three years of my life um on the ranch where my granddad he was a foreman up there and stuff um parents divorced we moved back to um a place called merthyr tidville um in wales yeah tough place yeah and it plays a big part in my upbringing yeah actually which um we'll come back to again yes we moved out and came back and stuff once um my mum remarried um but ultimately yeah my grander was a key figure in my life around not just that stage but later on all the way through and he served in in the navy um on the old motor torpedo boats in the second world war okay so i got he's constant you know back and you know those kind of old school type as well you know withdrawn stories but you know stories and his experiences and um about world war ii and yeah um what happened to him you know he's being an ex-londoner cotton is he was he Yeah, he's a proper geezer, but had this sort of rogueness around him, loved to travel, and was always doing that with me and stuff.

4:56So, yeah, my childhood, in between moving from North Tiddleville to Bristol, and then when my stepdad lost his company, actually moving in with my grandparents. Okay. Family had to split. So he was a big figure for you, granddad? Yeah, and my stepdad, actually. um yeah um you know that old old school type you know very honorable proud british english you know whatever but um um but particularly my grando because he loved the outdoors we were in the footsteps of the brecon beacons so he'd always be taking me up there doing yomps and every now and then i'd see these guys running around on backpacks and go what are those idiots doing and and he'd say i think they're the boys from up the road in hereford or whatever and it was always there you know that outdoors and military and listen to my granddad stories and stuff so played a huge huge part in kind of where where i eventually went in my life yeah um but yeah i was you know raised in the guernas estate in merthyr didville which was tough going as kind of like an outsider yeah i suppose it was especially back then in the 80s early 90s yeah before really globalization all that you know it's still a tight tight community very proud what accent did you have when you moved to merford tidville uh second time english then i quickly adopted a bit of a welcome yeah and then when i moved back to to somerset you know i had a it's um quite severe welsh accent and stuff but i seem to lose and adopt new new languages all the way but but yeah just stay on merth it was you know it was a it was a interesting because yeah upbringing because I never felt like connected to that community or you know and absorbed but I played sport which was always a great great common ground as you know and that kind of pulls down barriers even though if people see you on the surface as an outsider once you get onto sport yeah it kind of levels the play levels everything up doesn't it yeah it really does yeah so what was your what was your journey then what age were you when you passed to get into the special forces so I joined if I may just the Royal Marines are 16 yeah um hey at school I was absolutely shit at um school you know when I tell you to open up a textbook page 67 I was gone um always looking to go and play sport or get outdoors and stuff um but I had been given a book by a friend when I was 12 on the on the Royal Marines and obviously with this background my granddad and all this influence and it was a book on the rural marines and i became obsessed with it and in on the last two pages of this book you know which was all bright history of the rural marines it just turned to really dark two pages of these guys walking out the water with their you know dive set on and weapons i was like what the fuck is that that's and i found out you know so it was um all about and sbs and and kind of become obsessed with it um at the age of 12 30 my parents were telling me where I'd start listening to, this is really, really sad, like, you know, Royal Marines Bass Band, rather than listening to R &B, I'd be listening to, like, this is what music is.

8:07I'd be going out for runs at 4 o 'clock in the morning doing paper rounds as much as I can, thinking that's what I had to do. So I'm so sure. Proper discipline from a young age, right? I wouldn't call it, I'm not a very disciplined guy. I think it was more about obsession. Obsession. Yeah, and say, I'm going to fucking do this. Okay. I'm going to absolutely do this, yeah. That's quality to hear, mate. and what age was that then when you were obsessed mid-prime 14 15 okay and then straight into the marines of 16 16 yeah 16 and three months okay yeah so got out of school got out of somerset um joined um and yeah went down to limston yeah which you know um down in which is where royal marines basic training is yeah um and just hit that um both uh with both feet really and um um it was interesting you know eight months i think you know you've had other guys on here talk about it and stuff what's involved and stuff but it it it strips you back and then builds you back up you know quite quickly and into a soldier whatever um but you know i was treating the royal marines as a stepping stone okay always always in the back so you had in your mind straight away i'm treating this to get into the special forces sbs that's my ultimate goal that's my goal how long did it take you to get into the sbs so when i passed become a royal marine commando um i'd already sort of done some research asked some guys around what's the best path to get me down to pool as quickly as i can and a good heritage of the royal marines is four or five commando yeah other lads will say it's the other commando units and stuff but um which is based up in our both in scotland they had the defense of the arctic northern flank and i just love the idea of it and and there was a unit within that called four or five recce troop yeah or troop um which is an amazing stepping stone if you can get into it so put my chin in for four or five commando went straight up there having passed um roaming training um and then it went we went we went to the jungle training um arctic training um and then that was with you know a conventional sort of company up there called X-Ray Company.

10:22Again, but as soon as I got there, I was trying to say, how do I get into Wreck-E-Troop? I don't Wreck-E-Troop, which is, there's a selection process for that. And it's relatively hard to get into. You have to be seriously knowledgeable, sort of tank recognition, weapon recognition, knock skill, climbing skills, orienteering skills, all sorts. So you have to constantly be improving yourself on your own sort of momentum to then hit that selection um within that unit to then join that troop okay um again taking a backward step this was just from my position as a stepping stone to try and get to the sbs as quickly as possible um so that was you know three two years they're doing that um we went on a tour to to kosovo i haven't got into that recce troop so you want to talk to kosovo yeah geez that was what was that like for you um i've heard all sorts i've had many people on this podcast they talk about kosov i don't know what years you were there but they said there was some brutal stuff they saw yeah we we were post-conflict okay um what were we talking 2000 okay yeah this is pristina we were in pristina um so we were working with here for guys actually we were doing mainly um sort of observation post ops um in pristina itself um so it wasn't kinetic in that sense you know there was stuff going on all the time but you know we were more we were after more sort of like um war crime criminals and stuff watching them and um so we would be you know set up on a top of a media tower one of the high rises in pristina with gear like this basically with 600 mil lens times two converter zooming in watching people from sort of all angles getting sort of you know how they're living their life and trying to build up a um sort of understanding of their movements then we send the hereford we went but you know hereford guys will go in etc the hereford guys the sas boys would go in and deal do the job deal with the job i'm stuck up on the roof i wish i got a funny story um so yeah we're we'd be there in the middle of the night on this top of this building the only way anyone could get to us was over the top of it i'm talking you know we're 200 foot up here we've got a big tent cameras looking at targets and stuff and you go around the other side and we had to put a bin you know it's where we went the toilet or whatever um amazing views of pristina overnight i think see rounds gone off in the distance whatever and stuff so i just come off my shift on the camera it's like two o 'clock in the morning did the dog work and i said to my mate andy so i'm just gonna go around and oh shit yeah so i went around there was like room with a view sitting on this bin literally that we had a cut a cardboard piece out with a big hole in it uh put my weapon down the side dropped my pants down like this i was like and we you know we weren't heightened you know we we the threat was relatively low and it was a threat but um we just i was just sitting there anyway and admiring the view and stuff minding my own business and then uh yeah just sitting there this is fucking cringe but uh something grabs my hair and the only thing that could have got it was something that's come over the top yeah so i fucking you know obviously make some noise drop down on my knees and with my pants around but my ankles grab my gun fucking doing kind of like a really shit commando roll clunky as hell look up meanwhile andy and the other guys are coming around the corner and i'm there pointing my gun at a fucking pigeon that just landed on my head oh yeah so that was my first introduction to what i thought was a combat situation was a fucking pigeon landing on my head um but yeah that that went down in folklore within recce troop actually and they cartoonized it or whatever and stuff so but yeah that's you know that was my time at recce troop and um i should say just before i even went to kosover i did the aptitude which is so back then it was a two-week course to come down here actually and and get sort of basically put through your paces by um sort of training team at at port sbs so so at the time you were in the commando yeah well commander then you had to do this two-week course yeah is that the two-week course to get into the sbs or that was there was a lot longer course to get into it yeah no this was just to go on to the actual course itself oh you do a course to get onto the course well okay it's kind of um a pre-test a pre-test yeah okay yeah and what was that like do you know what i think it's one of the hardest things i did in terms of that whole process because it was a lot more obviously a lot more concentrated they're trying to get to the bottom of you a lot quicker to break you to to break you yes a hundred percent um but also to see what kind of character you are like when you're under pressure um it's changed a little bit now but back then it was a two-week course first week you'd be getting um we were down in horsey lake down in portsmouth whole torpedo testing range that was in yards long and you get down there have not dived ever zero visibility along this jack stay on the ground and just say look if you come up you're fucking off the course you know just only come up when you run out of air kind of second week is you know back down in paul actually then canoeing so i don't know if you saw ever heard of the cocker shell heroes they'll clepper canoes famous war battle um the guys um canoed up the bordeaux basically easy canvas wooden frame canoe yeah you can break down and then carry on your back about 120 pound and basically just do a week of that just in the organ sort of capsized drills going on to sandy beach i can strip in down carrying it to the next place coming back putting it back together canoeing around to swanage or whatever and to the point where you know no sleep there's no skin left of your wicks of your fingers and stuff like you're you're hallucinating yeah it's what's that 60 kg roughly on your back yeah okay it's called a portage okay um you do it more later on in when you when you pass as well but it's just old school old school it's not it's not there to improve your skills or anything it's just there to literally find out and test you okay How many lads were on this, roughly?

