WEBVTT 00:00:00.330 --> 00:00:03.818 Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host 00:00:03.994 --> 00:00:07.726 for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a 00:00:07.748 --> 00:00:11.134 number of amazing people and simply had the conversation around the subject of 00:00:11.172 --> 00:00:15.022 inclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a better place 00:00:15.076 --> 00:00:17.774 for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please 00:00:17.812 --> 00:00:18.846 do drop me a line to 00:00:18.868 --> 00:00:22.494 jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. 00:00:22.612 --> 00:00:26.125 That's S-E-E Change Happen dot co 00:00:26.126 --> 00:00:29.474 dot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, 00:00:29.522 --> 00:00:33.282 Spotify and the usual places. So plug in your headphones, 00:00:33.426 --> 00:00:36.902 grab a decaf, and let's get going. Today is 00:00:36.956 --> 00:00:40.234 episode 104 with the title from 00:00:40.272 --> 00:00:43.866 battlefield to wellness, and I have the absolute 00:00:43.968 --> 00:00:47.462 honour and privilege to welcome Jason Archdale. Jason 00:00:47.526 --> 00:00:50.570 describes himself as a wellness coach and speaker. 00:00:51.090 --> 00:00:54.862 When I asked Jason to describe his superpower, he said to 00:00:54.916 --> 00:00:58.622 let people know it's okay to not be 00:00:58.676 --> 00:01:02.334 okay and that there is a light. I should warn any 00:01:02.372 --> 00:01:06.158 listeners that we will be talking about poor mental health and there'll 00:01:06.174 --> 00:01:09.620 be references to suicide. Hello, Jason. Welcome to the show. 00:01:10.150 --> 00:01:13.586 Jo. Hello, pleasure to be here. So happy for this 00:01:13.688 --> 00:01:16.760 fantastic. Jason, you've had some dark times. 00:01:17.370 --> 00:01:20.710 Tell us a bit about yourself, your story from battlefield to wellness. 00:01:21.530 --> 00:01:25.350 Wow. I've had some bad. Yeah, some hard bad times. 00:01:25.420 --> 00:01:28.602 But life wasn't always this way, 00:01:28.656 --> 00:01:32.460 Jo. I was kind of a carefree, happy going 00:01:33.070 --> 00:01:36.666 looking lad when growing up in a 00:01:36.688 --> 00:01:40.506 small mining town in the north of England. I was 00:01:40.528 --> 00:01:44.254 always adventurous and joining the venture scouts and 00:01:44.372 --> 00:01:47.886 really didn't want to do much at school. So when I 00:01:47.908 --> 00:01:51.280 left, I went to one of those career conventions, like 00:01:51.650 --> 00:01:54.846 the last year at school, and everybody's there and you don't want to be this 00:01:54.868 --> 00:01:57.122 and you don't want to be that. But right at the back of the room, 00:01:57.256 --> 00:02:00.674 right at the very back, there was this banner, and the 00:02:00.712 --> 00:02:04.146 banner had a picture of a tank on it, and this tank was 00:02:04.168 --> 00:02:07.998 airborne. And I said, that's it. That's where I wanted. I was 16. 00:02:08.094 --> 00:02:11.446 That's less than 16, just about to leave school. And so that's what I wanted 00:02:11.468 --> 00:02:15.078 to do. So about three weeks later, I marched myself down, not knowing how to 00:02:15.084 --> 00:02:18.790 march at that time, but marched myself down to the careers office 00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:22.566 and signed on the line. And within, I guess, a few months, I 00:02:22.588 --> 00:02:26.406 was, that's it. The army is now my mother, right? That's what they say. I'm 00:02:26.438 --> 00:02:29.958 your mother now. So I was in the army and that was it. And 00:02:30.144 --> 00:02:33.614 lived a fulfilling, happy, and 00:02:33.652 --> 00:02:36.800 amazing carefree life in the army for 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:41.120 around five years. So, yeah, 00:02:41.570 --> 00:02:45.134 it was an amazing experience, a great stepping stone, but never wanted to stay in 00:02:45.172 --> 00:02:48.914 for a very long length of time and then came 00:02:48.952 --> 00:02:52.642 out of the army and wanted to spread my wings into civilian life. 00:02:52.696 --> 00:02:56.402 Right. But life kind of took hold and took over. And 00:02:56.536 --> 00:03:00.214 I'm sure we'll talk a lot more about this throughout this 00:03:00.252 --> 00:03:03.750 conversation, Jo. But I didn't deal with life very well. 00:03:03.900 --> 00:03:07.422 Life took hold of me and I went down the rabbit hole, 00:03:07.586 --> 00:03:10.380 spiralling down into poor mental health. 