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Special Operations, cobertsb.
And I.
The Team House with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Bark.
This is Dave.
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Welcome to episode two hundred and ninety three of The Teamhouse. I'm Jack here with Dave. Dimitri is pressing buttons in the back over there, and we're very excited to have on the show tonight. Simon Leak. Simon served in the paras and then went to the Special Air Service in
nineteen eighty eight. Served nineteen years in total in the Special Air Service Regiment, saw action in the Gulf War a few other places, and has now parlayed the skill set that he learned in the military to teach counter poaching to various African park rangers and we'll talk all about that in a bit. Simon. Thank you for joining us tonight.
Yes, it's a great pleasure actually, considering we're twelve hours ahead here. So this morning I had a heavy night in this bar where I am. Now it's sort of a leaving thing and presentations, so come on back here with a cup of coffee. But it's great to be here, Simon.
Can you tell us a little bit about the history behind the bar behind you and the memorabilia.
Yeah, this is I mean Brunei, Brunei being an independent country on the island of Borneo. If nobody knows where that is far east Borneo is divided between Malaya, Malaysia and Indonesia, but Brunei.
The British Army have been based.
Here in Brunei since the nineteen seventies with the Jungle Warfare School. Previous to that doing the Malay Emergencies. It was based in Malaya, so there's a deep, deep history jungle warfare here. Now. I was here as the Senior Military Instructor, which is an SAS post, exactly twenty years ago at the Jungle Warfare School Jungle Warfare Wing, it
was known as then now it's Jungle Warfare Division. But we refurbished this bar actually during that time and it's called the labby Arms, so I gave it that name. So it's great to be back here. Last night I was presented with the modern labby Arms T shirt. But it's hallowed ground. It's one of those literary bars. I'm sure you know somewhere. It's a very privileged place to be.
The Jungle Warfare School here is, you know, it's second to none, and they've been running infantry skills in the jungle and tracking and tracking has been my main phone for focus. So that's that's that's what I'm doing now.
But it all, it all.
Started here with a few beers in this bar, probably twenty years ago. Yeah, all this stuff on the back here, I've got a presentation or two that I gave, but all around here it's the walls are absolutely crammed with their presentations and history and and everything else. So it's a it's a fantastic place to be.
It's super cool. You can only imagine the personalities that have been through that bar over the years.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Yeah, So Simon, let's start at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about what your upbringing was like and of how that took you towards military service.
Yeah, okay, so I was I was actually born in Q eight, but that was two expat parents there. But I was brought up in Lincolnshire, and Lincolnshire is a real farming is a real farming county on the east coast of England, very very basic education. Gained absolutely nothing from school and I did what most of the kids did.
With who had no other option, was to go and work on.
The land in a landgang, doing whatever seasonal jobs they were. So you know, you get picked up in a van, you drive out to the fenland fields and my first job was what's called gapping sugar beat, you know, with a hope, going along taking out the excess sugar beat as it's growing, thinking what the hell was twelve years at school all about? And that's that's what I did. And eventually I got a job on a farm. I got married, I lived in a farm cottage tied to the job, and that was going to be me for
the rest of my life, you know. And that's that's what people generally did. You worked on the land and then you retired at sixty five and then.
Died at sixty seven. Your body was messed up. So I was pretty sorted.
I didn't need to have any ambition or career or go to college because I was.
I was learning. My trade was farming.
How things change, that's I mean, in what part of England is this, by the.
Way, Lincolnshire, it's the biggest county. It's right on the east coast, so between between Norfolk and.
Yorkshire for anybody who knows England.
And so you were working as a farm laborer, but you had mentioned to me that, ironically you were also a poacher in your youth.
Yeah, that's right to supplement. What was a you know, a wage that wouldn't be allowed now. I was going out. We we had a gamekeeper locally who was breeding pheasants for the for the shoots for the autumn shoes. So I used to go out at night with a with an air rifle, you know, a pellic gun and shoot them off the rooft at night. And I became very good. And he had to be a really good shot. He could he had to get a head shot on a on a bird at night.
Pheasant is usually hunted with a shotgun, right.
Yeah, that's right.
You normally blast them to pieces with a shotgun, but a clinical head shot is far better. And I was, and I was doing that, and I was and I was doing pretty well. So we lived off a lot of lived off a lot of pheasants, and it stood me in good stead because I became a very good sniper. A few years later, but I got compromised, I got found out, and I sort of left the farm and therefore had to leave the cottage that I was living
in with my wife at the time. And my brother at the time was in the Royal Marines, and it was April nineteen eighty two and just he just got recalled to go to the Falklands War. He took part in the Falklands War. And as he was leaving the door, he just come to visit me and he said, okay, well, hey, have you ever thought about joining.
The military as an option?
Because I had no idea what I was going to do other than get another farm job, and I thought, well, what I'll give that a go. Before I knew it, I was in the recruiting office and I decided to join the Parachute Regiment.
And the next thing.
I'd sort of got fast tracked through because my brother was heading down to the Falklands and I was really keen. So later on that year I was on the train Lincoln station going to Oldershot, you know, the home of the British Army then and the depot for the Parachute Regiment, and everything changed. No longer, no longer a farm worker. I took that cassette out and put a put a new one in.
And became minister.
It was a complete a chance, a chance decision, and I thought, I'll give this a go. If I don't make it, I'll go back to farm working. But obviously obviously I passed the training and that led to hear. It makes you wonder what you would have done. You know, if if I hadn't done that, I would I would be, you know, probably retired and dead farm worker by it.
So tell us about serving in the powers. And also you were in the Reckie platoon in the parers. This is so we're talking about mid nineteen eighties, I guess at this point tell us a little bit about what that was like for you.
Yeah, Well, the parent when you join a parachute regiment, you go into just a rifle company, and after a period of time you get the option to do the course to join you know, a support company, so anti tanks, mortars, machine guns, platoon, signals platoon.
If you want to go that way.
But one of the options was patrols platoon, and patrols is the Repie and in three part of the Repee company. Patrol Company as it was then, had a really fearsome reputation.
They were they were the you know that.
Eventually they took a lot of those guides and formed the Brigade Pathfinder Unit. But those guys were massively experienced and respected. And it's a very very difficult selection process, you know. It's a bit like a mini version of
sas selection. So I had done a sniper course fairly soon, did very well on the sniper course, and I could hear the pheasant in a tree at night, and then so I put myself down for the for the patrols selection, and the guys were saying to me, yeah, you won't pass that, you haven't been in long enough, but you'll you'll be a better soldier when you come back to the rifle company. But I got through, so I stayed with that. I stayed with that record platoon for the
six years until I left. I did selection.
And then so you went the SAS selection in nineteen eighty eight. When did the SAS like as a potential career path for you sort of like come into your mind? And I mean, how did that come about for you as an individual?
Well, you know, it's it's always something that's in the back of your mind. If you're a serious soldier, no matter what unit you're in, at some stage, you're going to be considering could I do it? You know, And most people think about it and then they don't even attempt.
