Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this. Journey of exploration into the heart
Joanne Lockwood: of inclusion, belonging and societal
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Joanne Lockwood: spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 205 with
Joanne Lockwood: the title Men Beyond Survival. I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Tom Gold. Tom is a
Joanne Lockwood: Bushcraft instructor and life coach who helps
Joanne Lockwood: men build real mental fitness in the outdoors, in the bar,
Joanne Lockwood: beyond performative well being Talk. When I asked Tom to describe his
Joanne Lockwood: superpower, he said that it is resetting in nature. One night out
Joanne Lockwood: with a tarp, a notebook and sleeping bag and then coming back a new
Joanne Lockwood: man. Hello, Tom, welcome to the show. Jo, thanks very much for having me
Tom Gold: on the show. And by the way, belated congratulations on
Tom Gold: 205 episodes. You've just passed your double
Tom Gold: century. That's brilliant. Yeah, it's been a real achievement going since
Joanne Lockwood: 2005. 2020, sorry, five coming up for
Joanne Lockwood: six years ago. This was started pre Covid. Yeah, I've had a number of
Joanne Lockwood: guests from all over the world. It's been fascinating and. And yourself, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, very diverse guests from different or from different
Joanne Lockwood: perspective. Different. Different. Different areas. And yeah, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: really looking forward to this conversation. So thank you, Tom. For those of you
Joanne Lockwood: who listen to this and not watching, Tom is wearing a beanie and a
Joanne Lockwood: jumper and he's happened to mention that he's in the middle of nowhere in some
Joanne Lockwood: part of Scotland. So, Tom, where are you at the moment? Yeah, it's. It's a
Tom Gold: rural area just north of Glasgow. Little village called
Tom Gold: Balfron. I can see the Campsie Fells out of my window. They're a
Tom Gold: bit fogged in today. There's no snow up there. It's a very, very beautiful place.
Tom Gold: I'm extremely lucky, to be honest, Jo. And, yeah, this was my choice to.
Tom Gold: To live out here. I can walk out of my Door and be in
Tom Gold: forest, woodland, hills in no time flat. And that works.
Tom Gold: Works pretty good for me, definitely. So you, you work in the outdoors.
Joanne Lockwood: So you're a bushcraft instructor, life coach. Did the where
Joanne Lockwood: you live influence what you do or does what you do influence where you live?
Tom Gold: I was pretty heavily influenced by my dad
Tom Gold: growing up. He had a still does.
Tom Gold: I still have him. He's still around. A really impressive range of skills.
Tom Gold: My dad can navigate by the stars, he can find wild
Tom Gold: edibles in their hedgerows, he could light a fire with all sorts
Tom Gold: of very primitive methodologies. And as a
Tom Gold: small kid growing up in Northamptonshire, which is where we were,
Tom Gold: there were always adventures. We were having bonfires, we were
Tom Gold: building dens, camps, doing crazy,
Tom Gold: dangerous things. We abseiled the local quarry on some
Tom Gold: ropes that dad had found at the dump. We paddled our leaky old
Tom Gold: inflatable dinghy down the longest canal tunnel
Tom Gold: in Britain. Yeah, there were great adventures growing up. I mean, you know, we were
Tom Gold: only little and it all felt pretty real and exciting
Tom Gold: and yeah, if there's one, I did, if you want to know where it started,
Tom Gold: it started with him, really. Fair play to him. And this is all
Joanne Lockwood: seek forgiveness rather than ask for, ask for permission. So you're just
Joanne Lockwood: doing this and getting on with it and if someone chased you away, you just
Joanne Lockwood: run away and go back another day. Well, in the summer holidays, which could
Tom Gold: seem quite long, I was lucky. I grew up in a little village and there
Tom Gold: were a lot of other boys. And my old man had this idea of
Tom Gold: forming a group with the boys and the dads in the summer holidays. And
Tom Gold: it was called the UDF Club, which stood for
Tom Gold: Utterly devoid of fear, which was something that came out of,
Tom Gold: I discovered later, the Eagle comic, long since defunct, which
Tom Gold: dad had read as a boy. So only people who were utterly
Tom Gold: devoid of fear could deal in on these adventures. And
Tom Gold: it would always end up with a picnic somewhere, but would involve some
Tom Gold: death defying health and safety vortex of a
Tom Gold: adventure. And I look back on all those times just with great
Tom Gold: fondness and happiness. And it formed a kind of blueprint for when it
Tom Gold: was my turn to be a dad, you know, I mean, moving forward a few
Tom Gold: years, you know, I gave a few more nods to health and safety than
Tom Gold: my father did. But I think looking back on that, for all the jokes
Tom Gold: he made about our slim chances of success and almost
Tom Gold: certain doom, dad never took his eye off the ball, you
Tom Gold: know, I always knew that if it came to the crunch, he'd bring us through
Tom Gold: it sometimes it was a close run
Tom Gold: thing, but I learned a lot about trust that way as well. I
Tom Gold: knew what it was to trust someone and I learned early in life what it
Tom Gold: took to, to elicit that in other people, what you
Tom Gold: needed to do. So yes, it was, yeah, it was, you know, it
Tom Gold: was a happy childhood and it's influenced a lot of
Tom Gold: what's happened in later years. Definitely. Do we do enough of that
Joanne Lockwood: in the modern world? I mean, having everything you're saying there and the way
Joanne Lockwood: you learned those skills from your father and you'll pass them on to your, I
Joanne Lockwood: guess, your sons and your children and the work you do now, are we
Joanne Lockwood: living too much behind computer screens in houses and we're not getting
Joanne Lockwood: out there and taking risks and challenging ourselves physically and
Joanne Lockwood: mentally in that way? Yeah, I think, you know, your listeners and
Tom Gold: viewers will be expecting the crusty looking old guy with a
Tom Gold: white beard and woollen hat to have some very clear views on that. And yeah,
Tom Gold: I do think there's still tremendous value in it. It
Tom Gold: can be tempered with health and safety. But the idea of
Tom Gold: the, you know, weekend or Saturday morning adventure,
Tom Gold: I think it's still eminently doable. I mean, a lot of the work that
Tom Gold: I've done in the past and continue to do with young
Tom Gold: people and with some, what seemed to me very young dads is
Tom Gold: empowering them with the skills to, you know, to say, right,
Tom Gold: here's what we're doing this weekend, you know, we're going to make a wee fire
Tom Gold: out here, we'll toast some marshmallows, maybe we'll find some
Tom Gold: animal tracks, whatever. And then, you know, what if the
Tom Gold: rest of the weekend is spent with everyone on their screens? It's
Tom Gold: still a win, it's still a win for the team and it
Tom Gold: builds really, really powerful memories that you carry forward with you.
Tom Gold: I mean, ask me how I know that into later life. One of the,
Tom Gold: I think it is the most like, pleasing bit of feedback I ever
Tom Gold: got was from a young man who'd been in a drugs and alcohol recovery
Tom Gold: group. He'd had his, his difficulties and challenges, that's for certain.
Tom Gold: He hadn't had any unsupervised time with his five year
Tom Gold: old son in three years, which was shocking because to me
Tom Gold: he seemed like a young guy. Anyway, as part of the session that we were
Tom Gold: doing larger group, we ended up making
Tom Gold: pizzas on the campfire. It just turned out that's what we were doing. And
Tom Gold: he wrote to me a week later because he'd had his first unsupervised
Tom Gold: visit with his son and he said, this weekend we went out
Tom Gold: and we made pizzas on the fire and I just thought, that's
Tom Gold: fantastic. He will, the little guy will remember that
Tom Gold: for a long time that dad showed up with all the goods and
Tom Gold: the two of them had a fantastic first day out. I couldn't have
Tom Gold: been happier for this guy, you know, it was well done to him.