00:03:11.150 --> 00:03:14.378 It just took a grip and to the point. 00:03:14.464 --> 00:03:17.674 Unfortunately, I went over the edge to 00:03:17.872 --> 00:03:19.580 attempting my own life, 00:03:21.390 --> 00:03:25.086 obviously unsuccessfully. Hence why I'm here now, talking to 00:03:25.108 --> 00:03:28.654 you right now. Right. But I believe throughout all of this 00:03:28.692 --> 00:03:32.334 experience, there's many, many lessons, hence why I can stand here now or 00:03:32.372 --> 00:03:35.714 stand on the stage or speak to people now. This is my passion and my 00:03:35.752 --> 00:03:39.394 purpose, to be able to do this now and speak to people about 00:03:39.432 --> 00:03:43.138 my story, my story of darkness, but the story of 00:03:43.224 --> 00:03:47.026 recovery to wellness. Now, let me just wind the clock back a bit there. So 00:03:47.048 --> 00:03:50.834 you're saying you join the army at the age of probably, what, 16 00:03:50.882 --> 00:03:54.498 and a half or whatever, you do your exams in June, July, 00:03:54.674 --> 00:03:57.478 you have a couple of weeks off while you wait for the next intake, and 00:03:57.484 --> 00:04:01.190 suddenly there you are on the train, 00:04:01.260 --> 00:04:04.026 or however transport you got, and you got off at the station at the other 00:04:04.048 --> 00:04:07.754 end, and there's a load of people milling around waiting for you and 00:04:07.792 --> 00:04:11.450 say what you. Whatever the army equivalent is, 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:14.698 and you get put on a bus or you get walking around the corner 00:04:14.794 --> 00:04:18.526 and suddenly you're going, oh, what? Life is 00:04:18.548 --> 00:04:22.238 different suddenly? It's a real shock. I joined the 00:04:22.244 --> 00:04:25.534 Royal Air force straight from school, right. So I had a similar 00:04:25.572 --> 00:04:28.754 experience. I got on the train, got off to 00:04:28.872 --> 00:04:32.146 Swindervy. I'm not sure what the railway station was. It's probably Newark. And there was 00:04:32.168 --> 00:04:35.586 a bus there. We all got marched on. And you can sort of figure out 00:04:35.688 --> 00:04:39.174 who's in it and they march you in. And there's no kind of 00:04:39.212 --> 00:04:42.934 honeymoon period, is it? Basically, the discipline starts from sort of almost 00:04:42.972 --> 00:04:46.822 like the first second, I think they march you into the station barbers and 00:04:46.876 --> 00:04:49.740 brand you with a haircut before. You do anything else. 00:04:51.390 --> 00:04:54.860 Tell us about that day. Yeah, absolutely. 00:04:55.870 --> 00:04:58.570 I remember I was so happy, but my mum was so sad. 00:04:59.310 --> 00:05:02.720 She had a little boy going. Yes, I was 16. And 00:05:03.330 --> 00:05:07.086 you're dead, right? Because although I didn't know what I 00:05:07.108 --> 00:05:10.874 wanted to do with my life at the time, at 16, it was a massive 00:05:10.922 --> 00:05:14.674 culture shock. And you're so right, you kind of get your 00:05:14.712 --> 00:05:17.940 army train ticket. They send you a train ticket. And 00:05:18.870 --> 00:05:22.706 mine was to Surrey per bright in Surrey. The 00:05:22.728 --> 00:05:26.546 guards training depot in Surrey. And I'd kind of 00:05:26.568 --> 00:05:29.862 never been out of Yorkshire at that time, right. And so I'd been down there, 00:05:29.916 --> 00:05:33.718 an amazing adventure trip. But it didn't last long because, yeah, you get off 00:05:33.724 --> 00:05:37.526 the train and it's almost like you're the only 00:05:37.548 --> 00:05:40.498 one on the platform and then somebody else gets off a train and, you know 00:05:40.524 --> 00:05:44.074 it's a squaddy, a potential squaddy, right? And then all of a sudden you're this 00:05:44.112 --> 00:05:47.180 bellowing out from the entrance of the platform, 00:05:47.630 --> 00:05:51.374 as you said, right, come on out and you're in this 00:05:51.412 --> 00:05:55.246 bus with no markings on. It's not a glorious National Express bus, right? There's no 00:05:55.268 --> 00:05:58.320 markings on. It's plain white army bus. Right. 