And what you always find is the guys who go for selection, you either never see them again or they come back, and they normally come back with one trainer on because they've got an injury or whatever, and you only get to hear the stories of the failed guys. So that doesn't help. But there were two things that
pushed me to go that way. One was the battalion was about to go to Northern Ireland for a two year tall and I was twenty seven, just going on twenty eight, which would push me into thirty because you couldn't do selection off an operational tour in Northern Ireland.
So that was one thing.
The other thing was I was getting divorced from the girl I met when I was a farm worker, so it sort of suited me as well to get the hell out. So I thought it's now or never if I'm going to do it, So I did put my name down. They sort of fast tracked me through again because they could see I needed to make a move. So I filled a car with what belongings I had and drove to Hereford, which is the home of the Special Air Service.
And tell us about what selection was like for you. I mean nineteen eighty eight, this is old score.
Yeah, it's changed quite a lot since then. Back back then, you just turned up with no prying knowledge other than what people have told you. So you've got an idea what goes on, but there's no there's no briefing beforehand, so you turn up and it's just that initial phase it's just are you fit enough. It's all about fitness, robustness and determination. So the first day it's what we call the CFT, the Combat Fitness Test, which is a standard test to weed out anybody who's you know, just
just not fit enough. And that's that's running around with carrying weight for you know, several miles. The next day we did what's called the fan Dance, and the fan dances well renowned, has been one of a very very hard test and that's over the Brecon Beacons, the mountains in Wales that the se S uses their sort of
initial selection process. So you're carrying out very very heavy weight, you're running over some of the tallest mountains and you have to get round a circuit in a group that's led by a d S and instructor in a time frame and if you don't make it, it's as simple as that, then you're off. So that was day two.
Now they you know, to get to that stage, you'll have done attended a briefing course, a pre selection before you even get to that part, and then day one there's a buildup of you know, maybe a week or ten days before you do that actual test. So it was quite harsh, and it was one of the things that the only I would say, stumbling blot that I had because I really is prepared, perhaps that I ought to have been. You get a bit of time off to go and do some pre training, and in my
time off, I'm afraid I didn't do a lot. I ended up in, you know, with some friends, getting very drunk with the opportunity to do that, so I was a bit laxadatical about it. So I suffered on that I didn't have my boots, didn't fit me properly. I only had one pair of boots, so I wasn't that very well prepared, so it really hurt one.
But I managed to get over that.
And then it's a build up then to test week, which is just physical tests carrying increasingly heavy weight individual marches over those mountains, and you either make the time or you don't. And if you get through that, which obviously I did one of the few who did, then you're the build up training and then you come out here to Brunei and do your sort of six weeks of jungle jungle training, which many finder is the hardest part.
Everybody has their own their own experience and they'll say what they found the hardest.
From For me, it was that day too.
From some of the folks we've talked to on the show before, it's I mean, the way I understand that is the Brecon Beacons as part of the selection course, and by the time they get to Brunei, that's sort of like where you're warning how to be an operator, how to run patrols.
Yeah, that's right. The first stage, the test week is literally just nobody. You know, these structures don't give a damn who you are, where you're from, what your level of soldiering is. It's just can you carry this heavy pack and you're invited to, you know, get over that hill in the time allocated.
When it comes to going to.
The jungle, then they're highly focused on your personality, your individual skills level, how adaptable you are, and your robustness. The jungle tests everything about an individual. It takes you to your absolute limit. So those who are bluffers, those who think they're good soldiers, those who are.
Talking the talk.
You know, you get a lot of people who, you know, they assume that the good soldiers and they're the ones who stand out the most and they're generally the ones who fall by the wayside, and it's those quiet ones who just keep on going and keep going and get through to the end. So it's a it's a huge level and it really does sort out. You know, it doesn't matter who you are. You've just got to keep going with it. You've got to go with the drills.
If you don't get your administration done properly, the jungle will eat you up. So's there's no other place like it to test the mental strength of individuals as well as their soldiering skills, and you have to be a fast learner. You know, some guys come from a unit in their military where they've done literally no soldiering skills at all. Yet it's still a teaching phase, so you're
taught everything before you even get there. You know, there's a navigation map, reading work, patrolling, shooting, and then everything else. So everybody has a fair chance. It's not you don't just go straight in there and you can either soldier or you can't. So everybody's brought up to a level before you go, and you have to play catch up at times, do you feel that.
Having come from like Iraqi element that you had a leg up on some of the guys who came in with no kind of combat.
Yeah, but for definitely could. I've already done quite a bit of work in the jungle in Central America, and Belieze was the other British Armies base, so I'd been out there a couple of times, and yeah, just the the navigation. Navigating in the jungle is a specifically hard thing to do, especially before the days of GPS, so I already had a handle on that, and just you know, just living in the jungle, it was something I was
used to. The heat there, living in hammocks and pole beds and that sort of stuff, so it was definitely an advantage to me. But still at the same time, it's it's about an individuals.
Something deep within an individual that.
Sends you beyond the you know, where other people, you know, fall by the wayside. Is there's just something and it doesn't really matter how much experience you've got or what you've done. It's something that comes from deep within that keeps you going beyond where others have just sat down and said, now I can't do this anymore. I don't know what it is.
After you graduated from your training, what squadron did you get assigned to and could you tell us about what it was like the first land there, like what the what the culture of the of the squadron was, like your teammates, you know, and we don't we don't need to talk names if you don't want to, by I'm just kind of interested in like what the culture and the vibe was in the unit at that time.
Yeah, it's so, you know, after the the whole selection process, you just get sort of thrown your bury and told that's what you've done. Now, now go to your squadron. And I went to a squadron. I wanted to go to the Amphibious troop boat troop. So you get you get a choice of three insurgent skills, Air Troop, Mountain troop, Mobility, or boat troop, and I chose boat troop. You don't always get your choice, but so basically you go then to the squadron offices.
You have an interest room.
It's a little bit like this behind me, you know, the room where everybody meets in the morning, and it's full of memorabilia.
So kind of walking there as the new guy.
There was a couple lovers went there, but the culture is it's a complete contrast to being in the in the wider army. You know, where you're you know, you're you're constantly looking over your shoulder for somebody who's going to shout at you. Uh, you know, we'll give you a bollocking for doing something wrong. There, it's completely relaxed. Everybody is mature enough to go about their business without
any of that. Everybody is on first name terms. Doesn't matter whether you're the the O C. The officer commanding the unit, or the sergeant major. Everybody speaks nicely to each other and its first name terms. So that's that. For me, having having joined the army quite late, you know, I didn't go straight into the institution, which is the military,
from school. I was. I was very sort of comfortable with that because you're just you know, you're talking to people like they're just or everybody's on on an equal level. Although you respect the fact that you know there's experienced people and you're under their management now, but there's a very serious focus you know damn well that you're you're never going to stop working and everything you do you
have to perform well. Uh So it's course after course after course because when you when you arrive as a new trooper, you you have no insurgent skills. So you know, I knew nothing about boating or diving or anything, so I had under my belt. And then an individual skill, what do you bring to the you know, to the patrol as such, So you have demolitions, medics, signals. You have to have all of those skills because when you're out on operations, you don't have anybody attached to you.