Tom Gold: Yeah, I still think about that now. It was a couple of years back, but
Tom Gold: yeah, well done to the brother. I sincerely hope things continue to work out
Tom Gold: for him. Children, in
Joanne Lockwood: my view, definitely need mum time and dad time. They're different
Joanne Lockwood: sorts of experiences. And we hear the jokes that dad
Joanne Lockwood: will bring you back filthy and mum will bring you back sort of clean and
Joanne Lockwood: things like this. But I look at the way some of the things my children
Joanne Lockwood: remember, they remember a time with me when they were younger going
Joanne Lockwood: camping not alone but in a group with other, other kids and
Joanne Lockwood: their, and their male figure in their life and they remember those times and
Joanne Lockwood: you bring them back alive and filthy and
Joanne Lockwood: they've had a real whale of a time. And I think kids just need to
Joanne Lockwood: have that outdoor experience where they are closer to the edge and
Joanne Lockwood: not cocooned a little bit and that helps them grow. Yeah, I think
Tom Gold: with find out a lot that, that way. I remember the dilemma I had
Tom Gold: when I found out my boys and their pals aged anywhere between 5
Tom Gold: and, no, I think they're a little bit older than that. The
Tom Gold: little group aged between about 6 and 9 had been exploring a
Tom Gold: ruined castle that's all fenced off not far from here, which
Tom Gold: had involved climbing quite high, very high into some of the
Tom Gold: windows. I mean, the whole building was condemned. And yeah,
Tom Gold: it was a dilemma for me because on the one hand I felt that's
Tom Gold: exactly what they should be doing. They should be exploring
Tom Gold: these things and finding out what danger and a little bit of
Tom Gold: fear actually feels like. But on the flip side of the coin,
Tom Gold: yeah, the place could have tumbled down on them at any time.
Tom Gold: They were taking some appalling risks. But this is, you know,
Tom Gold: in my view, how they develop some of those skills that will
Tom Gold: see them through later life. You know, they've got to know
Tom Gold: that difference between saying, yeah, I think, I think this
Tom Gold: is okay, and no, we should stop here and turn it around. If
Tom Gold: you've not experienced those things, it's a lot harder to
Tom Gold: make an informed judgement call on that. You know, if you've
Tom Gold: never sort of felt your knees shaking as you sort of crawl
Tom Gold: across a very narrow object that's very high up then. Yeah, I
Tom Gold: think it's going to be a lot harder to make those judgement
Tom Gold: calls later. That probably sounds spectacularly
Tom Gold: irresponsible, but yeah, what happened was myself and Jack
Tom Gold: and Nicholas, we had a long talk about it afterwards, about
Tom Gold: how safe they felt and did they think this was a good thing to
Tom Gold: do. You know, at the end of the day they'd gone out for an
Tom Gold: adventure, gone exploring with their friends. You know, I
Tom Gold: thoroughly approved. Yeah, I'm with you again
Joanne Lockwood: on this. And I think that squeaky bum time is a learning opportunity
Joanne Lockwood: because we don't learn without making mistakes or without having a reflection on something
Joanne Lockwood: without looking back on it. And I look at some of the things I've done,
Joanne Lockwood: I've done static wires across courtyard in a castle in Poland
Joanne Lockwood: and this was like 50 metres across. Okay. I was clipped on, I couldn't go
Joanne Lockwood: anywhere. But when you get to that middle of the wire and the wire
Joanne Lockwood: gap between the wire you're holding onto at the top and where you are stretches
Joanne Lockwood: and you're then suddenly right the tips of your fingers trying to cross this, you
Joanne Lockwood: need those moments to sort of appreciate that feeling that reality, don't you? Yeah,
Tom Gold: they're moments of growth, I really believe that. And they can't really be
Tom Gold: experienced any other way. You know, I was saying that, you know, I
Tom Gold: took a very sort of kind of open minded view of some of the risks
Tom Gold: the boys were taking. But I do remember when I found out
Tom Gold: they were playing Call of Duty with their friends and I said that
Tom Gold: I didn't want that. I certainly didn't want it happening in our house
Tom Gold: because taking one look at this game, it
Tom Gold: basically trivialised death. Their great grandfather
Tom Gold: gave his life fighting for our country. He would have been
Tom Gold: horrified because this was actually, it was a version of the D
Tom Gold: day landings. I think I said your great grandfather was actually
Tom Gold: there. He would turn in his grave to think that this had been turned into
Tom Gold: a game. So it wasn't the fact that it's quite gory and
Tom Gold: bloody, it was the fact that it really trivialised a sort of
Tom Gold: a moment that changed history. That, you know, so many like really
Tom Gold: tremendous, very brave men, you know, went across the Channel that
Tom Gold: day, their great granddad amongst them. And this was my objection to it.
Tom Gold: Just the trivialization of something so important. I
Tom Gold: said that as a recompense we could try in the
Tom Gold: little workshop I had in the garage to recreate some of the weapons and
Tom Gold: equipment that were featured in the game which my now
Tom Gold: ex wife was Furious about. But I didn't want them playing Call Of
Tom Gold: Duty. It just, you know, it didn't. On a variety of levels, didn't sit right.
Tom Gold: Yeah, I get that. Yeah. As you say, it's trivialising a.
Joanne Lockwood: A really sad time, but also it trivialises
Joanne Lockwood: what people sacrifice and. And what's going on at times, isn't it? So no
Tom Gold: attaching a score to it. Yeah. You know, making it competitive. You know, this
Tom Gold: is how many people you. You killed.
Joanne Lockwood: Or you get killed yourself and you come back to life again straight away and
Joanne Lockwood: it's. It's not reality. Is a. It's not reality. I guess maybe that
Joanne Lockwood: desensitises people to knife crime and gun crime. You're so used to
Joanne Lockwood: respawning when you get killed and then suddenly you walk in
Joanne Lockwood: the streets with a knife or you're in gang violence and you're.
Joanne Lockwood: Becomes more trivial because you're so used to being killed or killing.
Tom Gold: Well, I do wonder. That's behind some of it. Scotland, where I
Tom Gold: live, has a long and very unhappy history of knife crime going
Tom Gold: back quite some years. I
Tom Gold: attended a session given by a youth outreach
Tom Gold: organisation in Glasgow about this sort of endemic
Tom Gold: knife crime in a part of the city called Easter House, which was
Tom Gold: absolutely chilling. A number of young men who were dying over
Tom Gold: nothing. Over nothing of any tangible value. They weren't even
Tom Gold: fighting over sort of drug territories or money or anything. Absolutely
Tom Gold: horrific. Yeah. I mean, that's another storey. But these were
Tom Gold: boys in their teens with, you know, their whole lives in front of
Tom Gold: them and for. Yeah, reasons I still don't fully understand.
Tom Gold: You know, for some years there, it was absolute carnage. Some very brave
Tom Gold: people took it upon themselves to turn that around with this
Tom Gold: outreach programme. I don't think I've ever been more impressed by anything in my life
Tom Gold: because they could have just left. They could have just got to live someplace
Tom Gold: else. Yeah, that was. Yeah, impressive. So that might be a bit of
Tom Gold: a tangent, Jo. No, not at all. It's worth exploring
Joanne Lockwood: that. One of the things we'll talk about before we click the record button is
Joanne Lockwood: that you have struggling to come to terms with the fact that your. Your.
Joanne Lockwood: Your boys, which we've been talking about, have now become men. What do you mean
Joanne Lockwood: by that? Yeah. I always wanted to be a
Tom Gold: dad. I'd always wanted to have sons as a first choice.