16:38There's about 12 of us on that one. Okay. And how many of those 12 were like, so you got the minerals for this? Actually, I think there was about half of the guys because they were all Royal Marines and this was just the pre-test they got onto SB. So we can go on to numbers on that course in a minute. But yeah, so it was good lads. A couple of come from recce trip with me as well. Lads I'd been training with. Quality. But it was quite a key part of my sort of journey and stuff because I vividly remember those two weeks where my mind, you know, other periods have gone sort of blank a little bit where that stuck with me because it was fucking hard.

17:19And did you leave there again? I'm on my journey now to get closer to this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then obviously I had that tour to Kosovo coming up, which we went and did. How long were you in Kosovo for, for that tour? Oh, six months. Okay. And did you see anything there that just stuck with you for life that you should have seen? No. No, that was, like I said, it was not connected. It was always really passive in terms of what we were doing with, you know, the hair for guys from afar. But it built up my frustration. Yeah, okay. I knew where I wanted to be. Yeah. How was that feeling like when you're up there on the top of the thing going, now the SAS boys are going in, you're thinking, I want a piece of that.

17:57I don't care if they're SBS or SAS or whatever. I want to be down there. Yeah. Was that a frustration? Do you get frustrated? What was the feeling? Yeah, incredibly frustrating. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you do. And that was the Bureau of Marines for me. I loved the Bureau of Marines, but it's more of the military life, as you could imagine. Very hierarchical, you know, do what you say. Told. Told and all this stuff. Which, you know, no disrespect, I'm absolutely proud of the Bureau of Marines, but I knew I didn't want to be that person. I didn't want to be in that kind of environment. I said, I'm not a disciplined guy, and I would struggle in that environment.

18:32Okay. You said you're not disciplined? No. Interesting. No. Okay. No. Yeah. It's, yeah. I think there's probably a difference between, you know, between out and out, you know, discipline. But if it's a goal to get something, you know, like fitness and training. Yeah. You're all in. I don't see it. I'm all in. I don't see that discipline. I'm just like, I'm fucking doing it. And I'll do whatever I can or whatever I need to do to do that. So there is discipline within that. not being told what to do isn't yeah i think that's where i'm going i hear you with that with that royal marines then how long were you in the royal marines before you actually passed um so 97 i joined 98 and then i went on to selection having got back from cosmo yeah went on a 10-week bender in australia with my mate he was up he was gonna literally tell me about this one this though oh we just come obviously come back from cosmo yeah and we were like we know we're we're fit yeah ish we know that we've heard stories like if you go on their mega fit whatever like you're so intense and that's not our characters that's we've just spent six months in gozbo we've got a bit of money back for us back then yeah let's go on let's go yeah we did we flew to to kairns in australia and we got the old oz experience down and i just had a blast for like 10 weeks traveling around and who is it who are you going with uh a guy called alan cam and i best one of my best mates um we went through training together and stuff and all that no no no okay cam yeah different different guy but um yeah so we had a real blast and but you know came back and not i wouldn't say in prime condition but i can definitely detox yeah and you know a few stories you know would see us through so um yeah so literally came back from that and then um went on the hills um so yeah um this is 2001 okay may 2001 and you would have been at what age then i was 20 okay just turned 20 so you went straight in and said right i'm going for selection now yeah and there's there's um some important lessons here that i learned because leading up to that you know put my notice in to go on to the aptitude and then passing the aptitude and yeah people that i respected along the way saying like you know look i don't think you're ready you know um you need more experience etc and it wasn't coming from a bad place you know they didn't you know think i was you know a good soldier or anything like that it was just more like you know you've got to be older right and and maybe in reflection they had a they had maybe be at a point but i was like oh fucking hell i know what i want and i know what i need to do so i didn't listen to him and you know obviously found myself onto that course but i was very conscious because you know guys i respected did say look you know the the spotlight is going to be on you even more yeah you know you're a young guy don't have you know a lot of worldly experiences at that point um what were you thinking when they're saying that um i think yeah i i do i don't want to be genuine i think i compartmentalize quite quickly and i like i respect it you know and thanks for the heads up i'm going for it heads up yeah and i said look if you know i know what i want yeah if i'm not good enough they're telling me they're tell me yeah yeah absolutely tell me they're not going to let some idiot in or some you know young young boy they don't think is ready to go out there and do the job that you know those guys do so um but i was very conscious of it you know and especially hitting there on that course when there was like you know 350 guys that started it and you you look at them there's some real wide or guys there you know that obviously been through the mix you know from paras and marines other regiments and stuff and you're you're there looking at them i'm going shit you know there's proper men proper men yeah and yeah how did you feel at 20 did you feel like because like we know each other well you're super fit one of the you're in the top one percent of the one percent fitness you always have been did you know you were in a super great shape at the age of 20 again i can i can take this on yeah i i never saw fitness like that back then no okay i didn't it was fitness wasn't how can i say it it's yeah i just saw it as something you needed to do and just don't quit right and i'd heard guys say this the only person that really fails you on and anything is yourself yeah right and we'll go on to this in business yeah and all sorts of life but so it wasn't about because i wasn't fit you know like super fit you know there was guys there fucking racing snakes who could do me you know i mean like backing out 320ks or whatever and stuff there's me my fat ass like relative yeah um like struggling you know i mean but the point is and this is one of the key philosophies don't even go yeah just keep going keep going so on that selection then how long did you have to do that selection for at the age of 20 yeah so that's well it's a good but there's it's broken down into key stages key phases and stuff so um the first three are the most critical um but overall you're looking at you know eight months ten months probably you know depending on what time of year you went there and stuff so um i said yeah it's broken down into phases with the first haze being um phrase being in the hills yeah in wales well um ours was in foot and mouth so we actually went over to uh west virginia stateside yeah and did what delta force yeah who are the american army equipment of the sas yes top guys um that's where they do their selection and stuff so weather fucking hot yeah yeah mid to late 30s every day yeah um for how long that was so we had a little bit of a climatization period but um what was really really interesting is obviously a lot of guys from the wider army and stuff spend a lot of time up in brecon beacons so they know all the routes yeah already we're obviously going over to virginia whatever and no one knew anything it was kind of like backpack country you know forest hot down so no one knew the routes or anything for that but um so it's completely new for everyone that went out there um but yeah so you know so there's a lot of sort of proper map reading in that phase as well as trying to make these distances over a certain time that you had to do for that period of like five to six weeks and were they going on were they going on what delta did well delta went created there so yes ss what we did okay so then you've gone and gone back and said okay what are you doing out here we're gonna yeah so these are all their routes and we said look yeah they they invited you know um paul hereford over there to do that you know they can't afford not to have a gap in new guys coming through and stuff so um so yeah we went over there and did the hills phase using their hills okay as such so and from your experience now when you look back and you said right what we're doing in the brecon beacons what they do now the brecon beacons versus what you're doing in america which is harder do you think i've spent a lot of time in the breckens obviously as a child and subsequently i've done the fan dance i've done everything you know and um and i think from a map reading but also from a heat and endurance point of view i would say this but i think that heels was a lot harder than it would have been you know for me yeah um is that down to the heat you think yeah yeah because we're all grown up in p.m.

26:15of rain and gray and you kind of deal with it and stuff but actually you're going straight out to uh America and going fucking this is like 35 37 degrees and this is all new to me yeah okay yeah and you know guys like guys that I really respected were struggling the systems that they had perfected whatever like um yeah it was how many men went out there well here's the funny thing right so normally it was 350 um but they only had certainly certain amount of places on the plane yeah so we went to um up to hereford um pontralis um it's where a lot of hereford do the cqb training and ct training and stuff what's cqb ct sort of close quarter battles okay so in the room yeah okay um they've got muck up a 747 there and all sorts um and they were like right guys we've got 24 hours to work you're down 100 guys um so get rid of 100 guys wherever it was you can all get on the plane yes we get on the plane and we're like fucking i'm just nearly fresh from australia yeah okay and then put a bit of weight on us and they basically just start running us until like you know they've got the numbers yeah that is brutal yeah keep running and once we lose 100 you're all on the plane yeah and it was like fucking mind games galore because they were like right stop and you're like brilliant like no let's go again and it was just looking back at It was funny, but at the time you were like, fuck me.

