No Ordinary Monday
The No Ordinary Monday podcast brings you the most incredible tales from people's working lives. Each week, we meet someone whose work is anything but ordinary - they may be clearing landmines, blowing up movie sets, or exploring uncharted caves.
We dive into the how, the why, and a life-defining moment they’ve experienced on the job. Whether it’s spine-tingling, hilarious, or just plain jaw-dropping, their stories will challenge what you thought a “career” could be—and maybe even change the way you think about your own.
No Ordinary Monday
First on the Scene at a Plane Crash (Tony Bonnar) - Part Two
Tony Bonner takes us deep into his extraordinary experiences as a first responder at the Lockerbie bombing in this gripping conclusion to his two-part interview. His vivid account of discovering the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 – the cockpit embedded in a Scottish field, bodies scattered across the countryside – offers a rare glimpse into one of Britain's darkest moments through the eyes of someone who lived it.
The psychological impact of such trauma shapes much of Tony's narrative. He describes how his mind protected him from certain memories while preserving others in stark detail, and shares the profound moment when hearing radio reports about grieving families in New York brought the human dimension of the tragedy into sharp focus. Despite the horror, Tony speaks with remarkable clarity and respect, carefully balancing clinical observations with deep compassion for the victims.
But this episode isn't just about disaster – it's about reinvention and finding purpose. At 36, Tony made the courageous decision to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer. Studying full-time while working night shifts to support his family, he eventually became a prosecutor specializing in homicide cases. His matter-of-fact descriptions of Glasgow's violent crime scene and his work on notorious cases including the World's End Murders reveal the gritty reality of criminal prosecution.
Throughout our conversation, Tony's wisdom about career satisfaction shines through. "Nobody ever had a satisfying career being half-hearted," he observes, emphasizing that meaningful work requires full commitment regardless of the field. Whether describing his time as a trauma nurse or criminal prosecutor, his story demonstrates how even the most challenging circumstances can become stepping stones to personal growth and professional fulfillment.
Ready to be inspired by an extraordinary journey through two demanding careers? Listen now, and discover why finding work you love means "you'll never do a day's work in your life."
If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five-star rating and review, and tell a friend about the show.
WANT TO BE A GUEST? You can submit your own career story through our website at noordinarymonday.com or email us at hello@noordinarymonday.com.
All right, welcome back to the no Ordinary Monday podcast. I'm your host, chris Barron, and we're here at part two of the episode with Tony Bonner. So if you haven't heard that first part, then please go back and have a listen to that episode. Tony is an emergency trauma nurse and he was telling us last episode about his experiences at the Lockerbie bombing. He left us at the moment where he and his team came across the front of the fuselage of the plane and they were just about to start looking for survivors in the area. So let's jump straight back in and hear the rest of Tony's story.
Speaker 2:So the field gate was opened and our vehicle was the first in, and it was a Range Rover. It was perfectly suited to the terrain. You know, it was absolutely fine Headlights on full beam.
Speaker 2:as we turned into this field and what we saw was was in the arc of light, imagine a wide arc of a full beam range rover, a green grass hadn't been snowing, the grass was green and there were sheep, lots of sheep, and as as the vehicle turned around, the light and this was the only light that we had, because there was no street lights or anything. We were on a hill driving the countryside and as it turned round, what I saw was grass and sheep, grass and sheep. Cockpit of a jumbo jet Lying on its side in the field right in front of us. So that photograph that you see, you know the photograph that's always used to depict Lockerbie, yeah, he was the first there.
Speaker 2:First medical team. Certainly there was a police officer there before us, so he must have stopped in his patrol car and thought I'm going to you know All this money. There might have been other people there. They all have their own stories, but I can only tell you what my recollections are. But out of the darkness of the night appeared a cockpit jumbo jet.
Speaker 1:Surreal. That must have been so surreal.
Speaker 2:More astonished in my life, nor since the visual impact. The plane itself was brilliantly white, with a blue stripe up the side of it, and we could just make out some of the writing of the name of the aircraft.
Speaker 1:I see.
Speaker 2:But it was so out of place and, man, it was big. It was big, you know, and only, I think, the top third of the diameter, if you like of the fuselage or the full diameter of the cockpit.