Tom Gold: I think I would have done a pretty good job if I'd had girls. But
Tom Gold: I feel exceptionally lucky. I had two
Tom Gold: fine, healthy little boys. They're 18 and 19 now,
Tom Gold: and based on the blueprint I got from my dad. We spent a lot
Tom Gold: of time doing, you know, crazy things. We went on lots of adventures
Tom Gold: in our canoe in the. The lochs around here. We
Tom Gold: built dens, we lit fires, we camped out with their friends and
Tom Gold: it was. It was a lot of fun. Endless nonsense. And
Tom Gold: also that role of being their dad. You know, when their mum and I
Tom Gold: split up and I moved in here, the house was. It looked
Tom Gold: very, very sad. It hadn't been lived in for a long time and it was
Tom Gold: nothing like the place they'd, you know, that their mum still had. And
Tom Gold: I said, our job here is to make this into the coolest house in the
Tom Gold: street. So, you know, that is our mission. So we're going to make furniture,
Tom Gold: we're going to redecorate, we're going to do a lot of this stuff. And it
Tom Gold: felt like a. Again, it felt like a bit of an adventure. We even had
Tom Gold: a long discussion about what we should call it. And we came up with the
Tom Gold: awesome House as its official name, which they're very
Tom Gold: embarrassed to be reminded about now in front of their friends. And,
Tom Gold: yeah, they've both. They've both moved out, moved on. That is
Tom Gold: sad. You know, I have recollections of the, you know, crazy stuff we
Tom Gold: did and I realised that's a chapter that's now closed. How they turned right
Tom Gold: in front of my eyes into, you know, confident
Tom Gold: young men and now they're. They're running their own thing. And, yeah, that's
Tom Gold: been a little bit difficult sometimes. And I have to be very conscious,
Tom Gold: not when we're together, not to be constantly harking back to those
Tom Gold: times, which for them are now the sort of dim, distant past.
Tom Gold: For me, they're some of the happiest moments of my life. And that can
Tom Gold: be a little bit difficult. And for reasons I'm still not
Tom Gold: absolutely sure about, I still worry about them a lot. You know, they
Tom Gold: don't need anyone to do that for them,
Tom Gold: but I still do. I try and keep the lid on it and, you know,
Tom Gold: I'm not, like, expressing that to them. So, yeah, it's been.
Tom Gold: It's been tough. You know, I'm still their dad. My role has changed now.
Tom Gold: I'm there to sort of support and encourage and assist
Tom Gold: where I can, but the decisions, well, they're pretty much
Tom Gold: all theirs. That's really the way it's. It's got to be. But
Tom Gold: I even miss little things, like, you know, at 9:30 each night we'd
Tom Gold: have countdown to initiate Wi Fi. Shutdown
Tom Gold: where I'd pull the router and, like, take it to bed with me. And
Tom Gold: there'd be this, you know, big countdown or sort of
Tom Gold: pizza nights when we used to make our own pizzas or what they
Tom Gold: christened sad Chinese, which was when the Chinese
Tom Gold: takeaway, which we didn't use very often here, shut. And I said, well, hey, don't
Tom Gold: worry, I can do Chinese. Anyway, it was christened
Tom Gold: sad Chinese because Dad had made it. Yeah, I miss those things a
Tom Gold: lot. But, you know, I got to remember that we did most of it in
Tom Gold: order to encourage them to be the independent men that they
Tom Gold: are now. So, yeah, this was the trade off.
Tom Gold: It's difficult. Some days it's difficult, but, you know, this is what I wanted. This
Tom Gold: is what we worked for. So, yeah, my youngest, Nicholas,
Tom Gold: got himself into a lot of trouble some years back, which,
Tom Gold: yeah, a tremendous amount of stress and worry for me.
Tom Gold: I honestly didn't know if he was going to survive his teens
Tom Gold: or whether he'd actually end up doing time. And I think
Tom Gold: as dads were fitted with a can't quit switch.
Tom Gold: It's like a wiring problem that just doesn't let you walk away.
Tom Gold: You are stuck with it until you win or it ends.
Tom Gold: And that was hard because obviously I couldn't give up on Nicholas. But yeah, he
Tom Gold: put us through it and no mistake. Yeah, we're out the other side.
Joanne Lockwood: In the intro, I use the word performative. And we've talked
Joanne Lockwood: about this in our briefing call before this and when we first got on
Joanne Lockwood: before we press record. The challenge at the moment is men are being
Joanne Lockwood: encouraged to speak up and
Joanne Lockwood: have conversations and not be alone when they're suffering their
Joanne Lockwood: mental health. And one of the things we talked about the other day when we
Joanne Lockwood: did the briefing was the. The fact that not every man wants to speak
Joanne Lockwood: and have a Kumbaya, sit around and share all their
Joanne Lockwood: feelings all the time. And so how do we as a society engage
Joanne Lockwood: with people who are very introspective and not big
Joanne Lockwood: talkers or make assumptions that they're suffering, maybe they're
Joanne Lockwood: not. They can still be part of it even if they don't want to say
Tom Gold: anything. I've run a lot of men's groups, either
Tom Gold: like as actual men's groups or groups that turned out to be
Tom Gold: exclusively men. And you'll get a lot of guys who won't say anything, but, you
Tom Gold: know, they actually. They're in a good place because I run a lot of my
Tom Gold: sessions outdoors. You'll find some guys who just want to chop Wood
Tom Gold: or saw up timber and split it with an axe for sort of most
Tom Gold: of the session. Tender fire, etc. Just enjoy the space. And
Tom Gold: I'm totally okay with that. They are part of the group. They're
Tom Gold: contributing towards it. You know, they're sitting in with us and they're listening.
Tom Gold: If they're not ready to speak, that's absolutely fine. They certainly
Tom Gold: given to understand that they're not on their own while they're part of
Tom Gold: this. And when that guy, after sort of three sessions,
Tom Gold: you know, of saying nothing, clears his throat to speak, you know,
Tom Gold: it's going to be important. And if you've done your job right. If I've done
Tom Gold: my job right, then, you know, we've created that atmosphere where they feel
Tom Gold: okay to do that. And it's a funny thing that I've
Tom Gold: seen many times when somebody is brave enough to speak up and say,
Tom Gold: do you know what? I'm really struggling with this. Other people sitting around that
Tom Gold: same campfire will acknowledge it often in very subtle ways. It might be
Tom Gold: a sort of a clap on the shoulder. It might just be a nod, or
Tom Gold: they might just say, yeah, I get it, you know, or I'm dealing with the
Tom Gold: same thing. But I didn't want to say anything. So thank you for
Tom Gold: sharing. I think there's an understanding that we can't all fix it. You
Tom Gold: know, we can't fix this for each other. But that sense of
Tom Gold: community can make a huge difference. You know,
Tom Gold: you're not the only person dealing with it. So, yeah,
Tom Gold: I think that pressure to talk more. I find it
Tom Gold: unhelpful at times. Men need to talk more. This is the
Tom Gold: message being pushed by DEI. And there aren't that
Tom Gold: many guys, men working in DEI. So I do sometimes
Tom Gold: wonder if, you know, people are just picking up on
Tom Gold: this popular trope, this comfortable, cartoonish
Tom Gold: image of a man who, you know, he can't cook. He might take
Tom Gold: six weeks to put up a set of shelves and he doesn't talk about stuff.
Tom Gold: And I think pushing that image, that gives men permission to
Tom Gold: deal out, you know, because they can revert to this, hey, I'm not
Tom Gold: going to tell you, I'm a typical bloke. So I'm not going to engage with
Tom Gold: this for the same reason that I can't make a shepherd's pie without
Tom Gold: screwing the whole thing up or needing a tremendous fanfare to
Tom Gold: accompany it because they've. They've done this. It's a
Tom Gold: comfortable kind of vision. There was something in the news
Tom Gold: recently complaining about Peppa Pig. And Daddy Pig, who
Tom Gold: is this well meaning, useless buffoon who, you
Tom Gold: know, gets everything wrong in a domestic sense. And you know what, it's
Tom Gold: giving people permission. And I don't know that it. I
Tom Gold: sometimes talk about a thing called the Man Code, which, you know,
Tom Gold: has a few very simple tenets, which is project outward strength at
Tom Gold: all times, tell everyone you're fine and keep the lid nailed down
Tom Gold: tight shut on all the sort of clamour in your head.
Tom Gold: And the reason that we still do this is, firstly,
Tom Gold: it's really, really easy. It's not difficult to follow
Tom Gold: the Man Code and it certainly isn't difficult to,
Tom Gold: you know, follow that popular trope of being a guy who doesn't talk
Tom Gold: about stuff and, you know, doesn't deal well
Tom Gold: emotionally. And it's been tremendously successful
Tom Gold: in the past. You look at some of the history's great men.