You don't have those experts, so you have to become an expert yourself. So the first thing I was pushed into was the demolitions course, and that was a very very difficult course could It involved lots of calculations and learning lots of rules.
You had to learn parrot.
Fashion, and for me, with absolutely no education from school, I suffered on that and I had to work very very hard to do that. I have to confess I cheated a little bit because I knew that there's no way I was going to pass that test. You know, I was very good at the demolition side, and I spent a lot of my career doing demolitions, teaching demolitions.
But you know that all the calculations you do you know measuring a bridge, the structure of a bridge, working out the minimum amount of explosives you need to cut that particular section of a bridge takes a calculation, but we generally use the calculation pe equals plenty. They just had to think about it.
Put funny that that's we use that too.
I mean, it's funny that it's it's a it's a breacher's it's a breacher's motto everywhere everywhere in the world.
It seems like, yeah, well that's good. The world big thick, Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't necessarily take a calculator with you, so you you you get a good idea of what you need. You know, you look at the piece of metal that you need to cut or blast your way through and think, yeah, I know what's needed.
Simon, excuse real quick. We just want to give a quick shout out to our sponsors tonight.
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Thank you, Sorry about that, Simon. Back to you.
So, I'm curious because you know you mentioned how everybody you know, it's a more casual environment.
Obviously everybody's a high performer. You have to do your job. You go by first name.
What happens though if a leader, for instance, because you don't have like the military I don't want to see you don't have the military structure, but things are a bit more relaxed.
But what happens if a leader isn't quite as skilled? Do they lose a lot of respect?
And how is that handled when the kind of the conventional sort of military standards and discipline isn't there.
If if it's I mean, it's a very rare thing that somebody is found to be you know, let's say they've reached their ceiling as such, and they're found to be not not leading in the way. Maybe it's a personality clash, maybe they're just not handling things terribly well. Then they are just moved aside, they're invited to leave. You know, it's white you kind of never stop being assessed as such, and at any time you could be
sent back to your original unit. So of course there's a lot of respect for the older the older guys. But it's really it's really once you're out on the ground on operations where you know, you know yourselves. Operations is a great level when the ship's going down, and then then you get to perhaps observe who perhaps are the natural leaders in those in those circumstances, So you know, if you've had a quiet period of operations, and the nineteen eighties was was quite a fairly quiet period for.
The Special Air Service.
There was still a lot going alright along, but no major conflicts until the first Gulf four.
So when we were sort of thrust.
Into that, those who we looked to for leadership, it was like, Okay, here's your opportunity. Now we're looking to you for guidance. We're going into some dodgy situations here and get you really do get to see the true manner of individuals and everybody's been on operations will have had the same experience. Take over.
If you could signon, could you tell us a little bit about, you know, your squadron getting spun up for the Gulf War, the deployment and what happened.
Yeah, so nineteen ninety everybody was I think we were on the counter terrorists team at the time. So you do six months, you know, two year rotation. Every six months you're on a different sort of part of that rotation, and part of that is the counter terrorist team. So you're based in the camp doing your drills and then on the.
News, obviously we saw the Iraqis.
Rolling into Q eight, and this was sort of July August time, nineteen ninety I think, and it was it was leading up to my thirtieth birthday, and I remember thinking, shit, at some stage, we're going to end up there. And as I was born in Q eight, I thought, here we go on the thirtieth birthday, I'm going to be stuck in QA and it ain't going to go well, you know that sort of irony. So we knew, having you know, watching that on the TV, at some stage
we were going to be involved. Now G Squadron with a stand by squadron at the time, so when your stand by squadron, you're ready to move at a moment's notice to wherever it's needed. So it was going to be them. But things moved on and by the time we'd got over Christmas, A squadron had moved into that
slot of standby squadron. So while G Squadron had been doing in all of their sort of preparation and everything, we were we were then put in the front line and we we headed off and we left, we had a briefing, we left Hereford at night and a bus and we we went out and you know, we we ended up in one of the Middle Eastern countries where we did build up training, uh, you know, mobility training.
It's quite funny because we used to have a bit of banter with the mobility guys saying, you know, this is a no one's ever going to be driving around the desert again like we were in the Second World War, you know, and ship the next thing we're in We're in land rover, you know, the pink Panthers, land rovers, and we're we are waiting to drive over the border
from Saudi Arabia into into Iraq. So it was, you know, it was a quick transition from being in Hereford to getting out to doing focus concentrated training on all the weapon systems. I was part of a two man mortar team, and a mortar team is normally four guys, but we we'd worked it down into two. So we had mortars at our disposal, all the heavy weapon systems, and we went out in half squadron groups.
We were split down.
I think we had five five land rover Pink Panthers, and a larger vehicle an actmap which carried a lot of stores, and we drove over the border at night, well before the ground wall started. So we were we were heading over there too, just you know, create havoc behind the lines. So it was it was great and you know the funny we laughed. We were laughing at the time. I wasn't laughing so much, but I I
was the lead vehicle driving over the border. Uh you know, dark of night, night vision goggles on, and the intelligence we had as to what we would find was fairly scanned. You know, it was like, well, we really don't know. We know the border has been mined in places with anti tank mines, but we're not sure where. So as we were driving over, I was in the league vehicle with the second in command and the guy in the back who was manning the armament that we had the very.
Large grenade launching machine gun.
So we had you know, teams are three on each vehicle, and we were driving across literally we don't know if it's mind or not, so that the only drill we had was the vehicle behind give you a big space in case you came cart wheeling back because you'd hit a mine. And I remember the my mate in the back, he was leaning on the rollcage as well and a member and whispering to me it'll be okay. So if we hit a mine, I'm going to be killed out right. It worked out, but he said, you're probably going to
be badly mutilated and injured. Ha ha. You know, so I had I had this in a swimming around in my head as we're driving forwards, wanting to put my fingers in my ears in case we roll over an anti tank mine. And as it as daylight came, you know, I could take the night goggles off.
Dawn was coming. And as we were driving.
Across, I looked down and there were there were tank tracks everywhere in straight lines leading up to the border, and I'd never really sort of observed tank tracks, and I thought how big they were, and I thought, the only reason they would be doing that, there's probably mind laying tanks, you know, tracked vehicles that lay the minds.
So that focused the mind.
A little bit. But clearly clearly what we didn't hit any anyway, and that was us The next thing, We've rolled over into Iraq, and we you know, we just headed closer and closer towards Baghdad.
And the mission was initially.
To just create, you know, find as many targets as we could, to create Mayhem. But then we got the message that everything had to be related to scud missiles because the danger was that the they were firing scud missiles at Israel, and if Israel got drawn into the war, then that would that would really that that would the Iraqis and the Iranians would potentially join forces together, because at that time there was a you know, they they
didn't have very good relations. But if the Israelis got involved by retaliating, then then it would be a bigger problem. So our mission was everything now has to be related to scud missiles, et cetera.
So that's what we did. We went around.
We were looking for community anything to do with communications, blowing fiber optics cables and that sort of thing, and just raiding any you know, any installations, anything that we deemed might be related to the firing and sCOD missiles. So it's quite an interesting time. We were therefore, about a month and a half driving behind.