27:42This is pretty. What was your mindset like doing that? I know what your mind's like, but I'm saying when you go back there, what was your mindset like knowing that they're going to get over 100? Are you like, I am not stopping. I'll keep going. I'll beat you, you, you and you. I'm going to keep going. Yeah, I don't. No, no, I know I'm not external, so I don't look at others. You do register people, but I was like, well, I know I'm getting through this. so just do whatever you need to do yeah and get me on that plane kind of thing so yeah i yeah very internal process like that so um i said unless i you know pulled my hammy or you know literally physically couldn't do it um you know my mind was like well this is all part of it yeah you know really positive i suppose in that moment not like oh fuck you know this is bullshit you know isn't all part of normal selection whatever no just crack on just crack on yeah and yeah so how long were you in how long was virginia for that's five weeks five weeks yeah and when you come back from virginia well yeah you'd so you do that five weeks you do your sort of um endurance week um i think you know previous guests have talked about it and you do that you know endurance march at the end which is 24 hours long and tell me about that so this is in virginia so you're there for five weeks yeah and you're saying that each week there was something different was there well yeah you you build up to this test week basically and you do a series of i think seven in total really hard you know yomps basically with weight um walks walks yeah you have to run it most of the time yeah yeah um big backpack your weapon um but i love that i literally if i can love that and by the time there i'd bent off all my beer fat and sort of like was hitting my straps kind of thing and i was being a bit of a dick i remember i was trying to be the quickest and all the you know in that test week and stuff now on that final one um i was you know it was fucking hard and um and sort of you're bumping into guys all the way and you know you see one guy you know he's in the stream like right and just you know just sort of trying to cool down and stuff and then i'm with this guy called lee tandy he was going off to to hereford um unfortunately passed away now but um and hooked in on a parachute jump but what happened how did he pass he was doing a hey-ho jump um in training over no man i think it was um but he basically hooked in on his parachute and yeah sort of didn't survive the what do you mean hooked in so he came in that pace i believe wasn't there um so i don't want to speak out of term and stuff but um really top guy anyway we passed eventually together anyway but But the funny story is we were kind of doing the latter stages of this final endurance march together.

30:33We were on our chin shut. So we were just like, let's just have a little power nap here, kind of thing. We said, well, look, we can't get too comfortable because we fucking won't get back up. So we said, oh, we'll just lay back to back with our feet up on our bergens and stuff. Next thing, we're both KO'd, like, fast asleep, and this guy's tapping us on the shoulder. Guys, you're fucking sound-o. But yeah, I think I did it in 19 hours eventually. And what distance did you have to cover that in 19 hours? Somewhere between 60 and 70 K. Okay. It was, yeah, with quite a big weight. And what sort of weight was on your back?

31:13Minimum 40 KGs, I think it was, yeah. With all your water and food and stuff. Yeah. So 19 hours non-stop on your back? 19 hours, yeah, with a little power napkin. yeah yeah yeah but yeah past that um so that was five weeks and then you go into where it really matters which is the jungle um so brunei um so you come back to here and then get told if you passed or whatever and then you get shipped out to then jungle training um i'd already done a jungle training with the royal marines which um i didn't really enjoy it was very controlled blah blah blah you know like health and safety all this nonsense where you go into the trees um on on selection it's yes completely different completely different you're completely you know you're on a small team yeah you get a ds sort of connected to you um attached to you ds and directing stuff so so a badge guy basically who's probably you know done up team tours been you know probably in the service minimum 10 years having a bit of downtime now yeah sort of gatekeeping the next generation guys coming through so people you respect really and um so that you know they're there monitoring you i would say like passively you know it's they're not there in your face they're just quietly monitoring you you know telling you what to do obviously you need to be but um but yeah just just monitoring you and i think whilst i was still 20 at this point and fast forward the end of that which we'll come back to in a minute but i think it was the first period of my life where i felt stress okay because you are you've humid humid and in the spotlight you just feel like you're being watched 24 7 or however long four or five weeks we're in there for doing some proper you know soldiering as i thought you know that i hadn't experienced in the royal marines at that point where you know you're doing jungle you know great contact drills you know where you're firing live rounds all the time you're always conscious you know like fucking one false move you know you could put pull up your mate's ass you know worse um so that you know that's really really intense stuff and then you're there writing reports every night wearing white gloves trying to be disciplined and do all the right things and keep your body fit and healthy because you're constantly wet and proper soldering.

33:45Albeit without, obviously, risk of life at that point, but nevertheless. But it was the most stressful point, was it? Really. Yeah, really stressful. What about kipping at night and stuff, things crawling all over you? What do you see in there? Give me an example of what you'd see in the jungle or feel. or yeah you fucking millipedes were the worst actually yeah fucking gnarly they were yeah but most like nature stays away once you're in there and they can smell you anyway and we're obviously honking at that point four weeks in and i've got a little picture we weren't meant to take pictures but of me and my couple of mates and we got out and i think i came out 11 and a half stone um i just off to the hills and stuff i was like a skinny boy again you know i mean so um but yeah so nature oh no actually in fact i say nature stays away i was sort of um we were in the final x again so final exercise trying to stay operational all the time um and the ds had taken a couple of guys away to do a uh a ctr like a close reconnaissance kind of thing and me and my mate um this power guy um richard with us was there and we're one with nature then i would say we were absolutely stinking um and we were there laying up and there was some gurkhas out there trying to like you know track us down or whatever and we're laying on the ground and i was like i could hear something like in not too far this and i was like fuck hell what's that i said please don't let me a gurkhas coming this way i was like richie's covering the other arc and that's why i kick him and he he sort of snuggles around the thing we're like oh fuck hell we're gonna have to do these break contact drills and we're knackered and have to go back through this whole rv system them and stuff right okay and it's quite secondary jungle so it's quite close you know there's small bushes everywhere in the middle of it and this noise is getting closer and closer all my dits are like fucking like this actually um and it's getting really close now we can't see any can't hear any like voices where it's oh god here we go and then literally what comes out around the corner is this big old hog pig yeah sort of truffling away we're like fucking massive we were like on our bellies next thing this thing just sees us and it i can just hammers towards us we're like bomb bursting like non-tactical now we're like i've never getting chased by this pig we're going to bang whatever they're baking yeah we had bank ground so unfortunately we couldn't so so so that was would you say what was what was the toughest of the two virginia or brunei bruno okay yeah yeah because it was more stressful more stressful um like i said the soldier inside as well as the environment you know so you know the hills just keep going right and don't have to worry about anything else other than that and and yourself and your you know hygiene and your feet sort of where the jungle was that plus then it's tactical plus being watched assessed and judged all the time being put under pressure see if you break um you know yeah how easy is it to navigate around a jungle if they're just like yeah yeah it's really hard actually because this was you know we didn't use gps really but i don't know they don't give you gps but the way they sort of topographically sort of create maps of the jungle is on the canopies because they can't see the ground so you're looking at a map and seeing contours but what you're actually seeing is a bunch of trees taller yeah so you'll think you're meant to be going up a hill but you're actually for fun and you're like so you're constantly being questioned like that and you're and you're obviously being judged on that as well and so it's notoriously really hard actually and you've got to take in other things like pacing is a big thing in the jungle where you're you know you're constantly counting your steps okay um knowing how many steps equals distance right so you're always trying to relate what distance you've covered to a map and bearing right um so So even if the map's wrong, your pacing and placing on the map with that direction bearing should be right.

37:48Right, okay. So you're, yeah, you're, you know, being constantly dodging that as well. So you've done your five weeks there, you've done your five weeks there, then what? When do you get told? Is it when you land back or do you get told there? So you're all on the plane on the way home. How many of the people, I want to break this down a bit, how many people went to Virginia in total? So you lost 100, roughly 200 odd? 250, yeah. 250? Yeah. And out of those 250, how many of them went to Brunei? I don't know exactly. It must have been about 100. About 100? 100, yeah. And then when you've done that 100, how many, when you're in Brunei, actually have gone, I've had enough of this?

38:22A lot. Really? Yeah. Okay. Like I said, I'm not external in terms of getting energy from other people. Yeah. But when you hear or you see someone, you're like, oh, he's got the metal kind of thing. And they go, oh, I've had enough. I'm VWing. and you're like wow okay and that either gives you a boost or you're like shit if he's struggling yeah right should i be should i yeah and then you're going actually i'm actually all right yeah okay how many of them actually how many actually finished the brinei roughly out of 100 if you were to i think for both paul and hereford it was about 20 so only 20 out of 100 so you got 250 in total yeah down to 100 down to 20 my god that is selection yeah That jungle phase weeds out everyone, I would say.

39:12Okay. Literally everyone. It's incredible. I don't think you can fully appreciate it from afar and sort of understand the nuances around the environment and then what they apply to that environment to test you and to grind you down. It's just incredible. Obviously, some far smarter guys created that, I haven't experienced it and known what it does. So when you finish that, are you like, yeah, I've made it? Or have you got to wait time for them to come back to you and say, right, no, this is a special day. You're going to be told you're in or you're not. Yeah, you go back to Hereford, actually.

39:49Okay. And you go in to see the OC of, you know, the training wing on a one-to-one basis. And you see guys come back, come out and go, fuck, kick me out. And you're like, ugh. So they've got through. through the old jungle so they've done the whole thing and then they've been told they haven't made it yeah geez that is brutal and that can it's brutal isn't it thinking you've done the jungle you think oh you know what i've made this i've got the minerals i've done i've smashed it and then get why would they be told they haven't made it personalities okay right so there is a type and um i never went on to train and wing so i didn't never understood the processes that they established but if someone thinks you're a twat yeah you know you're not you know getting in and because it is a you know it's a tight brotherhood right and you've got to trust people so you can be a fucking amazing soldier and all that but if you're a twat yeah you know if you're you know you're not there doing the shitty jobs right when you're fucking knackered like taking the rubbish down you know from your bivy and doing the small things which the ds pick up on yeah okay they see these things they're like you're not a team player red light yeah good light you know so yes you can be big fit strong yeah aggressive and all this stuff but it's it's the things that get yeah seen when you're not being watched i think that they they put a lot of weight to yeah um but yeah so i went in on a one-to-one basis my age got mentioned and you're still 20 at the time still 20 yeah at the time yeah um and i was like but they they passed me so yeah what was that feeling like knowing that you're the youngest ever person to get into the special forces yeah well i knew there was still hard work to go you know sort of the next phases and stuff but i remember i get you know i talked about many ago like the first feeling of stress yeah but the opposite to that you know first euphoria you know and i went you know obviously in hera from my granddad was in And Merthyr, you know, so I went straight down.

