White Fox Talking
Talk About Mental Health & Well-Being… Why Not? Mark ‘Charlie’ Valentine suffered life changing mental illness, before beginning a journey to recovery and wellness; the darkness of PTSD transformed by the light atop mountains and beyond. Mark is now joining forces with Seb Budniak, to make up the ‘White Fox Talking’ team. Through a series of Podcasts and Vlogs, ‘White Fox Talking’ will be bringing you a variety of guests, topics, and inspirational stories relating to improving mental well-being. Find your way back to you! Expect conversation, information, serious discussion and a healthy dose of Yorkshire humour!
White Fox Talking
E78: Chris Jones - One Man, 6,500 Miles, And The Courage To Talk About Suicide, Purpose, And Recovery
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A trophy on the table can’t soften the moment Chris admits he once sat under a tree with a rope. What follows is a frank, energising journey from lost purpose to a coastline walk that rebuilt his mind, his daily habits, and his mission to help other men speak before they break. We talk about how policy changes and a forced sale stripped meaning from two decades of work with excluded teens, how lockdown isolation compounded the fallout, and how phone-based counselling from the Masonic Charitable Foundation handed him tools for rumination, grounding, and mindful attention that actually stuck.
Then the choice that changed everything: a 6,500-mile walk around Great Britain. No deadlines. No fixed plan. Just the sea to the right, a tent on his back, and long winter nights to read and listen. Chris shares the practical wins: breath work from James Nestor’s Breath, insights from The Body Keeps the Score and Lost Connections, and the way nature lowers cortisol and reframes problems. He’s honest about the lows—soaked gear, short light, and the crash after company—but the highlight is people. Strangers fed him, housed him, and shared hidden stories of suicide and survival that rarely surface until stigma drops.
We dig into simple tools for men’s mental health that don’t require a diagnosis: nasal breathing and longer exhales to downshift the nervous system, micro-mindfulness to halt spirals, movement as a pressure release, and the habit of naming what you feel. Chris also raised over £90,000 for the Masonic Charitable Foundation, found a new voice as a speaker, and is writing a book to translate dense psychology into clear, usable steps for guys who think they’re fine—until they’re not.
If this story lands with you, share it with someone who could use a way back to themselves. And if you’re new here, follow the show, leave a review, and tell us which practice you’re trying this week. Your feedback helps more people find real conversations that change lives.
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Hello and welcome to the award winning White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Mark Jelly Valentine. At the side of me is Seb.
SPEAKER_02:Hi, Charlie, award winning podcaster.
SPEAKER_03:Both. It's for the podcast, it's not for it's not individual. So that's for us, the White Fox Talking team. That's fantastic. What what award is it? We won the Outstanding Media Initiative. And I thought we were going to mess that up now. The Outstanding Media Initiative at the Head Outside Awards, the Kendall Festival. Amazing. Just came back from the weekend there, didn't we? We did. I've been living on it all weekend. It's cool to be one involved in organizations like that and to be nominated is a privilege. And then to actually win it with in a group and a room full of inspiring people. And then us three.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, just the work that Stu Skinner does. It's very sh amazing how many amazing individuals are in that room and groups that do just amazing things.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, it's normalizing chat and talk and openness about mental health challenges, isn't it? Which is what we've started we started out to do anyway. So to be actually, even though we're not out to be sort of recognised, going up for awards, etc., it's that normalizing conversation and trying to end mental health stigma. That's how we normalize it for people that are going through challenges who maybe don't want to say anything. So yeah, thank you, Stu Skinner, and Well, thank you to the listeners.
SPEAKER_02:The listeners. Thank you to all of our guests.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, and all our future guests, inspirational guests. Boom. Who's in today? Well, we have somebody as a guest who had never even heard of podcasts until they heard of White Fox Talking. And now, and we should probably mention this, we've just passed, although this will be a few weeks ago. 10,000 listens, and we got a 75th podcast in the same weekend. Wow. 10,000 downloads, sorry, not listens. So yeah, don't know how that works. So, anyway, I'd like to welcome Chris Jones to the White Fox Talking Podcast. The White Fox Talking Podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact. Welcome, Chris. Thank you guys. It's great to be with you both. Thank you for making the journey into these this northern climate.
SPEAKER_00:On a motorbike. It's been a soggy rider, but I had to come and see you both. I couldn't do this over the phone.
SPEAKER_03:On a motorbike as well, mate. That must have been grim today.
SPEAKER_00:The last bit was a bit just coming off the M62. The rest of it was lovely. Just got close to Leeds and that was it. The heavens open.
SPEAKER_03:So first of all, what we're gonna do is just mention Duncan, Duncan Turnbull, who was a friend of mine, who I met when I was assessing him for his mountain leader, and he introduced yourself to not only podcast, but to White Fox Talking because of the project you were doing. He did. So long seems like a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00:It does. And it seems it feels like I've known you guys for years. Although this is the first time I've ever met you both.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'll be honest, if you hadn't known us for years, you probably want to come to meet us. You're probably gathering that now. So could you give the listeners a brief introduction of yourself and a little bit about what you did achieve?
SPEAKER_00:Of course, yeah. Yeah, my name's Chris. 55 years old, living in Lincolnshire, married for 30 odd years, 31 years, three kids, three grown-up kids. My son was 30 a couple of weeks ago, and the the girls are a bit older. Now I've got three grandchildren. Currently self-unemployed, not working at the moment. And we'll come on to that, I guess, in a little while. I suppose just going back to what you just said, I have reason I had to come up to you, I had to come up really to thank you both because when I got introduced to podcasts and introduced to White Folks Talking, you've been a massive part, your podcast has been a massive part of my journey to recovery. And I think the more I've listened to some of your podcasts and the people on them, it's just been incredibly educational for me, but it's just been a huge part of my journey to recovery. And I know that's what it does for a lot of other people, hence why you just said did you say 10,000 downloads? 10,000 downloads. That's incredible, isn't it? That's amazing. So it's making massive changes to people's lives and it had done to me. I'm hoping now that I'm going forwards, carrying your story a little bit, doing the same for other people. So it's quite an amazing thing. So I had to come and see you both to say that. So thank you both.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's lovely to hear. I think there were three of you. Was there three of you to start with? Yes, Bradley was with us as well, but he's got a a newborn baby, newborn channel. Right, okay. Yeah. Yeah, his camera work detects him. Busy. Busy man, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it still evolves. He makes films with us. Now we're working on a little pro I don't know, we'll just keep doing these little pros.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if manage it because there's so much going on in your lives. You you somehow managed to keep this together, so well done, brother.