00:05:59.010 --> 00:06:02.670 Your life instantly. Instantly changes from 00:06:02.740 --> 00:06:06.466 stepping off that train. But it's what I wanted to do and I 00:06:06.488 --> 00:06:09.762 did it. I joined and this is what I wanted to do. So it's like, 00:06:09.816 --> 00:06:13.282 suck it up, boy. So which regiment, which 00:06:13.336 --> 00:06:17.182 division, which part the army did you join? So I was part of the Household 00:06:17.246 --> 00:06:20.966 cavalry. Now, the household cavalry is split. For those that are not 00:06:20.988 --> 00:06:24.566 aware of the household cavalry, when they have ceremonial parades on 00:06:24.588 --> 00:06:28.354 tv, like when they're doing the jubilees and things, and when the queen 00:06:28.402 --> 00:06:31.786 or the king are in the carriages and those guys on the horses with the 00:06:31.808 --> 00:06:35.382 red tunics and the plumes on the head, that's the ceremonial 00:06:35.446 --> 00:06:39.126 side of the regiment I was in called them lifeguards of the Household 00:06:39.158 --> 00:06:42.986 Cavalry Regiment. But I actually joined the armoured division, which 00:06:43.008 --> 00:06:46.494 is the tank. So I joined the tank division of that. 00:06:46.532 --> 00:06:50.010 So I wanted to be a tank driver. Right. Not a horse rider. 00:06:50.170 --> 00:06:53.478 So I wanted to be a real soldier. So I used to play with action 00:06:53.514 --> 00:06:57.266 men, right. And so I wanted to be an action man. So I 00:06:57.288 --> 00:07:00.900 joined the tank division of the household cavalry. Jo. Yeah, 00:07:01.350 --> 00:07:04.674 it was great. I've seen loads of 00:07:04.792 --> 00:07:08.334 tv documentaries of following the early stage 00:07:08.382 --> 00:07:11.640 career of squadies going through basic training. 00:07:12.970 --> 00:07:16.422 Obviously, I was RAF. We used to live in hotels and have five star service 00:07:16.476 --> 00:07:20.026 and breakfast service every day. That's what the other two services say about 00:07:20.048 --> 00:07:23.818 us. We have it easy, don't we? Your basic training must have 00:07:23.824 --> 00:07:27.660 been significantly harder than our couple of weekends here and there. Wow. 00:07:29.550 --> 00:07:32.862 Right? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. No, we never had any 00:07:32.916 --> 00:07:36.638 hotels. So my training was around nine months. 00:07:36.724 --> 00:07:40.078 It was about nine months. It was proper 00:07:40.244 --> 00:07:44.000 infantry training. We're talking 00:07:45.010 --> 00:07:48.786 everything from crawling through tunnels where 00:07:48.808 --> 00:07:52.494 you have to go underneath it, climbing obstacle courses and firing 00:07:52.542 --> 00:07:56.002 weapons and things. Right. And you grow up very quickly. 00:07:56.136 --> 00:07:59.622 Right. Although you're 16, you grow up very quickly because of the 00:07:59.676 --> 00:08:03.254 discipline that's in it. And, yes, you're right, there's very 00:08:03.292 --> 00:08:06.818 many tv programmes that show the early stages of the army 00:08:06.834 --> 00:08:10.678 career, but they only show the training aspect of it. They don't show it when 00:08:10.684 --> 00:08:14.422 you get to the regiment because it's not all like it shows on tv. 00:08:14.566 --> 00:08:18.138 Right. Yes, it is a lot of beasting, it's a lot of discipline, it's a 00:08:18.144 --> 00:08:21.066 lot of training, but there's a purpose behind that. But when you get to your 00:08:21.088 --> 00:08:24.346 regiment and you pass out, basically, it's like 00:08:24.368 --> 00:08:28.126 going to work every morning. Right. I mean, I was a tank driver, so 00:08:28.148 --> 00:08:31.006 I turned up to work when I passed out. By the way, when I did 00:08:31.028 --> 00:08:34.818 pass out, my first posting was in Germany. So, like, 17, I 00:08:34.824 --> 00:08:38.178 was flown across to Germany for three years based over there on the 00:08:38.184 --> 00:08:42.034 tanks. So it was almost like 00:08:42.152 --> 00:08:45.934 a guy waking up here in Leeds. That's where I am waking 00:08:45.982 --> 00:08:48.758 up, putting his overalls on and going to work at Halfords or quick fit on 00:08:48.764 --> 00:08:52.486 the morning to fix vehicles. Right. So we woke up in the morning, 00:08:52.588 --> 00:08:56.354 went to the vehicle park and fixed our tank just a bit bigger. 00:08:56.402 --> 00:08:59.880 Right. But 00:09:00.250 --> 00:09:04.042 it is very different because there are rules. It's an establishment, isn't it? 00:09:04.096 --> 00:09:07.894 It's an establishment, but an amazing stepping stone. 