Speaker 2:Part of the plane is visible. Aboveference was there. It was just embedded in the soil, in the dirt, yeah, and we were utterly gobsmacked. There was nothing you could say that wasn't immediately obvious. Oh look, you know, and quite a few trite things, unimportant things, were said. That's not because people just wanted to state the obvious, just to get their mouth working again.
Speaker 1:You know it was, it was so who was the first to say something? Was it Colin or you?
Speaker 2:I can't remember. I remember that we quickly got out, so we were two doctors and two nurses. So we paired up one doctor, one nurse. We had these really rubbish, wee, bright orange plastic suitcases that held our airway management kit in one and intravenous fluids in the other. So we were carrying these cases and we paired off.
Speaker 1:Ben, did you see any? Any bodies?
Speaker 2:at this point. Yes, there were bodies not in front of the cockpit, but it was immediately obvious to us that night that this plane had disintegrated in the air. Really different parts of it had landed in different places and you didn't have to be a genius to figure that out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So almost in a line, depending on the weight of which part of the plane and so on and so forth, and the weight of the passengers and all the other things, and a trail going back from the broken fuselage, if you like. There were bodies in a line going back in that direction fuselage, if you like. There were bodies in the line going back in that direction. We started to examine the bodies as we came across them. But Colin and I also went round the back end, or the open end, if you like, of the cockpit and you could look in and obviously by torchlight, and there were some discernible figures in the front of the cockpit, but there was no movement and Colin and I looked at each other and thought, well, we'll just jump in and check these bodies to see if there's any signs of life, because that was our sole purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were just about to and the policeman any signs of life, because that was our sole purpose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were just about to and the policeman physically took hold of us and said no, you don't. We said what do you mean? You know this is our job, just let us do it sort of response. And the policeman said well, I'm stopping you because if you look closely, the policeman said, well, I'm stopping you because if you look closely, that whole area was full of metal shards, of broken fuselage and you know everything. And he's right. If we had jumped in, we would have been cut to ribbons. Really we would have been casualties and that would have helped anybody. So it was.
Speaker 1:You guys were trying to access the remains of the fuselage by this point and it was just a shred.
Speaker 2:It was just a cheese grater it was a cheese grater, it would have been and we felt bad because we didn't want to give up. Give anybody up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Unless we had to, you know. So our instinct was to go and physically check. I think the pilot and co-pilot were still in their seats, although you couldn't really discern. And this is where my memory it's not my memories playing tricks on me it's blanked out wee bits.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I can't give you a good description of the pilot or co-pilot. There wasn't easily discernible shapes, you know, and it was dark, we had torches, you know, which was all a bit rubbish, but that's what it was like at the time. Jeez, we had torches, you know which was all a bit rubbish, but that's what it was like at the time, jeez, and there was none left alive.
Speaker 2:You didn't find anyone. No, what we then did was we then started to check the bodies which were almost in a line going back. I think there was one, just a body or two, just at the side of the broken open end of the cockpit and their bodies going further back into the field. So we checked those and happily my memory doesn't afford me any detailed recollection of the faces of the people and stuff, and I'm not unhappy about that. I remember at the time thinking this is where my memory kind of keeps running the edges of what I saw that I'm really not sure that these people were unconscious when they died. They would have become unconscious as the plane broke up, whether they had enough time to regain consciousness as they fell through the air. I would be persuaded that some of them may be dead, and that's a very unhappy thought. But they wouldn't have seen what was happening to them because they wouldn't have seen the ground or anything else.
Speaker 1:But it was you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, terrible experience, I'm sure. When the bodies landed they bounced, so beside each body there was a perfect imprint in soil. Wow, almost like something out of pompeii, you know really like a, like a shape, an identical shape to the body beside it. I didn't expect that. I hadn't even read about that. I didn't think that was possible. So anyway, there were no survivors and there were never ever going to be any. There may have been some survivors on the ground. I think there were some injured people on the ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from the locals and the aircraft, yeah, jesus, and I guess that it's kind of we were kind of saying before about how your training kind of is very important. It's like being in the military, because you're dealing with a highly stressful psychologically, emotionally, situation and the only thing you can do is allow your subconscious training to guide you, because your conscious mind is overwhelmed and I guess it kind of shows how, how vital that training is I mentioned people saying unnecessary things and I and this is why I know I had somewhere a visual to accompany what I said.