SPEAKER_03:Neither do we, don't we? Neither does my wife. But don't stop. Whatever you do, don't stop. Big sh yeah, big shout out to Kirsty for putting up with it. Well you go, yeah. Right, okay. I won't see you tonight either. So thank you for that, Chris. That's nice, isn't it? It's really nice to hear. Yeah, thanks, Chris. Makes me feel a bit what's the feeling? Because remember when we without getting too off the topic, he oh, we haven't gone to the topic yet, but when we first started, we only ever were going to do ten. We got to about eight and we were finding them so difficult because of the logistics and the time, and we didn't know what we're doing really. And uh and we're like, are they good enough? Are people listening? And then somebody emailed and tried to take in his own life and failed. Right. But a friend of mine had passed on the podcast and he sent this email saying, You don't know me, we ain't got much in common. But I'm laid in bed in the hospital listening to all your podcasts. And now I've downloaded I I know there's a way through, a reason to go on, and we were like, Oh, bloody hell. Yeah, gotta keep going there.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's what it is, right? It's the it's the the quality of the people you've had through. And they've all got different stories, and and each of their stories can either work with you or for you, or not. Yeah. The ones that do, my job is they do, don't they? Incredible stories of people getting through, finding their way back to them, as you put it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, incredible. I think the difficulty is if we looked at figures, then we keep thinking we've early, even though or I do. I think you think when you see people with other podcasts getting thousands of listeners, but these are individual topics. It's like it's like a different podcast each time. Because it's there's no no set topic really, well, apart from mental well-being, which is such a vast area. Of course. Cool. So on that note, thank you for that. Can we have a little bit of your background on why we've asked you on? Because we did a bit of a a bit of a walk.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, but I'm off for a little walk, I'll see you in 18 months. Yeah, right. Yeah. I uh it's it's a weird one because again, listening to a lot of your stories, uh the stories of your podcasts, people that have gone through really extreme things. Mine kind of was uh my breakdown was all just a circumstantial thing. It was just a process that I went through by accident. Through normal life. I didn't suffer with anything major in terms of trauma, just a kind of a normal life process. And the wheels fell off and I ended up in a really, really dark place. I mean, I if I go back, I was born into the military, my dad was in the army, so I did 16 years just bouncing England, Germany, every two years. And a normal thing you do as a Pads brat. Always wanted to join up, never got in at 16 because I had asthma. I got into the world of engineering. Three years after that, I got out of engineering into construction and moved up to Lincolnshire. And it was then I saw a reserve unit, so I tried again to get in the army, and this time I got in, I forgot to tell him I had asthma, so and I kind of bluffed it. And and I got in, and I had fantastic 12 years, but becoming a bricklayer, there were always shorter brickies in the regular army, in the regular role engineers. So I spent 12 years travelling all over the world with the regulars and their reserves. So a bit of a twist of the irony there. But and I thoroughly enjoyed it, loved it. Came out of the army when our regiment was disbanded. I'd met Michelle, we'd started a family, so we decided to bin it. We didn't want to go through. I could have joined up at that point, but we decided not to. And I started a business working with kids quite by accident. I was teaching young lads, mostly lads at the time, 13 to 16 year olds that had been excluded from school. And all the rough after the I guess the kids, I say the rough kids, they weren't rough kids. They were the kids that just didn't get on with education from all over Lincolnshire. Started by accident, we stepped the business up, and then for 20 years nearly, it built and we just kept building and building and building, and uh, we ended up I had 40 staff. We had a contract for 120 kids at the end. We had over 5,000 kids came through our services. It was all about teaching and vocational training, but there were those kind of kids, I know you work with these sorts of kids as well, that just need some discipline. I employed mostly ex-military guys and g and girls and armed force, armed forces, police, fire, those sorts of people, the kind of people that had that disciplined background, you know. And and I loved it. It was just my life. I absolutely loved doing it. And then 2019, 2018, 2019, the government changed the rules and forced us to become schools. Of course, it wasn't the right way forward. We weren't at school and it worked because we weren't at school. These kids didn't want to go to school. And it it was that that was the beginning of the end. Well, I say the beginning, it was the beginning of my problems. I started getting very frustrated, very angry. It was starting to unravel because we weren't allowed to do what we'd done for 20 years really, really well for these kids. Because we were now under the auspices of offset and their inspection regimes. It wasn't geared up for it. So we were, we were failing the kids and it made me really, really cross. And it started a kind of a process inside where I was trying to I was retracting out of it and I was having to take myself away and give myself a good talking to on a an hourly basis. It was getting worse and worse and worse. So we decided to sell. So we bet we binned the business in 2019. It took us a year to sell it, and that process was incredibly stressful. It's just the hardest, worst thing I've ever done in my life because I was having to let the business be run by other people because they wouldn't buy it if if it was all down to me running it, if that makes sense. It was very, very stressful. Took us a year nearly, but we managed to flog it. We sold the house, sold everything, and we'd got out. And it should have all been right. It should have been rosy. We bought a bigger motorhome, we were just going to travel, decompress, and then went off to Spain, I think, over that Christmas. Came back in March 2020, March, April, because I had tickets to watch to rugby in England, England, Ireland, down at Tweakinham. And it was just at that point, then, of course, as you know what happened in May 2020. COVID hit. We couldn't travel. We were in a little field in our motorhome. And I then spent the rest of that 2020 pretty much on my own. So I'd gone from all that busy, nothing, virtually in the space of a very short time. The demons got in, and that was it. I was wrecked. And by the end of 2020, I was suicidal. I was just in a right mess. And it just completely fell apart. I didn't get it at the time. I didn't know how to talk about it. I just wasn't equipped to it. I didn't have any the toolkit to deal with any of it. Never had problems in my entire life with my mental health. But that got me, just absolutely thrashed me. Yeah, so I got to a point where it was near the Christmas time, 2020, where I was sitting under trees. I had the rope, it was all ready to go, and I couldn't find a way out of it, just in a right mess. So in terms of I guess we do this, don't we? We equate our story to other people's stories and you compare all the time. You think about all the stories that I've heard on your podcasts of people that have had some serious I hadn't had any of that. I had no reason for my mental health to fall apart whatsoever. And that was kind of part of the problem as well, which made it worse for me. But clearly I got help and managed to get myself up back onto me back onto my feet to a point.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But not enough.
SPEAKER_03:I'll be honest, just from listening to that, I felt I suppose from experience now doing the podcasts and then doing my own sort of work. On this health as well. I mean, I don't mind saying Seb knows. I mean, I'm 25 years now with PTSD. Yep. And it's in only in the last two or three or three years that I've gone and doing some more counselling therapy, which I carry on doing. I do it every supposed to be two or two weeks, but some of it tight, so I'll fuck it out for three weeks. But that's been you know, you know, that's been brilliant. Yeah, and it's that thing for me, it was that thing. You know, everyone's story is individual. Yep. And I've said this about the PTSD and talking to people about the body keeps the scoreboard. When you read that, body out. Yeah, they're all my symptoms and everything. But everyone that reads and and relates to them symptoms, they're all different of course. And for yourself, to I don't know. I'm not a counsellor, I'm not a therapist, is there? But I suppose to go from without pointing out the spot when you're when you were working with them young people and they're coming in with their issues and their behaviour, and then you're getting a result, you're getting a tradesman out. There's got to be some some sense of fulfilment there, is there? And I'm not trying to put you into a spot where you I'm not trying to not lead you down the path, but I'm not trying to point you one direction. But for me, that I I'd struggle with that because with these some of these kids that sometimes you work with, see what's going on in again with the system. Yep. You know, you can't do that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Do you know what I mean? In fact, that was a big part of the problem. But I think a lot of that as well, you was kind of using it as a mask, I think. I was incredibly busy. And anything that happened in my life personally just went in a box. You mean I'll deal with that later. Deal with that later, deal with that later, sort that out later. So, in terms of you know, loss and grief or anything like that, never good at dealing with it. Just so I think I was just plowed my whole world into that business, into those kids. And anything else was on the shelf. So I never even thought about learning like you just mentioned, trying to learn about your own mental health. And now as you're getting older, you're getting more emotional. I remember coming back from meetings and bursting into tears. And then you're thinking, what the hell is all that about? Not understanding it, not understanding how to talk about it, and not being embarrassed by it. But what was that? So I go to the pub and have a few beers, talk to my mate to the you know at the bar, and none of them burst into tears when the drive room from meetings. Bit strange.
SPEAKER_03:Well, bid there, bit there, but they told me.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe, maybe that's it, yeah, maybe that's it. So I can I think it was just stacking it away, stacking it away. And kind of this this the process that I went on to do, which we'll come on to in a minute, this walk, has just enabled me to read books, listen to podcasts, listen to stories, and then reflect on my life as I've gone through it and all of the things that I haven't done to look after myself. So when that comes crashing down, if you're not ready, if you're not equipped, well, you've had it on you. You know, how do you get out of it then? It's too late to go, it can be too late, can't it?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So in in sort of retrospect, looking back now, that point where you sat another tree with a rope, yeah, would you be at uh do you think there's any significant points or significant things that you could have changed that was stopped you getting to that situation? Because it sounds like you know, you're just doing the general thing that guys do, and it's that deflection. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But then you think that was at the end of a six, seven month process of spending so much time on my own through all those lockdowns. My wife was really busy looking after our one grandchild at the time. My daughter's a nurse. So Michelle was off every day looking after the granddaughter, which left me with the dog. And of course, all of the normal things that I would have normally been able to do go at the gym. I mean, I still did a fair bit of running, I couldn't go to the swimming pool, couldn't do any of that. The pubs were all closed, so I couldn't do any of that. And all of that thing that you have in work, just meeting the guys, all gone. My Freemasonry, I've been a Freemason for 15 years, absolutely love that. That all closed down. So I guess I lost my purpose, without a question of a doubt. I lost my identity. And I think that that over that six, seven month period, it just got kept getting worse and worse and worse. And although I felt myself getting worse, I don't know, I just thinking back, I I it wasn't like I thought, right, I can sort this out. I just didn't have a clue. I just deteriorated. And it was about a three-week process at the very end of it, where we'd moved again on from another different campsite, we were in the middle of nowhere, it was terrible, the weather was awful, and literally she'd go out at six o'clock in the morning and not come home till six, seven at night, and I would just have nothing to do all day. And I like a pint, but I'm not a big drinker, so I didn't lose myself in alcohol. Right. I love reading, but I just lost the interest in that. I've got my motorbike, I've got my pushbike, and I just lost interest in all of those things, you know where I'm coming from. Yeah, that's just what happens, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:All of those things that you get pleasure from, just lose it, don't you? And I couldn't find a way of getting back into any of it. It was one day she she said to me, you know, she came home, and I think she had been treading around on HLs around me for a long time, and she just said, You're gonna have to sort this, otherwise I'm not coming home tomorrow. So because uh she she didn't understand what it was all about, and apparently I had been telling her about the tree and the rope, I'd been talking about it, but I have no recollection of that. So I I phoned the NHS. Sadly, it didn't work. NHS was massively inundated. They just you can imagine at the end of COVID time. I mean, it was the M it was the MCF, the Masonic Charitable Foundation. I I didn't know they offered support. I saw it accidentally on a computer one day. I was doing a bit of research, clicked on it, and they did this online where it was down the phone counselling, which just changed everything. It was mindfulness, it was you know linguistic programming, that sort of thing. Sending me stuff through on email that I was reading, and now I was talking to this woman every day, and then it broke up every two days, every three days, and started spreading out over eight weeks. But the best counselling process I've ever well, it is I never had one before, but it's it saved me, you know, without a doubt.