00:09:07.942 --> 00:09:10.800 And I did quite a lot. I travelled the world with it. 00:09:12.610 --> 00:09:16.446 At 18, we went to war. We went to 00:09:16.468 --> 00:09:20.046 the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, if you remember. Storm in 00:09:20.068 --> 00:09:23.878 Norman. Right, so Operation Desert Storm went there with our tanks. 00:09:23.914 --> 00:09:26.500 I was a tank driver at 18 in the first Gulf War. 00:09:27.750 --> 00:09:31.182 And then when I came back from there very shortly afterwards, got selected 00:09:31.246 --> 00:09:34.386 to go on an 00:09:34.408 --> 00:09:38.226 expedition, a civilian type expedition to Venezuela. 00:09:38.338 --> 00:09:42.134 Sky TV went with us and filmed it on sky one quite a way 00:09:42.172 --> 00:09:45.746 back. Now we're talking 1991, Sky 00:09:45.778 --> 00:09:49.126 TV went. Yeah. So we were going down the 00:09:49.148 --> 00:09:52.958 Oranoco river and camping out next to the Oranoco 00:09:52.994 --> 00:09:56.300 and just doing all sorts of amazing things. I actually got arrested there because 00:09:57.230 --> 00:10:00.694 people thought we were mercenaries, because we were stuck out like a sore thumb. Nobody 00:10:00.742 --> 00:10:04.318 dresses like Rambo in the desert, in the jungle, apart from us. Right. 00:10:04.484 --> 00:10:08.174 We thought that's how you dressed. So, 00:10:08.212 --> 00:10:11.978 yeah, amazing experiences, Jo. In the army, there's 00:10:11.994 --> 00:10:15.586 a kinship and fellowship and a real bond between your 00:10:15.608 --> 00:10:19.314 mates, isn't it? And it becomes your family. And you talked 00:10:19.352 --> 00:10:23.006 about the arm is your mother, but your mates are your brothers, aren't 00:10:23.038 --> 00:10:26.280 they? Yeah, 100%. And 00:10:27.050 --> 00:10:30.706 it really was that because you live with them, you sleep 00:10:30.738 --> 00:10:34.466 with them, you go out on the town with them, they're 00:10:34.498 --> 00:10:38.246 there. Twenty four, seven. You really don't have 00:10:38.268 --> 00:10:41.834 that time apart. And of course you don't get like 00:10:41.872 --> 00:10:44.140 normal life, you don't get on with everybody. But 00:10:45.630 --> 00:10:49.434 there's a part where you have tolerate that, but 00:10:49.472 --> 00:10:53.078 it really is that kinship. But you would still do anything for 00:10:53.104 --> 00:10:56.654 anybody in the army, right? Because that's the mentality of 00:10:56.692 --> 00:11:00.526 it. That's what it breeds into you and it's what it did. 00:11:00.548 --> 00:11:03.854 But as I said, you grow up very quickly. And I think 00:11:04.052 --> 00:11:06.994 I joined at 16, but by the time I got to my regiment, I was 00:11:07.032 --> 00:11:10.658 17 and a bit, if you like. But you kind of felt 20 00:11:10.824 --> 00:11:14.594 or something. So if you're 20 in there, you'd feel 22. So there's always 00:11:14.632 --> 00:11:17.798 years ahead of you in the army because of what you have to grow up 00:11:17.804 --> 00:11:21.622 very quick and come on, how many people 00:11:21.676 --> 00:11:24.978 at 18 years old said that their company vehicle was a tank? 00:11:25.074 --> 00:11:28.860 Right? So 00:11:29.390 --> 00:11:32.922 you were that tank driver running around, running over 00:11:32.976 --> 00:11:36.634 things in 00:11:36.672 --> 00:11:40.058 Kuwait. I actually did, but yeah, I mean, Kuwait was a bit different when we 00:11:40.064 --> 00:11:43.850 went over there because obviously it was all very much different. But we did do 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:47.658 know we went out for two or three weeks with the vehicles in Germany. We'd 00:11:47.674 --> 00:11:51.386 have to drive them off the planes, off the prairies and drive them down civilian 00:11:51.418 --> 00:11:55.138 streets. So actually I did clip a few cars and put my trucks over a 00:11:55.144 --> 00:11:57.780 few volkswagen beetles and squashed them a little bit. 00:12:00.070 --> 00:12:03.826 I'm sure the army is insured, right. But yeah, it is 00:12:03.848 --> 00:12:07.634 what it is. It's all part of the tank driving game. Is it running over 00:12:07.672 --> 00:12:11.494 something? Sorry, didn't notice that. Of course it is 00:12:11.532 --> 00:12:15.158 and you can't. But it is what