Enemy lines, saying to the mobility guys, yeah, okay.
We are, we're back driving around the desert. Absolutely no different to those guys in North Africa in the Second World War. Yeah, it's quite interesting.
Yeah, so it sounds like you guys were fairly successful in like stirring up some trouble behind enemy lines.
Yeah, we were.
I mean we we had had three squadrons involved in the end B Squadron, you know, the bar Bravo two zero patrol everybody knows about because that was the first of a series of books that came out. Uh D Squadron were in another corridor. Nobody knew. We didn't know who else was involved. We just knew our role. We were split down into half squadron groups, so we had no idea what the other half squadron was doing. We
just had our own corridor to operate in. And yeah, pleased to say there's there's no books have come out yet regarding what we got up to, which is which is quite nice. There's been quite a few books have been written. The guy who wrote Bravo two zero, Andrey McNab, he was my next door neighbor in Hereford. So when we all got back, he actually got back before before we did. He was doing a series of briefings to
military audiences on their escapades. You know how they they got shot up and they had to escape and evade. So it was quite an interesting story. But he would. He asked me for some photographs, he said, for the briefing, So I posted some through his letter box next door. And the next thing, I've got pictures of me on the on the news.
Because had come out. So if you look carefully in that.
Book, there's a there's there's a picture of me in the my back garden fence because he climbed over into my garden and took a picture of.
His kit in there.
So he and I never got my photographs back, but he bought me a bottle of whiskey and a you know, and a thank you card.
So, I mean that's interesting too, that that Andy. I mean he was taken as a p o W and released and all of that happened before you guys even got back to the UK.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I mean, all that was going on, we actually had two guys from my troop who had been sort of back squadded because there wasn't enough room on the vehicles to take all of us, and two of those guys ended up in the Bravo two zero patrol. Wow. It was a great surprise to us because we had absolutely no idea until everybody got back, you know, the dust settled,
and then all these stories started to come out. Unfortunately, one of those guys was killed out there, very very sad, but yeah, and then the other guy got shot in the leg, so it didn't go totally well for them.
So you get back to Hereford and then sort of, I mean, tell us what sort of was the next step for you in your career.
Well, actually I was still on leave after that. And the way it works is you get a you get a message or a phone call to come in, bring your passport.
You think, here we go again.
So I ended up out in in Africa, in Ethiopia, where there was trouble going on out there with rebels coming into Ethiopia and basically taking over the government. So we were we were out there to support the embassy and the Ethiopian royal family, and from there, you know, we were just back into the same routine, the sort of two yearly rotation counter terrorism training, standby for operations, et cetera. And you're doing that and doing more courses.
You know, you're constantly building up more and more experience, so there's never there's never a time that you're not doing anything until the next call and the next big thing really was the Bosnia. Bosnia came along in the sort of early nineties and we were we were involved in there as I was in one of the first small groups to go out just purely to do some sniffing around see what was going on and finding an inroad for the regiment to go out there in larger groups.
So I had to go and learn Serbo Croat, you know, the local language. So that was a quick to the language school, the British Army Language School, learned the learned as much as I could of the language, and then went out there with the small team a little bit under cover, so we say, working for the UN and really getting some ground truth as to what we going on there, so that the you know, the wider regiment
could formulate a plan and get out. And then I deployed again with one of the squadrons that went out, and then I was I was due to deploy yet again after that with my own squadron, a squadron, and I sort of said, you know, I've I've kind of I spent a lot of time out there. I could do with the break, and that's when I had the opportunity to go to training wing and training wing is is the you know, the organization of staff that do
all the selection training. So I spent sort of two and a half years doing that, so you know, that was a good break for me and a really really good experience being part of that selection and training process for the sas. So my career went.
What was like that, like bringing all this operational experience you had doing behind enemy lines action also the sort of like undercovera low visibility reconnaissance and bringing that back to the training environment to teach the next generation.
Yeah, well it's great.
You know, it gives you credibility and it makes you feel that you've you know, you've got a good reason to be there doing that job because you've kind of been there and done it. But your focus is just assessing those individuals because when you you know, obviously they go through the hills phase that part of the selection,
you don't give a damn who they are. But when it comes to the jungle part of selection, you get a five or six man patrol and you're with them throughout that time in the jungle, So you're assessing each one of those characters and it's really down to you whether that whether that individual passes all failed, and many will get to the end they'll think they've done really well, but you know, it's a it's a sorry, but there's just something about you that you're you're not quite the
right person. And because because you've been there, you you know the kind of individual that you want to be serving with. And that's how you look at it. Do I do I want to be out serving with this individual? And if the answer is no, then they are told them very sorry, but you have a past. Yeah, it's quite a responsibility, but it's the selection process is a real level playing field, and you know, it's just a it's just an awesome process. So I really enjoyed that part.
And from there you were off to Brunei again to take an instructive position there.
Yeah, I did.
I did a couple of years in what was called then the force Projection wing, where you are the expert in your insurgent skill and you or your role is to ensure that training is done, it's relevant and any operations that involved that insurgent skill. You are the sort of lead advisor on that. So you take individuals who have got experience in that with its Mountain troop air troops,
et cetera. And you know, they're they're working really hard to set up exercises and training make sure the operational procedures are updated and correct. So for me, I was liaising with the Navy with ships with submarine commanders and getting as much time as we could training with those assets to make sure that everybody was absolutely ready to go should there be a need for it.
So I did that for a couple of years.
I was the troop staff sergeant, so I was commanding the troop back in the squadron for a couple of years, and then eventually I moved on a training post here in Brunei as a senior military instructure, and here we are, I'm back here again and advising them on some of the you know, the skills that they're doing now to make sure that they are relevant to other environments other
than the jungles. So, you know, if they end up in Africa, and Africa is turning into a sess fit now of religious terrorism, and the Western world I don't think has really got to handle on that. It's a very very serious problem.
I want to talk to you more about Africa, but you finished your career as the Procurement n c O the or in the procurement wing of the regiment as a sergeant major.
Yeah, that's right.
We have a it's called Equipment Capability Cell where you have a handle on what is required for the squadrons operating, so ANYTHILM boots, equipment, vehicles, weapons. You've got a team of individuals who are focused on all of those areas and it's ensuring that the procurement system of the of the military is focused in the right areas for what you need. Because it's the military, procurement is a big machine.
It's pretty inefficient, a lot of money wasted. There's been all sorts of stuff, you know, talked about how kit and equipment gets gets selected and brought in a lot of money wasted. So it was focused on that to make sure we got what we wanted when we needed it. So quite a quite a busy and quite an important cell.
I have to ask, since we're on this topic, any particularly cool pieces of kit that you're able to talk about, things that you thought were pretty interesting.
Well, at that time, we were replacing the old desert land rovers that we traditionally had since the beginning of time with a new with a new vehicle, and that that vehicle came from a company called Supercat, and it was.
It was developed by our by our own guys.
They worked for a number of years to develop that vehicle and that has now become the standard desert vehicle now for the British Army. The the Americans at the time were interested in it, so it's become a standard sort of desert operations vehicle. So that was pretty good. The rifle, we've been using the M sixteen as our standard sort of rifle and that was getting replaced by a rifle called the DeMarco. And what else they were probably the main things.