Speaker 2:But I said to Colin something like this one's dead, he or she doesn't have any face, was something that I said and I remember at the time thinking oh time, thinking oh, come on, you know, yeah, that's just unnecessary, but I don't have a cut, an accompanying visual with that. That's a memory I have, but I have no, no visual to go with it.
Speaker 1:it's not weird I mean it's, it's probably a protective mechanism in some ways of your mind. I mean, at what point did you all kind of realise that there was no job for you to do?
Speaker 2:I think we kind of knew we didn't know how many people were involved with the aircraft. We didn't know how many people were involved with the aircraft. We didn't know how many people were involved on the ground. We didn't know anything. But we knew that we had a duty to ourselves and to the passengers and their families to keep on looking. And if it's even possible, it was another. Well, I would. Someone said, well, there's bodies in the next field. So Colin said, well, we could split up, we'll cover more ground. And I said, right, let's do that. And I don't know if it's the same local GP. But there was a GP who said well, I'll take you down to the next field and we can both look. Great plan, he said. So he said jump in the car. And it was a Jaguar XGS and it was beautiful, white leather, you know seats, and it was warm as toast, because this time it was absolutely frozen, chittering cold, you know.
Speaker 1:So they had seat warmers back in 1988 did they? In the Jaguars. He blasted the heat in the car.
Speaker 2:He'd left the car heating on, but that wasn't what did my head. What really got to me was the classical music playing when I got in and sat down. It was just the juxtaposition of all of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the comfort of the leather seats and the fancy jag, you know, and the classical music, you know, and I was thinking, Jesus, you know this is crazy. Anyway, it didn't take, I don't know. I don't even know why we even jumped in the car, or maybe the field was 10 minutes away or something. So we jumped out and by torchlight started to search a field for bodies and I have honestly no recollection of what we saw. I do have a recollection there were some bodies there. I was also pleasantly surprised that, in fact, some guys started to appear in camouflage gear. The army had mobilised and apparently they had flew a couple of squads by helicopter, I don't know.
Speaker 2:And then I saw a helicopter with its searchlights on scouring the field ahead of us it it was obvious there wasn't anything to be done. I don't think there were many bodies there, I think there were some. So I got a message. A policeman came and gave me a message and said are you with the medic one team. And I said aye. He said well, you've been recalled back down to Lockerbie. You have to meet your colleagues in the ice skating rink.
Speaker 2:And I remember this lad and I don't know his name. Must have been in his 60s, remember, I was probably in my 20s. He made me a cup of tea and I've never been so grateful for a cup of tea in my life and this lad just knew just to give me a cup of tea and let me sit down. You know, I think it took several days to process it, to actually go through the events that I've just described to you and kind of put them in place. I've been lucky in my career that, in spite of what I've seen and done in my careers plural I've always had the ability to file things away in their own wee box and keep them all nice, tightly packaged together in my memory, with a Do Not Open sign on the door. Isn't this interesting? Because that's what I did with this, and there are very, very few nights I haven't slept in my life, in either of my careers.
Speaker 1:Because that's an important skill to have, would you say, In those industries that ability to compartmentalize.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think most of us did that. One of the things that I wasn't ready for was professional jealousy with some of some of my colleagues in that certain emergency unit missed the big one and they were a bit resentful about it, and I absolutely understand that and forgive them that, because it's the one thing you hope for when you specialize in trauma that you you get tested and I mean there's no bigger test.
Speaker 2:I had nothing to pass or fail. We didn't. We didn't treat anybody, didn't save anybody. We went through all this on the off chance that we could and ultimately we didn't save anybody. So that was, that was more difficult, colleagues being jealous of us. I remember the following day one of my colleagues wanted hey, how?
Speaker 1:did you see like was there lots of you know dead?
