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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to episode number fifty of The

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Speaker 1: Hunting Collective. I've been O'Brien and we made it the

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Speaker 1: episode fifty. It's pretty cool. I never thought this podcast

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Speaker 1: would last episode number five, let alone number fifty, so

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Speaker 1: I am very happy to be here with you. Uh

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Speaker 1: and with us today is two men, uh Byron and

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Speaker 1: Darryl Pace from Scotland, and I would imagine that if

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Speaker 1: you've never been to Scotland, or if you don't, you're

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Speaker 1: not aware of their hunting culture. These are two the

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Speaker 1: two best guys to be talking to to get the

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Speaker 1: perspective from that side of the world. And Byron and

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Speaker 1: Darryl also prolific creators of media. They have a podcast,

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Speaker 1: they're wonderful photographers, and they are also filmmakers. Um. It

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Speaker 1: made me feel a little bit lazy by seeing and

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Speaker 1: watching and learning about what they do. But also they've

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Speaker 1: lived amazing lives for their young years, and well, we

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Speaker 1: wanted to get into a lot of the land use

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Speaker 1: and wildlife management in Scotland, but we didn't get there

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Speaker 1: because their life stories are so damn interesting. So please enjoy.

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Speaker 1: Straight from the Mediator Offices of Montana, Byron Darryl Pace

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Speaker 1: the Pace Brothers on the episode number fifty. I'm warming

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Speaker 1: up now. Yeah, yeah, you getting used to it after

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Speaker 1: it said would have been a week. It is, but

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Speaker 1: we left, we left Scotland. It was pretty cold, although

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Speaker 1: not minus twenty, which is what it was in Yellowstone

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Speaker 1: when we visited the first day. Yeah, it's just a

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Speaker 1: couple of degrees undering a wee bit of snow. It's

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Speaker 1: all gone. Now. You enjoyed Montana. Now it's terrible. It's

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Speaker 1: it's views are terrible. Yeah, it's it makes you not

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Speaker 1: want to come back. It's it's amazing here, absolutely spectacular.

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Speaker 1: It's actually screwed me up, if I'm honest, because I've

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Speaker 1: kind of spent I've spent so much of my life

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Speaker 1: always looking for the backup to Scotland, where we live,

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Speaker 1: where we're from. And despite all the awesome places I've

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Speaker 1: been around the world, there's always it's never it's like, no,

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Speaker 1: I'm not I wouldn't make that trade. And now I've

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Speaker 1: been here a week and I'm like, oh, dear, oh,

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Speaker 1: I found I found a place. I'm very much into

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Speaker 1: Plan B. I have like this thing where I in

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Speaker 1: case I lose my job, and my wife and son

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Speaker 1: decide they don't want me around anymore. You gotta have

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Speaker 1: like a you know, pull the ripcord. So for me,

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Speaker 1: it's New Zealand. It used to be Alaska. Until I

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Speaker 1: went to New Zealand. I was like, WHOA, I could

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Speaker 1: live here. So that's my my plan B. So maybe

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Speaker 1: this could be your plan B in case everything doesn't

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Speaker 1: work out. If maybe plan A. If you guys let

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Speaker 1: us in, yeah, well we would let you. And okay,

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Speaker 1: we're so temporary. We're not pass ben nicely for a

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Speaker 1: temporary job. Yeah. As you can tell around here, we

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Speaker 1: have plenty of seats and people to fill them. I

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Speaker 1: was tempted when I was looking. I was looking through

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Speaker 1: your store at the meat each story the other day

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Speaker 1: and I saw a couple of jobs up for grabs

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Speaker 1: and something, Well, let's do an into view. Now, tell

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Speaker 1: me about your skills, no, I hear at the Meatia,

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Speaker 1: we will ask you, like, what if you were a bird,

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Speaker 1: what type of bird would you be? That's how that's

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Speaker 1: how our interviews begin. Well, after seeing a bold eagle

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Speaker 1: for the first time the other day, I think I

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Speaker 1: want to be that. That's a that's a bad motherfucker.