it is. But yeah, we got a bit 00:12:15.164 --> 00:12:18.986 of a tongue in off for that one. Yeah. At the age of 16, in 00:12:19.008 --> 00:12:22.746 a bit you're basically given. I was given when I was in the 00:12:22.768 --> 00:12:26.570 RAF, an SLR seven six two SLR. 00:12:27.070 --> 00:12:30.806 We were stripping it down, reassembling it in 10 seconds 00:12:30.838 --> 00:12:34.574 or something, racing to load the magazines up with, I don't know, 20 00:12:34.612 --> 00:12:38.446 rounds, whatever they take. And then we're on the firing range shooting these 00:12:38.468 --> 00:12:41.600 things. And then we have the submachine guns and we had the 00:12:42.770 --> 00:12:46.546 lay down one. I can't remember what it was now or something. GPMG, probably 00:12:46.568 --> 00:12:50.286 a GPMG trying to fire as many rounds 00:12:50.318 --> 00:12:53.826 as you can into the target at the end of the. Watching little splats of 00:12:53.848 --> 00:12:56.580 dirt coming up. And we're doing that 60 and a half. 00:12:57.750 --> 00:13:00.934 We could do this, we could do that, we could do the other. But 00:13:01.132 --> 00:13:04.694 we couldn't get married without our parents permission. But we could go and kill 00:13:04.732 --> 00:13:08.390 somebody or couldn't even vote. Crazy. Exactly. 00:13:08.460 --> 00:13:11.478 Right. And that takes me back a bit when you say the SMR, because we'd 00:13:11.494 --> 00:13:15.194 obviously, at that point, when I was in, we transitioned to the SA 80. Right. 00:13:15.232 --> 00:13:19.082 Which is obviously a fantastic piece of kit. But 00:13:19.136 --> 00:13:22.814 you're dead right. It's almost like you're given this responsibility at a very young 00:13:22.852 --> 00:13:25.870 age. As soon as you walk in, this is your weapon. 00:13:26.770 --> 00:13:30.558 This is your weapon. This is a rifle, these are 00:13:30.644 --> 00:13:34.274 live ammunition. And then, obviously, when I've passed out, you then go 00:13:34.312 --> 00:13:37.842 to Germany and this is your 00:13:37.896 --> 00:13:41.694 tank. Right. So I've levelled up from a rifle 00:13:41.822 --> 00:13:45.494 to a tank, right. This thing is 00:13:45.532 --> 00:13:49.266 like 70 tonne, 2 million pound piece of kit. And I've 00:13:49.298 --> 00:13:53.058 got my foot on the pedal, so there's 00:13:53.074 --> 00:13:56.854 a huge responsibility in there. Obviously, 00:13:56.892 --> 00:13:59.698 the official secrets out of what you can and can't say. I don't know. What's 00:13:59.714 --> 00:14:02.890 it like inside a tank? Presumably there's no windows. 00:14:03.310 --> 00:14:06.666 It's all computer controlled and tv cameras. Is 00:14:06.688 --> 00:14:09.786 it? It is now. It's all very technical now. I mean, I left in 00:14:09.808 --> 00:14:13.642 1994 and the tanks have evolved massively now, so everything's 00:14:13.706 --> 00:14:15.070 very much automated. 00:14:17.650 --> 00:14:20.430 No, there are no windows, there are periscopes, 00:14:21.250 --> 00:14:25.038 but obviously you get in through holes. So if 00:14:25.044 --> 00:14:28.622 you imagine the top of the tank, the commander, the gunner and the 00:14:28.756 --> 00:14:32.594 loader, the operator, get in through the top of the tank, the driver gets in 00:14:32.632 --> 00:14:35.838 through the front and he's got a hole at the bottom and then it closes 00:14:35.854 --> 00:14:39.366 his hatch and then that's it. You look through a metal periscope. If you want 00:14:39.388 --> 00:14:42.598 to drive tactically, if you drive opened up, you've just got your head sticking out 00:14:42.604 --> 00:14:46.118 of this piece of metal. Right. Which looks a bit weird, but 00:14:46.204 --> 00:14:49.340 even so. No, actually, 00:14:51.310 --> 00:14:54.794 it can be claustrophobic. It's very snug, put it that way. 00:14:54.832 --> 00:14:58.554 Everything's made to fit. It's not made for comfort, put it that way. 00:14:58.672 --> 00:15:01.962 No, a tank is pretty 00:15:02.016 --> 00:15:05.642 solid, it's pretty armoured and it moves quite quickly. 