SPEAKER_03:Can I can I just ask you, I don't want to dwell on it too much, but that that period, that six months, because the I think personally I think there's two sides to it, but there has to be a balance, and it's that individual balance. Being busy all the time, yep. Sort of and this may this is probably an opinion, and if any professionals want to get in contact and let me know if I'm talking out being busy all the time can be a deflection from your own thoughts, and that's what sometimes I used to do. Yep. And but then I'd like to be by myself. But if it's too much of either, then it's a destructive process.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Do you know what I mean? And and I think one of the thing with COVID was and you said that there with the the loan, sorry, it's not I don't I don't feel loneliness, but being alone because you're not interacting. Yeah. And even though I spent I used to spend a lot of time alone, going out just you know on expeditions by myself, yeah, like wandering around. But I was still doing something because I was looking for you know my mind was yeah, my mind was busy because I'm walking hills and I'm looking for somewhere to camp, I'm looking for this, I'm looking for I'm gonna go get some food, I've got to plan all that. So even though you're alone and people can't get their heads around that. Why the fact going do that by yourself? Well yeah, well what do you do? Well, live in basically. But then the other like I say, the other side, but then when COVID was throwing on us, and I spent the first three weeks just sat in my flat and then having to queue up to go to the to get some and then I just have my phone, got my mo got my uh what's it called, my mountain bike out and spent five hours a day down the canal. Because police cars can't get down there. Yeah. So I don't know what's your opinion on that.
SPEAKER_00:Would you be if you if you'd have been a better balance or I'll be honest, I did I think through that whole time I did very little on my own. Going through a run on my own, I'd I got into I was kind of always I always had a mental challenge, I thought, with the business. It would always mentally challenge me. I had to keep doing things to have physical challenges to keep the weight off as I'm getting older. So I'd always set myself targets to try and run a marathon in a certain time or two and a half marathons in ten hours and things like that. So that was the only time really I did anything on my own was those those little those little bits. I've got no problem with being on my own. I never, in reflection, never thought I had a problem back then. But I just I'd never had an opportunity to spend much time on my own. I suppose that's it. You know, you've got a family, you're at work all day, you come home. Like I say, with my Freemasonry, that's all that 12 years with the rural engineers. A lot of that was going away with the guys, you're never on your own much. So yeah, I'd I think I'm definitely the kind of person that needs to be with people. I learned that, and then that period of time spending so much time on my own, although I didn't think it was hurting me, it clearly was.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I don't know if there's that you know, when because that choice could be always taken away from me, isn't it? Yeah, I guess, yeah, it wasn't a choice. Because there's evidence come out since that, and I know they have automatically talked about as it's been as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And then is this other thing I know it's you know when one partner dies and then shot after the next partner dies and the sex. You just don't want to be people don't want to be on the city.
SPEAKER_00:Don't want to be on their own, yeah. Yeah, and then of course what I then went on and did, spent two years on my own. Yeah Which is yeah, out of choice though. Of choice, yeah, yeah, which is totally different, isn't it? Wasn't forced on me, was it? Yeah, indeed.
SPEAKER_03:So this uh the counselling, that was from the uh Masonic Trust.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Masonic Channel Foundation, I didn't even realise they had it. You know, these I guess it's one of those things that they do lots of things, they they su support people in all sorts of ways. And unless you've had to ask for help, you don't know they do it, right? I mean amazingly, there's 200,000 Freemasons in the UK, and it's amazing how many didn't know that they had a counselling service. You know, they they pay for it, they don't do it themselves, obviously they put it out to professionals. But and there are lots of others. I did look at a couple of local ones, but they were just too busy. You know, they were completely inundated. So many people needed to talk to somebody at that time, didn't they? In the 2020, the end of 20, the world was in a mess in terms of people needing help. But it got me back on my feet, without a question of a doubt. And I I got myself back to myself and then got involved in businesses and doing various bits and pieces for a couple of years, nearly a couple of years, got back into construction, I was building somebody a house. I kind of knew I wasn't going to go back into education, and no one didn't want to employ anybody ever again. That was part of that beat me to bits. Yeah, and then it was towards the end of 2022 I saw some bloke on Facebook, and a guy who was an American, a young chap, walking around the world. Right. And I got following his story. And I've realized then I was slipping again, because I was coming home from building this extension for somebody, and I was just sitting on my phone just doing this scrolling, and then I kind of realized I was trying to escape. Yeah. And I was slipping back into that hole again. Although I had the toolkit, I thought I was keeping myself fit, I wasn't drinking too much, it was going again. I could feel it really coming in, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Can I ask you about you know you know when you did the counter and what because you'd mentioned was it CBT they'd offered you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was a lot was around mindfulness. Yeah. So it was all about all of the various processes of grounding yourself, trying to work out which is the best way for you to ground yourself. There was a little bit in there about breathing exercises, didn't really get that. Got that sense from listening to people on your podcasts. And I've really got involved in that now in a big, big way. There was a bit about that. And the and something I do I think the the biggest part of it was about the mindfulness. It was about the the what do they call the it's not procrastinating, is it? The rumination where your brain just goes off all the time. Yeah. And I could never stop it. I could never ever shut it down. I kind of could when they taught me these various ways to do that. But then, like I said to us, two years later, it was almost like everything I'd learnt. I just couldn't use it. It just wasn't coming back. And my brain was beating myself up all the time with the decisions I'd made. And of course, by that point, it was another two years down the road, and we'd just been living off the money we've been we could we got from the business. I just couldn't find a way forward for me, couldn't find anything that was really engaging with me. And so it was it was just that slip and like I say, scrolling, watch this bloke. And I just one day I thought I said to the wife, I'm gonna have to do something, I've got to have a break from all this and see if I can reset. And clearly mentioned to her I was gonna walk around the world, and that never went down very well. And you've been married for 30 years, he's said, by the way, love, I'm gonna walk off around the world. Oh, yeah, really? Yeah, so she I didn't know at the time, she kind of thought I was doing a runner, I was away and I was never coming back. But it was another chapter story, it was at the same time there was an ex-paratrooper who was walking in the UK and he hit all the main news, he was on Ben Fogle. A really nice story. Met a woman while he was walking at a bay bike called Christian Lewis.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And a good story, but his was a mental health problem. He did the same thing. Took him six years to get right around, did all the islands, and he was watching him, and I thought, you know, I can do that. You know, the world probably is too much. So I set about getting the kit, three weeks that took me to get all the gear together, set off on New Year's Day, and just went with the thought that I'm just gonna learn. I just want to understand what this is and read books and have no responsibility. But what you just said was interesting. It was my choice. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I never considered that until this very moment. It was my call to do that, right? Whereas everything up to that point, from selling the business, that was my choice. And then two years of my life, really, it wasn't none of them, none of it was my making, my doing. I was being forced. Yeah, thank you. There you go. We're all learning all the time, aren't we?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, I mean that little yeah. That's what I mean, that's what we're about with podcasting. Yeah, someone gets that little nugget and thinks, absolutely the amount of times that I've done it needs to chase that up. So what was the family's thoughts about you setting off doing this?
SPEAKER_00:I made a deal with the wife. I said I'd come home in March, I'd come home in May, and I'd come home in October. I had I had important things with me Freemasonry that I had to be back for that. Could have missed them, but I had an obligation to be there for it. So I just said I'm gonna come home wherever I am, I'll get on a train, just come back to you, spend a week at home, and then I'll go back to it. And and she yeah, she said, Yeah, I'm up for that. Okay, go on then, get lost. It was a tough one, but of course, social media's great, technology's great. I was FaceTiming every single day, so I was seeing the grandkids, seeing her every day, a couple of times a day sometimes. So it was almost like we never really broke it. We never we never we weren't that far apart, were we?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, without I don't want to put on introducing negative, but by then going away, was it wife then alone? Yeah. So she was alright with it.
