EP 095 Michael Ward, The Buckingham Palace Ghostwriter...for those who have a book in you.

Michael Ward

“The Buckingham Palace Ghostwriter”

Brief Bio

Although Irish, Michael Ward is a long-time resident of England. As a child, he was fascinated by the power of words to create compelling stories. For him, books were portals to other worlds. To him, writers were magicians. 

A desire to find out ‘what makes people tick’ led to him becoming a psychologist and a management consultant, specialising in organisational change. His first book, ‘Why Your Corporate Culture Change Isn’t Working… And What to Do About It’ was born out of a burning desire to share what he’d learned. It sold in five countries. 

His second book, ‘50 Essential Management Techniques’ sold in 29 countries and consolidated his reputation. Quite by chance, he discovered that well written books with great content give you authority in the marketplace – and lucrative contracts!

These days he helps guide other people through the book writing process. Well written books with great content have timeless appeal. And they can bring very considerable business benefits. 

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:06

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Yoyo: 0:48

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and well being. Our listeners are global. They are the decision makers of tomorrow and today. We want to thank you wherever you are for being a part of the Security Circle. With me today is Michael Ward. Now on LinkedIn, he kind of hooked me in with this kind of great hook line, called the Buckingham Palace Ghostwriter, books to skyrocket your career. So I thought I have to reach out to this man and see what he's all about. And here he is today, Michael Ward. Thank you for joining us on the Security Circle Podcast.

Michael: 1:39

My pleasure, as they say.

Yoyo: 1:42

So, Michael, The Buckingham Palace ghostwriter. What's that mean? Where does that come from?

Michael: 1:49

How did that happen? Let's have a think. Some years ago, I wrote, I helped to write the history of a particular organisation. Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, was the patron. The Queen used to be the patron, but she passed over to him. and I, as part of my research, I went to Buckingham Palace and went through 60 years of his correspondence with this organisation. So I went through 60 years of his writing. Nobody checked what I was doing. I just got on with it. It was in his private library. They just trusted me to get on with it. And I did. And if you read somebody's, if you read 60 years of somebody's letters, you get a very good idea of what they're like. And I couldn't believe the dedication he'd given to this organization. And it was one of 200. 200. So the work effort, the work load is absolutely immense. Anyway, I went there a few times, did the research, went back, wrote, helped to write the book, and met with, my client and the director general of the organization, met Prince Philip, and he was just the most charming, helpful guy. You could ever come across in your life. Now, I'm not particularly a royalist, but I couldn't believe how good the guy was. He was patient, he was kind, he was helpful. And what I realized was that virtually everybody who met him wanted something out of him. And I just couldn't have done the job that he did. I just couldn't have. So that's kind of how it happened. It's, um, it's a bit of an odd connection. Somebody said to me once, they were, you know, you're probably the only ghostwriter that's ever been, this ever worked. In Buckingham Palace, and I probably am actually

Yoyo: 3:26

so do you think you have a trustworthy face then for them to give you that access?

Michael: 3:31

A trustworthy face, did you say? Okay, I think people probably do trust me, and they're right to, but I think it was probably, my client was related to the Royal Family by marriage, so they knew him very well indeed, really. I think they, they trusted him totally, and they trusted him totally. So I think because they trusted him, they trusted me. Yeah,

Yoyo: 3:55

So what's it like being in that Yes, take us back to being in that room and looking at that correspondence. What's going through your mind?

Michael: 4:05

Well, that's kind of interesting., the room was Prince Philip's private library. The lady in charge of it was a dame,, a female knight So, you know having your tea made for you by a Female Knight is kind of that's a bit unusual. It was really, I mean it was obviously a room that meant an awful lot to him. You know, it was like his it was almost like a sitting room really. It was there was a feeling that you were in that you were in somebody else's home, not house, home. That you were on their territory, their place. That this was their This really was their private correspondence. This was their intimate world. And I going through, I mean, the pages were stuck together in many cases. I'm going back to 1954 now. nobody had been through this saying, Hey, we better check up what this guy might find. They just let me get on with it. Nobody edited what I was doing. Nobody said, is he, you know, the level of trust they put in me was massive. I'm not sure I'd trust me that much. No, I should.