00:15:05.696 --> 00:15:08.174 40 miles an hour, saying when it's going to go, isn't it? It really does 00:15:08.212 --> 00:15:11.694 motor. But say you're safe in one side, but you're also quite 00:15:11.732 --> 00:15:15.274 vulnerable in another. Antitank weapons, helicopter 00:15:15.322 --> 00:15:19.026 launch, whatever it may be, you are potentially a sitting duck, as well as being 00:15:19.208 --> 00:15:22.178 safe in air, but sitting duck here. And it must be quite scary to be 00:15:22.184 --> 00:15:25.060 on a battlefield. Yeah. But do you know what, 00:15:25.590 --> 00:15:29.254 and I say this in my talk, that I was 00:15:29.292 --> 00:15:32.440 living my best life. I didn't have a care in the world. 00:15:34.330 --> 00:15:37.990 That's not to be blase about things. It's just how I felt at the time. 00:15:38.060 --> 00:15:41.738 Because when I was in the Gulf, of 00:15:41.744 --> 00:15:45.402 course, we were in the tanks, we were in the theatre of war, right, 00:15:45.456 --> 00:15:48.986 and anything could happen. And there were B 52s going over, there 00:15:49.008 --> 00:15:52.746 were Scud missiles every now and again with the siren, and the 00:15:52.768 --> 00:15:54.670 sirens would go, Scud missiles. 00:15:56.290 --> 00:15:59.886 But it still never kind of really affected me. I was inside 00:16:00.068 --> 00:16:03.886 this tank. We weren't always inside it, but I kind of felt 00:16:03.918 --> 00:16:07.362 a lot safer inside that than the infantry guy running alongside of us. 00:16:07.496 --> 00:16:08.180 Right. 00:16:11.430 --> 00:16:14.930 But, yeah, of course there are still threats from the antitank 00:16:15.350 --> 00:16:19.106 and whatever, and it only takes a grenade to throw a 00:16:19.128 --> 00:16:21.286 track off a tank. Then you've got to get out and put the track back 00:16:21.308 --> 00:16:24.866 on and that leaves you vulnerable. So there are still vulnerabilities to being a tank 00:16:24.898 --> 00:16:28.678 driver, but I think we are one of the safest ones. But like I 00:16:28.684 --> 00:16:32.140 said, I didn't think about that at the time. We just do it. Right? 00:16:32.830 --> 00:16:36.378 What's the crew? It's like four or five people. So there's a 00:16:36.384 --> 00:16:39.658 driver, obviously, who sits right at the very front in his own separate cab. And 00:16:39.664 --> 00:16:43.230 then you've got the gunner that sits right at the very bottom and 00:16:43.300 --> 00:16:46.686 he has no way out. He can't get out until everybody else does. And 00:16:46.708 --> 00:16:50.414 then the loader is the one who loads the big 00:16:50.452 --> 00:16:54.254 gun. He's the Lord who puts all the big bullets in. He 00:16:54.292 --> 00:16:57.986 puts the big bullets in the gun. And then the commander. The commander sits on 00:16:58.008 --> 00:17:01.042 the top, on the top seat. So there's four of us working as a team 00:17:01.096 --> 00:17:04.898 in there. So you're living your best life, you're travelling around the 00:17:04.904 --> 00:17:08.582 world, you're with your mates, having a fantastic time, working hard, 00:17:08.636 --> 00:17:12.226 playing hard, drinking hard, no doubt, really enjoying 00:17:12.258 --> 00:17:15.782 yourself. And then life changes. What happens 00:17:15.836 --> 00:17:19.098 next? It kind of didn't change 00:17:19.264 --> 00:17:23.114 straight away. And with many things, things happen 00:17:23.232 --> 00:17:25.420 gradually over time, don't they? But then 00:17:26.910 --> 00:17:30.266 we ignore red flags, don't we, in life? And then all of a sudden, the 00:17:30.288 --> 00:17:33.398 universe, if you like, then just goes, oh, there you go. I told you this 00:17:33.424 --> 00:17:37.134 was coming. And we ignore it. But the thing is, with things 00:17:37.172 --> 00:17:40.606 like this, if you're not aware of red flags, how do you deal with 00:17:40.628 --> 00:17:44.398 them? If your mind is not open to spotting red flags, 00:17:44.414 --> 00:17:47.954 you can't do it. And my mindset wasn't in 00:17:47.992 --> 00:17:51.700 observation mode. If you like two things like this. 00:17:53.270 --> 00:17:56.894 When I came out, I won't say I rebelled against the army, 00:17:56.942 --> 00:18:00.674 but I didn't want to be in an establishment anymore 00:18:00.722 --> 00:18:03.846 or like the prison service or the fire service or whatever. I just wanted to 00:18:03.868 --> 00:18:07.634 kind of be free and do what I wanted to do. And I'd recently 00:18:07.682 --> 00:18:11.206 just got together with somebody at the time 00:18:11.388 --> 00:18:14.026 and so I kind of wanted to come out and start enjoying that life and 00:18:14.048 --> 00:18:17.814 see what that life was all about. We ended up being together for 17 00:18:17.862 --> 00:18:21.578 years, actually. We 00:18:21.584 --> 00:18:25.278 then got engaged and got a house, got married and did all the 00:18:25.284 --> 00:18:28.958 white picket fence stuff as you would normally do. But I kind of 00:18:28.964 --> 00:18:31.710 never really had any aspirations. 