SPEAKER_00:We'd we'd gone back into a property. It's something I wasn't really I didn't really want to do. I still hadn't had that dream of just escaping in the motorhome. But she got sick of it, living in the motorhome through all that COVID, so we had to go back into her property. We'd gone back in, nice little area, kind of knew she was safe in the area where she was on her own. Uh we had some really nice really nice neighbours there. So I knew that she was good with that. She's really set on looking after the grandkids. We've got three grandkids now, so she had her purpose, she had her objectives. So I wasn't interfering with any of that. So that worked as well. Um again, that was quite new for her. She was setting up a new process doing it. So I kind of thought a little bit being selfish, it was good for her that I was out of the way as well.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it worked for both of us. But I didn't realise until I came home that she actually genuinely thought that was me going home. I wasn't going to come back. Oh, really? Yeah. And I and that upset me a lot when I got home because that wasn't my intention in the beginning. This is yeah, this is something that happens when I break my useless communication skills. I didn't get that across to it.
SPEAKER_03:Is it well is it a useless communication or is it that sometimes you can't express them and that sometimes you can't people can't understand what you you think I I sometimes have a fear that people don't un not fear, but reluctance to say something because I don't think they're gonna understand me. Because I do have a big passion for just being outside and I don't mind. They would love to just go out and sleep under a tree. Yeah, because that's one of my places. Yeah. Yeah, and but a lot of people can't get around it. And it's like if I said to Kirstie, I'm just gonna go sleep under trees and she's got I've never had that urge or like passion, it's weird, isn't it? Well But I have to I mean, I've got to give you know, hats up to Kirk, hats off to Curse, she has been any understanding that as she came into a relationship where she knew that I had PTSD, probably didn't know some of the effects that were still going on, and I didn't, you know what I mean? But then this thing of just a fan.
SPEAKER_00:But you have that thing with touching nature too, don't you? You get something from that, don't you? Yeah, being that close to it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I believe in ground versed in it. Yeah. Yeah. Because and that goes to the towards the mindfulness thing that you were doing. As in if I'm sort of focused in, and I don't sometimes because I didn't have to mention a nature therapy practitioner. I know, I joined a few courses. Did you give on one of my courses? Give up one of my courses. So with a nature therapy thing that some do we do a a process where you may go walking for like 30 minutes, but you hardly cover any ground. Maybe a couple of hundred metres. What I like to do is get people focused into the minute, you know what I mean? The sounds, the smell, the sound. For even give people magnifying glasses and looking at like and so and it what's happening there is because they're focusing into that. It's it's a mindful practice. And for that for that moment, you know, and this it it's not it's evidence-backed. I'm not selling trying to sell the focus by the way, but it's evidence backed. It all comes from Shinran Yoku, the Japanese and North Korean uh sorry, with the Korean practice. Yep. Yeah, and it just focuses you in English. And what it does because people are like, oh, it's all woo-woo and all this lot, it's all bit sp uh, you know, it can be a bit spiritual. What it's doing is giving your brain that little rest so it can reset and just drops the cortisol levels. Yeah. You know, I can feel myself when I'm getting if I get angry, get wound up. Yep. I said, you know, you have to do it. So they were stuff when you think why have I said that? Because it's but it's an anger, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. This is it's fascinating. That's why I love the sort of psychology side with when we've got Dave Gallagher on talking about what's going on with these processes we bring. And sometimes I think if every person listen listened and then had a little look at the self, with a little thought, what have I just done? And then we've got to look at these other influences that are going round. So mine used to be alcohol and going out and being tired's a massive one, isn't it? Of course, yeah. So yeah, anyway.
SPEAKER_00:And those stress levels, something again I never ref never thought about. 20 years in that business. Was always very I was the, I guess you could say like the sergeant major, if you like, with the business. I never wanted any of my staff to get the violence from these kids, and we were very, very good at managing the violence. We never got a lot of it. But I used to take it. So I would get myself in the way and extract the kid, and then that threat of violence was potentially coming at me. Never once did I ever punch one of them, never once did any of them ever punch me. So I've always managed to talk it, twist it, manipulate it. But what I never realized was that thing in your head constantly being on the edge, that fight or that flight or fright thing or freeze, that was constant. And I might have had a Sunday off. That isn't enough when you've had that for five days and then work all day Saturday and have a Sunday off, and then another five days of that constant threat. And now I understand with the books I've read, some of the books I've read, and some of the again, some of your guests, that your brain just gets locked in it. And that takes years sometimes to get off that. You're stuck in that state, aren't you? And then you add burnout to that, which are clearly was burnt out as well, and that burnt out state is an absolute mess as well. They can equate that to BTSD now, can't they? Yeah. Or or rather not equate it to it, but you can have some of the same symptoms of it. And how long does it take for that to go away? Well, do you know it might never go away, it might always be part of your system.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I'm quite open that I think I'll have PTSD forever. That's how I work with it. And then demons, you know, they're not as they don't shout as strong now.
SPEAKER_00:No, and I think if you've ever been at the bottom of that hole, I think you'll always have that forever because you've you've been there, you've experienced that. That's always with you, isn't it? I don't think that ever goes away. And yet I guess you are now trying to work all the time to make sure you don't go back to the bottom of that hole. I mean that's what it is, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it is. I mean, someone said to me the other day, I'd say I've wear with some good friends, and I was telling them about an incident. But but you seem to be in a really good place. And you're talking about mental health all the time, I'll help others. But I I still have intrusive thoughts. Yes. You know what I mean? Intrusive thoughts pop up, but the intrusive thoughts might be I might think about where I've been, where I wanted to be in the past, but I have spoken about thinking about taking on that. Yeah, yeah. Or doing something else, or just sacking it all off, because I've got ambitions like you to walk in certain places. Wanna throw my phone away, I just want to go and then just see what happens, yeah, because life too comes, I don't fit into this controlled life thing. Yep. So or I don't think I do. But I've also then through my own practice and looking at myself is that I'll then look at different areas of the right. Have I been drinking too much? Were I drinking last night? What have I been eating? What have have I been sleeping? Yeah. Have I been exercising? I mean, this process that I've recently done of training for the marathon's just been great because I've lost weight, I've got fitter. Yep, I've got to focus. And my mind's been a bit clearer. You've got a purpose. Yeah, so it's fascinating, isn't it what goes on in your head? It really is. But the thing is, and we're not generalising, because I think uh again, every individual is different on that scale or on different scales.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, exactly that. We've all got to that point, haven't we? Is one of yours that said that it's your day two, you can't equate to somebody else's day 38. You see, we're all on a different journey. We've all we've all got the resilience we've got because of what we've experienced to the point we are now. So they're never ever gonna have two of the same story, are they? Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I told you I jogged on. I got in the tent and I was away. So just went for a walk. Why did you why did you just set a front new yesterday? Middle of winter middle of winter. Well, do you know what's weird? Because I knew it was going to take me 18 months at least. So it was like, well, it doesn't matter when you start, you get in all the weather. So you can start in the spring if you want, but you still have to go right through Christmas. Winters? Yeah. And actually, I was thinking hate Christmas. I was running, I was running in towards Christmas. I knew that the job I was building, I was building an extension for somebody. I knew I had to have the roof on it by Christmas. And we were I wasn't doing anything inside, so that was me done. And I didn't want to do any more building. I've just I'd done that for six months and realised I hated doing it. I did it because I thought I'd get creative again and just be by myself and work. Wrong idea. I need to work with people. I realize that now. I understand that's what's my makeup, I guess. Um so it kind of just fell in really. And then I've just been really stupid. I thought, well, I'll always know kind of how many days I've done if I start on New Year's Day, right? So I thought it would just be easy. Yeah, I made so many stupid assumptions that it would just be such a doddle, you know, I'm never going to get lost. The sea's on your right. As long as the sea's on my right, just keep going around and eventually I'll get back. What was your route? Just stay close to the sea. Yeah, yeah. The point was just to try and walk the coastline of mainland Great Britain, yeah. The bit of internet working, I did sorting out some of the gear before I went and just realized that it'd be between six and eight thousand miles, they reckon. It's 28,000 miles if you walk up every river and come back down the other side.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But take a bridge, take a ferry, get across. Yeah, so six to eight thousand. People had done it in about 18 months, so I figured I could do that. And apart from that, it was just like get everything on your back and just go. So I didn't have to rely on anybody for anything. I didn't want to have people waiting for me at any stages of just so while camping, while camping, yeah, just be completely free. Yeah. And then again, going in December, January the 1st, the days are short. So I knew I was going to have to build up my stamina and my physical ability to do this as well. So the shorter days were going to help me. It's dark really early. So once I get my tent up, that was great because I was getting like 14 hours in my tent tonight, which at first was really challenging because that's just too long on your own.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But then eventually, when I've started reading and listening to books and listening to podcasts, I mean you get stuck into that book because your body keeps the score. Yeah. Listen to that three times. Oh, really? So many of those torter books. And and that was just fascinating for me. And then that helped me to do that reflection part of it. Yeah, so that turned into part of it, which I really, really enjoyed. I loved that time on my own. It was really good. And I've never had that in 50 years. Had any kind of time like that. I've never had it when I've never had any, I've never had responsibility. All I had to think about was myself. Wanting to go in a pub, I'd go in a pub if I wanted to just lay under a tree and go to sleep. I did. And it was just wonderful, incredible. I was really lucky actually. Because every time I come across somebody and got short talking to a guy and tell him what I was doing and why, the amount of blokes have said, jammy bugger. I'd love to do that. And like you said, it's so many people just love that opportunity, wouldn't they? I didn't realise how privileged I was to be able to do it. I was whinging about the weather and how cold it was.