Yoyo: 5:08

what did you notice looking at the correspondence between the standard of, no, not standard, the way communication, was in the 50s to how it later became a style of communication in, say, the 70s, right through to the most recent times. Did you notice any differences between the decades?

Michael: 5:30

You could tell it was the same person, that was for sure. I didn't particularly, because his character was infused all the way through. It was obvious it was the same person, he hadn't changed. But it was, that's a very good point actually, it was a very different style of communication to what we'd have today. It was very much more thoughtful and consultative than we normally have today. He wasn't telling these people what to do, he was trying to guide them what to do. And that was consistent all the way through. So he was trying to give them sage counsel. That's what he was trying to do. He was trying to gently guide them along, really.

Yoyo: 6:07

what were the big takeaways? I mean, none of us really get to go this close to understanding a member of the royal family as you did. And it's wonderful that you describe it in such a privileged way. What were the things that you took away from that that have been everlasting in you ever since?

Michael: 6:25

I think the man made a huge impression on me. He absolutely did. I take people at face value. It's person to person. It's face to face. What I took away was the guy spent his entire life giving to other people. That's what I take away. And from the, I better choose my words carefully here, but from dealing with this organization, which was one of many, I came across a lot of people who were very status conscious, who wanted gongs, who wanted metals, who wanted stuff off him and the Queen, and Prince Philip, occasionally he used to be in the headlines or he made some gaff sort of thing. I don't think he was like that. I think it was a soul of patience and, how many gaffs would any of us make in a lifetime? We'd make some. I think he was incredibly patient and kind and decent. I really do., that's what I think.

Yoyo: 7:16

In fact, he was often, Prince Philip was often referred to as being quite funny, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Michael: 7:22

when we met him, he was, I mean, he was just, he was almost like, do you remember spitting images? It was almost a little bite like, it was almost like, you guys expect me to be like this, so I'll be a bit like this. He was a bit like that. But underneath it,, I think what he had and what the Queen had was, experience of foreign affairs, experience of global politics, greater than probably anybody else in history. they knew the inside story of what it's like to be in country A, B, C, D, E, all the way through. They knew. I think that's what he had that as well.

Yoyo: 7:58

I can't help but think, listening to you, that somebody who is a servant to the nation in that way, they have to kind of love doing what they're doing, otherwise it doesn't translate in the passion of what you're reading. What do you think about that?

Michael: 8:13

I would agree with you, you would have to love what you did, or else and or have an extraordinary sense of duty. They must have had an extraordinary sense of duty. I mean, one of the things that, when he died, do you remember that scene in the, was it Westminster Abbey, when the Queen was on her own? I mean, that was just, that was heart wrenching, but she still had this, and this is when it was starting to come out that some people have behaved badly in Covid, and I won't mention any names, you know, but she was right to the end. She was. she was following the rules, she was giving, she was doing everything around,

Yoyo: 8:53

I think anybody can sort of flash back and think, okay, there was this, I have to say when I watched it, yeah, I remember thinking, looking at her, I remember thinking, God, that's awful. But then when you look back now, then you think that's even worse than awful because we'd all become accustomed to social distancing in that time, our mindsets had all changed. So she would have come under extraordinary amounts of criticism if she hadn't socially distanced. And I just think what a situation to be in because most of us that aren't in that goldfish bowl of speculation, we'd be like, screw the system. I'm going to sit next to somebody because their relatives just died. They don't have that luxury to be able to do that. Now, writing has been in you, hasn't it, a long time, but it's not something that you plan to do.

Michael: 9:39

Ah, no, I didn't. I didn't. Um, I've just loved, I've loved words since I was a child. and I lived in books. And what I kind of realized is, don't laugh. Well, do laugh if you want. What I realized was, oh gosh, cats, cats time. We'll get our Siamese up. He walks across

Yoyo: 9:56

the screen. He does that. He has no respect for anyone I'm talking to. He just walks straight across the screen.