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Speaker 1: First time I've seen one, Yeah, right outside Tyler's house.

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Speaker 1: I mean it didn't you know, I don't know that

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Speaker 1: I saw a bald eagle until I was in my

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Speaker 1: teenage years because I lived on the East Coast and

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Speaker 1: then very rare. They're not populated. That not populated. There

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Speaker 1: there are some around. You would see him, you know, rarely.

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Speaker 1: But then now I live over here on the Gallatin

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Speaker 1: River and they fly across my backyard every morning. Pretty special.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty special thing they must be. I mean it

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Speaker 1: was above my head. So it's difficult to judge the

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Speaker 1: scale of something when it's just in the sky. That

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Speaker 1: golden little sea eagles are the biggest thing we have

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Speaker 1: in Scotland, the golden eagles being more common, but they

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Speaker 1: were a lot bigger than a golden eagle. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're They're a big raptor um and and you know

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Speaker 1: for us that they have you know, when you go

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Speaker 1: you go like Prince of Wales Island, say coastal Alaska,

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Speaker 1: and they're like buzzers. I mean they're everywhere, and every

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Speaker 1: pile of trash has a gold ea has a bald

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Speaker 1: eagle on it. Every dead carcass has ten bald eagles

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Speaker 1: on it. You know, every dead seal is washed up

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Speaker 1: on the shore has ten bald eagles. So imagine if

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Speaker 1: you lived in that place, your your perspective might be

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Speaker 1: a little bit different. But here and to see a

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Speaker 1: bald eagle, I mean now, we were sitting in the

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Speaker 1: airport and I look out and there's like a bald

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Speaker 1: eagle flying with a backdrop of the Bridge mountains, and

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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh man, in my in my mind, I

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Speaker 1: was like, America. Yeah, that's the American dream. That's it

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Speaker 1: right there. That's like if I was a pilgrim coming

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Speaker 1: out west then I stopped and saw that, I'd be like,

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Speaker 1: I'll live here, I will homestead here. Um, all right,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a lot about um where you came from.

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Speaker 1: But first I want to talk about your time in Montana.

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Speaker 1: You gotta give me. We got bison hunts. You guys

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Speaker 1: have met and podcasted with some interesting individuals and and

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Speaker 1: plan to do more. So yeah, I gotta tell us

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Speaker 1: all about it. We've got a busy day head today.

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Speaker 1: We've got we're seeing your buddy Brad. Yeah. Um, over

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Speaker 1: said kill a. So, which is gonna be pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: And we the first well, the first thing that happened

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Speaker 1: when we came to to Montana was it went to Yellerstone. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean that doesn't get much better than that. I

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Speaker 1: think that's a pretty good introduction. Yeah, what you know,

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Speaker 1: being from uh Scotland and coming here, obviously that's a

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Speaker 1: legendary place. I mean it's it's a place of held

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Speaker 1: in high regard in our country. And does it does

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Speaker 1: it hold up to the to the legend in your mind? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: It does. You know, everyone at home knows Yellowstone pretty

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Speaker 1: much everyone in the thing. Everybody knows Yellowstone. It's probably,

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Speaker 1: I dare say it's probably the most well known national

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Speaker 1: park in the world. The other day in the UK,

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Speaker 1: Like you'll be lucky if three or four national geographics

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Speaker 1: a year don't have something to do with the Yellowstone

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Speaker 1: in the UK. So, I mean it's it's widely known. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it is. I mean it's I went to for

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Speaker 1: the first time two years ago and it was amazing.