41:55Had a beer with him that weekend. Amazing beer. Yeah, a lot of beer. Is he still with us, your brand nev? No, no, he passed a few years ago. Okay. But what was his name? George. George. Did Corn D, a fan dance, 76 times in his 76th year. Is that right? Yeah. And kept doing it until he was 85. Legend. Yeah, yeah. What a legend. But yeah, that beer was pretty good. A bit of memories. so then what was the next step then when now you're in the sbs what explain to me you get given something do you get a certificate do you get a beret what's given to you to go right now you're there and now we want you to be living in paul yeah well you're not there yet i don't know if you want to talk about the the next phases the escape and evasion 100 100 i want to talk about what it's like to be escape yeah all of that all right well yeah so then you go well i love these phases because again it was like so this is after you've done it so after the jungle now you're still at hereford you've not technically been badged okay right but everyone knows if you pass the jungle it only takes a big fuck up now you've got the metal so it's now whether you're you know you can do the right things and stuff but that said escape and evasion is a big part of it is that to do with interrogation as well yeah yeah but the first part is um you know you start I kept learning some more about survival skills, et cetera, and stuff.

43:19And they start sort of not feeding you to wear you down again and stuff. And we had Ray Mears come along and do some tutorials on how to kill a goat. Kill a goat? Kill a goat, yeah, in front of us, even though his car was full of McDonald wrappers. Was it? I wonder why he got so big. He wasn't hunting with goats and stuff. We ripped him for that, actually. um but yeah this was in that pontralis where we first started actually doing this sort of escaping evasion and you get put in world war ii fatigues so proper sort of itchy horrible no socks um and then you can spend a few days making some tools that you might want to take out on the run with you and it's all it's all meant to like keep you awake and test your imagination and stuff so i'll forget my i made a a backpack out of a bread basket um and a sleeping bag which was fucking not good at all not you of any use but um yeah took on the run with me anyway so um went to galloway is actually up into scotland where they they release you and put you on a sort of five day um escape and evade sort of sort of journey that you've got to hit certain targets each day within these corridors you've got hunter force chasing you um and you've got us again make certain distance okay each night or to get to a certain point without getting caught yeah okay yeah so give an example what would you do to not get caught um i said we had parrot uh was it two three power one of the powers after i was like i've already made it so whatever i had to do try and fill a guy in whatever i am not getting fucking caught by a harrah but you had to also get into a group to try and make some time up and stuff and we were going down this metal road one night in a you know sort of woodland whatever before we know it fucking spotlights dogs were everywhere we're like fucking where do they come from i bomb it into these trees to the left go in and out dogs are chasing um with the handlers i go up this fucking tree and it's that um sort of fern tree you know like scratch the fuck i just get up it as high as i can and just fucking cling on and i'm there fucking this tree swinging around pitch blacks my face scratched to bits i can hear these dogs i can hear one of my mates getting caught i was like fuck you know i'm just there so kind of like and you can hear the guys go i think one of them went in the trees and stuff so i must have been up this tree for about three four hours and fucking i'm not going down i'm not getting caught but um yeah so yeah eventually come off that um there's loads of loads of stories even from that little bit actually and obviously you're you've got no food you're in literally survival mode so and they're kind of pushing you back to civilization so they're seeing like how far you're willing to take it i think and okay i dropped into a village one night and i can true story i'm crawling i was trying to be discreet going through this uh little village i remember that i'll come back to in a minute but i all of a sudden i heard this like psst psst i was like fucking hell he's like shit myself ready to to sprint whatever and it was one of the other lads like fucking go here go here go here before you know he took me into this house right which was the old shop corner shop in this little village and there was two other guys in there like we were minging right absolutely minging with a can panacella baked beans and chips and this couple who just moved up from newcastle um had known that we were in the area and i know we're feeding the guys oh day we were the eight days chips and uh yeah i was and we never ever forget that actually and they let us sleep because the front of the house were the old shop so they said look just sleep there get her down for a few hours and close the door quietly when you leave our kids upstairs we were all too so we um three of us memorized their address and um they didn't know who we were obviously in terms of names and stuff but when we got back up we we sent them a plaque and this um marks and spencers sort of yeah thanks because they made a big difference yeah yeah getting that bit of food in yeah um because yeah and i think you know that if you get caught you're off so you run that risk but so if you get caught you're off i think caught cheating like that right okay if you get caught you get a kind of lifeline I think and you get beat up a bit or whatever and slapped around and get put back out there if you get caught twice you know under your own fruition you're off you're like fucking hell you're useless but then if you get caught cheating yeah even though I've I've heard the stories from all the guys I mean there's some hardcore guys I didn't but yeah I love my food too much what did you when you when you when you finish this what do they give you i'm just trying to visualize what does it look like or is it all underground is all like well done congratulations now you're in the sbs well done thanks well yeah or is it like some parade or no no it's everything's discreet right isn't it and sort of like um so yeah you pass all if you pass all those continuation training escaping evasion blah blah um then you eventually go to pool right so hereford guys go and get badged up in hereford join their respective squadrons back then i don't know if it's the same now um you go down the pool get badged but then you don't go to a squadron you go and do another two phases um so you get a little it's always even a ceremony you get given um we actually when i joined we didn't even have the sbs badge um the new sort of yeah you know we were still under the royal marines um but you've got your little sc and sort of canoeist and all this and sort of you know handshake with co and stuff um so it's really um underwhelming okay so it's not you expect anything yeah right you're just chuffed a fucking bit yeah finally down in pool but then you you know i said the hereford guys went to the squadrons we then went and did you do your boating phase and then your diving phase yeah um the diving phase i think is more optional now um as a method of guys getting into a country or a situation yeah but that is the difference between hereford and paul yeah technically still hereford does parachuting okay even though here and paul does i remember i remember like 15 20 years ago we're all out on the boat remember like pissing around on the boat we go wakeboarding and remember there was one there was a there was one period but we were out there going yeah that's the SPS boys, they're off helicopter at five in the morning, just diving in, diving in from high up into the sea and might have to make their own way back.

50:11Yeah. Is that the sort of stuff you were? Yeah. Yeah. We're doing all sorts of things like that. So whether you're, um, parachuting, which, you know, you do see off Studland, don't you? And, um, the SDV, which we might come on to in a minute, which is the old, um, submersible. What's that? It's a swimmer delivery vehicle. Okay. some american built thing for seal team six and stuff like that but it's a wet sub basically for one man a one man no you can go it's unfortunately for guys you can fit six guys in the back right it's it's like a giant dildo basically how big fucking six blokes big yeah six blokes oh bonnie blue a lot of that one guys absolutely hated it hated it yeah hated it um i actually went into to become a pilot of that later on in my career yeah um but yeah you see all that happening off the coast of paul now and then but um yeah so you learn all these skills you know jumping out of the helicopters diving bla bla and boating and that's your content continuation training yeah um and technically you have to pass them to then go and join your squadron which i did you know early q1 what's the hardest thing you've ever had to do in terms of in terms of before we go into the countries you were going into what's the hardest thing you've ever had to do in training in training

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53:12it's really hmm I go back to that aptitude I think you know okay physically and mentally aptitude that got me yeah okay it's interesting how you remember that so vividly isn't it where you think in all the countries you've done so now you've passed what are you on are you on like a pager someone goes right Greg you need to be here within an hour because we're going to Columbia because there's a massive cocaine thing going on or whatever it may be is it literally like you're on you're on call depends what role you're in yeah if you're in ct counter-terrorism yeah then yeah back then we did have pages yeah and you couldn't drink you had to be within half an hour of the camp yeah um so that was a specific role but the sbs has lucky lucky actually crosses off between half an hour isn't it not drinking yeah um yeah so Jimmy Bronson's boozer.

54:03The cow. The cow, yeah, do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so, you know, and that was a very specific role, you know, where you're on a high alert, basically. But then if you're in build-up phase to go in operationally, you know, in Afghan or Iraq or whatever, then it's very different. You're hardly ever at home anyway. You're just constantly training somewhere else and stuff. So, yeah, it's very, very varied. and you go into a period of training intensely for this sort of role, go and operationalize it, come out of that and then rinse and repeat in different things. And back then, we were only two squadrons, two Sabre squadrons, which was M squadron and C squadron.

54:47And how many in each squadron? That's about 60, 70 guys, 60 guys. Of the elite, of the elite. The door kickers, you would say. That's probably a bit... american you know the the frontline guys that you know are operational yeah and were you ever involved in the counter-terrorism yeah yeah actually well counter-narcotics actually um which was a big part of our our remit um we did a publicly known job off the coast of africa um international waters here we took down a a motor talking about my grand old motor torpedo boat um we attract this boat from south america i believe and they had met up with the mothership offloaded i think it's about 180 millions pounds worth of cocaine onto this runner boat yeah um and yeah we we got activated and went and sort of got down to half of HMS.