SPEAKER_03:But I suppose if it went back to me, what was called is hippie ways, that is that is part of what our evolution really. Yeah. And as much as I think we're going to rant because you haven't done it yet, you might as well do it. I've been good at rants. I've been trying pretty laid back. But um well, here I have broadcasted it. But you know, the more that I so I what I decided to do was and through doing the podcast and look at why how actually how did I get from my position with the PTSD? And and I don't see it as a competition, but when I talk to people about why I want, and they were like, eh, I can't believe you've done so well, can't believe it's too late. I've got friends that I have friends that have taken online but in lesser circumstances Well they're not lesser circumstances, because they're individu individuals. But when we first when I did the film for Rob Johnson, he called it the white fox where this came from and it was all about being in the mountains and the climbing and and I'm all like, Well, there must be more to it. And just the evolution of being outside in that fresh air and exercise and then and with the elements. The elements, yeah, but just uh just nature and then even down to things like tactile patterns now, I'm interested in that's like the just the patterns of nature where straight lines we're not you know, we're not evolved. Straight lines in cities give you stress. That's it. You know what I mean? We're not we're not evolved, and what's happened is our or allegedly again if a professional wants to email me or market your um white fox talking joke. Then the thinking is or the evidence is coming through that you know our lives have changed so much in such a small time. Yes. You know, it's only it lasts a few hundred years, you know, uh two hundred years, two hundred fippy years, but industrial revolution. Now we've now we're all sat looking at screens that are bad for us.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, addicted to phones. In terms of the way we our makeup and what we should be doing. Yeah, yeah. Out there. And we forget about that. Now the one that the thing that worries me is when I'm working with young people now, they all see it as it's this hippie woo-woo stuff. You know what I mean? You can't get people out because they're addicted to algor algorithms, vapes, and bloody sugar. You know, and su then, you know, there's there's so much coming out about how damaging sugar is. Yeah, it's not much on a ramp, but it's just my maybe my opinions until I've got some quals. It's just gonna give worse though. Well, thanks for that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, maybe not. Maybe it's maybe if it all crashes again like it did today. Maybe we maybe we'll be alright then. And we have to go back to candles and reading books.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I suppose one thing is you know, people are now learning. People obviously. Did I mention we'd have ten thousand downloads? Did you? Yeah. So there is we never thought we'd reach 10,000 downloads, yeah. And you know, we didn't think we'd reach ten episodes. So there is an interest there, even if it's just our small part of a massive area, because there's so much literature about mental well-being and making it better for yourself. It's just a problem that we're not getting capturing people early enough.
SPEAKER_00:The literature sometimes the literature is so deep as well, that's what I found. You know, some of these books, all right, they're great and they're very informative, but they're just they're just so difficult to get. Yeah. I think what I'm trying to do now is trying to get this into layman's terms with with my talks that I'm doing. Just trying to get it so I can understand it. If I can understand it, and then other blokes like me will be able to understand it and get it. I don't have to sit and read a 300-page book. Right, right. What's this one? To try and get into the depths of it, is because it's just so deep. Did you find it or do you find being near the sea makes an impact on you? See, I loved being by the water. Same. It's just something, isn't it? And and and I thought, you know, then again, that process of me being by the sea all the time. I like the sound, the smell, yeah, everything. The vastness of it, it's just so big and so giant, massive, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, but again, on the other book, The Science of Or, or just all it's called. Right. And it's just that the size of everything around you. Just a small part, and you can but you we take up all the all these problems. Yep. I mean, and then when you're you know, walking down a walking down a walking barefoot down a beach, I don't think there's gonna be anything better.
SPEAKER_00:No, indeed. And I did a lot of that. Yeah, I didn't strip the boots off and wading about and it was marvelous. Sleeping on beaches, sleeping on beaches isn't great. It's horse flies, isn't it? Is it horseflies? Yeah, a bit of a problem with that's Scotland, but the the tide's always a bit of a I mean, even if you can work your tide times out, you know, laying in a tent and you can hear it coming, and you know it's coming, but how close is it gonna get? And you know there's one of these weird tides that comes even higher on a particular is that tonight? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I have um I have a problem sleeping near streams. I like the I like the sound as I fall asleep, but then I'm an hour later I need to get up for a peek. I see.
SPEAKER_00:You need a bottle in the tent with you like I had, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well and in winter, in winter what you do is drink your water first, pee in the bottle, and put it in your uh sleeping bag, keep you warm.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah. Yeah, I never I never had to do that. I was always my sleep, I was always good. I mean, I had some minus nines in my tent. It was Baltic on the East Coast. Yeah. The beast from the east came back. I mean, but I had a decent tent, I had a decent sleep system, so I did well. But yeah, you've got to have a bottle in your tent, haven't you? You won't be getting out there with all the bogeyman, do you in the night just for a week.
SPEAKER_03:So what were can you just give us some of the highlights? Um no, I tell you what, let's start with the downside. The downsides. The downsides of walking around.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the the thing was about being on your own, I think. I I wondered how that would cope with that. And in fairness, I did I did okay. I only really struggled when somebody came to see me, or I met people and then enjoyed the company of people, and then you're back on your own again. And that seemed to really impact me a lot. It was almost like you're almost on a high being with people again, and then nothing. Right. So it was like a crescendo, massive crash for me. Every time somebody would either come and travel to see me, to walk with me, but met some nice people, they put me up for the night, and then when I'm back on my own again, and then I get used to being on my own again, it was okay. So that that was a horrible. The weather was just I mean, the weather in the British Isles is just a nightmare, isn't it? And if you're going home or you're going in a hotel or or or whatever, it's okay. But in a tent constantly, I mean I did nearly 500 nights in the tent. So that when you're wet and everything's minging wet and you're back in the tent again that night, especially around Scotland, that was tough. A real challenge that was. And so many times I could I just thought to myself, I'm too old for this nonsense, I'm going home. But it wasn't for the fact I started raising money that kept me on a track on purpose again, then yeah. You can't just go home because you're wet, can you? I'm never gonna live that one down with the lads. Yeah. Um so you keep going. So the weather was a challenge. The the terrain was tough, I'll be honest. I I did naively think it'd be dead easy to navigate it, but actually you really you come in land quite a lot. So navigating was a bit of a problem, especially around the west coast of Scotland. That was tough. And I think the probably the hardest thing, which has given me the most, was never knowing when I was gonna get done. This was like you know, when you do a challenge, you know whatever that challenge is, it's a week or a month or whatever. This was just open-ended. I never knew when I was gonna get back. And it was you couldn't look at a map and work it out. It was just impossible to work out. Kind of knew I'd be home for Christmas, that's all I could think. And that was it. And that was a really difficult thing unless I put it out of my head and I just accepted I'll get home when I get home. And I've never worked like that. I've always always had a plan. And then my plans have always had to be with business or whatever. You always had a deadline. You've always got a deadline, you're always on a plan, you're always on a target, and that's kind of how we live our lives, isn't it? And this was the first time in all these years that I've had this where it's just open-ended. But that was a real challenge, it was a real struggle to get my head around. Positive challenge. Yeah, I mean, again, just having to put it out of my head. I mean, on a on a daily basis, trying to work out where I was going to camp tonight. That was a stress. And I managed to put it out of my head after about a month, realizing that something always happens. So why are you stressing about this every day? That's kind of a life lesson, isn't it? I'll be worrying about all this nonsense because something always happens and it always happens that's turned out okay. Got it out of my head. I'd walk around a bit, you probably do this with your mountain, you see, and you think, I got how am I going to get around that? And then quite by accident, I looked back and I saw what I'd done. Bloody hell. I've got around that. I need to get around that. And that's kind of another life lesson it kind of taught me, really, is we kind of do that all the time, don't we? Come up against a hurdle, don't think you can get over it. But that was a ch that was a real big one, that one. That that difficulty not knowing when I was getting finished. Well, that was tough.
SPEAKER_03:And oh before we move on to the positives, how did your family find this? Because obviously you got to be able to do it. My kids are all grown up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they're all grown up, so they were already living, you know, they weren't at home, they were already got their own families living away.
SPEAKER_03:But but there wouldn't there must be or maybe there mustn't must be, but there may be a worry.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, they know I'd been through hell. They knew I'd really, really struggled. They knew that I was on a yeah, I guess, uh a journey with a process of trying to sort myself out. They knew that, as the wife did. I don't know what was said between the wife and the kids. Now I know now I understand that Michelle thought I genuinely wasn't coming home.