Michael: 10:03

Sorry to interrupt. Of course he will. He's a cat. Come on, it's part of the job description. We'll get our signees off. I think, I think what I realized was that when you read a book, you could, this is going to sound really pretentious, but I don't care. To me, books were like portals into other worlds. You could go into this other world. You could live somebody else's life as well as your own. Yes, it was escapism, but it was also enrichment. So I saw writers as makers of magic. That's magic. That's what I saw. I thought, they can, you know, we can live in these other worlds. Writers of film and musicians as well. They, they, they can create these other worlds. So I want to be a writer, but you know, where's the career path to being a writer? Is there one? I don't know. I never found it. So

Yoyo: 10:50

I don't think it's arrogant either to sit and read a book and think I could have written this better.

Michael: 10:55

Oh yeah, God, oh God, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yoyo: 10:57

Right? I'm sure everybody at some stage has, read a book and thought, oh they missed an opportunity here. I have to say it doesn't happen a lot of times but um, I, I love books that kind of keep you on tenterhooks but don't make you feel nervous being on tenterhooks all the time because sometimes you need a bit of satisfaction. You know, when you're reading something that's keeping you on tenterhooks, but, okay. So my cat is just staring at me now. You immersed yourself, didn't you, as a kid in books, the likes of Enid Blyton, and others. And in fact, I think a lot of us will remember Enid Blyton and how she made us feel, um, when we were very young. I don't know. you try and read them now. And of course they, it's just weird how I'm thinking like, I love, Br'er Rabbit. Right. And I, I even collect the Br'er Rabbit books. And I think, and I don't know what it is. I tried to read one recently and I'm like, good God, it's just so incredibly odd to read because it was almost like reading another language. You need to be. seven to 10 years old to completely get it. And it's just kind of weird, isn't it? How books literally are a different portal for different age groups.

Michael: 12:15

Yes, they are. Absolutely. But obviously, if you went back to your seven year old world, as you are now, And your seven year old friends and your seven year old things you did at seven, that would look weird as well, wouldn't it?

Yoyo: 12:28

Well, I don't know. I think I had quite a good seven year old childhood roaming around the countryside in Cornwall, dumping my bicycle usually in a hedgerow and just going off meandering wherever our noses took us, to be honest with you. It was quite, it was a typical Famous Five kind of upbringing that I had.

Michael: 12:46

I mean, okay, that's exactly what,, when you were saying that's exactly what I was thinking, because what only Blighton did was conjure up that world, you know, it was the, page one was the first day of the summer holidays, and you were going to Cairn Island, and there would be something exciting, and Uncle Quentin, oh who knows about Uncle Quentin. So yeah, Uncle

Yoyo: 13:02

Quentin's a bit odd, we can't quite figure out why, but we certainly find out a little bit more by chapter three. Yeah,

Michael: 13:08

yeah. So.

Yoyo: 13:11

When did you think, okay, and what was the difference, because you see, we have a lot of people in our community who have read books, sorry, who have read books, of course they have, but they've written books and very good books. We've also got people in our community who want to write books. And we have a lot more people in our community who have a book in them. And in fact, I get asked quite a lot if I was asked if I knew a ghostwriter because I produce also another podcast series where we review security books and we talk about the relevance and the importance that they have in our community. At what point did you think I'm going to do this seriously?

Michael: 13:54

I was working as a management consultant many years ago in a thing called Lord. Yeah, I was a psychologist in the management consultant. And when I say as a management consultant, I have to, and I will say this absolutely right now, I did never, I never got rid of anybody ever. Reverse. I did a thing called organization development, which is. It's fallen away by the wayside, but it was about making organizations, helping them, not making them, helping them to become great places to work, and helping them to become great at what they do. And I was very good at it, but it was burnout material, it was absolute burnout. But I had years of doing this, and um, There are all these thoughts going round and round in my head. And in the end,, I left the company I was working at, and I was doing something else, and I suddenly thought, I need to get these thoughts out on paper. I'm going crazy here. And that was the inspiration for my first book, which is about corporate culture change. And there was a company called Gower, and I did it with them. And I think it sold in about five countries. The second book sold in about 29 something. But quite by chance, I got this. Pretty hefty contract from writing the first book, because somebody picked it up and thought, this guy seems to know what he's doing, which I did. So that's when I kind of realized, this was in the 19, people weren't doing this. But it meant that I went to the top of the heap in terms of, who the guy would look at. Years later, I started to realize that, that books really could elevate people's brands. I mean, this is, everybody knows this now, but people didn't then, really. So I kind of came into, I've always liked, I love writing and I love helping people. And with ghostwriting, it's the chance to do both. It's the overlap. It's the chance to do both at the same time.