Speaker 2:bodies and this kind of stuff. I said well I don't really want to talk about it just now. And she said for goodness sake, tony, it was yesterday, wow, you know, and I wasn't grateful for that either, but it's interesting you haven't.
Speaker 1:You said to me before that you haven't really told this story in great detail before, is there? Is that? I mean, we could have talked about it a little bit? You just mentioned the fact that it's all been labelled stored away, do not open. Is that partly the reason, do you think, why?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think that's for a while. Afterwards, people wanted to speak to me because they had a salacious interest in it and I didn't want any part of that. The important part of this is trying to respect the dignity of those. I got upset the next morning, having finally gotten home and given Irene her second best bunch of flowers. Upset the next morning, having finally gotten home and given Irene her second best bunch of flowers, to simply carry on. For this time I had a radio alarm used to wake me up with the news. The first thing I heard were the tears and the anguish of people waiting in New York for the flight.
Speaker 1:Jeez. Because I hadn't really registered until that point, had I.
Speaker 2:I hadn't really. I had a snapshot of it, yeah. And I thought, christ, you know these poor people. And then, thinking of some of the things I saw, I thought, oh, they're not going to want to know any of that, and it was that bothered me. That bothered me. But you know, by the time the next day came, it was almost like it had been a bad dream yeah we Freddie Mercury pulled the handbrake, you know the exchange of official information in two fast moving vehicles.
Speaker 2:You know the burning houses, and it just all seemed I'd seen some stuff by this time, you know, but nothing, nothing like that. What was interesting, that there was a camaraderie came out of it between those of us who went, and it was almost like a camaraderie that didn't need description or any words. We just knew what each other had been through and it was just enough. You know just enough to know that.
Speaker 1:I mean on reflection, this many years later, I guess, from a from a from a, let's raceway, sort of say, from a personal or a career perspective being tested in the way that you've been tested on such a massive scale even though you know you say there wasn't anyone to save, necessarily, but coming out the other side of it, having known you've been through something like that to that degree you've gone through that test.
Speaker 1:Did you feel a level of confidence or, um, what's the right word? Um, you know, confidence in your skills, confidence in you. If I did find someone I knew I could handle it. Like you know, having passed through that, was there something at the other side that you could grow upon or build upon?
Speaker 2:So you learn a lot about yourself at times like that. And I learned because, perfectly frank with you, I was young bumptious pain in the arse probably. I had limited experience of life and love, a limited professional experience of dealing with matters like this. So it was formative to a certain extent, I think. But that's not to get carried away with that, because I believe even with the best training in the world, if something hits you suddenly, it's what happened to you the day before might be the deciding factor as to whether you cope with it or not. Or if you had an argument with your wife the night before, or if one of your children was sick, then something could happen on you quickly that, even if you were the most experienced person in the world, your bottle would go. I suppose I came out of that knowing that I had my limits too. At various points throughout that night I was pretty useless. I'm not ashamed to say that, but I think the trick is to come through it. The trick's really okay, right, persuade yourself to keep going.
Speaker 2:There's something that I'm going to parallel. Later in life, when I was doing trials as a prosecutor that nobody else in the office fancied doing, or when I was working with the homicide teams and working cold case murders and stuff, I was aware there was a parallel and that is I found myself running into situations that most sensible people run away from.
Speaker 1:You mentioned there you took skills from that test that you took forward into your next career. But the first question I wanted to ask is why did you feel like you needed another career? A lot of people they do a career and that's the job that they do for a long time. It takes a lot of bravery and commitment, confidence, you know, and it can be a sacrifice and a gamble to change your careers so far into it. What age were you when you made that decision?
Speaker 2:I started studying law when I was 36. You made that decision. I started studying law when I was 36. I had always wanted to be a lawyer. Actually, although I didn't know that much about it, malcolm Ward was a lawyer and he was a cool guy, you know probably not more sophisticated than that, but I was terrible at school. I mean, for reasons previously discussed, I didn't know whether I needed a shite or a haircut. I didn't know when I was going to be. No, I had no idea where to go about forming my life.