55:53It was a frigate anyway, which is where we operated from to then go and take down this motor torpedo boat basically and anyone else on it. And we seized, yeah, I said 180 million rounds worth of cocaine and that one drop, yeah. So how quick is it when you're called up or is this operation going, guys, we know this is happening and we've been following for three weeks. This is what you're going to do. This is the boat you're going to jump on. This is what it looks like. get yeah no how much intel are you getting from those it's quite spontaneous well i don't remember much build up to it um we had those skills anyway of you know like whatever we need to do fast rope onto the boat um heli sniper and all sorts but um so yeah we were on that boat and and in the hull before they even knew you know we were we were there um didn't fly around you know didn't need to these guys were in custody before they knew it to me but but yeah that was that was not a build up to that one.

56:48Okay. I remember that, yeah. And what's that feeling? What are you wearing? What does it look like? Are you going in night time, day time? Are you flying in helicopters? Are you going in the boats behind? Are you hooking on and climbing up? What is it? Try to explain. That one was two helos, two helicopters, main force in one, and then Lynx, I think it was, the sniper in that one. We just came up, it's his arse. I can't remember, it was at night, but we fast roped on. So literally throw ropes, gloves just down it um onto that boat very very quickly and then we kind of had a little bit of intel what the boat was and the makeup of it obviously there was no one on deck so we went straight down into the hull cleared it and yeah neutralized it within a minute i would say yeah what's that feeling like when you're in the helicopter just before you're about to do the job as you're just flying in yeah it's i think your training kicks in okay like yeah you're nervous I'd be lying it's like going in rugby and stuff you know you need that adrenaline to up your sort of awareness your you know your your skills and stuff so but it's like again you'll know as soon as that whistle goes it just disappears yeah it goes yeah it's exactly as they're on it doesn't matter whether it's rounds or whatever or you know the big kiwi or Fijian right yeah so when you've learned are you going in there are you when you've got When you've got your gun, when you've got your machine gun, how quick do you have to think in terms of it's either me or him?

58:20If he comes back with a shooter or stuff, he's like, bang, goodnight. Yeah. We've gone to other scenarios, but I think that's what your training's for, isn't it? It's repeated all the time. So you build up that, I wouldn't call it a sixth sense, but you're on it. And your instincts take over because you've trained so much. you're not thinking and again it's i can relate it to like elite sport you know when you're not thinking is when you're operating the best because you've trained you've done all the hard work yeah and that's that's the only way i can describe it really you know it's not like i've got a specific skill or whatever you know like or like um personal skill it's it's something that you've trained and for you obviously have something because you wouldn't be in that room you know training and putting as many rounds as we used to do in that killing house or whatever to make sure it was like a sixth sense but that's the closest i could describe it okay you know that you're making those decisions because they're intuitive at that point because you've trained so have you ever been in a position where you've been close to losing your life yeah i thought about this a lot and where i go because you know the other guys you've had on this podcast friends of mine actually and you know they've seen a lot more shit than i have um i got I was threatened in a very different way to what I ever, ever expected and to what I trained for.

59:41And that was a gun to my head in Iraq in day two when I was there in Basra. And I mentioned that because it wasn't a kinetic, you know, you're going in rounds of firing and stuff. I didn't get to experience that, thankfully, from my own point of view. but we were getting um we're doing a very specific job down in basura it's 2004 now i think it was um and we weren't in military fatigues we were trying to stay incognito um we were getting acclimatized to the city um we were doing a very specific job at that point but there was threats um obvious threats um the police which will come on to a minute and then obviously insurgents or whatever and stuff so we were always trying to survive the first glance um because we weren't packing huge support you know we're always operating as a small unit um in isolation for many you know green fatigues whatever um so day two i've just landed in in iraq more or less not acclimatized you're you're you're heightened like because you're not absorbed it yet you're not you're not sensitive to the situation you're not reading the lay of the land kind of thing and we were getting a sort of tour of the city from hereford guys that we were taken over from and obviously we'd done a huge build up to this you know um anti-car drills you know where you've got to get out of a car you're taking rounds or whatever and you know you've trained and trained and um and long long story short anyway we were stopped at a checkpoint now we didn't know if the checkpoint was kosher or not um i was in the passenger seat on the right side my good friend and boss at the time was in the back and then we had a support car that pulled over straight away because when we got pulled over and however guys are like just it's fine just stay calm and then this guy one of the younger soldiers came over policeman and put a gun to my head on the window to my right and And yeah, I always, for me, that moment always stood out because I never thought I'd experienced that side because I always thought, you know, we were going in and doing jobs, right?

1:01:54It was very, very passive environment. and i'm i'd say you know where i think someone without the training or not necessarily experience because they didn't have much experience at that point um could have flapped and you know decided just to go kinetic at that point and take this guy down and um which i would have been in my right because i felt you know genuine fear for my life at that point but the hair of a guy um as i say just hold hold and i'm going fuck that i'm going five four john's like i need him the radio like we've got your support and it was like quite aggressive um but then the hair of a guy was still speaking to the guy on his side and saying quiet a hayliff you know um sort of british forces kind of thing and and it was that close to going um but i'm kind of proud to weird word but you know of not going loud at that point you know we i could have reacted and um under that out utter fear for my life adrenaline went through the roof you know i mean i'm not acclimatized gun to my head this fucking guy's aggressive you know and stuff but and i and i think that's a huge part of what sf is all about as well actually and staying calm and choosing what fights to do which i perhaps didn't do that well in my own civil life sometimes but um certainly in that environment i'm and you know it felt right and i got out of it without having to to kill someone have you ever killed anyone no no no okay and yeah no i was um you know i think things happen for a reason and um i moved on from sbs at a point where you know again other guests that you've had on here i've talked about i went into a really heightened sort of period you know i was involved in other stuff in afghanistan whatever but um i honestly say i think thankfully from my own point of view i can honestly say that and and talk about those moments there where, you know, I probably could have gone the other way and stuff.

1:04:12But, yeah. If you took yourself back into that moment when the guy had a gun to your head and you didn't do what you actually did, what would you have done? There's a very specific skill set that you're trained for. It came out of Northern Ireland, actually. um so i had a a baby k a submachine gun right on my lap under a shimag under a cloth so i already turned it and it was already facing him yeah and all i had to do was kind of like press that trigger and would have kicked off basically um he didn't know that he didn't see the weapon he just saw my fucking white eyes yeah yeah looking at him going fucking don't do it yeah i think but um but that's comes down to training it would have been so easy to fucking be gung-ho and go for that kill but that's a big part of I think my makeup when I look back actually I trained to be a medic as well in my team which I absolutely loved and when I was in Baghdad I spent most of my nights down in the American cache which is their combat support A &E if you want um could never work on the american soldiers because they were prioritized but the iraqis and that they were coming in and i had a taxi driver that had been grenaded with a phosphorus grenade had third degree burns all over him and had you know the americans were all busy and you know and i'd spend my time working on him putting fluids in him keeping him company even though he's probably i think he did die shock you know and but i love that side of it yeah you know and and that's i think like my overall why i joined um the forces are all um it was always to protect actually and it's cliche and it's romantic but i hand on my heart i have thought about this a lot that was that's always my motivation and it is basically you know for my granddad about world war ii where people can argue but it was more you know black and white you know nazis and you know survival and stuff i think it's a bit more confusing these days and you know the way the world is and stuff but it was always always to to protect that is my go-to nature yeah how would you explain the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan good question well Afghanistan I was there in 2002 um so this is when they were the Taliban were regrouping, either up in the mountains or, no disrespect, they've just changed the color of their turban and was operating, you know, within the local villages.

1:06:49And again, I was working as a remote team down in Lashkagar, Helmand Province, which became sort of, you know, where all the shit happened early and stuff. But we were working, you know, two hours without QRF in isolation a quick reaction force either by um american planes or you know helos coming in with troops and stuff so we were really vulnerable in terms of you know being over overrun if if if um if they chose to yeah locals um but we were doing um and again this is public knowledge pop eradication we were giving farmers money yeah to burn their poppies to stop the heroin coming over yeah okay which was how do you know they were burning it thank you very much lads in one pocket yeah literally and i'm talking millions yeah i'm sure it's all in i'm sure it's on the news and stuff and they quickly quickly stopped that sort of strategy um so that the the there was nuances at that point you know it was all post-conflict both those scenarios um that i was operating yeah um so it was you know it wasn't offensive kinetic you know i mean um even though when i went up to baghdad we started doing those jobs and they started coming and we're going after high-end targets and stuff and we were going on to you know flying into these targets hitting electric pylons and helicopters and all stuff going on um what blowing them up well no landing on them and by mistake actually by mistake but you've got no choice and yeah you're landing on these compounds and electric wires flying around and doing your job and stuff so um and that that that's where both theatres went actually and obviously more to Afghanistan which I know Foxy and Stas has talked to you about and what those guys went on to do I didn't but they did Why were we in Afghanistan?