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Speaker 1: I mean there's not just a wildlife. Did you guys

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Speaker 1: go to the paint pots and go to the well.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the roads are closed. There was only

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Speaker 1: sort of the main drags. There was only one of

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Speaker 1: the thermal areas that when you could get to, so

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Speaker 1: we were told it wasn't the most vivid, but it

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Speaker 1: was still cool to see. But it was the bison

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Speaker 1: that kind of behind blew us away. Was it's this,

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Speaker 1: it's this icon of North America and it's this icon

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Speaker 1: of conservation and I kind of expected to go in

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Speaker 1: there and see them, but they might be over there

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Speaker 1: when we might have to know. Looking with the buyers

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Speaker 1: for an hour, and we were in there for all

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Speaker 1: of about thirty there's a bison, and it was like yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then Tyler, who was driving us around and schurefeuring us,

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Speaker 1: it's okay, you're gonna see that, And sure enough we

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Speaker 1: went around the next bend there was thirty and then

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Speaker 1: it was fifty. And then we went down to on

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Speaker 1: this plane where we were looking for one of the

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Speaker 1: wolf packs and there was maybe two or three hundred,

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Speaker 1: and it was like it kind of made me feel

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Speaker 1: like the early pioneers and how they must have felt,

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Speaker 1: just like popping over the horizon and just seeing this awestness,

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Speaker 1: this wilderness and all these animals everywhere. And I think

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Speaker 1: going in the wintertime, um, which I again I did

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Speaker 1: this winter for the first time and going in the

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Speaker 1: summertime it is a completely different experience. I mean it

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Speaker 1: completely and the summertime you just a traffic jams around

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Speaker 1: the Buffalo, you know, and and to go there and

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Speaker 1: just as like you said, to see it, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's not untouched, but to see it rather unbothered. You know,

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Speaker 1: we were pretty lucky there wasn't that many people on

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Speaker 1: the road that they were they were saying that it

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Speaker 1: was very quiet, which I'm glad. I'm you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: glad you got to experience it without without you know,

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Speaker 1: a car load of people behind you, and that's you

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Speaker 1: know that that is the very you go in July

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Speaker 1: and you will have that. So it is we've talked

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Speaker 1: about on this podcast before. I feel I felt always

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Speaker 1: felt conflicted about that because I think it's it's as

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Speaker 1: great as you said, this great representation of what the

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Speaker 1: Western United States has to offer, and really there are

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Speaker 1: this this continent has to offer um. But sometimes you

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Speaker 1: go there and you feel like, man, I wish you

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Speaker 1: would wish we would have put a thumb on this

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Speaker 1: some years ago, but we talked about and passed on

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Speaker 1: some other conversations it being just a representative for wildlife,

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Speaker 1: you know, being a place that everyone can go to

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Speaker 1: see what it's like in wild places without having to interact.

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Speaker 1: Is not everybody will go and interact in the way

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Speaker 1: that it's important because it gives people. It gives people

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Speaker 1: a reason to be interested when they can see it

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Speaker 1: in in a tangible form. But we have the same

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Speaker 1: problem in Scotland and certain locations, not so much with wildlife,

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Speaker 1: with landscape and like the Isle of Sky, which is

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Speaker 1: the most awesome place, and yet through the summer months

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Speaker 1: we just don't go there anymore because there's just so

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Speaker 1: many tourists And it's which which is because we're also

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Speaker 1: a tourists and it's it's a it's a conflict, isn't it,

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Speaker 1: Because I don't want to be self and said, we

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Speaker 1: don't go there because I don't want you because you're

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Speaker 1: paining the ass, You're blocking all the roads and there's

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Speaker 1: two cars parked to go and you know, look at

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Speaker 1: a particular rock formation because I want to see it,

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Speaker 1: so why should I not share it with everyone else?

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Speaker 1: But there's a difference here though they're paying to go

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Speaker 1: in they are paying and there they don't In Scotland.

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Speaker 1: They don't they don't pay, and so it's it is

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Speaker 1: actually having detrimental impacts to the local people and the environment.