Speaker 2:I was a terrible student and I couldn't study, and so my exam results were average. I think I escaped school with so many O grades and I think, four highers, you know, but they weren't focused on anything. There was nothing really floated my boat, as described earlier. I fell into things, but I'd always wanted to study law and I've always been quite a quick thinker and, as you know, I can usually talk my way out of trouble.
Speaker 1:We'll go to that here yes.
Speaker 2:So I could always argue. You know, and friends used to complain that I always seemed to end up winning arguments that they knew that I knew were wrong.
Speaker 1:So I don't know.
Speaker 2:Maybe I've had an inquisitive mind, maybe it's something I did fancy. I was terrible at school, fell into a career. It took me until I was about 34 to start to get out of that. I applied to study law more in hope than expectation. I thought, well, if I don't, I'm never going to know. And if I don't get accepted, then I don't have to worry about it. You know it's having a decent career up to that point as well so.
Speaker 2:I applied to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee universities to study law and I got accepted 12-4. So I went to. Edinburgh University at the bright old age of 36. And and was delighted to be studying the old college in Edinburgh. It was a real groove. It was really nice and I loved it.
Speaker 1:Reliving your youth a little bit. I mean, you're a mature student by that point.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I wasn't the oldest, but the youngsters were too busy drinking and co-working about For me. You mentioned risk earlier. This was a risky thing for me to do because I could get through, get my law degree, which I did. I got an ordinary LLB in two years, which is all you could do in legal practice, and then I had to do two years as a trainee procurator fiscal. So it was a five-year commitment from then.
Speaker 1:So I wasn't qualified as a lawyer until I was 41 years old. I mean, that's a career transition A. It's not even that much of a transferable skill, going from emergency medicine to criminal law. I mean, obviously you're passionate about it, but that decision is not one you take overnight. I mean you've got kids, you've got a wife, you've got a family, you've got commitments. And I'm just curious, because a lot of people listening to this might be in a position they're mid-30s, they know what they want to do, but it's hard to take that leap. What might you say to someone in that position to help them, or help them not take the leap?
Speaker 2:So I think I knew by the time. So I think I knew by the time I applied to do my law degree. But in terms of healthcare, my race was run. I'd done the good stuff. I was getting around to doing the boring stuff. I really wasn't interested. And back then changing career wasn't something that people did very often. But I would say to anybody listening to this live your life to the fullest. If you feel you want to change career, then commit to it. You know, and it can be done. Because if I, if I, can get a law degree but it can't be done, I mean that must be, true.
Speaker 2:You just have to have the courage to make that jump. And I knew. Because I'd done some summer work in the local procurator fiscal's office, I knew generally what it was I was looking for Boy. Did I want to do it?
Speaker 1:And what was that? What were you looking for? To become a prosecutor to take the bad guys and put them away absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's quite handy. I think you know yeah, argument argumentative skills yes, well, I never lost a trial. I didn't do that very many trials, but I never lost them well, that's good, I find myself working in homicide cases and latterly cold cases. I did cold cases for the best or homicide for the best part of 10 or 11 years and I did cold cases for 4 or 5 of those.
Speaker 1:You've regaled me with stories of samurai swords in Glasgow and all kinds of mad stuff. What sort of stuff did you see during your time?
Speaker 2:So the bulk of the prosecuting work is unremarkable. It's minor assaults, thefts, you know, drink drivers, whats drink drivers what else? You know, lots of ordinary stuff. And that stuff has to be done. There's no two ways about it. Society requires you to uphold the rule of law, and that's every bit as valid a way to go about it. It's working, honestly, absolutely. I worked in Edinburgh and Glasgow predominantly. The level of violence of people in Glasgow is absolutely breathtaking. I know you've lived there so you'll have your own insight.
Speaker 1:I survived Glasgow.
Speaker 2:I need a T-shirt that says I survived Glasgow. I used to characterize homicide between Glasgow and Edinburgh, as in Edinburgh your average assassin gave the hospital a chance Shit, In Glasgow not so much.
Speaker 1:Not so much oh man.
Speaker 2:They were setting about each other wholesale. As you mentioned, Samurai Swords, they finished the job on the spot.