1:08:44Oh you don't want to go there with me Really? Yeah no I think Why were we? I think that's a dangerous question I think it's political isn't it? Are you angry that you, are you angry? You look back and go, why actually, why were we sent there? That wasn't right. I, you know, God, I know some guys are, you know, and obviously in terms of what they endured and who they lost. Yeah. I can't speak for them. And, you know, they went a lot deeper and a lot further into investing their lives into say Afghanistan and what that meant for them. But I think, as I said to you earlier, it's a brotherhood, right?

1:09:27So mainly you're doing it for each other and you've got each other's back. But you would like to think that there was some goal there, you know, at some sort of local level where, you know, you're protecting the general population, which we'll come back to later on maybe. But, you know, when you meet just the general people who just want to get on the fuck with their lives, didn't care about the Taliban, didn't care about us. I've got my own family. We were talking about it before we came on air. They just wanted to live their life in peace. And for me, when I was there, that's like us. I just wanted to give them that.

1:10:06Again, not to be altruistic. So you were in Afghanistan. Afghanis, local people just wanted calmness and peace. But the Taliban were coming in and wanted to take out Afghanis. And you were there to protect the Afghanistanis. Afghanistanis well no they were quite quite passive we were there at that point I said for more for the poppy eradication but I said what it evolved into was to keep the Taliban at bay right so they didn't take over that's what in theory the guys you know worked so fucking hard for over those subsequent tours and stuff you know was to establish a democracy and you know a safe haven for women girls to to live and grow um we all know what's happened subsequently so not for me i don't think to say but um but i really connected with some locals you know and i said i'm a foodie at heart i hated military ration packs so wherever i was in the world i would find local food who'd have a feed up yeah quality and one really has played a huge part into where i've gone into my life and that was buying bread from the local baker ashka guy who'd come in every morning i'd give him some you know money and have this amazing freshly baked bread lovely and i couldn't speak you know um communicate um natively but i built not a friendship but a rapport yeah and you could just see that common ground that happened through that to buy in bread and i loved that bit and it stuck with me and same in baghdad buying coffee from the bazaars or dealing with local people i love that part do you think the afghanis are angry with the british i imagine they are yeah again i you know i was out of it for a long time right so i don't want to piss anyone off more put words in other people's mouths but yeah i reckon the general population would be you know the people that had you know probably invested their life their lives into to try and establish what, in theory, the Americans, the Brits said they were there to do.

1:12:10History says otherwise, perhaps. And what year is this? 2004, do you say? So do you think 21 years, 20-odd years later, do you think there's still anger with Afghanis in the UK against the British? Yeah, I could easily imagine that, couldn't you? Because if you've come in there and, like you said, you've created that environment for 20 years, hostile, committed to an establishing, I believe, a democracy, say, and then to withdraw out as they did, I'd imagine anyone would feel a sense of betrayal. Yeah. Maybe it's the right word. Do you feel the way the world is at the moment in the UK, that could cause a problem with Afghanis being in the UK and still being angry towards the British?

1:12:59Oh, that was a good question.

1:13:29For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply.

1:13:38I think where the world's gone now with mass globalization, immigration, it's just hard in general, isn't it? You've got people en masse of different cultures doing what they know and do best. And I know you've got extremities outside of that, which, you know, they need to be dealt with separately. but as a whole i can't fault anyone who wants to come in and better themselves but whether it's the right way that it's happening or going about it that's that's a different question um that i'm not perhaps qualified to answer um but it frustrates me certainly you know and i don't think anyone like from a human human point of view um would want to move out of their country you know and go and set up somewhere else unless they generally felt threatened i'm talking to you know the genuine people here not you know not the extremes you know that you know i'd you want to be in your home country don't you and grow in your family yeah and you know like you're like like we say here you're all about protecting do you feel that at all women and girls are vulnerable in our country right now knowing that there's illegal migrants coming over don't mind legal ones they don't even know who they are but illegal ones coming on mass into our country who have got completely different lifestyles than whatever country they're coming from how do you feel as a proud british special forces legend with what's happening right now with illegal people coming over here where we don't know who they are they don't know if they've got convictions of anything back in their country and we just haven't got a clue yeah i said the the extreme side needs to be dealt with, right?

1:15:18Because no country should have to live in that fear that I think some people are certainly feeling now. And I had a friend, a girlfriend of my partner's come down this last week and, you know, he's been a Londoner through and through. And it was really sad to hear the way she was talking. Yeah. Really sad, you know, like it was full of anger and fear actually. um so you know we're going into territory that i am passionate about because of what i'm doing now and trying to create more common ground in the world because we are getting lonely we are getting angrier because we're in more isolation and there's information overload and all sorts that we're we're you know sort of being bombarded with as well as the real world you know scenarios that happening and we're rudderless as a country there's no leadership yeah there's no optimism no there's no optimism there's pessimistic everywhere yeah like we've got no leader we're like yeah we've got a leader who tells lies it's like why tell another lie why tell another we all grew up sportsmen you're like tell the truth you look after your man next to you you're kind yeah but you're strong with it our country's just wobbling it's like i feel like it i feel highly frustrated yeah i i reciprocate that actually and as a person who believes in not waiting for someone else to fix something um i think people do have to take ownership of the how we are living our own lives um i might take us on a tangent but with corporations controlling more of our time and money you know there's a hollowing out of culture and heritage as well that's going on and where do you take that hollowness you take it and i put it into you know sort of probably a bit of anger and target against people um that i question you even more in where you're losing this identity and stuff so lots and lots of issues um that i see and um i'm trying to do something positive yeah um in a very different way to what um i did before um which we might get to talk about yeah but yeah it's it is tough times i spend a lot of time talking to big businesses people out on the street yeah um north of england and wales and it's it's as a positive person it's hard to hear hard isn't it but i just i just try to stay in my bubble if i'm honest you i know but there's there's not sad is it because i know how much energy and like like what you can bring to the again and we've ultimately we all look after ourself and families first right but i don't want to live in that world where we're pulling out pulling away yeah you know and that's just doesn't fill me with joy with hope i've got a nine month old kid now and i want to do something positive for her and or at least try and pass something on better so it's sad saddens me when i hear that but i also absolutely get it and i hear it more and more the day you left the sbs how old were you 27 8 27 28 before you left what was going through your mind to say it's time for me to leave well i was fucking lucky right um 2003 um in between tours yeah um some genius within the service said we're going to go down to australia for the world cup in perth and have an sf tournament quality happy days and i was like oh really what's going on the piss down in perth and watch some rugby um most of us hadn't picked up a rugby ball at that point i remember going down to the bottom field on camping pool and it was like something at the scene out of like 1970s now you know these swivel hands out ready guys trying to do steps but falling over oh god but um but yeah so i got introduced to rugby and we went down and i had one of the trips of my life honestly we had this rugby tournament where we battered each other for three days and then just went on the piss happy days down in uh subiaco in obh hotel yeah x-rated sort of stories coming out of that period but oh my god and i i connected all that with rugby yeah um we were walking around with our blazers getting put into nightclubs thinking we're part of england and oh it was incredible yeah and yeah and i fell in love with rugby at that point basically what year was this so 2003 2003 okay yeah um but didn't know anything about I played football as a kid in Merthyr-Dudeville, etc.

1:20:05But came back from Iraq and went down to Oak Medians. Remember Hayden? Yeah. Oh, I love Hayden. Kiwi. Yeah. Oh, mate. Every time I used to see him out on the piss, he would clock you and you'd try to hide from him. And then he would buy like shots of whiskey and stuff. You're like, no. Yeah. Him and Dallas and Troy. Dallas. Where's he now? He's massive. Calfs, 20. Oh, I can't remember the size of his calf. 22 inches. he was a huge where was he from Samoa yeah who was it Dallas Troy Troy yeah and Hayden and Hayden they were great lads yeah and they were there listening shout out to all you freaks I haven't seen those boys in 15 20 years no yeah and I grew really close to those boys and they took me under their belt introduced me to rugby in terms of playing so but also here's some partying naked bars and yeah or in oak medians which i you know i treated as a kind of disconnect from the service which you know is it's intense yeah right and everyone is the same thing and so i really latched onto it actually more than i ever thought and it's probably bond again yeah yeah and and and And, you know, that kind of on the field battle as well, which I craved and loved actually.