Yoyo: 15:41

It must be phenomenal to be a ghost writer in the sense that you're literally immersing your whole world into somebody else's. And really, you're getting quite intimate with somebody who's either still living or potentially passed away. And I know that it's left some profound, ways of, being and feeling for certain ghostwriters as they've talked afterwards that, they just really get as close as they possibly can. Sometimes it's regretful, isn't it? If you're a ghostwriter for somebody who has passed away because you don't ever get the opportunity to meet them, but there's a sense of honoring that legacy. Do you, did you feel the same? Yeah,

Michael: 16:20

I'm definitely honoring, I'm definitely honoring my people, the people I write with. I've been working with a guy, well, various people, but I work with a black guy in America and I saw what it was like and felt what it's like to be black in America, which I just had no idea. And at the moment I work with a book about racism in the UK and again, it's, you know, It makes you weep what, what the guy went through. It just makes you weep, really. So you're trying to say these people have awful experiences, but what have we learned from these experiences, and how can we move forward with them, really?

Yoyo: 16:56

The biggest criticism to that would be somebody saying, well, what experience, what would you have to be able to understand what a black guy is going through in life? How could you understand that? That's the magic. You don't have to be black, but what you're doing is getting so close, you're almost inside him and you're, living and experiencing. Takes a very special person to be able to do that, to be honest with you, because you're almost kind of morphing. For a period.

Michael: 17:22

Yes, I completely agree with you. It might have helped that I used to be a psychologist. I was always fascinated by other people anyway. I was a management consultant because I'm fascinated by other people's businesses. I'm just fascinated. I'm just, every business has a story. Every business has a story of hopes and dreams. Every single business. I mean, I've got this book by Louis Gershwin. I just got it by turning around IBM. Yeah. And oddly enough, yesterday, I was at a post party with a guy who knew him really well, it was at IPM at the time, and I said, you know, what's he like? He's, I said, he's a really good guy. So I'm fascinated by other people's lives, I'm fascinated by other people's stories, and of course that's what books do. but without being, I want to sound prissy, people have this notion of ghostwriters, oh, you know, a book is just like a lump of margarine, well, it's not to me. When Ronald Reagan's book His autobiography was coming out. Somebody asked him about it and he said, I'm really looking forward to reading it.

Yoyo: 18:22

Yeah.

Michael: 18:24

Yeah. I don't really want that. No disrespect to Ronnie. Bless the guy. But I don't really want that. I want, I'm trying to guide my people through this strange process of writing a book.

Yoyo: 18:36

I've asked other authors, what was the book you intended to write? And it's quite funny because sometimes they end up with a different product to what they'd originally planned to write. that's got to be a harrowing journey realizing actually what you're producing is either very different or very better than what you'd originally planned. It's not an easy process and some of the authors I've spoken to, they don't describe the process as being very joyful yet they've produced a really good book. They've provide, they've kind of described it as cathartic or, and a needs must, or I had to get it outta me before I lost the inclination to do it all together. And it's amazing the kind of different types of journey you can go on. getting your book out. Have you been on different journeys yourself?

Michael: 19:26

Yeah, totally. I mean, it's, I will say right now that getting a book out is a difficult process. It can be joyful. It's probably going to be most joyful when it finally comes out, but it's a difficult process. It's a cathartic process. It's difficult for anybody, even with my help or somebody else's help, it's still going to be difficult. So you've really got to have a good reason for doing it. And in my view, having simply having a commercial reason thinking, well, I'm going to get these speaking gigs, blah, blah, blah. That's not really a good enough. In my view, that's not a really good enough reason. You have to want to also share something with the community to get this stuff out of your head, really, onto the page. And it will be different on the page. It just will be., that's just life. I can't do anything about that.