Speaker 1:Is this gang stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, mostly gang and drugs and, in Glasgow, the sectarian elements that you never, ever read in a police report Guys in green and white shirts chasing guys in blue shirts up the street with knives and then getting chased back down again by the guys in the blue shirts, but this time there's more of them and they had more knives. One of the youngsters tripping up and getting kebabbed on the street, I mean real nasty stuff, feeling unpleasant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, real nasty stuff. Feeling unpleasant, yeah, sort of stuff. I mean we hear about stuff anecdotally living in Glasgow and it can be, you don't?
Speaker 2:some of it feels embellished but from your experience not so much no, not in my experience, much as journalists like to sell newspapers, or did I? Don't know anymore, probably, but actually the public don't have their stomach for the detail.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Detail's far worse than you could ever imagine. You know, and actually you know there are people who get pleasure out of the more salacious detail they've got, the better, but actually not if you're standing in a stairwell with an 18-year-old at your feet who's just been stabbed 70 times and that stairwell smells like a nabatoir and his mother screaming at the top of her voice. Nothing to be had there.
Speaker 1:But in saying all that, you made the leap, you succeeded in your second career. No regrets, clearly.
Speaker 2:Have I got regrets? I have regrets that I didn't study law sooner. Believe it or not because I had a pretty interesting career as a nurse. I regret. I think I could have been a better fiscal, probably a better nurse and a better fiscal. You know, sometimes you spend so long doing the thing that you kind of it's not that I stagnated, but you know repetition, you find comfort in repetition. I think it's looking back. I think I was comfortable in some jobs for too long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you weren't being challenged enough. Yeah, kept on your toes. Interesting, interesting. I think I would have been a better fiscal.
Speaker 2:There are certain things in my career that I know I could have done better, and I wish I had.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:But you know, I also think I could be a better husband and father. You know, there's nothing remarkable about this. I'm just a human. You know, sometimes I make good decisions.
Speaker 1:It can all be better.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I don't.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Well, let's just bring us on to the final part here. Just, it kind of is a, I guess, a look back, you know. I mean you look back at your career. You kind of just set it there. I mean you feel regret. But you must feel other things as well.
Speaker 2:When you look back on your as a, I feel great huge, great, huge gratitude to, to irene and the kids for supporting me through it yeah I didn't give me the chance to study law and because I was, I studied at full time for two years yeah, and you're not earning money night.
Speaker 2:Well, I did knife shifts at the weekend. Oh, I see, to try and earn money in the local care homes. You know, it's me turning up with one of my old uniforms on and taking charge of a care home. Wow, anyway, so gratitude. I wish I'd done better sometimes.
Speaker 1:I mean if you're able to talk to yourself as a young man at the age of 17,. You would have said be a lawyer.
Speaker 2:No, I would say, it doesn't matter what you want to do, but commit to it and be the best at it that you can.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:My dad was a car mechanic and whilst he never made very much money, he was a hardworking guy. He was a great car mechanic. He used to work on racing cars and stuff and people used to come to him from far and wide because my dad could fit his cars, yeah, and he loved it. And he said to me it's an old adage and I know lots of people say this, but my father did say this to me he said if you find what you love doing in life, then do it, because you'll never do a day's work in your life. And that's how he saw it. He gave me a card he fixed he was in heaven. And there were times in my nursing career and times as a fiscal where I thought this is great. You know, this is great. This is what I want to do. So it doesn't matter what you decide to do, commit to it and work hard, work hard. Nobody ever had a satisfying career. Being half-hearted. Maybe they would say they did, but I don't believe that.
Speaker 1:I've always had the energy in my mind that nothing worth having ever comes easy. Yeah, I think that's quite true as well. I mean one of the things I kind of like it's a bit tricky with you, a little bit, but I want you to try and imagine an auditorium filled with prospective people for jobs. You know they could be 14 year olds. You know trying to find their, find their interests and their passions.
Speaker 1:You know high school leavers, um university graduates, people in their 30s, whatever, try, try and pitch your jobs to them one at a time, if you don't mind, because usually it would just be one job, but because you've had two careers, I'm going to ask you to do it twice. So imagine you stand up and you've got a minute maybe less than a minute as long as you want to say this is why you should do this job, or this is why you shouldn't do this job, or whatever you think.