1:21:21And on my heart, I fell in love with the sport and started watching it and started playing it when I got back whenever I could. And, yeah, I went off, came out of front mine post Iraq and went into a submarine sort of part of the SBS, which gave me a bit more. well it didn't in theory gave me more freedom but i had some guys around me that were like supporting i went in sport at that point but allow me to go and play rugby yes you know weren't meant to you get injured and all this stuff and that but nevertheless um over the next three years sort of found my opportunities within rugby coming my way i played um for was it the the county against the royal navy got picked up for the royal navy started playing for the royal navy and played the army navy game at twickers and i was just like in this whirlwind and trying to balance this sf career and not compromise that um meanwhile fucking like what is this thing over here i'm absolutely loving it and i i will say one thing right because it is the truth and it's it it sort of plays into kind of like i think entrepreneurship and like you know if you want something you can't fucking get it gotta be obsessed when i came back from that australian tour and i was watching the world cup final in home in merthor i turned around and said and this might sound like a complete twat but i said i'm gonna play for england i was 24 i didn't played rugby ever and yeah there was just something in me again like you know when i said to you i went when i was 14 and i'm obsessed and focused and and it happened again and tell so this is a great story so did you leave because you got selected to play for england sevens i left um i was playing uh i went up to i had an opportunity to go pay for newbury yeah ben ryan yep um who then became the england sevens coach yeah um but that wasn't at that point um but he was obviously coaching at newbury i was playing for the navy going back and doing my sf career albeit not frontline but still operational albeit in a different theater um and yeah went from fullback to wing you know you know all the things like you haven't got clear what you're doing and eventually started understanding more was getting closer and closer to that back row which is well i wanted to be but ultimately where i really made um got a place was at 12 um but yeah and then long long story short because there's lots of things i had to do you know like um the driving i had to do to go and do training at newbury and but then the sacrifices the guys at the sbs did to allow me to go and do that and then basically it was um i was playing against the ref and richard hill from bristol who's the bristol bears coach at that time what the rich england richard hill woke up this legend yeah yeah to drop his daughter the scrum off you know yeah oh richard hill scum off a little balled yeah not not the back row the big back row okay yeah the older school yeah old school scrum off with uh dowie morris and a few of the others back okay yeah he came to drop his no disrespect i didn't mean little bald for that bit so skinhead yeah yeah skinhead he was bald he was a legend wasn't he he actually sent me his shirt did he yeah when i was at school i was going to i thought he was the best i wrote him a letter oh the days are like 15 16 sent me an English show and I were nine on the back.

1:24:56Oh, amazing. Thank you, mate. I remember him from those days. And the story goes, I don't know if he might question this now, but he dropped his daughter off who's seen a guy in the RAF and stayed to watch the game and saw me play 12. And that was that RAF army game period. I left then and went on operations. um not afghan irak but different country and so um forget forgot about rugby so i was back in it um you know in the midst of our operation and then my boss at the time uh great mate called tom pulled me in he said uh tom uh i can't i don't imagine um he's not public i don't think but um he's my oc of that troop i was in another guy called revs who had supported me all the way through this and they said like uh you've been offered a trial at bristol through richard and you know the service are willing to support you and i was like what uh so basically i got flown back um from where i was and went to bristol um got keys to this flat in clifton with this young boy called mikey mandrel's bleach blonde hair academy player who loved the r &b beats and i'm there going fucking listen to this guy he's like oh mate what are you doing fucking where have you come from i was like oh yeah okay and i'm sitting on this balcony in glifton going what the fuck am i doing shitting myself because i'm about to go and do premier friendship club yeah yeah and go and do you know first full day of um pre-season pre-season wow yeah and did you have your only first team games for bristol yeah how many games you get um i had in that 2007-8 season i started the first game against bath yeah i had european starts against montpelier down the front yeah at 12 um i didn't fully make it i would say i was like so close so yeah i was you know i was a 12 i always saw myself a semi-way ended up but we had matt solter um joe lab the english coach at the moment who was like bristol legends at that point and they had taken me under their their kind of wing because when i rocked up there he's doing these obviously all my fitness training had been endurance yeah i go there and then you've got these meatheads like joe uh joe and yeah matt lifting lee robinson who's like this six foot five winger lift doing squats i'm like what's a squat and so i was like 40 off these guys yeah but in terms of my fitness endurance and rinse and repeat i was up there at the top and mind games and stuff i hid i could win there because they were like this guy's just gonna be beaten no tell me about um when you played for england sevens you got selected to play for sevens what countries have you played in what tournaments did you play in yeah so i obviously i was playing for bristol ben ryan who coached me at newbrook went to um then coaching in sevens and in he obviously knew my kind of engine diesel whatever it is um and pulled me along to some trials and stuff so it wasn't a quick in and out you know like i'm there i've made it i'm a great sevens player it was like fucking yes no yes no like all right but But my first tournament was Dubai, 2008.

1:28:35Wow. Yeah, my first. I'll just let people know here, Dubai Sevens is one of the biggest in the world, probably the biggest in the world. We've got 40 ,000 people in a stadium. Yeah. Everyone's on the smash. Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing. Yeah. It is amazing, yeah. In the desert. In the desert. And he hadn't put me on for the first two games, which in the daylight and stuff. And then we were in the semifinal, and it was against Fiji. and I was a hooker in sevens. Would you believe? Look at the size of my neck. So he puts me on as a scrum, top right-hand corner of their half. Go in there, the guys either side, fucking squat down, engage.

1:29:17And my next memory is looking around and seeing Fiji score on the other side. Talk about in the spotlights. to this day I think the Fiji one put one on me and I was on my knee and I didn't know where the fuck I was and they were down the other side scoring and I'm like what the fuck is this it was crazy how fast it was unbelievable but I eventually over time established myself went to all you know Hong Kong twice in the final twice lost to Kiwis twice you lost to Kiwis in the final twice yeah yeah who else have you gone Dubai Hong Kong 7s Hong Kong Wellington 7s they've stopped that now haven't they Wellington 7s that was everyone on the smash wasn't it I've heard it was amazing unbelievable why did they stop it something to do with the whole city would grind to a stop because everyone was pissed yes Wellington 7s you're out there mate massive shout to Wellington 7s oh my god sounds a bit like Bournemouth 7s yeah it does there's more chicks at ours not when you walk around with your English with your England stash on Mrs will be listening to this but yeah they were absolutely incredible experiences I'm loving this so Dubai, Hong Kong 7's twice Wellington in New Zealand where else?

1:30:41well yeah the Hong Kong was obviously the highlight that is from a heritage point of view and that last final i yeah my mates never ever let me live this down because you know we talk about there's a in your period you hit that sweet spot yeah and this year was my sweet spot in rugby i was really at my fittest i'd played seven for the combine service against samoa and like i got man the match i was like i'm fired my fitness i wasn't thinking you know what we're talking about just and i had that hong kong tournament uh i just felt in it and and we got through to the final and everyone was absolutely like flogged you know we were just smashing each other and like it was only one one try in it yeah and i got the ball and nigel starmer smith smith you know the commentator yeah to this day i was like fucking mate do you know how much pain you caused me i got the ball and he went greg barden probably the slowest man in the english thanks mate so you can imagine now what all my mates sit but little do they actually remember that I actually went around the outside of the Kiwi wing and tried to try.

1:31:49Policy. Yeah, in my own little bubble, I still dine out on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My mates never let me forget that. Come on, give me some more tournaments. That's Vegas. Vegas 7. Because that was a new thing back then, wasn't it? Yeah. What was that actually like? Which bit? Yeah, the partying bit. Yeah, we had this American guy who was trying to head up the American side of um the rugby yeah out there john and uh after the tournament he's a multi-millionaire whatever and just that top guy you know i mean and um he came and picked us up in this fucking limousine took us to you know penthouse and his nightclothes and stuff and yeah all i remember was the flight home was the most horrendous thing i've ever done ubi-jibis everywhere three legs later i'll never again but yeah it was um you would always do the sevens in two weeks slots or three weeks actually so pair them up pair them up so people know uh well you had georgetown back then south africa yeah so you had dubai first which was november december time um which obviously one of the pinnacle so just to let people know out there like the there's a seventh circuit that goes over a six month period yeah roughly and you're flying in flying out every two weeks to all these places around the world yeah mate that's like the dream dream yeah job stroke rugby playing career stroke dream of everything yeah it was and that went on for three years four years yeah years well i got awarded the captaincy in the last year and um yeah i was fucking loving life i was in such a bubble were you single at the time yeah oh yeah yeah thankfully i was single all the way more or less through like my military career as well and yeah i never quite understood that side how blokes could manage the two and and i was always meant to go back to the service um but you know um i have some demons around that i suppose that i I never addressed that.

1:34:00I just got caught up in this bubble and, and just didn't look back. You're not surprised, mate. Yeah. Fighting in wars, all the problems and going and traveling around the world, single bloke in your twenties and then kept in your country. Like this is what dreams are made of. You can't, you couldn't, you can't, you couldn't have writ that. No, no. I, I think I, it's more that I owe so much to the SBS to give me that. To give the opportunity. Yeah. I remember, I remember you were like, this is amazing. They give me the opportunity to go off and do all this. I remember talking to you about it at the time.