20:19

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Yoyo: 21:19

So you've got a listener now who's thinking, I've always wanted to do this. I've always, I know it's, I keep thinking about it every day. I've always been passionate about writing. What advice would you give them other than just do it?

Michael: 21:31

You're gonna need three things actually. First, you're gonna need time to do it, because it's going to take some time. It's going to take a chunk of time. You're gonna need some kind of writing skill to do it. You're also going to need space in your head to do it. Really, and most people, for people to have all those three is going to be really rare. I think, really, I think it's going to be rare.

Yoyo: 21:55

Have you ever felt that you've had a muse present while you're writing?

Michael: 22:00

A muse?

Yoyo: 22:01

You know, I mean, M U S E, just that whole kind of, yeah. Have you ever felt, have you ever felt that as an author, as a

Michael: 22:08

writer? You mean a physical muse, like a person, or like a It

Yoyo: 22:12

comes in different ways, doesn't it? Some people just write.

Michael: 22:16

Okay. Um, when, um, when Robert Louis Stevenson was writing Treasure Island, which he originally called the Seacook, terrible name. The Seacook was Long John Silver, who's a great character, but it's a terrible name for a book. And then he changed the name to the Treasure Island, which is fantastic. Is that the best name ever? It's like, perfect. Yeah, eat your heart out of it. Yeah. But when he wrote the book, he was doing, I think he wrote a chapter a day and he used to call us with something like, it wasn't the gremlins or something, but he said, these little elves were writing through him. So he was channeling it. So that was his kind of muse. So in that sense, although I've never had a muse like, we could say Patti Boyd was a muse. She was a muse for George Harrison. She was a muse for Eric Clapton. I've never been fortunate enough to have a lovely lady as a muse. But in the sense, in another sense of things going through your head, yes, because it's In any kind of writing, it's the front of your brain and the back of your brain, your subconscious and your conscious that's going through. And of course, it's your subconscious, that's the bit we can't control. Because you start off thinking, I'm going to write the book about da, da, da, da, da, da. When you actually come to do it, it should be your subconscious working its way through as well. Now, I know lots of people, particularly Americans, and they, they're just like, it's, They're very technically good at what they do, ghostwriters and writers. And they see it as they just plan it out and they do the plan. And it's like, it's like a brick wall. I don't, it's, that's not me. It's just not me. And it never will be me. To me, it's, it's an organic process. Yeah, sure, you need a plan. But it's a kind of an organic process. And when it works, it's like, you know, it's like a jam session that works. And that's the difference. That's what makes books different, in my view.

Yoyo: 24:09

I read recently that, you know, that term being in the zone is actually, uh, professionally described as. Now I want to do this justice because I've done that thing where I've screenshotted it because it's so good. It's described as that being in the zone as every single part of your brain being focused to the maximum on something. And it's not something we experience all the time. But when it does happen, it feels strangely good. You know, like a lot of people really fight to get back into that zone, to get back into that optimal space. And I guess that's a great space for people who want to write a book, who are writing a book, probably feel that they need to be in that space, to do well.

Michael: 25:03

Ideally, yes, but it's a difficult space to get into. It just is. It just is. And it will, it'll be, it's just a difficult place. So I think that's setting the bar. For somebody who isn't a normal writer, that's probably setting the bar a bit high, actually, really. Because the other aspect is that, and I've been really boring, I mean, writing is a skill. I mean, okay, we all write, we all speak, we all write, but you wouldn't expect somebody, no matter how talented, to sit down at a piano and just come out with great music. I mean, you wouldn't expect it. So why would we expect somebody to produce really good writing? With skill acquisition, I mean, if we go back to Gladwell's 10, 000 hours, I know it's just a rough thing. I know it's just a rough thing. But with any skill acquisition, it takes time to wire your brain to that skill, really. And the problem that people have With writing a book, I mean, and Gershner says this himself, he says, like, I'm a businessman, I'm not a writer. No matter how good you are at what you do, no matter what thoughts you've got in your head, what you will not have, what you cannot have, is that, that, those hours spent learning to write. And back in the late 70s, early 80s, I spent years and years and years just learning my trade. Just learning my trade. So with any skill, you need thousands of hours, whether it's 10, 000, we can debate that forever, but you need thousands of hours. So the difficulty of people writing a book or doing anything new. I mean, if I tried to write music, I thought I've kind of got a musical note in my brain. You've got to learn the basics or playing golf. You know, we don't expect people to play great golf and great music. It's somewhere we expect them to produce great writing. That's a bit, that's a bit unfair.