You know, it's like new.
Helmets, looking at optics, whatever, whatever's new on the market, new technology, just working with those with those organizations to develop stuff that we needed.
And so you retire in two thousand and six and then you go on the circuit tell us about post service life.
Yeah, well, if you know, once you finish your time. I mean I could have stayed on, but I would have been just going around this sort of the bizarres in camp doing sort of adam and stuff.
So I thought it was time to leave.
And I'd already you know, you're not really short of work when you leave, because there's a lot of you, you know, old colleagues are out and they're working or they've set up businesses. So my first job there's a sort of a stately home close to Hereford where they were teams of guys that I knew were running close protection courses and there was a new course they wanted to run and it was training US Special Forces guys in counter ied.
Drills.
So the idea was, if you know, if somebody finds an an improvides explosive device out in the Middle East, for instance, instead of just reporting it and blowing it, the standoff and observe And it was all about surveillance, following vehicles, following cars, bringing a lot of experience that had come from Northern Ireland during this sort of undercover surveillance units that were working over there. So I was
involved in that for a while. We had the different US SF units coming through and then I got sort of headhunted a local company, an American company had a base in Hereford and it was to design and develop and sell rugged eyzed military hardware and software. And I went there as a sort of maritime expert looking at
fitting this kit and equipment onto the boats. So this company had a they had an officer in Fort Bragg in Norfolk, you know, close to the Navy seals, and in Hereford and Australia close to the Australian sas.
So they had all of.
That expertise, all of those operators working for this company. But it went well for a few years, and then they folded for various reasons, and then I was out of a job again. Ended up in Slovakia with the team doing close protection for US interests out there. That folded, You're redundant again. Then I ended up in Curdistan working for a Canadian oil company doing the security. That folded when sort of Islamic terrorism sort of got a little
bit of an issue and various other problems. So that folded, and that's when I found myself heading out to Botswana with the training team again guys that I mostly knew, heading out there to resurrect Botswan and Special Forces UNI. So that was an eighteen month contract and that's how I got a foot in the door in Africa.
Could you tell us a little bit about like what that situation was in Botswana and why you had to, as you said, resurrect The special Forces unit was something that had fallen by the wayside.
Yeah, it was.
And it's typical of.
Foreign countries and how they look at maintaining skills and standards.
You see the same in the Middle East.
Now this this unit, it was a special Forces unit based in a in an air base that I think the Americans must have built some years before, because it was it was one of the most amazing. The facilities that they had as a special Forces unit would have, you know, as good as I'd seen. You know, I was over working with Delta in in Uh where are
they Fort Bragg, isn't it the Delta Go. Yeah, I've been over working with spent some time, and the facilities these guys had, you know, they had a parachute center, they had an aircraft for doing counter terrace drills, a CQB killing house. They had swimming pools and stargeants, messes and everything you could. And everything was going derelict because nothing had been used. Sol courses and ranges were overgrown. So our team we went in there, we resurrected all
of this. We got bulldozers, we opened up the firing ranges again. And we were recruiting from the Botswana Defense Force. I was running a selection process with another guy and continuation training, you know, bush skills, just general soldiering a lot of ranges, getting them up and then handing them over to the other team, and they were doing counter terrorist type stuff.
So it was good. But you know, during those.
That selection process and training, we introduced the tracking that we had because the other guy was a former instructor here at the Jungle Warfare School, and we introduced tracking to them because those guys were also responsible for any
anti poaching that was going on in the country. So that that was then when I thought, shit, this is teaching this now and the bush skills, et cetera is It's exactly what I should be doing because I spent all those years, you know, I spent twenty four years becoming an expert, and then I spent ten years on the circuit doing nothing but earning money, doing you know, a job that really anybody I didn't need all of
those skills. So then I thought, if for the rest of my time I could just do this, I can teach anti poaching rangers or military the skills I can bring the skills that I've got, then I'm a you know, I'm going to be happy doing that even if I take a considerable drop in wages kind of thing.
And that's what I've been doing ever since.
Yeah, So from after that point, working a lot of training jobs with non governmental organizations, training these entire poaching units. Before we get a little bit deeper into that, can you talk to us a bit about poaching in Africa? And I mean, I think a lot of us here in the United States and probably in the West in general, don't really understand how complex that problem is and how
difficult it is to counter it. Like if you could kind of like bring us in big picture to a little picture on that.
Yeah. Right, So we we bounce into a lot of different countries and each one has their own, you know, individual problems, but basically you've got sustainability poaching. This is where the people from the local communities around the protected park, I mean, and they use a whole variety of means, you know, shooting with homemade weapons, snares, traps, poisoning, fishing
with nets, and they can devastate those stocks. So they're coming in, they're helping themselves to all the resources for their for their own needs, you know, because they've traditionally hunted those lands. So that's an endemic problem across everywhere. So you know, that's the first thing. Then you've got the professional hunting gowns.
And they are usually funded, backed by.
You know, government officials or rich people, armed, dangerous, often ex military, and they can come in in big units. And there after the rhino, the elephant, the horn and tusk and anything else that they can get. And they've been responsible for wiping out the stocks of rhino, for instance, in a lot of countries where they've had one hundreds of thousands of these animals, and throughout the seventies, eighties into the nineties they were completely cleared out, completely extinct.
And some of those governments saw those is as the same as they wood minerals, you know, is mining they were. That was that was just a commodity that they had and an open market in China and Vietnam as as they still is.
So now the NGOs have.
Got involved and they you know, they're protecting the parks and they're reintroducing them. But the other thing that's perhaps less known about our cattle herds of cattle and the pastoralists. The cattle are owned by the rich and influential, So Kenya is a classic example. So somebody who's rich in Kenya ruves their wealth by having thousands of head of cattle. They're not traded for meat, but they're just held. They're traded in marriages and that sort of thing. But those
are traditionally herded by some of the tribal groups. So you've got the Sambu, the Pact, the Turkana, the Massi, and they feud with each other, fighting over the grazing lands. And a lot of those then are going into the parks and conservancies. They've got cattle bomas hidden inside there. They're breeding the cattle, and those pastoralists will kill anything either either to eat or anything that might be a
predator against their cattle. They fiercely protect them, and they're aren't they're dangerous, and a lot of rangers and park staff are being killed almost on a daily basis out there by these So that's the cattle herding. But the big, big threat at the moment is religious terrorism, and you know, you don't get to.
Hear of it on the news.
A lot of Extentsial and West Africa, even this year, there's been people, I know, people I've worked with, people I've trained, have been sort of slaughter and you know by particularly Islamic jihadis, and and it's such a big threat now across the whole of Africa. There's not a single country that either doesn't have that within its country or it has a border with the country that does.
What is what is if I can ask Simon, what is this intersection between poaching in Islamic terrorism in Africa? Like how like you said, a lot of the some of the people you trained were killed by them, Like how did these two things come together?
Well?
They they the terrorists will partly fund their terrorism by coming in killing elephants and rhino for the huge amount of money they make.
But also they they kind of getting the communities.