1:34:28Yeah. yeah were you were you is it a part of you that you think i left the special forces should i've gone back for a year yeah okay yeah and why didn't you um a business actually okay yeah which is well no not even this it was just in general like you know you'll know this in the rugby world blokes always thinking about what we're going to do next it's your short career matt soo joe lab we'd always have these coffee meetings saying like what we're you're next everyone wanted to be an entrepreneur everyone's yeah of course so do you know entrepreneurship wasn't cool until about 10 years ago people didn't every footballer growing up in the 80s and 90s it was you either uh in a band or a professional football they were the heroes yeah now the dj then you turn into djs now the djs bands rugby players footballs all want to be entrepreneurs like we're up there as like oh they're entrepreneurs they're running businesses they you know they've got freedom they can earn money yeah it's amazing how it's changed well and you know what it what it takes yeah it is yeah it takes i know it takes what it's to do in rugby and then not make it and then do it and then try and being obsessed like that and then trying to be obsessed in business you have to be obsessed if you want to be a professional rugby player or semi-fessional player or you want to be a top entrepreneur business you have to be obsessed have to be have to there's no other way 24 7 thinking about it training living and breathing i couldn't agree more yeah there's no compromise no there ain't and you'll fail otherwise yeah 100 so what are you what's your world today greg uh so i trans you know my body was packing up and how old are you today i'm 44 okay yeah so i left rugby um under a bit of a cloud actually um which did you fall out of anyone in rugby yeah with ben ryan did you the coach yeah we did we've addressed it publicly yeah um there is a podcast on it actually and um he came and had a chat with me and um i think it was like seven years after um i left basically under a bit of a cloud and you know there's two sides to every story right three sides to every story okay yours ben's and the truth truth yeah somewhere in the middle somewhere in the middle yeah what actually happen for you to have a breakup um i think i'm you know i i thought as a captain i was there to do a job and i was to bring the team along and and be that connection to ben um and ben was trying to take the team in in a way which myself and the other guys at the time didn't understand i suppose and we were i felt playing under a cloud of confusion and i approached ben and you know this is where the disagreement happened and you know what came out of it and it you know happened over a few tours actually and basically we disconnected and our relationship fell fell apart um which as i said like we have addressed publicly now and it is a regret because i i've I didn't finish on my terms.

1:37:36Having, with that sport, having given me so much. So I didn't go to the last leg of that year as captain, which was Twickenham, basically, because Ben and I had become estranged at that point. And I don't want to get into detail, because it is my version against his. And if anyone wants to listen to the podcast, I hope you don't remember me saying it. What were you pissed off about? You must have been pissed off at something for him to react and go, right, I'm dropping you. I don't know if I've heard this. So I'll give you one example. It's well known that, you know, Ben had us like not competing at a ruck, right?

1:38:08And we were playing. Not competing at a ruck. Okay. Yeah. You know when it was a flat line, it was, okay. Or off, no off sideline. You know when England did it against Argentina? Yeah. Oh, actually this, we did it against Argentina in Hong Kong. And so there's no off sideline. So, but you can't go into a ruck. I'm in there to fucking hit my, get my head in there. Yeah. Okay. And so it was like Rob Vickman and all these other boys. and and instead of like playing with you know no thoughts everyone was thinking okay everyone was thinking and i was like ben like you know this is a problem yeah and he was obviously trying to process like progress the team and you know his own skills as a coach and and stuff and it it just well from my point of view wasn't working so i took it to him and you know and we didn't agree and like i said that relationship fell down you know sort of rode in that time but and i you know that was from my you know experiences where you know you you know in the military you know you don't all of a sudden you can adapt and overcome but it's based on some solid foundations you train in right and that gives you the foundations to be able to be flexible and stuff but it's usually intuitive yeah when you're having to think everything speeds up and and mistakes happen and that was what I felt was happening in that last season was it an argument did it get heated when you're like mate I'm not happy with this and he's like well was it was that you do one then this is the way I'm playing yeah it was semi semi-ready and I'd say it wasn't aggressive it was like you know no it wasn't aggressive it was like Ben was like this is my fucking train sir this is where I want to take the team if you can't take it there with me he didn't say fuck off you know what I mean and and that's what i felt right and when i can't then commit and give my haul i'm not just going to sit there in the sidelines and you know be passive just not in my nature um so regrettably and i do say regrettably because i didn't want to finish on those terms but i i quit basically and well you walked away not to say i was going to get another i had a central contract at bristol and with the rfw then at that point um so whether i would have got another you know contract yeah um and this was the last leg at twickenham in may yeah could you not wait after that yeah or were you so frustrated how long was the frustration building up for that was hong kong so that was march yeah and some things had happened in training before then whatever and um and so there had been sort of a start of a disconnect yeah i suppose um so yeah knowing what you know now how would you have approached that differently or would you have done exactly the same you've got to have your principles right and you've got to take them to every scenario um now maybe there wasn't a solution you know because ben ultimately thought he was going in the right direction and that's his prerogative that's what he was paid to do and and for the his hierarchies to question his you know if we weren't getting the results and and I had my job as captain I wasn't going to be there and be a yes sir or whatever and yeah um come what may you know even if it ultimately meant me sacrificing my my ballsy career ballsy you know you're telling me like that like yeah that's like I said it's yeah I live in the moment yeah and heart on the sleeve no I know that if I can't give it that then what you're yeah I can't can you remember how much you've been paid by the RFU back then I had a 30 grand contract okay a 30 grand contract but they're going to put you up in all the beautiful hotels in Travery around the world for three years yeah free food yeah and I was still getting paid by the military because I was still playing for the Navy and you were single that package must be like a quarter of a million quid package to me isn't it and we were living in Teddington most of the time as well yeah a few days what was the hotel there no no oh the Lensbury Lensbury yeah that was our home basically for four years oh amazing yeah and yeah I just want to go back to Ben was like he's a maverick coach absolutely well he went on to win the Olympics with Fiji Fiji yep so I should get Ben on Ben if you're listening let's make this happen let's get on I'd love to hear that story he's a new dad as well and top guy and he he's a clubber as well yeah both of us yeah yep and he obviously won the Olympic gold with Fiji Fiji amazing yeah so he's got some brilliant stories maybe he was right yeah I've thrown it out there.

1:42:38I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he was right. Maybe he was wrong. I don't know. Did he have that tactic with Fiji? I can't remember him ever. I'd love to know. I'd love to know if he had that tactic with Fiji. That's the answer. Getting them not to hit a rock. I know. I was going to say. That's one of the. Big boys, aren't they? Big boys, yeah. Big boys. Greg, before we finish up, what are you doing today? So, long story short, I went into the world of entrepreneurship. and um this could be a whole other conversation as you know right um i have for the last nine years i've endured probably some of the hardest things i've ever had to do mentally yeah um to um try and grow a company um create a company a tech company i'm not a techie um and it has beating me up yeah spat me out yeah um but um with support of some amazing people on the fringes i've stayed in the fight um we haven't won by any means um but we are it's called explore local now and what we're trying to do is create a more local world so we're trying to take some power back from these corporates that are taking more of our time and money and getting people um to spend more of their time.

1:43:59We're local. Yeah. Good for you. What a lovely thing to do. It's not about nostalgic. It's about moving forward and using technology in the right way and giving... And bring community together again. Bring community together. I make a big point. I love going to the butchers. I love going to the bakery. I love going to local cafes. Give them cash. Pay them cash. Otherwise, they've got to put on a card. They've got to charge every time you put it on the card. Yeah. Like, there's all these things. We've got to protect this. Otherwise, these big corporates are going to take over the whole country.

1:44:24We saw on the high streets, every high street, before the high streets went tits up like they are today in Bournemouth or wherever we are. It was always the same big shops. Boring. No, it is. And now they're going because they've all gone online. They're left these massive voids where Amazon have come in and taken huge amounts of our spend without actually contributing back. They pay less than 0.1 % in corporation tax. Painful. 0%. So all these big corporates, we could go into more. This is another one. It does piss me off as well. Good, yeah. And this is what we need people to do. we've created a local resistance here and we want people to wake up.

1:44:59Stop giving your money to these corporates who don't have our back. They're making us unhealthier. They're making us lonelier. They're making us unhappier. So fucking put some power and ownership back into our local people. I agree. Do you know what annoys me about it? I'm only going to say this very quickly because I don't want this to go on because this will be a really good hour conversation. But these big corporates there are paying no tax. All of a sudden now, people don't talk about this. No one's spoken about this, right? Because everyone's got the fear of it. Some of you don't talk about it.

1:45:24the non-written word conversation. Cash, physical. Yeah. Like, we all carry around. We don't anymore. We know you've got cash. Oh, you've got cash. I know, but I carry cash everywhere. It's important that you pay people cash, these cafes and stuff. But everyone involved, they've taken cash out of the system. Yeah. There's no more cash in the system anymore. So they've got control over everyone. Data. Data, control, the whole lot. Visa, MasterCard. Yeah, man. Look, I went up against Visa, MasterCard for six years as a um as an alternative payment system and i've got the scars you know and this government and this country isn't backing the individuals absolutely they're willing to go shoulder shoulder with amazon but actually we need to be empowering these individuals so hopefully if we get big enough we can go in after the government to create a better environment but anything we can do to empower i hear you mate but it's very very difficult because what are we over weed i don't give a shit no greg i've really really really enjoyed this episode good man i have as well actually and you know and i i knew it because i've known you for a long time i know how hard you've worked over the years to create this the balm of sevens and everything you did before then and i've always respected you as a friend but also from afar as a businessman so to come on here has been a privilege yeah mate thoroughly enjoyed it you're a gentleman thank for your honesty yeah and you've lived a certain you've really lived an eventful life really lived an eventful life to go being the best the creme de la creme what you're doing to then go and play for england traveling the world to then jump into entrepreneurship which is a fucking big jump into mate but yeah massive respect you mate brilliant thanks good man great nice one mate mate that was fucking brilliant mate that was brilliant yeah that was brilliant Hi guys, I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

1:47:14Can you do us a favor and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show? Cheers guys.

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