Yoyo: 26:54

Back in the noughties, many young women read a certain book series about vampires. And it was, she was heavily criticized, Stephanie Myers, for not being a great literary artist, for not having great literary skills. But only recently, I was chatting about this Twilight series of books, which was thousands of pages. And we all agreed, as older women, that she may not have been the best writer, but she had this skill and it's a great example to use because people hear Twilight, especially men, and they're like, Oh, roll your eyes. Um, stop rolling your eyes. but it is a classic example of how you don't have to necessarily be a great writer. You just have to really be able to relate. And she took all of us on this journey that we were swept up in. And when the movies came out, We felt like what we'd imagined, we discussed it, what we'd imagined in our heads, we were seeing on the screen, there were no shocks. It was something quite unique and quite special. And I think JK Rowling's done this with Harry Potter. She's related so well to a mass market, which is a huge skill. I know it's fiction, but., she's created something that people have seen visually, and it's like going back to a memory. That's quite special, isn't it? A special skill to be able to do that.

Michael: 28:25

Well, it is because it shows that, and I haven't read either writer's song, but it shows that what they did resonated with many, many people. And to me, though, is the litmus test of art. Does it resonate with many, many people? Does it resonate? So, no, does it resonate with the human condition? That's what it is.

Yoyo: 28:50

In the security industry, we have almost a divided community. in several ways. We've got the non military, we've got the military background, we've got the academics, and then we've got the practitioners. What I'm seeing now is a great blending. We've even created new words called pracademics. So authors are writing. It's great, isn't it? Authors are right, because, they're both academic and they're practitioners. They've coined this pro academic phrase for their books, for their artistry. And I think it's enabling them to relate to a cross section a lot easier. You can't expect somebody, I think, to understand an academic delivery. if you haven't had an academic background, but also it's important for people who have an academic background to understand the practical delivery of what they're learning. In your history of writing books, is there anything that you think you always look back,, what one book takes you back always in your thoughts and you don't know necessarily why it's always that one?

Michael: 30:04

I think the book that, that, that's probably affected me the most of any book I've ever read in my life is a book called Shane, which is a Western. And it's, nobody's ever heard of it. There was a film in the 50s. Have you ever heard of it? Shane?

Yoyo: 30:16

I heard of the movie Shane. Yeah.

Michael: 30:18

Okay, before the movie. Never seen

Yoyo: 30:19

it.

Michael: 30:20

Okay, the movie's pretty good, actually. It's of its time, obviously. It's of its time. The movie's pretty good. The book was written before the movie. The book is a novella. It's quite a short book. It's probably on about 30, 000 words, the same as The Great Gatsby or The Portrait of Dorian Wilde. Because like you, I try and write, rewrite books. Like, oh, I could do this better. I could do this better. Yeah. And there's not a word of Shane I could rewrite. And it's a classic story. The guy, it's just Mrs. O'Weston, but it's actually wonderful. A guy comes into this town, he came in, he rode into our valley in the summer of 89. That's the first line. He rode into our valley in the summer of 89. That's line one. So it's straight in. And on the first page, you start to realize there's something different about this person. There's something different about this man. And the last line is, He was the man who rode into our little valley out of the heart of the great glowing west. And when his work was done, wrote back whence he had come, and he was Shame. So he comes into the world., most of it's about relationships. He's in this world. He cannot leave these people. He just, he's met them. They're vulnerable. He cannot leave them. He cannot leave, even though it will destroy him, which it does. It destroys him. And he has to do what he has to do. and it's just like, it's like saying, this is what you should be in life. That's what it's, that's what it's, that's what you should be. That's what we all should be. We should do the right thing. That's

Yoyo: 31:54

quite profound. I think for me, it was John Livingstone's Seagull. Have you read that? Yes,

Michael: 31:59

yeah, yeah, yeah.. Wonderful book. Yeah, wonderful book.