Tom Gold: They were, you know, often appear outwardly as very
Tom Gold: emotionally closed off people. History now tells us that a lot of them
Tom Gold: did have some sort of significant mental health problems going on. And I
Tom Gold: think, you know, some of the sort of heroes of the Edwardian and Victorian
Tom Gold: era, if they were sort of more closely examined now, we'd find that they had,
Tom Gold: you know, a whole host of sort of mental illness issues
Tom Gold: going on. But the Man Code allowed them to navigate that and
Tom Gold: achieve greatness at the same time. And this is what we remember them
Tom Gold: for and this is, you know, in a way, why we use them.
Tom Gold: But it always makes me think when I read about these guys, and
Tom Gold: they do, because they love sort of true life adventure storeys, what else they could
Tom Gold: have achieved if they weren't dealing with all the sort of the
Tom Gold: demons in their head, if they weren't constantly suppressing those, if
Tom Gold: they had an outlet for them, if they were able to, you know, achieve a
Tom Gold: little bit more emotional coherence, sometimes called vulnerability.
Tom Gold: Not a word I'm particularly fond of, but there it is. And this is
Tom Gold: something that I like to, you know, present to, to some of the guys I
Tom Gold: work with now. You know, as they're thinking about what you can achieve or what
Tom Gold: your employees can achieve. You know, if they're not dealing with this,
Tom Gold: you know, a lot of them are already doing pretty well. You've got to wonder
Tom Gold: how much better, how much better they could do. So, yeah, I think that's
Tom Gold: part of. Your Bushcraft, your outdoors activities. Is this where you take people
Joanne Lockwood: out into the. Into the wild and return them a bit to
Joanne Lockwood: nature? It's not really the wild, Jo. I mean, we're
Tom Gold: Extremely blessed here in Scotland in that, you know, our
Tom Gold: biggest cities are ringed at the very closest edge by
Tom Gold: beautiful scenery countryside, woodland hills. So
Tom Gold: escaping from the city is pretty easy. And finding places to
Tom Gold: bring a group together that doesn't involve a lot of travel,
Tom Gold: it's quite easy here. We also have some unique access to the
Tom Gold: outdoors, rights of access to the outdoors that make these
Tom Gold: things easier. The sort of focal point is a fire with a kettle
Tom Gold: hanging over it and a group of people sitting in a circle round
Tom Gold: it. And that is a meeting format. That's roughly, if you
Tom Gold: subtract the kettle, roughly 400. That's when it's now
Tom Gold: believed the first early Neanderthals were deliberately
Tom Gold: creating fire as a sort of focal point. And we can see
Tom Gold: minor digression here. We often think of the discovery as fire as leading to
Tom Gold: cooked meat, which enhances the protein uptake and makes you more
Tom Gold: intelligent using fire to harden wooden
Tom Gold: weapons and later to create metal. The first
Tom Gold: real spin off benefit of that discovery was social because for
Tom Gold: the first time our ancient ancestors had a
Tom Gold: reason to come together when it was cold and it was dark. And
Tom Gold: that format, the fire, where people round it in a circle, is more or less
Tom Gold: identical to that. And I think somehow we have some
Tom Gold: sort of genetic memory for it, which is why I've never had to tell a
Tom Gold: group of people to form a circle around the fire. Everybody knows that bit.
Tom Gold: There will always come a point in that session where no one's
Tom Gold: saying anything and everyone's just looking inward at the fire. It's a very
Tom Gold: captivating thing to look at, particularly as it gets dark and you watch the
Tom Gold: sparks twist up into the night. It's a great thing and
Tom Gold: it's worked for 400,000 years. So
Tom Gold: creating that environment, very, very straightforward. And it's a
Tom Gold: real pleasure to share the skills that go into doing it, because this is something
Tom Gold: I want them to take away and use. But it's also kind of an elemental
Tom Gold: format as well, and it encourages people to be more talkative.
Tom Gold: I've seen that many, many times. Guys who wouldn't speak up
Tom Gold: in a room with white walls, with all the chairs in a circle, can become
Tom Gold: a lot more thoughtful, philosophical and vocal in that
Tom Gold: environment. Maybe it just speaks to them, can't be absolutely certain,
Tom Gold: but I've just seen it work so many times, which is why I do like
Tom Gold: to use it. It's not the most practical way of doing things. This is the
Tom Gold: format in which we're speaking now. But given the choice, Jo, we would have
Tom Gold: headed out into the woods. I'd have put up a tarp, we'd have hung the
Tom Gold: kettle over the fire, then we'd have talked completely. I mean, I've
Joanne Lockwood: spent many, many nights around a campfire, around
Joanne Lockwood: a fire. And as you say, there's something really hypnotic about
Joanne Lockwood: sparks. The embers, the flames dancing, the
Joanne Lockwood: crackle, and that kind of innate instinct to
Joanne Lockwood: just burn stuff. You know, it's. Everyone becomes a
Joanne Lockwood: pyromaniac. Can we burn this? Will this burn? Wonder what happens
Joanne Lockwood: if. What happens if I put a. An empty bottle of Heineken? Will the glass
Joanne Lockwood: melt? Will the can catch fire? And should we just try a little bit of
Joanne Lockwood: paraffin in there or maybe a little bit of diesel or petrol and see what
Joanne Lockwood: happens? Or get the lighter fluid out and squirt it and see if we can
Joanne Lockwood: make a jet of flame or something? Or the aerosol can comes out
Joanne Lockwood: and we end up with the flames. Yeah, but that. It's. It's that fascination
Joanne Lockwood: with being outdoors and the fire and the flame and
Joanne Lockwood: experimenting with that. That element, as you say. Well, yeah, you are
Tom Gold: indulging in and sharing in something that our, you know,
Tom Gold: early Neanderthal ancestors did the same thing. They
Tom Gold: must have been similarly fascinated. You know, what can we burn next? Will this
Tom Gold: work? What happens if we do this? At some point, someone will have discovered
Tom Gold: that wafting air at the fire, using a, you know, a flat
Tom Gold: surface, will actually make it bigger. And, you know, they will have discovered
Tom Gold: the sort of properties of various natural resources. Some are going to
Tom Gold: burn real good, some are just gonna, you know, take you all night to make
Tom Gold: a fire with. And. Yeah, absolutely. You're seeing that exact same
Tom Gold: fascination, experimentation and, you know, sometimes just
Tom Gold: joyfulness that comes with that is priceless. We're experiencing
Tom Gold: something that. And this is why I think it's somehow it's in us. You know,
Tom Gold: maybe on a sort of genetic level, it's passed on this fascination for it.
Joanne Lockwood: I think it's the same reason. Warmth, social. It's
Joanne Lockwood: safety, it's light, it generates so many things at
Joanne Lockwood: a very basic level, isn't it? And as you're talking, I'm remembering a
Joanne Lockwood: holiday that I went on with my
Joanne Lockwood: family and a friend's family. So there was four of us. Four of them. We
Joanne Lockwood: had a cottage in. I think it was Majorca,
Joanne Lockwood: and it had a bit of farmland around it, a bit of waste
Joanne Lockwood: ground. Adjacent to the building was an outdoor barbecue,
Joanne Lockwood: which was a brick built with a roof and it had a chimney
Joanne Lockwood: at the top of it. And I remember we we were left, my friend
Joanne Lockwood: and I, we were left alone with the kids that night whilst our partners
Joanne Lockwood: went off into town and for their night out and we started
Joanne Lockwood: cooking on this barbecue. And then all of a sudden we just
Joanne Lockwood: wanted. It started going out, so we wanted to burn something else. We were out
Joanne Lockwood: at Coles and we found all these bits of wood in this, in this waste
Joanne Lockwood: ground around the property and we kept bundling things on and bundling things on. Eventually
Joanne Lockwood: we got this real roaring fire going in this barbecue area
Joanne Lockwood: and we got to the point where flames are coming out of the top of
Joanne Lockwood: the chimney. And we were really pleased with ourselves that we'd managed to get the
Joanne Lockwood: fire really, really roaring up there. And then we started
Joanne Lockwood: reflecting. Let's hope the chimney doesn't catch fire. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think the only thing that really stopped us was we ran out of wood, we
Joanne Lockwood: ran out of combustible material and we, we were. I think if we'd have drunk
Joanne Lockwood: a bit more, we would have seriously gone inside and maybe dismantle the dining
Joanne Lockwood: room table if we were that. That keen to burn something else. But it was,
Joanne Lockwood: it's a. And I. I've been on a number of camping trips and, and barbecues
Joanne Lockwood: and away weekends where that, that draw and I think, as you say,
Joanne Lockwood: it's the. That real elemental primaeval
Joanne Lockwood: draw for light safety, protection and cooking and all these sort of
Joanne Lockwood: things come together. And this fire is something we need to tame.