SPEAKER_03:For for what reason? You thought you'd take your own stuff out of me. No, just I just couldn't vote. I'm not going to come back. Right. Yeah. That could have been a problem if you got back and she'd moved out.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it could have been. I mean, I never never even thought about it. I mean, how selfish is this? I got back and just I absolutely loved being home. I mean, again, when you start reflecting on these things and I've been grateful for the smallest things in the life, which I do all the time now. You know, I've got a drawer full of pants and socks, got a shower, I've got a bed. It's like, and I'm having two years in a tent. I've reflected on that a lot, and I'm really grateful for those things. But I kind of moved in back into the house and just loved it. It was a nightmare for her because she's had two years without me there. And now, of course, she's having to adjust the shower head and all these little things that she hadn't had to do. And I never realised, of course, I was a right ignorant git, but it was a real challenge for her getting me back.
SPEAKER_03:You've pitched a tent in front of TV.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, you're in the garden, job on it. Yeah. But I mean, that was a difficult thing of us coming back together, but I'm a totally different person, and she can see it all the time. I'm just so now relaxed. Nothing stresses me particularly. I don't get angry with anything anymore. I just she did tell you to sort it out.
SPEAKER_02:There you go. You did something about it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm in everything's in perspective now. The things that I used to stress about and worry about, road raging. I wanted to rip somebody's head out of a window. I don't have any of that, it's just it's all nonsense, isn't it? Yeah, it's absolute nonsense. All it does is spin your head. It's all it really does, doesn't it? There's just no need for any of that. And I don't do it anymore. It's just gone. It's so laid back. It could be a hippie, actually, my grandmair.
SPEAKER_03:No, like what I would if you had far enough. So on that note, so let's go to the highlights.
SPEAKER_00:Oh dear me, the highlights, the people, without question of a doubt, you're just talking about opening your mind to how lovely people are generally. You know, I was warned going through various places that dodgy going around there, be careful, you're mugged, whatever it might be, not a bit of it. I just never I never had any animosity anywhere I went. And the amount of people that took me in and fed me and gave me a bed for the night, just unbelievable. In fact, one of your guests, Sip Powers, oh yeah, was walking down his street and he told me across the road. He went, What are you shouting? What are you doing? I'm walking down there. He says, Oh, you're not getting here for a cup of tea. So you met the guy you spoke to. Yeah, yeah, he's called. Went in and had a cup of tea with him and he explained to me his story. Yeah. I mean his story has blessed him has changed since I saw him, dramatically changed. And he to give him a ring, actually. But yeah, people like that, uh just for no other reason than just see somebody and want to help. You know, that that was a massive thing. A huge, huge thing. People are just wonderful. I've learned that without a doubt. And I think part of the learning as well, this problem we have, this this problem with mental health, this this problem we have with suicide, that you see that everywhere. And as soon as you mention why you're doing what you're doing, everybody has a story, whether it's theirs or it's dumb off. They've all got a story. And some of the stories are just horrific. And nobody talks about it, do they? Unless you break the barrier and open the door for it, and then it comes. Some of the stories just, goodness me, what people have done to themselves and because of their mental health and then the impact that has on their families. It's horrendous, isn't it? It's horrendous. I think it's that stigma, isn't it? People do not talk. It's just so difficult to talk about, isn't it? It's just such a hard thing. You know, when I get talking to a young girl in who's waiting at the table what I was doing, and she explains to me about her mother that keeps setting herself on fire. You know, and it's just like, whoa, hang on. And a lady that his daughter hung herself, you know, text a mum at said, Don't forget Chinese tonight, 16 years old, and the mum gets home with the Chinese daughters hanging from the beam. But they won't talk about these things unless they get with somebody who kind of gets it a bit, maybe.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that yeah, that is it. And then it opens, doesn't it? I can't go on a lot of that. But yeah, it's just I find that people once you start talking to people, people want to talk and people want to get it.
SPEAKER_00:I think this is where we're all on this journey, are we now? Are we trying to normalise this conversation? I think that's what this is about now, right? You just have to normalize it because then it does destigmatize it. People aren't scared to talk about it if it's just a normal conversation. You mean you're talking about your bad back for you know my gamut me in my hip? That's a normal conversation. Why can't your mental health be a normal conversation?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think I think some part of the stigma is you know, I've got to be careful. I uh you know, I I I would honest hand on art as a 55-year-old white heterosexual male say that I've experienced discrimination because of my the way that I talk about mental health. Yeah. With in some areas. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I get against the same. And I've not the thing is, I've not really realised that until I've told things, said things about what's what's that. It's just blatant discrimination. That would not, in a corporate world, you could sue, you could do this and you'd like. All right, hang on a minute. But it's you know what I mean. But that doesn't stop you with it. That won't stop you then. But it's not me, but I'm in a fortunate position that I'm self-employed and I do have a lot of knowledge and life life experience, yeah. And and to be fair, and without blowing me on pipe, quite a lot of uh good points that I can pass on to hopefully to other people. With my mountain stuff and my climbing and with the nature of therapy. There's always a market. And do you know what I think people I always used to have this fear. I worked on doors, I'd have this fear about talking about stuff because it's stopped me working with other people, or people might not want to work with you. I'm like, but it's hard to be there for it and whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's just like something else will turn up. I don't have to be entrapped in this world of anxiety, which I used to be. Yeah. What right, what if I say this? Well, because if I say about PTSD. But what happened was what in the early years of my PTSD? I went for jobs and because I had a year, 18 months, with no employment. That's at the two. What so what would be going on? What's going on why is the game? You know what I mean? But now we're 25 years further on. Yeah, we've moved on. And fortunately it's going right direction. Otherwise, us three won't be signing. No, then you don't. It is going a right whether it's going quick enough.
SPEAKER_00:Probably not. Probably not. And you will always get employers that will shy away because it'll frighten them because they just don't know how to deal with it, because they don't want to use their burden. You're always going to get that, I would imagine, with smaller employers, especially.
SPEAKER_03:On the flip side of that, I would say people that open up and talk about things and are willing to share their life experience. I've got that. It's a life experience. Yeah. Because I can see when people I mean, I can be in a conversation with someone and you just maybe there's a little bit more. You know what I mean? Do you want to tell me to inside?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, and that's why there's And if your heart's on your sleeve, you are more likely, I think, they are going to open up to you. And then when they do, and that's just the most amazing thing when they come and give you a hug and say thank you for what you've done. Because I've listened and it's made me do something, and I've changed my life because I've listened to you being open about it. Right. And that's happened to you, I'm sure it has. You know, and that's just an incredible thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean sometimes it is a bit much, you know what I mean? You like it is much, but it's like Yeah, it's hard, isn't it? And because I'll just turn around and say need to get or I'll try and point him in the direction of a book or you might have started that process. Exactly. That's the thing. I think it's that it's like yourself. You know, you once you've spoke once you speak about the first time, it's like, oh, that won't be that bad. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's where I'm at now. I think this kind of this it's that journey, that two years, six and a half thousand miles, living by myself in a tent, thinking I'm now kind of understand so much more than I never got before. And I think my purpose now, if that's the right word, I suppose it is, my my goal, my aim. Um I want to talk to blokes that haven't had problems, that aren't having problems, because I just never saw this coming for me. And actually they can read some of these books now. They can start learning about their emotions, they can start learning about how they express their emotions, how they get a feeling and they can understand what that means, you know, what we're talking about before with your sympathetic, your parasympathetic, and all that sort of thing. I I get it so much more now. And I think to have that conversation with blokes that haven't suffered or are not suffering, because actually you just don't know when it's coming around the corner. And and I it's it's trying to make that interesting enough for them to delve into that, I think. And that's my goal, my ambition now is to and I'm doing that now with the talks that I'm doing. And it and it's kind of working to a point people want to know about these some of these books that I've learned from you. You know, there's so many of them. The the um James, is it Manson? The breath book for for the big the big one. James Nestor. James Nestor. And the Manson one is the subtle art, isn't it, of not giving a subtle art, not giving a book. That's I can't remember. Fantastic book. The Johan Hari, he's got a couple, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just really lost connections, just incredible books that are fascinating to read. You don't have to have problems mentally to read them and then learn from them and think, oh my god, is that where we're going in you know in my life? I am. That's me. Yeah, I need to sort this out.