On their side by saying, you know, these are your these are your tribal lands, you know you and and they're gaining favor by coming in and deliberately targeting the security forces from within.
So it's a two way thing.
Part Partly they are funding the terrorism through poaching, They're they're feeding themselves because they have terrorist groups training groups all across Africa, and so of course the you know, it is part of the how they feed themselves.
And and it's intimidation.
They've they've there's a I mean I can talk about Benin in particular because I've done a lot of training there. Benin is a is a you know, a fairly small country over in over in West Africa.
Most people have.
Never heard of, but it borders Bikino, Fasso, Nigeria and Nigeria. And there are two parks there that I've worked in. And the NGO that leases those parks is an allganization called African Parks. Easily the most successful NGO because they've got leases on something like twenty to twenty five parks all across Africa doing fantastic work. But in Beneen, I went out there in one of the parks, Peenjari, and trained their rangers in tracking.
The first time they'd had that training.
Now it's a French former French dependency, so they speak French. A lot of the training they've had is from French Special Forces, Foreign Legion and that sort of stuff. So I gave them training tracking training. When I left about two months later, the park hit the headlines. Two French tourists had been taken hostage or they'd gone missing along with the tour guide, and the next headline was that
they'd been found. Now, what had happened was the trackers that I had trained were first in on the scene. They'd found the burnt out vehicle, they'd found the ambush point, worked out how many, what kind of weapons, and they'd followed those tracks. They found the tour guide killed and mutilated, and they followed those tracks right up to the northern border, which is a river with Bikino Fasso. By that time
the French military were involved. They took over and they eventually found not only those two French tourists, but another two hostages that they had one American one South Korean that nobody knew were missing, and they found where they were being held. There was a firefight to the French were killed, but they rescued the hostages. So the terrorist plan was to take those into Mali, another hotbed for terrorism, and hand them over to another terrorist UNI. So you
can only guess what would have happened to those. So it was those trackers who were absolutely key to finding those That's incredible. Yeah, yeah, So so the next story in the neighboring park, the part called w National Park. I was out there again a couple of years ago doing tracking training exactly the same UH trained trained several teams as very good trackers and the I mean, these
guys are awesome, awesome trackers when they get good training. Again, a few months later, that part hit the headlines, and this time the rangers were responding to I believe a poaching incident in two pickup trucks and they were hit by IED's IM provided explosive devices in the park, and I think they were there were more detonated when more
people came up. So initially eight eight rangers were killed in that plus the chief instructor who was a French former Special Forces guy and a good friend, and he was the one who was arranging for us to come in and do the work. So he was killed out right. The two days later, another vehicle going down another improvided explosive device killed another two. So this this is in a you know, this is in a conservation park, and
this this ship is going on. And then this year only in July the same part, another five rangers and seven military were killed in the same part again by terrorists,
absolutely wiped out. So you know this, this is ongoing, and what I'm trying to say to the military that you know, if I could reach out to the British Army, I'm saying, you need to get your ship together because it's not going to be long before this is going to be British hostages are going to be taken killed, and they need to have a response, and they need to have trackers because you know, if a tourist vehicle is hit or you know, a vehicle of dignitary royal
family whoever, and those people are taken, there's no technology really that is better than a good tracking team with is EARS senses to follow up those tracks, and at the moment, the British Army doesn't have that. We have the training teams over here. We've got the Gurkha Regiment over here based in Bruneye as the as a lead for jungle operations. But if I what I'm saying to them, if I get taken hostage, who's going to come and
rescue me? Because there's nobody on a standby with as far as I'm concerned, the necessary skills and experience could to do that.
Simon, could you take us a bit deeper on the tracking aspect of it, because that's a that's an art and a science of course. Yeah, and I'm just curious to hear I need. I mean, I know you're very deep into it in training. These guys could tell us about tracking and like the myths, the misconceptions, what it really is, how it really works.
Yeah. Well, you can trace military tracking back to the nineteen forties and fifties. And what I've been saying to these guys here is the tracking developed first of all in Malaya in nineteen forty eight, right the way through to the nineteen seventies or nineteen sixties.
When that conflict ended.
They realized that trackers were very, very important and they were used indigenous trackers.
At the same time in Africa, in Kenya we had.
The Mau Mau Uprising where the British Army were involved, and they also saw the need for trackers and they were using the indigenous trackers. They're led led by officers, you know, British officers, So that went right the way through.
In Africa.
We then had the Rhodesian bush wars Uh and those guys, a lot of them had been you know, the sea squadron sas came from Rhodesia, so they already had they already understood how useful tracking was.
Over in Asia.
We had the Borneo confrontation then in the sort of sixties into the seventies and or the nineteen sixties that was and they were using trackers. So the British Army have been using trackers since since those early days. But there's there's been two two camps. If you like the jungle style of tracking and the African bush style of tracking, and they're they're very very different. In the road Jesian Wars, there was the guy who's considered the father of the
drills and developing tracking. There was a guy called Alan Savory, very very interesting guy and I met him by chance on a on a ridgeline in Zimbabwe. He is he is the guy who started training the white soldiers because he had realized that a lot of the local indigenous trackers were obviously very good, but if it got very dangerous then they were inclined to lose the tracks. And they were finding exactly the same the jungle tracking. They had to start training the you know, the British to
do that job, and that's how it all started. Alan Savory, Now if you look him up. He's he's now well known for holistic grazing and saving the planet with with calves and very very credible as well. But but now we've got military tracking in the jungle, military tracking in the bush, and because I've got a foot in both camps. When I came from Brunei and went to Africa and teaching tracking, I realized that we've got to change everything.
We've got to change the drills.
You know, because it's open territory, we can have two security I realized we could use two trackers working together, and that has revolutionized the speed that we can pursue the enemy, if you like, whether that's poachers or whether
that's insurgents, whether that's terrorists. And so that's why I'm back here now to give to give my experience and my advice to the guys who are training here, because the jungle tracking is completely different to the bush tracking, and I want these guys to be prepared and ready and have the necessary skills and have practiced in the way that we do it out in Africa. Mission.
How difficult is it to follow sporer in the jungle versus in the sahell? What are the differences between those.
The actual physically following the tracks is much the same.
You're looking for the same characteristics.
You know, when when an individual has walked across a piece of ground, they make changes to that ground. Some of it's temporary, some of it's more permanent. But you you train your eye to pick up the slightest change. You know, it's not footprints, forget footprints, it's.
It's scuff marks.
It's stones that have been turned over, a leaf that's been knocked off the tree. The the difference between the jungle and Africa is in Africa you've got thousands of animals. You've got buffalo, you've got zebra, you've got elephant, you've got hippo, you've got everything, and all of those are.
Trampling over the same So you've got.
To distinguish between a human set of tracks and that's just the marks. It's the way they've laid the grasses in the grassland, the way they've turned over a stone. You've got to differentiate between an animal that's done that and a human being. And a lot of it is about working out the time. You know, how long ago did they go? Where they hear how many have used
this track? Every now and then you will get a little bit of a footprint, whatever foot where they're wearing, and that just confirms to you that you're still on the right track. There's not much in the jungle apart from pigs that's going to interfere with that side. But in the jungle it's so close you can't see any further than maybe five to ten meters ahead, and that's.