Tom Gold: Absolutely. And to be able to pass on the
Tom Gold: really relatively straightforward technical processes that it
Tom Gold: takes to create it out of nothing, even if you were just out in the
Tom Gold: woods, is, you know, one of the most pleasurable parts of what I
Tom Gold: do is seeing people go away thinking, wow, you know, I could do this at
Tom Gold: the weekend, you know, with, with the girlfriend, with the kids, with
Tom Gold: whoever, maybe just on my own, you know, I can find a little bit of
Tom Gold: space out there away from everybody and I can just, you know, be
Tom Gold: alone with, with my thoughts. A lot of the work I do is with people.
Tom Gold: Their recovery journeys from drugs and alcohol and
Tom Gold: the ability to create a warm, dry outdoor space
Tom Gold: out of some very, very ordinary, cheap items gives them
Tom Gold: another place to go when it gets difficult. That isn't, I don't know, the
Tom Gold: betting shop, their ex wife's place or the pub. You know,
Tom Gold: it's empowering them with this, you know, knowledge and this idea
Tom Gold: that, wait a minute, I can take myself away from all of this if I
Tom Gold: want to. There is a place I can go. And it feels so suitably,
Tom Gold: suitably manly. You know, because the majority of
Tom Gold: people, certainly here in Scotland who, you know, find their way into these
Tom Gold: programmes are men. And it's been an absolute
Tom Gold: pleasure to share the campfire with so many of them now. I
Tom Gold: find them just the best company, perhaps, you know, one of the
Tom Gold: things that makes them unique is people who are recovering
Tom Gold: from sort of drugs and alcohol addiction are
Tom Gold: fantastic at looking after each other. It's something they do better
Tom Gold: than any other group that I've worked with together. They're unbeatable
Tom Gold: and very, very strong. And being in their company while they support one another is
Tom Gold: quite a powerful thing, actually. Yeah. Been a great pleasure many
Tom Gold: times, empowering them with that knowledge and that understanding that, absolutely goddamn
Tom Gold: right you can do this. And it's a huge win as well, if you make
Tom Gold: that work, you know, especially for a group of other people.
Tom Gold: Well, you're a flipping hero, you know. Oh, wow, well done. Or to be able
Tom Gold: to say, look, don't worry, I got this, I'll fix it. I can make us
Tom Gold: a fire, no problem, and then we'll stay warm, you know, for as long as
Tom Gold: we want to be out here. That's great. You know, you go home as the
Tom Gold: guy who did, and if it's been a long time or a while since you
Tom Gold: last had a win or you had people saying, well done, thank you,
Tom Gold: then that's huge, you know, hopefully makes people think about other
Tom Gold: areas of their life where they can show up, you know, similarly, do we. It's
Joanne Lockwood: a problem sometimes is when. When we're. When we're getting
Joanne Lockwood: into these conversations, do we want to try and fix the people we're talking to?
Joanne Lockwood: And I hear a lot of time where it's really hard to just talk
Joanne Lockwood: without somebody trying to cure you or give you
Joanne Lockwood: a solution. Absolutely. Is that why people don't want to talk? Because they don't need
Joanne Lockwood: fixing, they just want someone to listen to them sometimes. I couldn't agree
Tom Gold: with you more. I mean, going back to when my youngest was
Tom Gold: getting into a lot of trouble, it was causing me a tremendous
Tom Gold: amount of stress, is putting a big strain on my
Tom Gold: relationship. And I had a lot of people in the end, you know, I
Tom Gold: was very careful about who I told about this because people
Tom Gold: were very close to me. Friends were saying, well, here's
Tom Gold: what you need to do, or this is what I do in your shoes, or
Tom Gold: what I think you need to do is. Or I wouldn't put up with that.
Tom Gold: And none of it was helpful, Absolutely none of it. But this is
Tom Gold: kind of a blokeish way of addressing another man's
Tom Gold: problems, to offer comparison and advice. We can do a lot
Tom Gold: more by active listening, you know, perhaps an acceptance
Tom Gold: that you can't fix this straight away, but you can show up for
Tom Gold: that other guy. Because just physically showing up for me is
Tom Gold: 90% of it. You know, go to see that guy who's struggling, you
Tom Gold: don't have the answers, but he knows you showed up and it counts
Tom Gold: for a tremendous amount, you know, trying to. Trying to
Tom Gold: understand the problem rather than constant sort of advice
Tom Gold: and sort of comparison, which, you know, I found extremely
Tom Gold: unhelpful at a time when I was already very stressed out. But,
Tom Gold: yeah, I mean, that's a fantastic point you make, and I don't
Tom Gold: know if you'd agree, but I think that's a sort of typically
Tom Gold: blokeish way of trying to help another man, is by, you know,
Tom Gold: advice as if it was a blocked sink trap or, you know, a faulty
Tom Gold: carburetor or whatever, or a radiator that needed bleeding or
Tom Gold: something. It's not always the same. I appreciated the
Tom Gold: support, but I couldn't make use of any of it, really. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: because we joke about mansplaining, you know, men explaining things to women,
Joanne Lockwood: but men explain things to other men. It's not just. It's almost like an
Joanne Lockwood: ingrained habit or way men are brought up in
Joanne Lockwood: order to know what they're talking about, be in control, having an answer
Joanne Lockwood: for everything, being the protector, being the provider and that pressure.
Joanne Lockwood: So almost like you feel like you have to have an answer. If someone's coming
Joanne Lockwood: to you saying, I've got a problem, I can fix it for you. And it's
Joanne Lockwood: not just men's men to women, as I say, it's men wanting to
Joanne Lockwood: show that they have a capability and a value
Joanne Lockwood: in this world. Absolutely. I remember it
Tom Gold: wasn't long after I moved in here, I just split up with the boys.
Tom Gold: Mum. My life was in an absolute turmoil. This place just looked
Tom Gold: terrible. It hadn't been lived in for a long time. I had the boys round
Tom Gold: that weekend and my dad and his partner decided to visit
Tom Gold: to help out. Well, gosh, it was difficult and I thought, now I've got
Tom Gold: to keep them occupied as well. So I said, right, we're going to build
Tom Gold: a boot bench for the hall and long storey short. My stuff
Tom Gold: was in such a mess, I couldn't find any of the things that I was
Tom Gold: looking for and I was trying to keep everybody occupied and happy and I
Tom Gold: was just. I was in a very, very sort of precarious state myself at the
Tom Gold: time. And I went into the garage to look for some screws, which I
Tom Gold: couldn't find because it was just piled up with boxes. And for the first time
Tom Gold: in my life, I just sat down on the stool in the corner and I
Tom Gold: just didn't know what to do next. For the first time ever, just couldn't think
Tom Gold: of anything. The next step had just completely
Tom Gold: eluded me. Everyone was probably wondering where it was gone. I don't even know how
Tom Gold: long I'd been there when my dad came in and found me. And he
Tom Gold: didn't have any words. He just put his hand on my shoulder. That was it.