00:18:33.490 --> 00:18:37.306 I was this different person to where I was in the army. Didn't 00:18:37.338 --> 00:18:41.038 have the dreams or the goals. I was just kind of like living well. We're 00:18:41.054 --> 00:18:43.474 supposed to get engaged, aren't we? Or we're supposed to get married, aren't we? Or 00:18:43.512 --> 00:18:45.886 let's get a house now. And this is the order we do it and let's 00:18:45.918 --> 00:18:49.318 do that. And you'd save up for twelve months and go on that holiday that 00:18:49.324 --> 00:18:53.030 you'd booked twelve months earlier and that kind of stuff. Pretty normal. 00:18:54.970 --> 00:18:58.360 So, yeah, nothing really groundbreaking in that sense. 00:18:58.730 --> 00:19:02.130 So just pretty average life, if I'm honest, Jo, at that time. 00:19:02.300 --> 00:19:06.006 I tend to refer to that as the conveyor 00:19:06.038 --> 00:19:09.100 belt of responsibility and expectations because 00:19:09.630 --> 00:19:12.560 you just get into this zone of 00:19:12.930 --> 00:19:16.206 conformity of doing what you do. You pick up 00:19:16.228 --> 00:19:19.294 responsibilities, partner, wife, house, 00:19:19.412 --> 00:19:23.214 children, job. And suddenly you find your life 00:19:23.252 --> 00:19:26.862 is very procedural, isn't it? You have a routine, 00:19:26.926 --> 00:19:30.290 you have to just get up and do stuff. And sometimes, as you say, that 00:19:30.360 --> 00:19:33.778 kind of masks sometimes what's going on underneath or the 00:19:33.784 --> 00:19:37.618 miscommunication or the happiness or lack of happiness or whatever it 00:19:37.624 --> 00:19:40.658 may be. You just kind of do what you do and it sounds like you've 00:19:40.674 --> 00:19:44.438 picked up those responsibilities. Absolutely. And you know what I 00:19:44.444 --> 00:19:47.942 think part and parcel of it was that 00:19:48.076 --> 00:19:51.894 in the army, how can I say it, that it's really 00:19:51.932 --> 00:19:55.546 easy to understand. Everything's done for you, it's done for you. The 00:19:55.568 --> 00:19:58.506 decisions are made for you. You've just got to do. You just got to do 00:19:58.528 --> 00:20:02.286 it. And that's what I did. So I came out 00:20:02.308 --> 00:20:06.126 and, hey, I've got to make my own choices, but I 00:20:06.148 --> 00:20:09.438 kind of like made the choices based on what 00:20:09.604 --> 00:20:13.198 society and peers told you or the 00:20:13.284 --> 00:20:16.754 social expectations were. This is what we're supposed to do, 00:20:16.792 --> 00:20:20.546 right? My family is great and I love my 00:20:20.568 --> 00:20:24.194 family, but never pushed into anything to be great 00:20:24.232 --> 00:20:27.986 or have these big dreams or whatever. So I just fell 00:20:28.018 --> 00:20:31.542 into that normality of life, if you like, and just 00:20:31.596 --> 00:20:35.000 plodding away. And it really was just plodding away. 00:20:35.530 --> 00:20:39.080 I had a painting decorating business and 00:20:40.170 --> 00:20:43.882 I would be happy just earning 90 quid a day just painting an old 00:20:43.936 --> 00:20:45.580 lady's bathroom or something 00:20:47.630 --> 00:20:50.380 today. I kind of, like, laugh at that. 00:20:51.890 --> 00:20:55.406 I don't know, in a way that, wow, I won't even do that 00:20:55.428 --> 00:20:58.922 today, right. Because of my learnings. 00:20:59.066 --> 00:21:02.798 But that's who I was. But I knew there was something 00:21:02.884 --> 00:21:06.270 more. I knew there was something more, but I couldn't pinpoint 00:21:06.350 --> 00:21:10.146 it. And what I meant by that is from me. 00:21:10.248 --> 00:21:13.998 I knew there's something more to come from me. Yeah. I'm just thinking, as you're 00:21:14.014 --> 00:21:17.726 saying, that in the army, you don't drive the tank 00:21:17.758 --> 00:21:20.886 every day. There are days when you'll be cleaning the toilets, there'd be days when 00:21:20.908 --> 00:21:24.742 you're shovelling snow, days when you're picking up stuff off an air, off an air 00:21:24.796 --> 00:21:28.280 Runway, air for Runway. There'd be days when you're doing all these other things. 