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Speaker 1: Though also the scale is much bigger Yellowstone. I mean,

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Speaker 1: even if you do have loads and loads of people

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Speaker 1: disturbing wildlife on roads and potentially walking on trails, and

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Speaker 1: that it's so big that wildlife can move off into

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Speaker 1: its own area and not be disturbed. So we we

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Speaker 1: were doing the maths of of scale of Yellowstone and

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Speaker 1: it's just compared to what we have at home, it's colossal. Yeah, sure, Miles, Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's just unbelievable. We think our national parks pick Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just like a drop in the ocean. Yeah, No,

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's I've come to appreciate the fact

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Speaker 1: that for what it represents, it represents a chance for

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Speaker 1: for people to go and see wildlife and be inspired

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Speaker 1: to go and learn more. Um. But sometimes when you

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Speaker 1: go there and there's a traffic gam for an hour

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Speaker 1: and a half to be old faithful, you think, damn, man,

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Speaker 1: like this is what it what are we really doing

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Speaker 1: this the right way? But I feel like there's so

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Speaker 1: much positive that comes from and you can't you know,

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Speaker 1: it's hard. It's hard to really focus on the negative.

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Speaker 1: It's such a beautiful place. Yeah, it is. It blew

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Speaker 1: us away for sure. Good, it's good, and I'm glad

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Speaker 1: you got to, like say, I got to go there

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Speaker 1: in the winter experience it that way. Um, there's a

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Speaker 1: calumness there in the winter that there there certainly isn't.

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Speaker 1: And we were learning something interesting yesterday because we saw

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Speaker 1: so many bison and we saw two elk fighting. We

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Speaker 1: were telling you about this the other day, fighting in

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Speaker 1: the petrol station. We put a picture of it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and we saw a handful of female elk. But we

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Speaker 1: were speaking to someone yesterday and they were telling us

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Speaker 1: how the olt population inside Yellowstone has declined so much

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Speaker 1: over the last twenty years, largely due to the wolf predation,

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Speaker 1: which I hadn't I hadn't appreciate it at all. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's it. It becomes. I think test case

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Speaker 1: is probably the wrong world, but that's what it becomes.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's an untouched landscape where the human interaction

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Speaker 1: is not allowed because there's no management. It'side Yellowstone Atoll,

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Speaker 1: not no no. Um, there's you know, problem, animals are killed,

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Speaker 1: there's interactions with humans. But there's no hunting based management

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Speaker 1: within within the Yellowstone at all. I'm uh. And you

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Speaker 1: know people love to hunt the edges had We had

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Speaker 1: a buddy out there doing that just the other day

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Speaker 1: for bison. Um. So it is it is this like

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Speaker 1: you know, often anti hunters or vegans would say, like,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't we just why do we have to prey upon animals? Now,

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Speaker 1: you know, we can just go to the store and

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Speaker 1: eat meat, and let's let's allow the natural predator prey

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Speaker 1: balance to you know, let's reintroduce grisly bears, reintroduced wolves

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Speaker 1: in Serenade range and just let it go. And I

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Speaker 1: would say Yellowstone is a good example of what can

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Speaker 1: happen and what likely will. It's I think people don't

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Speaker 1: appreciate this quite the scale of landscape that you need

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Speaker 1: for wildlife to truly balance itself. As we've said, Yellowstone

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Speaker 1: is colossal. But the grand scheme of these massive migrations

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Speaker 1: that historically used to happen in the interactions of wildlife

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Speaker 1: across all of North America, which is a vast place,

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Speaker 1: it's still relatively small. Everything is relative. It is small

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Speaker 1: in relation to North America, but it's large in relation

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Speaker 1: to a land mass in Scotland, and you know, I

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Speaker 1: think people it's very difficult for us to get our

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Speaker 1: heads around actually what scale you need? Yes, for wildlife

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Speaker 1: to look after itself. Um, So what else do you

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Speaker 1: guys do in Montana? Is there? Um? Is there anything

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Speaker 1: that that sticks out beyond the grand this is yellow Stunt? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think Daryl's probably. I mean, we've been meeting people.