Tom Gold: And that's, you know, that's showing up. He couldn't fix this for me. He'd come
Tom Gold: to help, and I really appreciated it, but actually, his,
Tom Gold: you know, assistance was. Yeah, but,
Tom Gold: yeah, he just came and stood next to me. Just put my hand. His hand
Tom Gold: on my shoulder. You know what? I got it. I got it. Thanks, dad. You
Tom Gold: know, let's get back to it. I'll find the screws. That knowing silence isn't it.
Joanne Lockwood: That is that just knowing that you know that I know that
Joanne Lockwood: you know that I know. We don't need to say anything about this. It's just
Tom Gold: absolutely. Yeah, you know what? I've probably.
Tom Gold: We've never talked about that since. I should probably tell him sometime
Tom Gold: soon how very much I appreciated it was. You
Tom Gold: know, I was able to take a breath. I knew he had my back. We
Tom Gold: both know he couldn't fix it all. But, yeah, it was
Tom Gold: okay. I said, thanks, dad. Yeah, well, we'll find the screws. They're in here
Tom Gold: somewhere. And we got on with it. He's not an especially
Tom Gold: emotionally coherent man. He lost his father in the war. He
Tom Gold: was told very early in life that he had to be a brave little
Tom Gold: soldier and, you know, crack on and stuff like, you know, so many men of
Tom Gold: his generation. So I knew, you know, I knew what to expect
Tom Gold: from him and what not to expect on a sort of supportive level. And,
Tom Gold: yeah, he showed up in a fantastic way. You know,
Tom Gold: I think sometimes it's tempting to see people
Tom Gold: see the way men support one another as being very poor. They're being
Tom Gold: a great poverty in the way that we do that. But I've seen
Tom Gold: many times, not just my own experience, those small gestures, they just say,
Tom Gold: I see you. You know, I get it. I'm here. That's about it.
Tom Gold: But to me, that's like 90% of it. There is a
Tom Gold: fascinating video you might remember this show show,
Tom Gold: roughly 80s. This Is Your Life with Eamonn Andrews. Every
Tom Gold: week he would surprise some celebrity and then they'd come
Tom Gold: into the studio and they would bring people from their past in
Tom Gold: to talk to them. One time they did wartime fighter ace Douglas
Tom Gold: Bader, a man who was very emotional. Tin legs, yes, both his
Tom Gold: legs in a flying accident before the war, then went on to be
Tom Gold: this tremendous hero. You know, he was a sort of cold, you
Tom Gold: know, emotionless. Appeared to be a cold, emotionless sort
Tom Gold: of fighting man, you know, who just had his, his job to do and
Tom Gold: stuff and yada yada. But they brought in members of his old
Tom Gold: squadron and it's worth looking it up because it is on
Tom Gold: YouTube. The way they greet each other. These aren't
Tom Gold: emotionally coherent men at all. They're almost cartoonish by
Tom Gold: today's standards in their inability to discuss their feelings because
Tom Gold: it was something that they never did. But if you watch the video, you can
Tom Gold: find it easily enough. The way they greet one another is massively
Tom Gold: significant. They shake hands, they incline their heads
Tom Gold: towards one another and there's an arm clasp on the other hand.
Tom Gold: And to me it's conveying a great depth
Tom Gold: of understanding and closeness. They'd shared
Tom Gold: horrendous times together, they didn't hug each other, they weren't those sort of men.
Tom Gold: And there wasn't any sort of gushing, tearful, God, it's so good to see
Tom Gold: you. None of that was present. But for someone who, I don't know knows
Tom Gold: what to look for, or for someone who believes that men don't
Tom Gold: communicate with each other very well, watch that.
Tom Gold: It's. You can almost feel it, you know, there's such a depth of
Tom Gold: emotion in there. Yeah, it's special. Very, very interesting.
Tom Gold: To me, I found that interesting and it speaks to the way men will
Tom Gold: often support one another in that showing up, you know, clap on the
Tom Gold: shoulder, I'm here, mate. Yeah, maybe not me, not maybe not many
Tom Gold: words being exchanged. Is it important, I don't know. To know that
Tom Gold: people have your back is important. So, yeah, I mean, for your
Joanne Lockwood: viewers. If they want to look that up, they'll find it. Well, I
Joanne Lockwood: reflect on sort of the two halves of my life, you know, the male dominated
Joanne Lockwood: life and now the female dominated life post gender transition and the
Joanne Lockwood: conversations amongst in all male groups and the competition is in all
Joanne Lockwood: female groups, you can tell the difference. There's a complete polar opposite.
Joanne Lockwood: And women groups I'm part of will often talk about
Joanne Lockwood: the feelings, the challenges they want to sort of share and
Joanne Lockwood: support each other. Whereas the male groups I've been tend to talk about
Joanne Lockwood: stuff, you know, football or car or
Joanne Lockwood: what they're doing here and there and it's more, more of a nod and a
Joanne Lockwood: yep, yep, yep. And it's, it's, there's less
Joanne Lockwood: emotional giving in male conversations and I really see the
Joanne Lockwood: polar difference. I find it personally much easier to be
Joanne Lockwood: in female conversations where there are emotions being shared and there isn't more
Joanne Lockwood: depth. And I find sometimes going back to my spending time with my male friends,
Joanne Lockwood: I come away feeling unsatisfied because it's been very transactional, very.
Joanne Lockwood: It's been okay, but there's been no emotional sharing. And
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, there's definitely, you know, without going to stereotypes,
Joanne Lockwood: there's a definite difference, which is why I'm a strong believer that
Joanne Lockwood: you do need male only groups and female only groups to better
Joanne Lockwood: communicate in the way that makes sense for that group. As soon
Joanne Lockwood: as you mix the two groups together, conversation changes again. It
Joanne Lockwood: ends up in the middle. Everything
Tom Gold: changes. Yeah, men's group is kind of a, it's a subtle,
Tom Gold: fragile thing. Yeah, absolutely concur. Jo can be very
Tom Gold: transactional, you know, without the emotional content.
Tom Gold: Unless it's people talking about stuff that angry about.
Tom Gold: That's usually quite sort of. Yes, you'll probably hear
Tom Gold: that. But yeah, on the other levels, yeah, not so much.
Tom Gold: But I do believe that, you know, that sense of community, getting
Tom Gold: that right, making that happen first, I do believe that's the
Tom Gold: greater part of it and it's what so many men are missing. The stats
Tom Gold: tell us that, you know, our dads had a lot more close male friends
Tom Gold: than we do in this generation. And that's, you know, numbers only
Tom Gold: getting smaller. The number of men who actually say they've got
Tom Gold: close friends in the first place. You know, I can't remember them all
Tom Gold: here, the stats, but it's, it's not great. And it's, it's, it's, it's still dwindling.
Tom Gold: So being able to create that space is difficult, but it's very, very, very
Tom Gold: important. And there's always a fear, I think, amongst men that they're going to be
Tom Gold: asked to do odd stuff like gongs, robes, role play
Tom Gold: or group hugs or if it's a men's group and there are
Tom Gold: groups that, yeah, a lot like that. But you know, for me
Tom Gold: it's a lot more straightforward than that. You know, an
Tom Gold: inspiring setting, a group of guys, something to actually do
Tom Gold: physically, you know, even if it's, you know, just taking down the timber to make
Tom Gold: that fire. And these can be priceless times. Fascinating. Yeah.
Tom Gold: There's perhaps not a sort of, you know, a great depth of emotional content, but
Tom Gold: it's community at the same time. It's just so important,
Tom Gold: he said there. That men feel passion when they tend to
Joanne Lockwood: be angry about. Are we seeing a rise in male
Joanne Lockwood: disenfranchisation from the norm? If you like.
Joanne Lockwood: We see patriotism with flags and roundabout painting.