SPEAKER_03:I think like yeah, like you said, and you mentioned it, I've mentioned it, and I mentioned it on a lot of podcasts is the Body Keeps a Scroll related to PTSD. Is that I were reading that and someone had recommended it. Oh, it's a lady at work, actually. Yeah. Because have you read have you read this? It's deep in it. And straight away, no, I haven't read it because I avoid reading because I'm yeah, I I listen to I listen to it. Yeah, so I listen to audiobooks and they were like, Oh my god. It's just like, yes, I've still got issues. Yeah. I've still got massive issues going on in my life, because I am doing this, this, and this and this, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And that can still be overwhelming because you it doesn't give you answers necessarily, does it? But it makes you question things, doesn't it? I think and it makes you then want to learn a little bit more about a specific thing. Yeah. I think that's the point, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:And and learning that a little bit more always gives you another focus, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00:And the focus helps. Yeah. And then that's something you can share. And the more people are doing that, and the more people are open about sharing it, I think that's the answer, isn't it? And this is how we break this down eventually, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:Do you know what I mean? I I I often think that maybe, you know, back when I was going through my stuff, I was just looking for that one thing, that answer, like the medical pill, just to pill. Oh, I'm alright. Exactly that, yeah. And then um unfortunately for most people it's not going to work like that. You might have to make lots of different changes in your life. And I think not going on a rant, but a lifestyle is one, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:We we are all different though, aren't we? Yeah. Different things will ground us, different things will trigger us. Yeah, we are very, very different. And of course, we can't expect to look at other people and think that's gonna work for us. We have to work out what works for us, don't we? Yeah. And if we can't express our emotions as men, if we can't talk to each other and and and get it out and actually understand what we're talking about, if we don't get that, we've got nowhere, but we've got absolutely no chance. And I'm talking now to my 30-year-old son, and I'm getting really deep with him, and but you know, I want to know that he's a good and I want to talk to him about how he's feeling and try and get him to learn about how to talk about that. Because he's like me, he's just like a brick, you know, he's just clammed up because it's kind of nothing that I ever did with him when he was when he was a kid. I never got it with my dad. So, how is he reacting to that? Because he's good, he's in a good place, he's got a great wife, but he and he hasn't had problems.
SPEAKER_02:No, but how is he reacting to your conversation change?
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, I mean I I've I've I've been really open with him. It's like it's it's never too late, son. I wanna wanna talk to you about this because I don't want you ever going to that place. I didn't get to that place until I was 50. He's only just turned 30. And through my 30s and 40s, I was just living the dream and and he and he's doing. Because it's not to say at some point that's gonna happen for him, right? But if he can start learning that now, yeah, to me, that's the answer. And then my grandson's three. Well, we've got some work to do with him, because goodness me, what's it gonna be like when he's 30? What is this world gonna be like then, you know? I mean it's it'll change and he'll change with it as it goes, but but those kids have got to be learning, right? You're doing it now with kids in schools. Some of these kids are trying to. Yeah, it's our obligation, I think, isn't it? Well we've got to open these doors for these kids to be able to talk about this.
SPEAKER_03:Um, make sure yeah, it's just it's it sometimes it does feel like it's a battle because someone's said one thing or they've seen something on TikTok and it's yeah, what are you doing? You know what I mean? Just sit down, take five. Yeah, but I have to sometimes, and I do this as an exercise with the colleagues that I work with, to teach these are the teenagers, and I have to teach them how to breathe because they're all sat and they're all to the shoulders rather than breathing after the dying front. You only only take you three breaths or you know, a cycle of three, and you can feel it in your your own body. But one thing I would say, just from that little situation about us all, you know, saying that we should talk and we should do this is I honestly think that feel a lot of these things that our society are a lot, and especially men are resistant to well, I don't know what to talk about. But well, but you don't have to talk about it. But if they listen and they go off and do it by some of these practices by themselves, you just have a think of if you know if you're sh getting really shouty at people in supermarkets and probably you're probably in that sympathetic state, you're running in sympathetic and it's not them, is it? It is you. Generally, yeah. They might be doing whatever they're doing, but you can't control that. I think in the um oh what's it called?
SPEAKER_00:The chimp paradox. Oh yeah. I struggle with that book, to be honest with that one and I did struggle with that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I did read it.
SPEAKER_03:I think the one thing I took over took from that relating to myself was that thing of when you feel the anger, put a word in stop, then take a breath. And then think, yeah, just give you because you your body's gonna go into a natural uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The book Breath by James Nestor, that was the one that really changed me. And that and that um to me should be in the curriculum. Kids should be learning to read using books like that, you know. And that is just that was mind-blowing without a question of a doubt. That breathing thing is everything, isn't it? Yes.
SPEAKER_03:I thought we were really good, yeah. So well, you can't you're not going far without breathing here. Well, you're not breathing wrong. The breathing problem. Trying to explain to people the breathing wrong. Um, don't you? So, can I want to just talk about you did this for charity as well, or was the charity?
SPEAKER_00:It was the Masonic Charitable Foundation, it was them that helped me. I tried to pay them after it was all been done and they wouldn't have it. As a Freemason, you pay in kind of Masonry kind of makes it gives over 20 odd million a year, goes out into the society from Freemasonry. It's an incredible thing, and they and about the same amount stays within to help its members, but it's just out of the pockets of Masons. So we'll have a meal and there's a donation, and that's kind of how it works. And so they wouldn't accept money off me. So when I got going, I had I'd actually started the walk already. And somebody said to me, Well, why don't you try and raise money while you're doing it? It's kind of a sponsored walk, isn't it? But I didn't realise how to do it. I set up a QR code or somebody set one up for me. And that started that started the process. Yeah, I didn't even know what I didn't know what a walk was, a podcast was a brick there. Give me a break. What does PR stand for? One of them squirty quick response code. Yeah, it's a quick response. Is that what it is? Yeah, you go. But so yeah, it kind of started that thing, and then of course, as I got to somewhere where there was a lodge where I met your mate, yeah, I'd been invited in for a meal. Yeah, so I had one on the back of my rooks, so I didn't have to take cash from people. That was the point. All right, okay. That was the point. And then when I got invited into the Masonic meal, I carried my regalia and a shirt and a tie so I could go into the meetings. What all the way around? Yeah. So I didn't have a jacket. I'm in a bike lodge. We wear a waistcoat, so we don't wear a public jacket. So I could go to the meetings. I mean, it looked a bit more scruffy than I normally would, but and it gave me that chance to talk at the meetings as well about what and why, and it kind of started that process. So I did over a hundred meetings, went to 300 lodge buildings, and then usually they'd have a raffle and they'd give me the receipt, the money from the raffle, and that's how it really started running. So we set a target of 100 grand and it was over 90,000 when I finished the walk. So 90,000 went in the pot. And then what's happened quite bizarrely, I've been invited to come and do talks. People have said, Oh, why don't you come and do a talk about your walk? Yeah, all right, whatever. So I did a few, and then I've really got into it and I've started learning about public speaking, which is just a bizarre thing. And again, when you reflect back, you think about when you lose all your confidence when you really go down that pit. And I did, I completely lost all my confidence. But I'm now managing to pull that back again. So to stand in front of 100 people is quite a quite big challenge still, but it's helping me, right? And of course, they're making money as well. So we're we're probably we'll get to the£10,000 off the back, sorry, the£100,000 off the back of that. And then I'm wondering whether I can actually take it on a bigger stage whether whether there's an opportunity to people are interested in these kind of stories, these journeys, aren't they? And if I can try and get that and try and, like I said before, about trying to make it things I do on a daily basis now that kind of keep me grounded and make it in layman's terms so blokes get it, understand it. If I can try and equate that and get that into the talk, which I'm managing to do, then we'll see. Might go on the stage and I might be able to earn from it again. So it might be another career I can start. And of course, I'm trying to write the book.
SPEAKER_03:That's a tough one to my life. And so the the book is that's difficult. Is it about the talk?
SPEAKER_00:It's about the walk, yeah, and the and the journey. Yeah, so it's just it's a little bit about how I got to that point of 50 of no stringing myself up. How does that happen? How does that happen to everybody? And when you reflect on the statistics, you know, the mental health things, seven and a half thousand people, was it in twenty two that killed themselves? Three quarters of them are men, and the biggest group is that 49 to 53 age group, and the statistics are there, right? And there is a serious reason, and that was 50. Well, I know I never saw it coming. So, how many other blokes in that box didn't see this coming and got it got them? Yeah, so it's that, it's unpicking that as well. In audiences of blokes of my age. I think that's what it is. Yeah, so the book, hopefully I'll have the book done by Christmas. Oh, really? Yeah, I'm hoping so. I've been working on it through the year. So I'm hoping we've got talking to a publisher so we can get that done.
SPEAKER_03:Right, cool. I have just finished Kelvin's actually, which I need to message in. That I've got that written down to that I need to read that. I need to read it.