Yoyo: 32:02

And for those of you who haven't read it, wow, I mean, I do read it. It's about, I don't know, what is it, 50 pages long or something? It's really small. Very,

Michael: 32:10

very small. But

Yoyo: 32:11

it's, it's, the whole little book is a metaphor, isn't it, on life and that seagull, you know, has to try really hard sometimes in the wind. Sometimes it's really hard for him to get his wings out and he wants to be better and he wants to go and see the world and, and of course the seagull is a metaphor for a young man. It's a metaphor. Or I would say young person. Or

Michael: 32:38

a young woman, yeah. Absolutely. Do you just want to take the easy ride through life? Or do you want to find out who you could be?

Yoyo: 32:46

And I think, I find, I think about that very theme every single day. And I hear about people struggling. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think,, I think life is a struggle. Whether you're struggling against, there are so many things for us to be struggling against. Yeah. Without going into any of the detail and you'll agree with this with your background. I think for some people getting up in the morning is a struggle, for some people getting through normal day is a struggle, for some people having a normal day is a struggle. Some people don't understand what a normal day is. What is a normal day? A normal day is your individual ability to normalize and have repetition in hopefully the things that you love and that make you feel safe and secure. So everybody's normal day is very different and I just, I'm always going back to that seagull thinking, do I want to take the easy way out? No, I don't. And even if it's harder and tough and it makes me cry or sweat or whatever, I think you've always got to fight. Every day, sometimes you've got to fight to get through your to do list, some people are fighting to get their kids to sit at the dinner table. But every day there are challenges and struggles. And I think that's why that's left such a lasting impression on me.

Michael: 34:06

Doesn't that show that, I mean, that book, I think he wrote it about early 70s, 74 or something, Richard Bang, and he wrote a few other books after, so there were successful, but not as successful, Illusions, for instance, but his words have resonated in you. And your podcast and other things you do will resonate with other people. I don't

Yoyo: 34:26

know, it wouldn't go that far. They

Michael: 34:28

will, they will, they will. When I was writing this, the book with Prince Philip, I came up with this concept of what I called a multiplier, which sounds a bit like an influence. This was years before influencers came, but a multiplier was somebody who had a significant effect on other people who inspired other people. And some of those people will go on to inspire and, the ripples go on, the ripples go on. So you're not the only person that Richard Back inspired with Jonathan Living. His words live in you and his words will live in other people. And to me, That's what I felt as a child, that, that's when I said these people weren't magic, because even though, I don't know whether he's still alive or not, but even though they were dead, even though they'd been on this earth and gone, their words could still inspire other people, that they could transcend time, their words could transcend time. And that's why I thought it was magical. That's why I still do it. And he's the example of that in you.

Yoyo: 35:28

Yeah, I think he's also been able to kind of install in me this kind of Belief that life really is very precious, and it is over very quickly, and you only have to ask somebody who's above 70 years old how quickly it goes, right? And then you only have to ask somebody 20 years younger how quickly it seems to be going, and then you only have to ask somebody who's 25 how quickly they seem to be heading to 30, with horror. which we laugh at when we're older.

Michael: 36:00

But it's real to them. I think it's real to people nowadays at 24. Oh God, I'm past it. You know, it's real to them.

Yoyo: 36:07

I and I just thought, and even every day, and I look at my little cat. And he sits up on the bed, and I just think he's a living thing. I know it sounds such a daft thing to say. Anyone who's got a pet. A dog, that little heartbeat inside that's going and they come to you and they look at you and they see you. This little furry ginger and white thing I've got who can't help but charge up next to me if he's been gone from me for, he has to charge up next to me, like he has to have like one little part of his body touching, it's like a, it's like a mobile phone. And I just think life is massively precious. And I've just started to really massively appreciate that over the last 10 years. And I think I'll probably appreciate it more so as I get older. This crazy journey of life that we're on.