Joanne Lockwood: St. George's Cross. People get behind that, maybe borne out the fact that
Joanne Lockwood: it's hard to be proud to be English. You can be proud to be Scottish,
Joanne Lockwood: you can be proud to be Welsh, you can be proud to be Irish, but
Joanne Lockwood: can you be proud to be English? Unless you're supporting a football team, but
Joanne Lockwood: in the general run, and then you're seeing people who have
Joanne Lockwood: a flag they can wave because they're queer. What can a white
Joanne Lockwood: man wave? People have Ukrainian flags and Palestinian
Joanne Lockwood: flags, but you can't have this, you can't have that. And you see the rise
Joanne Lockwood: of the incel movement and that's showing that men feel
Joanne Lockwood: disempowered or
Joanne Lockwood: emancipated using their masculinity. Is that what's going on in the world at the
Joanne Lockwood: moment? Yeah. Try to answer that on a few levels, Jo.
Tom Gold: Firstly, yeah, the. The flags thing's been
Tom Gold: massively divisive. And Whilst, yeah, that St.
Tom Gold: George's Cross can be a very divisive emblem, here in
Tom Gold: Scotland we have the saltire or the St. Andrew's
Tom Gold: Cross, but you can go through parts of Glasgow and see
Tom Gold: them flying on every lamppost. And they're there for
Tom Gold: the same reasons that, you know, we're seeing
Tom Gold: painted roundabouts and stuff in England. It's
Tom Gold: just that in Scotland, the Union Jack or the St.
Tom Gold: George's Cross has sort of political connotations
Tom Gold: that speak to the sort of Protestant Catholic divide
Tom Gold: that exists in certain parts of Scotland in a very, very
Tom Gold: clearly divided way. So they choose the saltire as a
Tom Gold: sort of symbol that unites, if you like. Yeah. I can
Tom Gold: remember furious rows online, which I tried to stay out
Tom Gold: of. Following the Unite the Kingdom maps, there were
Tom Gold: pictures of young guys draped in flags and they'd
Tom Gold: stopped at street vendor stand, who was still in
Tom Gold: falafel and samosas, and people were saying, oh, have
Tom Gold: they even noticed the irony? They were on their way back
Tom Gold: from the cricket, nobody would have turned a hair. Is it
Tom Gold: somehow ironic that they weren't eating chips? That
Tom Gold: the assumption that because they're wearing the St.
Tom Gold: St. George's Cross, they should be so overtly racist as
Tom Gold: to not even wish to eat anything made by a person of
Tom Gold: foreign descent or food that, you know, originates in
Tom Gold: another culture. I've never heard anything so utterly
Tom Gold: ridiculous. You know, the headline guy stops for
Tom Gold: something to eat on the way home from a. A match. You know,
Tom Gold: it's about all it was, but it's. It's difficult. I mean, perhaps we can, you
Tom Gold: know, Both remember the 2012 Olympics. The Union Jack was
Tom Gold: flying everywhere and it was like we had our flag back. We were united.
Tom Gold: Very, very proud of the fantastic job our athletes
Tom Gold: were doing because they were leading the field in the medals table for quite a
Tom Gold: while. What a great time that was. And, yeah, you
Tom Gold: know, it's like we had the flag back now it belonged to everybody.
Tom Gold: We could unite under it. I can't remember that, you know, since now.
Tom Gold: Yes, a big problem. Yeah, it's sad. You know,
Tom Gold: you want to talk about the Union Jack, you know, fascism
Tom Gold: was defeated by men who marched under that
Tom Gold: flag. Now they're Nazis. You know, I mentioned earlier
Tom Gold: my great grandfather, he would turn in his grave as well at
Tom Gold: the thought that, you know, after giving his life fighting the
Tom Gold: Nazis, you know, they had now been reinvented
Tom Gold: as the sort of the bogeyman in the country he was
Tom Gold: fighting for. It's sad. The flags, then men have an
Tom Gold: identity to gather under. No, I suppose not, actually.
Tom Gold: Tricky. I went to a diversity event in Edinburgh just a
Tom Gold: couple of weeks ago, and out of 45 people, I was one of three
Tom Gold: men in the room. You know, if we're not part of the conversation,
Tom Gold: we're not likely to reap too many of the benefits either.
Tom Gold: That's going to be tricky. It's interesting you say that, and I'm well aware that
Joanne Lockwood: most of the conversations I have for people tend to be women and people who
Joanne Lockwood: are not white. So maybe you get black men or brown men in the room.
Joanne Lockwood: It's very hard to engage the average typical white man in
Joanne Lockwood: conversations because. I don't know, because
Joanne Lockwood: maybe you have an inkling, but it seems to be that the conversations aren't relevant
Joanne Lockwood: to them. They're not brown, they're not black,
Joanne Lockwood: they're not this, they're not that. And all the initiatives in D and I seem
Joanne Lockwood: to be promoting women, promoting black people, promoting queer people, whatever it may be.
Joanne Lockwood: Who's there fighting for the white man? Is that the problem, that people go, well,
Joanne Lockwood: can't be for me then, can it? Yeah, perhaps part of the problem is that
Tom Gold: the white man is always, by definition, fine,
Tom Gold: obviously, even though, you know, he's coming home to teenage
Tom Gold: children who no longer speak to him or a menopausal wife who he doesn't
Tom Gold: fully understand. He's under enormous pressure at work, but he can't
Tom Gold: say anything about that because he needs to show up as a
Tom Gold: competent, capable team member and he doesn't have as
Tom Gold: many friends as he used to. Yeah, really difficult. You know, if you
Tom Gold: put all those characteristics together, you think, yeah, this is probably someone
Tom Gold: who needs some, some help. And he's being told that
Joanne Lockwood: he needs to be an ally to everybody. Absolutely, yeah.
Tom Gold: What if you're not actually in a position to support
Tom Gold: other people right now? This assumption that part of
Tom Gold: your role now is to help dress address a gender
Tom Gold: imbalance in this business, in this company,
Tom Gold: whatever, by mentoring women so that they can be
Tom Gold: better represented on the top floor. Yeah. What if
Tom Gold: that guy isn't okay himself? What if he's
Tom Gold: struggling? Yeah, that's tough. But it would be a
Tom Gold: brave man to put his hand up and say, do you know what? I
Tom Gold: don't want anything to do with this. That's going to
Tom Gold: end badly. Been hearing more and more recently about
Tom Gold: the modern workplace's unreadiness for the influx
Tom Gold: of sort of non politically aligned but right wing
Tom Gold: leaning young men who are leaving school, who are in
Tom Gold: university and who will be beating a path to a
Tom Gold: workplace that is not ready for them, one that's
Tom Gold: geared to every other group but them. I think we're
Tom Gold: going to see some, yeah, some interesting, what
Tom Gold: would you call. It, exchanges just in collision
Joanne Lockwood: ideology, frank conversations. I think they need to be,
Tom Gold: to be wise to this. A lot of the young men that I meet and
Tom Gold: work with do have, you know, non political
Tom Gold: right wing views. They have so little faith in sort of
Tom Gold: politics. Perhaps they inherited it from their parents that they're not actual
Tom Gold: party politics doesn't interest them, but, you know, highly
Tom Gold: charged political issues do. And we're seeing this, this is why.
Joanne Lockwood: We're seeing people like Andrew Tate, the Incel movement, the
Joanne Lockwood: United Kingdom, Tommy Robinson, these kind of figures that are
Joanne Lockwood: giving people that belonging, people that are listening to their
Joanne Lockwood: voices and saying, yeah, and I see myself represented. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: even though maybe not politically aligned, but they are
Joanne Lockwood: emotionally connected to these messages, aren't they? They are.
Tom Gold: And I think, yeah, I see a lot of this. Just not far from here
Tom Gold: in Falkirk is the clad hand. It's asylum seekers
Tom Gold: hotel. It's been the focus of a whole series of
Tom Gold: increasingly angry demonstrations
Tom Gold: recently. And a lot of angry young white men my
Tom Gold: son's age involved in It. Somebody is speaking to
Tom Gold: them, someone's saying, look, we need you. You're included.