00:21:28.750 --> 00:21:32.506 In a way, you get so ingrained into doing whatever the 00:21:32.528 --> 00:21:36.362 task is you're assigned without questioning it or 00:21:36.416 --> 00:21:39.894 expecting different. That's what it is. You say you paid for a decorating 00:21:39.942 --> 00:21:43.326 job. Mine probably said to you, this is what I do, I've got to get 00:21:43.348 --> 00:21:47.166 on with it. And you don't question it, because the army, the services 00:21:47.268 --> 00:21:50.974 institutionalise you and your choices are limited as to 00:21:51.092 --> 00:21:54.686 what you want for dinner. You've got a choice of three main courses, and that's 00:21:54.718 --> 00:21:57.460 probably the biggest choice you have in the day. Yeah, 00:21:58.310 --> 00:22:02.146 absolutely. And you're right, you are funnelled down this. You either do 00:22:02.168 --> 00:22:05.780 that, that or that, and you do it. 00:22:06.390 --> 00:22:09.590 But I think when it came to making my own choices, 00:22:10.170 --> 00:22:13.686 and it's like I was just clodding away with the 00:22:13.708 --> 00:22:17.446 decorating business and sometimes not even working for weeks. I 00:22:17.468 --> 00:22:20.522 didn't know how to do marketing. I didn't know any of. There were no social 00:22:20.576 --> 00:22:24.342 media back then and whatever it was on referral 00:22:24.406 --> 00:22:28.074 from word of mouth and things. Right. 00:22:28.112 --> 00:22:31.898 But I wasn't even good at that. Don't get me wrong, I'm a 00:22:31.904 --> 00:22:35.662 fantastic painter decorator, by the way, but just. You might have the best business 00:22:35.716 --> 00:22:38.938 in the world, but if you shop windows down, nobody will see what you're 00:22:38.954 --> 00:22:42.766 selling. Right? Nobody could see 00:22:42.788 --> 00:22:46.366 what I was selling because I wasn't putting myself out there, 00:22:46.468 --> 00:22:50.306 because I didn't know how to. And did I want to, really? Did 00:22:50.328 --> 00:22:53.074 I just want the norm. Did I want the comfortable? Because I'd been in this 00:22:53.112 --> 00:22:56.914 establishment for five years, flying around the world and doing this kind of stuff, 00:22:56.952 --> 00:23:00.726 right? But I soon got very bored of it and kind 00:23:00.748 --> 00:23:04.390 of knew there was something kind of like just more to happen. 00:23:04.460 --> 00:23:08.214 But the big question mark was, was what 00:23:08.252 --> 00:23:12.070 was that? What was. See, you'd lost 00:23:12.570 --> 00:23:16.062 the army mother, you'd lost your brother, 00:23:16.146 --> 00:23:19.574 mates where you lived and did everything together. And you had a similar humour 00:23:19.622 --> 00:23:23.338 banter and everything else going on, and the rigidity of you, like, 00:23:23.424 --> 00:23:27.022 all the conformity of doing kind of a framework of what you're told. 00:23:27.076 --> 00:23:30.734 And now you're there trying to figure your life out with 00:23:30.772 --> 00:23:34.014 choices that you hadn't necessarily been brought up 00:23:34.132 --> 00:23:37.918 to understand because you left school at 16 and you 00:23:37.924 --> 00:23:40.626 don't have a lot of free will at 16 either, do you? You're kind of 00:23:40.648 --> 00:23:44.386 living with your parents and again, you're fitting into school, whatever it is. So 00:23:44.408 --> 00:23:48.226 there you are, early 20s, not knowing how to make decisions 00:23:48.258 --> 00:23:51.974 for yourself, and no one's coaching or mentoring you. You're now going, 00:23:52.092 --> 00:23:53.720 Jason, go figure. 00:23:56.010 --> 00:23:58.200 And I didn't. Go figure. Yeah. 00:24:03.130 --> 00:24:05.720 Like I said, I was still in this relationship 00:24:06.250 --> 00:24:09.926 where I was about to come out of the army. So I was serving 00:24:09.958 --> 00:24:13.594 my last year in the army where we kind of, like, just decided to get 00:24:13.632 --> 00:24:17.198 together. So as soon as we came out, I had the excitement of 00:24:17.284 --> 00:24:21.134 wanting to be in a relationship then. And that's all I wanted to put my. 00:24:21.172 --> 00:24:24.100 That was my biggest dream and goal, was to build a relationship 00:24:25.990 --> 00:24:29.746 and be in that. But over time, like 00:24:29.768 --> 00:24:32.340 I said, we were in this relationship 17 years 00:24:33.670 --> 00:24:37.238