Speaker 2:Well, I suppose I would say can you imagine a life where you wake up in the morning and you pull on a uniform and it associates you with the best of people and you spend the day making a difference to other people's lives? That you could have a lot of fun, a lot of fun, a lot of laughs in the process, be scared and challenged, yes, but the time you get home and take your uniform off, you think that was a day. And nursing, especially trauma nursing, gives you that. You know your while's always short of time, usually not got enough time to eat, people in your face dying in spite of you, and then sometimes saving people and dealing with their families, and so on and so forth. For all the challenging that that is, that's the kind of challenge you want in your life. And if that's the kind of challenge you want in your life, and if that's for you, I would say, become a trauma nurse, because it's a hell of a ride.
Speaker 1:It's an understatement in your case.
Speaker 2:I think it's a hell of a ride. And what?
Speaker 1:about criminal law. Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:My life as a prosecutor and I'm quite proud of this. You'll be able to tell my voice. I worked on a notorious cold case in Edinburgh where two young girls were mugged up by two guys. It became known as the World's End Murders. Look up, it's fascinating. That's another one. You can watch Endless Programs on, by the way, if you've got nothing to do with your time.
Speaker 2:So I worked on that for a year. We got a guy called Sinclair got was found guilty of the murder of the two girls and he got the longest prison sentence ever handed out in Scotland, which was great because you had to keep this going off the streets forever because he was an awful, awful man. But the following week after that case but the following week after that case I was asked to go to Aberdeen University to lecture on the world's end murders and my son, david had asked me if I would do it he was studying forensic science at the time and eventually his I would do it. He was studying forensic science at the time and eventually his guy in charge of his course asked me if I'd come speak to the course about it. I said fine. So I got permission to use all the graphics you know from the presentation of the trial.
Speaker 1:And I said alright.
Speaker 2:I'll do that. I think this will be a bit of a blast. I'll go out for a pint with David afterwards, maybe time. I'll do that. I think this will be a bit of a blast. I'll go out for a pint with David afterwards, maybe time well spent. What I didn't know when I turned up was there was 200 people in the main lecture in the university, including the rector and all the various other professors and stuff and me and I had the absolute privilege of lecturing my son on what I did and what was a notorious case at the time. It still bears the reading and I talked non-stop. This will come as no surprise to you. I talked non-stop for two and a half hours.
Speaker 1:Jeez, and they didn't mind, presumably.
Speaker 2:So if I would say to anybody wanting to become a prosecutor, be sure, it's what you want, and when you get there, don't hold back. And sometimes you get to do things that make you feel so good about, because actually, in a very real way, you make the world a better place, perhaps just with a few people or a small town or a village, and sometimes on a bigger stage than that. If that does it for you, that's the job for you.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. What a great place to leave it. Tony, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. Pleasure and to see you, as always. Okay, that is it for Tony's incredible story. Thank you so much for listening, guys. Another huge thanks to Tony for taking the time to chat with me.
Speaker 1:For photos, links and more about this episode, head to no ordinary mondaycom and look for the episode page. You can also find us on all of our socials. We are facebook, instagram, linkedin and more. Just look for no ordinary monday. You can also search for us on linktree. Check us out and come and join the conversation.
Speaker 1:Coming up next week, I have got another great episode for you guys. I speak to conflict cinematographer michael downey. Michael and I have actually worked together a few times over the years. Um, we chat about loads of great stuff how he fell into journalism in egypt during the arab spring and his experiences in Kiev, ukraine, as the Russians first invaded. It's really, really crazy stuff. So please subscribe now so you don't miss out. If you have questions or want to share your own career story, get in touch via our socials. You can also email hello H-E-L-L-O at noordinarymondaycom or you can use the Submit your Story page on our website and if you enjoyed this episode, please do two really quick things for us. Just click five stars on this podcast and, if you have a moment, also just give us a nice review. The other thing is tell a friend. That's it. It really helps us grow the show, attract more amazing guests and inspire new listeners. This episode was produced, hosted and edited by me, chris Barron. Thank you all for listening and have a great Monday everyone.