Tom Gold: That's worrying. I think the Andrew Tate thing,
Tom Gold: he is offering something else. As I see it. I
Tom Gold: watched quite a lot of his content because my youngest son got very
Tom Gold: interested in Andrew Tate. So I thought, well, I'll try and understand who this guy
Tom Gold: is so we can have those conversations. People think that he's
Tom Gold: selling sexism, misogyny and just this
Tom Gold: really unpalatable version of a man. But I think what he's actually
Tom Gold: selling is freedom. If you make enough money, if you get yourself to a
Tom Gold: certain level, you can do and say exactly what you want. And
Tom Gold: he's done embodies that in everything he says and does.
Tom Gold: I think it goes way beyond the, yeah, you know, your woman's there
Tom Gold: to cook you a steak. It's. It's. I don't know, it's beyond that.
Tom Gold: It's getting to do and say exactly what you want. And this is exactly
Tom Gold: what he does. Yeah. You don't hear so much from him nowadays,
Tom Gold: but it's an absolutely fascinating guy. You can see
Tom Gold: the appeal. He's offering a blueprint. You know, here's the steps,
Tom Gold: guys. It won't be easy. In fact, it's going to be really difficult. It's going
Tom Gold: to cost you a lot in terms of relationships, friendships.
Tom Gold: But, you know, the reward is. Is this, you know, a guy who can.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, you need to be an alpha male. You need to behave like this,
Joanne Lockwood: act like this and you will get what? What, Whatever you want. Yeah. You will
Tom Gold: be untouchable. It's compelling, highly compelling. But I think a lot
Tom Gold: of people only take what he's saying at face value. They hear
Tom Gold: the sort of. The snippets, the sort of.
Tom Gold: So people. Few people know what a misogynist is.
Tom Gold: It's a word that's got a lot more currency thanks to him. I mean, I'm
Tom Gold: not in any way excusing some of the things he's said, but I think
Tom Gold: he's offering a lot more than sexism and a return to
Tom Gold: sort of 70s and 80s male values. He's taken those on board
Tom Gold: and run with them to produce something. Yeah.
Tom Gold: Much more compelling and valuable. I mean, let's face it, I was.
Joanne Lockwood: Saying that if he is selling something that people are buying, they're
Joanne Lockwood: buying it for a reason. They're disenfranchised with the status quo,
Joanne Lockwood: with whatever's out there. So it's understanding why they're buying
Joanne Lockwood: his brand. To understand where in society we need to Reconnect and
Joanne Lockwood: understand what we're missing. And I think that's what we've been
Joanne Lockwood: doing. Too busy focusing on maybe this DEI. Everyone's welcome, but
Joanne Lockwood: forgetting about the people we're leaving behind who don't think it's
Joanne Lockwood: for them, and no one is talking directly to them. And that's what we're
Joanne Lockwood: doing here. The Andrew Tate characters, people who have these Tommy
Joanne Lockwood: Robinson views, they're speaking to these people. Even Trump in
Joanne Lockwood: the. In the US is speaking to a group of people who feel they're not
Joanne Lockwood: being connected with. In the other view. Yeah, that's the
Joanne Lockwood: challenge we've got to try and address. Yeah. And then. And again. Yeah. We have
Tom Gold: to remember that this is a client group that's, you know, traditionally
Tom Gold: quite difficult to reach. I mean, ask me how I know that. The idea that,
Tom Gold: you know, you're not. Fine, it's not, you know, it's not a natural
Tom Gold: state for sort of men of a certain age who were raised in
Tom Gold: a. A certain way. You know, it's. It's the man code. It's so easy
Tom Gold: to follow and it's so deeply hardwired. And it
Tom Gold: works. You know, you can get through. You can do more than get through. You
Tom Gold: can really succeed in life by following it. I mean, the
Tom Gold: fallout, the people around you and for yourself, can be fairly sort of
Tom Gold: catastrophic, but you can. You can achieve that way. But, yeah, I
Tom Gold: mean, I always come back to, you know, what more could achieve
Tom Gold: if you were a little. If you could stay strong and find peace at
Tom Gold: the same time. Is it too much to ask for both? It's a big part
Tom Gold: of what I try to help people with. I mean, I can mention this
Tom Gold: now, Joanne, because it would have passed by the time this
Tom Gold: show is aired, but in January, I'm putting together a men's
Tom Gold: retreat right here in Scotland. We've got the Rowardennan
Tom Gold: Lodge. Beautiful place on the shore of the East Loch Lomond.
Tom Gold: It's very, very peaceful. We're going to climb Ben Lomond.
Tom Gold: We're going to swim in the loch. We're going to chop wood and make fire.
Tom Gold: We're going to cook on it. We're going to do a walk with burning
Tom Gold: torches, which will be fun, and we may
Tom Gold: even on one of the evenings, sit down and watch a good old Arnie movie.
Tom Gold: Because I'm really interested to hear what people reflect on this
Tom Gold: now, you know, all these years later. But on another level,
Tom Gold: for guys, when was the last time they watched a, you know, one of those
Tom Gold: unbelievably foolish movies with a few beers and some other guys.
Tom Gold: So it will be about community, first and foremost. I'm
Tom Gold: really looking forward to it, actually. Conan the Destroyer or something, One of
Joanne Lockwood: those little old Arnie films. Yeah, I think I might have to go with
Tom Gold: Predator, which was like a real classic because it's just so
Tom Gold: unbelievably silly, but so much fun to watch because it's the
Tom Gold: collision of these alpha male ego types all
Tom Gold: at the same time against this deadly creature out in
Tom Gold: the jungle with loads of guns. I mean, yeah,
Tom Gold: it's actually something I'm looking forward to doing. I loved those movies as a young
Tom Gold: guy, so the chance to watch one with some of the guys, obviously we'll be
Tom Gold: doing some constructive stuff. I just thought I was going to throw that one in
Tom Gold: there just for just. Yeah, so even though. Even though
Joanne Lockwood: by the time it's broadcast that would have passed, you're. You're going to be
Joanne Lockwood: planning others in the future, so it's a good excuse for people to get hold
Joanne Lockwood: of you. So how can people connect with Tom? Yeah, thank you for
Tom Gold: asking, Jo. I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. I
Tom Gold: post there quite regularly on some of the subjects we've been looking at
Tom Gold: today. You can also find me at
Tom Gold: BeyondtheMancave.co.uk a
Tom Gold: website or Instagram of the same name where
Tom Gold: I post workout and outdoor videos. All pretty
Tom Gold: wholesome, honest stuff. Nothing dodgy in there at all. Bear Grill
Joanne Lockwood: survival stuff, is it? Yeah, there's a. There's a little bit of that because I
Tom Gold: want people to understand how straightforward these things are, how easy they are to
Tom Gold: do and how ultimately rewarding they are when you go out there and
Tom Gold: share them. The outdoors will reduce your heart rate, blood pressure.
Tom Gold: You'll become more creative, thoughtful. You'll get more oxygen in your lungs, which
Tom Gold: makes your brain work better. It's why we feel better when we go out there.
Tom Gold: If you can make that experience comfortable at the same time, that's kind of
Tom Gold: what Bushcraft is, then you're going to be able to stay for longer and it
Tom Gold: will mean more. And if you can share that with other people at the same
Tom Gold: time, if you can be the one that takes care of them, well, it
Tom Gold: makes you a little bit of a hero too, for what that's worth. Yeah, I
Tom Gold: still think that's important. Tom, we've had a fascinating conversation. This has
Joanne Lockwood: been amazing. And if you're listening in, do make contact with Tom, Check him out
Joanne Lockwood: on LinkedIn. I've been following Connecting with Tom for a little while now and
Joanne Lockwood: that's probably how we really got engaged in this episode. Just saw Tom post a
Joanne Lockwood: few things and I said, tom, let's come and talk about this. That's why you're
Joanne Lockwood: here. So brilliant. Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much. Well, Jo, can I thank you
Tom Gold: enough for having me on the show today? Really appreciate
Tom Gold: and I look forward to seeing it in a few months time. Well, by the
Tom Gold: time I'm saying this, it will be that time. Thank you.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to
Joanne Lockwood: express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener,
Joanne Lockwood: for lending your ear and heart to the cause of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord.
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Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
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