Why it's slow.
Your security is behind you looking over your shoulder as the tracker, and you are on often a narrow ridge line, so you're you're kind of walking on top of the track, moving slowly, pushing through the undergrowth as you go, and it has to be.
A slow, deliberate follow whereas in Africa, you know.
I've shown the videos here of my rangers literally running running along the track because they've got their security out on the flank, and we've got two trackers. They take over from each other. When one slows down, he's lost it, he's not sure. The other one comes up, leaps ahead, picks it up again, and the and they you know, they're they're constantly moving. So it's very very, very very different.
But the initial thing is to train those individuals to coach them in exercises that we do to to notice very very small changes in the ground, you know, the grasses, the stones, rocky environments, and it's it's a skill that they they build up. They they kind of build up a library in their head of what those changes are. Once you recognize them, it comes what we what we call their key sign or key sport, and they then recognize that and if their eye is looking for that,
they pick it out and they can see it. And then they get into a different environment, maybe from hard rocky areas to to grassland, and then they have to pick up what what what is it I can see now that tells me that my my target has been along here. You recognize it, then you're looking for it, and then you can see it. You know. It's a tracker is somebody who can see see things that a non tracker can't see. It's really not about following footprint.
It's it's fascinating that we're always told the future of warfare is drones and technology, but there are literally these This is a form of intelligence gathering that's ancient, like it's been with human beings since the Paleolithic times, and it still has a relevancy.
It absolutely does.
There is nothing that will ever replace that, you know, And if you're if you're in a in an operation, let's say you've you know, an enemy has come in, they've hit your unit, and they've disappeared.
If honestly, if they've tied a piece of string and then reeled it out, you would naturally you think, are okay, I'm going to follow that.
Well, that's kind of what they've done.
But it's the marks they've left on the ground, and most you know, most military commanders, they don't understand.
It because they they've never experienced it.
So the trackers go back to the units and they never use that skill again because it's not all batted and it's not understood, and it's like, well, where, you know, where, where will these trackers be in our unit? So it's it's been a frustration of mine for a long time. But if the focus now is on Africa and being prepared for that time when terrorism takes a hold of uh, you know, British or American subjects, then somebody has to
be prepared and ready to go in there. And it's it's it's a gap at the moment because there's nobody doing that.
You know, we've we've all seen trackers on movies and television. What's the reality of it though, in terms of can you tell how long it's been since a person's passed through?
Can you tell how many people? Can you tell how much weight they were carrying?
Like?
What are some things that you get other than just like direction?
Yeah, you by looking at those tracks, first of all, you have to g how long ago did they pass through here? So you're looking at a whole load of things. You're looking at how the weather has affected those tracks, So you need to know that you know, has it
been windy, has it rained? You always do a comparison with your own tracks, so you make a mark in the ground the same and you look at how much of that weather you take note of the animals, have the animals superimposed their traps on top or are your traps on top of those?
And the insects are really really important.
If you can see disturbance of insects still because you know those people have gone through there, that tells you you're very close because you disturb those insects.
For a while and then they go.
Back into their normal pattern of things. Whenever you get a good area where you can actually see the footprints. We call it a trap trap. Then there's a method then of estimating the numbers by counting the numbers of heels in a set distance. So now you've got an idea how long ago did they pass through and how many are they And then you can look at those individual footprints. You can see if somebody is carrying extra weight.
You can get an idea how fast are they going by looking at the footprints, looking at the length of stride, and you know is one person, for instance, carrying more weight than another, and that from a counter proaching that could tell you that somebody is carrying a tusk, for instance, or a heavy weight. So you're constantly gaining information as you go, and you're building up a picture of you know who it is you're tracking from the type of
foot where they're wearing. Is one wearing a military style boot, one wearing a sandal or something. Have you got a mix of military styles and indigenous Where you've got a poaching site, you know the guides, the people carrying, and then you've got the shooters who were your sort of former military and it's exactly the same in a military context.
You know, who is it that's just bumped your position?
How many how far are they moving, and what direction are they going. You're trying to get into the minds of those individuals, building up a picture who they are, where they've gone, what are their habits and routines? Where did they stop? If they if you see they've stopped under a particular tree, you can work out what was the position of the sun at that time, because they're
sitting in the shade. If that now is in the sunlight, you'll think to yourself where they must have sat here when the sun was in a different quarter, So that might aid you to work out when did they pass through.
You had mentioned that there are sort of two different types of trackers, military trackers and indigenous trackers. Well, I this is a little bit of an unfair question, but I'd love to ask you since you have this experience, what are some of the who are the best trackers in the world, Like, who are the people that you want to go to to learn from people that you've been really impressed by.
Yeah, I would say the best trackers in the world are the.
People I've trained. I would say that.
The the let's say the indigenous trackers to their country.
Are probably the best.
Because they've grown up in that country, they understand it. If you take them to a completely different environment, they would initially struggle. So I've trained trackers in Borneo, in jungle tracking, you know, locals to do that, and obviously a lot of African I would say in a lot of those more indigenous people, they are.
More attuned to those natural skill.
I find that their natural sense of direction is better than somebody who's come from the western country, and their powers of observation are absolutely phenomenal. They can see. There's so many times they've pointed out a snake in a bush and I'm standing there and I just can't see it, and they.
Say, no, you know, you can see the snake.
I can't see the bloody snake until they point it with a stick.
So that's why.
They make you know they're tracking. They get to a stage where I don't know now whether they're on the track or not, and that means that I got them to a level beyond my own, and I'm happy with that. But in the beginning, they're shuffling around, they can't see it.
You know.
We slowly build them up, but they're so quick to recognize the characteristics of sport as we call it. They've quickly overtaken my ability. But I can still get you know, the army guys I've trained, still get them up to a very very good level, but it takes a bit longer and they need to keep at it. You can't just do a course and then say that's it. You know, it's a skill. It's a perishable skill, but it's a skill that you improve. You've never finished. You've never finished
learning as a tracker. Every time you go out, you'll notice something else that you can then use. You know, you can stick that in your library. So it's you. You've got to keep going and keep at it. So yeah, it's a rare skill, but it's a skill that everybody has. We were, you know, our our ancestors were trackers. It was part of everyday life. So we still retain that. It just has to be brought out and you've got
to get guys away from looking at a screen. And that's that's a big change that I've seen over my time. People are so used to getting their information focusing on a small screen, getting everything from there. To then get them away from that stick that phone, leave it back in the you know, accommodation, and now start focusing your eyes on the terrain, on the you know, in the real world, I think we're getting further and further away from those instinctive, natural, you know, skills.
So you are still training rangers in some of these different countries. You're back in Brunei right now. Tell us, like, what's next for you? Where are you going from here?
From here I get back home, I've got about ten days and I'm going out to Malawi. I've got one of my trainers there in one of the parks that we frequent and he's doing what's called the Basic Field Ranger Course, and that's taking individuals, guys, men and women from you know, uh, living in the community three months worth of training to get them to be fully functioning rangers.