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Speaker 1: It's been you know, catching up with you and a

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Speaker 1: whole heap of other people that are been doing some

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Speaker 1: podcasts and also you know, we've we've been staying staying

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Speaker 1: with Tyler Sharp, editor Modern Huntsman. We've been we did

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Speaker 1: some stuff on volume two and we're going to be

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Speaker 1: doing some bits and pieces and working on volume three

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Speaker 1: as well. So that's been part of the reason for

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Speaker 1: being here. But I think Daryl probably managed to steal

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Speaker 1: the highlight of sort of activities because he was photographing

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Speaker 1: a bison hunt yesterday before, yeah, like two day, two

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Speaker 1: days ago. It was Yeah, it was pretty damn amazing

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Speaker 1: because especially when you're told we're going to go and

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Speaker 1: do a bison hunt and then you find out it's

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Speaker 1: on horseback as well. And it was last minute. We

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Speaker 1: come here knowing that this was going to happen, hooked

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Speaker 1: up for us while we're here, literally like twenty four

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Speaker 1: hours before. It was like yes or no, like you're

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Speaker 1: going and that So I went. And being on a

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Speaker 1: horse riding up into the mountains, it's kind of just

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Speaker 1: been a dream of mine for forever. And this is

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Speaker 1: what I was trying to tell the people I was with.

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Speaker 1: I was like, I don't think you appreciate how special

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Speaker 1: this this is because they do all the time, but

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Speaker 1: this for them, this is a yearly thing. UM taking

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Speaker 1: horses up into the you know those mountains, and it

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Speaker 1: was it was annoying because I was taking pictures. I couldn't.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't. Actually it's difficult to appreciate, appreciate, you know,

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Speaker 1: just like when you're doing when you're doing a job.

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Speaker 1: But also it was the added challenge of taking pictures

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Speaker 1: on horseback. So that was that that was interesting. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: we rode higher and higher and you know wooded area

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Speaker 1: and UM went up this track and it was I mean,

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Speaker 1: we didn't unfortunately didn't see anything at all. We saw

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Speaker 1: problems and you didn't see anybody, But that was right

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Speaker 1: at the bottom basically by the truck when we started.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, it's funny as perspective there, because you know,

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Speaker 1: from the hunter's perspective, who's from this area and does

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Speaker 1: that every year, it's like, wow, this is this is

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Speaker 1: an unsuccessful day. But to you, it's like this is

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Speaker 1: a day I'll remember for a long time. Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I said this, and I was like, you do not.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate this so much that I got to go along. Um,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we were speaking for people back home,

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Speaker 1: and people back home literally save up for potentially their

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Speaker 1: whole life to do what I just did, so like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it's so easy to forget the importance of the

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Speaker 1: things that are on your doorstep. And the same is

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Speaker 1: true for us. We live just below the Highland Faults

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Speaker 1: in Scotland, so when we look out from our office

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Speaker 1: the mountains start, that's the Highland Faults of of historic

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Speaker 1: Scotland right there. We've got like four castles like where

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Speaker 1: we live, and you know, we know, of course we

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Speaker 1: don't think about it. You guys live in a castle, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course everyone, but you know, we don't think about

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Speaker 1: it every day, and sometimes I do have to just

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Speaker 1: sit there normally with a brandy in hand or something

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Speaker 1: something like that, one of contemplation, juice and look at

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Speaker 1: the mountains and just take a deep breast, like this

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Speaker 1: is where I live, and the same is true for you, know,

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Speaker 1: you the folks who live here and get to experience

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Speaker 1: what is really quite quite a unique thing. Horseback into

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Speaker 1: the mountains of Montana. Yeah. Yeah, everywhere I go, I

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Speaker 1: always I remember, prior to moving to Montana, when I

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Speaker 1: felt like I lived in a less impressive environment. I

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Speaker 1: would when I was coming here. But one of the

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Speaker 1: first questions I would ask the guide or whoever was

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Speaker 1: hosting me here, whomever I was with it lived in

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Speaker 1: that place, is like, did you ever does this ever

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Speaker 1: get old? Do you ever wake up and just like

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Speaker 1: breeze by the mountain and just forget what you're looking at,

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Speaker 1: Like you forget that you're on the doorstep of the

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Speaker 1: Greater Eli Yelstone ecosystem that holds, you know, America's wildlife

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Speaker 1: treasures in it. I've been here for about three months,

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Speaker 1: so hasn't hit me yet that I'm here, You know,

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Speaker 1: It's like the reverse. I haven't yet got to appreciate

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Speaker 1: it because I'm not I don't think I've it's hit

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Speaker 1: me that I live here and intend to live here

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Speaker 1: for a long time, So I mean it is, that's

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Speaker 1: it's the opposite. But you're right. I mean, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: people are lived all their life. There's days they wake

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Speaker 1: up and they just breeze through life and they forget.