Michael: 37:01

My partner's son works as a lawyer, God help us, in Australia. And near where he worked a few years ago, there was a terrorist attack and there was quite a lot of damage and people died. And Jonathan who, I mean, he could never, Jonathan could never have not been a lawyer. He is, you know, he's Mr. Lawyer. And he was going to work in with his briefcase and his monster salary and his da the following week and there was this kind of hush in the industrial centre and people were just putting flowers down. And I think that's when it got through to him that, life was just. They were responding to this sense that life was infinitely, is infinitely precious. It just is.

Yoyo: 37:42

Yes, every day I think we have to take a moment to appreciate that, how can people get hold of the book you wrote, for Prince Philip, now that we've Oh right,

Michael: 37:53

With great difficulty because there were, it was for a particular organization, the Anglican Union. All the members of the society snaffled up the whole of the first edition. It's gone. So yeah, won't happen. I'm afraid it must, there must be a copy somewhere in some antiquarian bookshop, but it'd be very difficult. Yeah.

Yoyo: 38:10

And probably quite rare and quite rightly so. You're right. I should imagine there'll be cherished wherever they're living, those copies. So lasting comments then, what would you say to somebody right now? Who's been teetering on the verge of saying, yeah, I really got to get these war stories down. I've had some great conversations with pals who've been in the police. Oh God, we could write.

Michael: 38:37

Just

Yoyo: 38:38

even funny stories. I know some retired police officers who have literally captured all the funniness that did happen. in their careers, because the one thing, they do have when you join is a whole load of stories about what they used to do to phase in younger police officers. What would be your kind of, just to do list, top three things to say to somebody, okay, you want to take this seriously? Try this.

Michael: 39:06

Okay, I think I'd just do some rough notes. I'd just do some rough notes of the book. I'd have a working title, which will probably, almost certainly change. You know, what is the book about? I mean, for instance, Louis Gershner, he's got Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? That's the title of the book. Okay, but his subtitle, which is probably more important is, Hi, Turned Around IBM. So that's what it's about, really. So that tells us what the book is about, really. So, you know, the working title could just be what it's about. It doesn't, you know, my life in, um, Leeds CID, whatever, whatever. So, but it's the focus. This is what the book is about., I would just do a rough, a very, very rough plan of the book. Of what it is, but what I would be very leery about doing would be heading just starting off and writing. I'll give you an example. And on the other part, the only the only other podcast ever done in my life because I said it was a podcast virgin. It was for a lady she'd been writing a book about PTSD. And she'd written 30, 000 words, but it's unfortunately unpublishable. Because it just, the questions we have about everything are who, what, why, when, where, how, and unfortunately it doesn't answer any of those questions really. Oh

Yoyo: 40:20

wow.

Michael: 40:21

So it's just about how grim life, which obviously is grim with PTSD, there's no ifs and buts. But, we want to know how did it start, how did it progress, how did things get better? Yep.

Yoyo: 40:31

Yep.

Michael: 40:32

So unfortunately she's gone into that, she's written 30, 000 words, and they can't be used really and that seems shame to me, really. So,

Yoyo: 40:42

unless of course it was a cathartic process for her, maybe she could use that as part of the preparation,

Michael: 40:49

yes, you're absolutely right. It was a cathartic process for her and to that extent it has succeeded. Yes. Yes, it does but in terms of a book that stands outside of her and her experiences, it doesn't work then, if that makes sense. So writing as catharsis, completely agree, but writing as a kind of a work of art or something that resonates with other people, that's a job of work, if that makes sense, really.

Yoyo: 41:15

Yeah, 100%. Well, what can I say? Michael Ward, it's been absolutely great chatting to you. Certainly to hear your lovely, warm and endearing impression from meeting the late Prince Philip. Thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle today.

Michael: 41:33

My pleasure. It was absolutely lovely to speak with you. Thank you so much.