SPEAKER_00:I listen to that I listened to that podcast. Incredible story. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so it wasn't on the audio. No, so it was a challenge for me. But I read it in little little bits and yeah, yeah. But it's one of them where you know when people are writing about their expansion, you tune in to it. Yeah. So yeah, that's another one to read. Yeah. You've already given us what you're doing with a book and stuff. So in summary, if you could sum up the sort of what you've gained, what you've changed, the positive effect I mean, if there are negative points from doing this walk, I suppose the positive without putting words, because you're still you're definitely still here because you're just sat here. Yeah, which you may have not have been.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm not going back to that place. Whatever happens, I know I'm not going back to that place. No matter how hard things get, I think I now have the the resilience, the resolve to never go back there. Because as you know, once you start going back towards it, it's it's more difficult, isn't it, to come away? And it's about learning, it's just always learning.
SPEAKER_03:I think it's that too. I think that toolbox, isn't it? Yeah. I put uh do you know what? I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast. Years ago, so in my early early days of PTSD, when I was off the scale, when I look back now, I I don't know why I'd set a thing in that I said I'll never I walked at my own life on my parents. Yeah. But I also said and I equated it to like getting a tattoo. If I'm gonna tell if I think so at this moment now, if I'm having a uh if I was having an intrusive thought, I'll leave it 24 hours and see how I feel. And generally, after a sleep, yeah, you'd be alright. Yeah, I mean thing is with mine, I spent a lot of time awake because of sleep. Because of the because of the nightmares and traumas and stuff like that. So and that that was just something that worked for me. And I think if anyone 'cause and I speak to lots of people, as people will talk to me about having intrusive thoughts and saying, What do you do? And like, well, what can I do about intrusive thoughts? Well, I have intrusive thoughts. These deaf thoughts. Yeah. You know what I mean? Sometimes, not as often. And then but I don't act on them in the Yeah, they do always come back. I get them come back. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and and you're right, I I think I now think more than anything, I've got so close to going at 50. Since then, I've got two new grandchildchildren since then. You know, and and they're just my whole world. And I think I don't I wouldn't have seen any of them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And how much more now would I miss if I was to go now tomorrow? Just there's too much to do, right? We've got to we've got to live, haven't we, every single day. And I try to get up with that thing every morning. Today's got to be better than yesterday. I've got to get on with this today and be mindful about being with them and experiencing their and being part of their world and you know and having a positive impact on their world and other people's worlds if I can.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's a really positive thing for me these days. And I I think I use that. So when they do come in, when I'm when I'm you know walking the dog or whatever it might be, wherever it might be, and it comes back a little bit, I think I can shelve it. Like I can, I've got that now. But before I didn't, didn't have a clue.
SPEAKER_03:I think we should have a look at that as a pod, you know, get someone in to talk about why these intrusive thoughts. Because I've got that there's people in really good, you know, really good positions that do it. But I know I know personally through 25 years of personal study that an intrusive thought to me now is usually cost I've not been exercising, I've not been eating right, tired, yep, I've got loads of stress going on. That's right. And you know what I mean. It's a catalyst of all those things, isn't it? It's all built up, doesn't it? And then something goes, enough of us.
SPEAKER_00:And then something then I was gonna say makes you snap. It doesn't have to be that big, does it? It doesn't have to be that big. Just a small calamity that happens in your world. Can I just ask you on that note? Do you know anyone that's taken the role then? No. I've met people whose families have people in their family now, but I don't personally oh I'm lying. I found out when my 30s, I won't bore you with the story, but my dad wasn't my real dad. We went and found him in Birkenhead. They decided not to tell me. So I lived all my childhood with not my real dad. Oh, okay. I wasn't badly treated or anything like that. And now realize more about the fact that I was probably not nurtured as much and as well as I should have been. I didn't have the love that maybe I should have or would have had. But anyway, we went and found him in Birkenhead, my real dad. And it was a tough thing, he never had kids. And seven years after we found him, he hung himself. And there was a bit of a problem, that was all around the time I was about it was in my 40s, 45, when it all started for me, then this thinking, was that all my fault? I went and found this bloke. That was a kind of a thing that started spinning in my head. Right. And then it got me questioning, is this a a nurture or nature thing? You know, is it in your blood? Because my blood father killed himself. We never got to the bottom of why he hung himself, but uh, he didn't have can they thought maybe he'd had cancer or something in the autopsy and he was fine when he was 74. Yeah, so the only person that I know was me dad, but I of course I'd never known him. I'd only met him four times.
SPEAKER_03:But you I mean you might well yeah, you're more you're a lot more likely to have them thoughts, you know somebody.
SPEAKER_00:I think so, yeah. I mean, I again I listen to people on your podcast who know people, you know people have done it. No, I've been lucky that I've not.
SPEAKER_03:But I suppose that's an all of a story, isn't it? When that you've found that at that age.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, possibly. Maybe it is, yeah. And I've tried to look at that and I've tried to talk to my mother about that. Me me my stepdad is dead. He died at 70 of cancer. I he knew about me going and finding my real dad. But they've been doing the right thing for me, right? They'd take me away into the army world and I wasn't growing up on the streets of Birkenhead. That'd have been a different world for me. And I've been back and I've been back. We went back recently to one of my uncle's funerals, and I've met cousins and a whole line of family that I never knew was there.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Eye opening. Not the world that I've grown up in. Right. And I'm grateful for that. Long long way from Lincolnshire. Goodness me. Yeah, yeah. The north end of Birkenhead's uh is that another place? It's another story, yeah. Yeah, big time, yeah. Bury their own dead round there. Right. Nice place, lovely people though. Yes. I mean I walked it, you know, and I and and genuinely lovely, lovely people. It's but they just have to live in a different world, don't they? Generations and generations of worklessness and whatever. It gets it to that point, doesn't it? But yeah, it's a tough one that, but I've I've been very lucky. And of course I didn't go to war with the army. Did 12 years of training for it, but I got out in 2000 and then the world went crazy. So I never went and did the battles. And again, that's another thing that potentially has an impact on your brain because you're kind of there ready in you and you don't do it.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And now I'm still mixed in with the guys and a lot of the guys that stayed in, the Afghan twice and three times and second golf, and I never did anything. Right. So I'm lucky really, aren't I? I shouldn't be I'm not ungrateful that I never got them. Yeah, yeah. But it's still part of your DNA that you do so much for, and then you don't do it. So that has an impact. But Christ, you know, how many guys are coming back from that nonsense and seeing the things they've seen? Some real problems going on. Yeah. You know, crazy.
SPEAKER_03:So where did we get to the results? Did we finish that off?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we kind of went off on a spur there, didn't we? You just asked me if I knew anybody and no, no, it was yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's all good. Only content this hasn't. It's has been good. Has it I've I do feel like thoroughly enjoyed being here with you, honestly.
SPEAKER_00:I've listened to all of your podcasts, like I said before, and some of them multiple times, because some of them are just fascinated. And they've helped me massively, some of these people that have have gone through. And you two have helped me. I was it was weird because I didn't know your story. I mixed up your story with something you'd said in one of your podcasts, and I thought that was it. It was a bar, it was an axe. That's what I thought it was when you were working. And then you did the story. Oh my life. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely beat me when I heard your story. Yeah, I mean, goodness me. Yeah, it won't small thing. No, not at all. I've had better I've had better um city breaks. But that was a long way down the journey, right? The journey of listening to White Fox talking about it. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's why that's quite recent. Yeah, it's episode 50. So I've listened to you doing this for so long, not knowing what your story was. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Did we said that, didn't we? We should really do it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah. That was incredibly powerful.
SPEAKER_03:It would have been early doors, but Seb didn't like talking at microphones. And then we had to make him the interviewer. Yeah. But it works. It was great, and it was great that Seb did it, you see. Yeah, I mean, because obviously we've known each other a long time and he's known a lot of my story.
SPEAKER_00:So it just works. You know, when you list it just it does work, and I've been studying and I've been laying in my tent and I've been walking on cliffs and all over the place, all over the country listening to the podcast. It works.
SPEAKER_03:It works really nice. It's been brilliant to have you in. Thanks, Chris. Thank you. Thank you. If there's any oh, we'll put the link to the uh what's it called? Uh the Masonic Charitable Foundation. Yeah, nice one. Thank you. Well I can send you some bits and pieces. Yeah, and we'll put the link on and then we'll put all that on on your website.
SPEAKER_00:I've nearly got a website the last two weeks. Oh really? Yeah, because I'm thinking now that that is the answer. Okay. If I can get myself out there and do these talks. So if there's anybody that wants to talk, I jump on my motorbike and shoot off. I've been around the country fair few times to various places to deliver talks.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that might be something that we can catch up on later because there might be something something in the pipeline with White Fox Talking. But I will let you know if it or if things all come together.
SPEAKER_00:It's been an absolute pleasure, guys. Thank you for having me in. It really has been good. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. Thank you. Great to see you.
SPEAKER_01:And if you would like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to buyers a coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalking.com, and look for the little cup. Thank you.