And part of that is a tracking phase. So I'm heading out there to run two two week tracking courses within that, and hopefully my my friend, who's a new instructor tours. He's got some experience with tracking, but you know, I'll be sort of passing that information onto him as well. So I'll be a month in Malawi. Back home, I've got some potential in Uganda because there's a training academy out there that was I believe built by the Americans.
You guys are great at coming in building.
Something and.
You've changed your mind.
And this place is out there, apparently it's got it's got classrooms, generators, accommodation, everything you want, and it's not being used.
So I've got my eye on that.
Yeah, I tell you, we're just shuffling around following you guys, taking.
Up what you don't need anymore.
So, you know, I want to develop the potential of like an international training school where I can take people who want to get involved in this kind of work, put them through their paces, but also train at the same time, you know, African military rangers. We do a lot with the female empowerment and training as well, because the women in Africa are absolutely amazing and they're an untouched you know, and untapped into source out there in all walks of luck, all walks of life.
If you see the African women are the ones you know, they've.
Got to they've got a baby on their back, they're out in the fields, they're toiling in the fields.
They stop to breastfeed.
And then they're carrying massive heavy weights everywhere.
They are the.
Backbone of Africa. So if you can take that resource, we turn them into anti poaching rangers. They make fantastic trackers. You've got a slightly different mindset from the guys, perhaps less apt to be corrupt, shall we say, and more they think further ahead. I think their mindset is that they you know, they're bringing up children, they're thinking about the future, and they're thinking less about what can they
get for themselves. So if they get a wage, they'll put that wage into putting a new roof on the house or education for their children.
Where the guys, you know what we're like, you know, we'll be down in.
The bars and getting drunk or buying a mo the bike or something like that.
Are are there any well? I mean, first off, I mean you're presumably you have a company that you work for now doing these tracking things. Is there like a website or anywhere that you'd like to tell people about?
Yeah, exactly.
In about twenty nineteen, I decided we have to have a company name, a logo and a website. So that's Big five Protection. So that's www dot B five P, dot co dot UK and that will lead to the website and you know you're be able to have a look at what we're doing, what we've been up to.
And we'll have a link down the description for you guys as well. Are there any other like NGOs or anything that you'd like to direct people to people who are interested in supporting some of these anti poaching efforts.
Yeah, there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of great causes. Now. You know, if if we could get donor funding, we could do a hell of a lot more. I've got a focus at the moment in Samatra and Indonesia where the last of the rhinos, the last of the tigers, there's there's literally tens of them, and they're calling for us to go out there and help raise anti poaching units, and we can't do it because there's no funding. There's absolutely no funding to do that.
When I was working in Sabah in Borneo a couple of years ago, when I was.
First contracted to do that, there were.
Two or three Bornian versions of the Samata and rhino were left and they and they've been they they've died out, they're completely extinct now. So my real focus is getting over there but without without some sort of donor funding, without backing, we can't do that. And you know it's going to take millions of dollars to establish a unit. But NGOs, like African Parks for instance, they are doing so much good and there it's a massive battleground out there.
They're they're battling.
All sorts of things, including journalists who are trying to expose things that aren't happening. But they're they're literally saving you know, loads and loads of parts, turning them around, getting the tourists back. But they're they're they're fighting. So that's a really good NGO to look up. And then you know there's individual small NGOs who are desperate out in Malawi. There's a Wildlife Action Group and there's a two forest reserves that I you know, help out as
much as I can. And there's run by an Irish lady called Lynn Clifford, and she'll hate me for mentioning her name, but she is literally running the training and running these team of rangers and protecting those forest parks nobody's ever heard of, no one knows, but the Wildlife Action Group we I'm hoping to get back there this year and do some training, but we we generally do it for free because there's just no funding and it's
a it's a great cause. And these are these are the forgotten areas that nobody's nobody's focused on.
Everybody's heard of, you know, Kruger.
National Park and some of the big parks, but some of these areas they're they're fighting to preserve and save uh, you know, species that could be wiped out. You know, the rest of the world is so focused on trans writes, black Lives Matter, climate, you know, catastrophe and everything else that it's like, just open your eyes and see what's
going on in the real world. Not only are we destroying the planet, you know, my mining for the technology to make batteries for you know, for our net zero gains, we're also you know, we're destroying environments like the environments out in I was saying out in Samatra in Indonesia, and those species will be gone in my lifetime and that and that really bothers me.
I'm in. I mean, we've covered a lot of ground here, but anything else that I've failed to ask that you'd really like to talk about before we get going, No.
I think I've I think I've managed to squeeze in as much as I can talking about what I do and what I what I'm trying to achieve. Well, you know, I'm I'm stepping back a little bit now. I'm doing a bit of the talking circuit. I've been talking on cruise liners and it's not what I want to do. I want to be at the coal face. But I can only do so much by standing back and trying to talk to people, organizations, countries and say the wider picture, train other people to do what I'm doing rather than
just be there and doing it myself. And we we need we need backing like everybody else needs backing. But you know, people are people are giving money, supporting some of the large.
Charities.
You've got WWF space for giants and stuff and that, and that's great. But when you're actually out on the ground and you see, you get an idea how a lot of that money is being spent and how it's being channeled. And by the time a charity organization gets so big, it's got executives, it's got massive teams, they all have to be paid for and sometimes some of that money doesn't you know, it might not be used
in the way that you might imagine, but alternative. There's lots of small organizations groups NGOs who are crying out for some of that, and we have a real effect because we don't have offices. We're not paying for accommodation, we're not paying for business class flights to fly around the world. We're just getting struck in, you know, we're getting stuck into the problem as and where it is.
So you know that's another frustration when you see how much money is filtering in and you know the cause and effect, sometimes you know it doesn't weigh up.
Give people your website one more time.
Yeah www dot b five P dot co dot UK.
That's Big five Protection and that's who we are.
Simon, thank you so much for this interview. Really appreciate you coming on the show. All the way from Brunei.
All the way all the way from Brunei and its hallowed Hallo, Turfy, the labby Arms, the drinking establishment of the traditional jungle Warfare School.
It's a great place to be, so it's great to have you here.
We have one question real quick from m Corbyn.
Unless there's anything on patrony, what's the most rewarding thing about doing nature and natural conservation work.
What's the most worrying.
Thing rewarding the most rewarding.
Rewarding thing, Okay, the most rewarding thing is training other people to be the protectors. When you when you get when you get individuals right from the start and particularly on the tracking training, to see how good they are and how proud they are at the end of that is something that will It just makes me want to come back out and do it again. So it's the it's the training individuals, empowering them with the skills that that that I've you know, I've learned over my many
many years in the military, handing that back over. But there's a hell of a lot more to do, you know, I haven't retired yet.
Next week we're going to have Mike West on the show, who served in the Rhodesian White Infantry and then in the South African Defense Force Rekis, So he'll be on here next Friday. Simon, again, thank you so much for joining us todight or or this morning in your case.
Yeah, Can I go and get some breakfast now?
Absolutely? Yeah, thank you.
We'll let you go have a nice evening or morning wherever you guys are at take care of there.
Yeah. Great to see you guys, and thank you very much for the opportunity