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Speaker 1: You get busy, and you get busy with life, just

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Speaker 1: human nat. I'm just glad. I've spent quite a few

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Speaker 1: years learning to ride horses back home, and it's quite

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Speaker 1: different here, different saddles and a different environment. Uh you know,

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Speaker 1: the most we ever did was kind of trails and

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Speaker 1: across fields, kind of hacking across farmer's fields and things

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Speaker 1: like that, but into the mountains as such, because we

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Speaker 1: don't have we don't have this kind of wooded alpine

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Speaker 1: steep areas that you can just ride a horse into.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't exist back home. So that was

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Speaker 1: pretty pretty cool. My horse was called Shrek talk. I

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Speaker 1: appreciate that he was pretty chilled because I was clicking

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Speaker 1: the camera obviously above his head and the guy though,

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Speaker 1: and the horse was like, yeah, it might be a

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Speaker 1: bit edgy with that, because that's making the same noise

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Speaker 1: as the electric fence in his paddock right above his head,

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Speaker 1: and he was a bit edgy for the first ten

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Speaker 1: minutes and then he kind of just easy easy now.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's good to hear that you have that

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Speaker 1: perspective and coming all the way across the world like

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Speaker 1: you did to have that experience. I appreciate that too.

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Speaker 1: And and for my for my money, I'll do my

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Speaker 1: best not to ever to not you know, to lose

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Speaker 1: perspective on this place. And you know what it is,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, I think that's that's why people here want

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Speaker 1: to fight for it so much, fight for access to it,

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Speaker 1: fight for for its health, and it's you know, the

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Speaker 1: health of these ecosystems, because it's because it is such

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Speaker 1: a prize. For me, Montana was one of these locations

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Speaker 1: that was always on the bucket list for visiting. And

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Speaker 1: it's going to be a little bit cheesy, but that

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Speaker 1: started with a river runs through it. Incredible. I mean

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Speaker 1: it's even today. I mean it is a piece of

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Speaker 1: cinema for sure. It's a it's a beautiful film hired

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Speaker 1: from the local library on tape exactly on VHS and

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Speaker 1: just seeing that, I mean it was it was the mountains,

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Speaker 1: it was the river, it was the fish. It was

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Speaker 1: obviously of a different period, and I am probably somewhat

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Speaker 1: guilty of hankering for periods of the past true of

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Speaker 1: North America, and it was That's probably one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons I have spent so much time in Africa. But

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Speaker 1: because of that, it was always it was what was

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Speaker 1: the catalyst from my intrigue of North America and understanding

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Speaker 1: what happened here historically. And of course you guys have

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Speaker 1: a fascinating story. Yeah, I mean, it's you know, fascinating

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Speaker 1: wildlife story. But I think you know I was doing

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Speaker 1: this earlier. I just thought, what if I if I

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Speaker 1: google hunting in Scotland, what's going to come up? Nothing

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Speaker 1: comes up. There's no good information, at least in my searching,

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Speaker 1: Like there's no here is the pre eminent source to

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Speaker 1: learn about hunting in Scotland or or you know, hunting

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Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom, over and above that. It's interesting,

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Speaker 1: you say, because funny enough, I was just thinking the

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Speaker 1: other day because I write, I write a back page

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Speaker 1: of Hunting magazine at home, and when I took it

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Speaker 1: over it was always on historical figures in hunting. And

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Speaker 1: when I took it over. I said, I'm not just

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Speaker 1: gonna make about historical figures, but I'm going to make

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Speaker 1: it about historical and current figures. And it's going to

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Speaker 1: be people who have not only been important for hunting,

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Speaker 1: but also important for conservation, even if they had nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with hunting. So I think it's important many

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Speaker 1: of them did, especially the historical figures. And it's very

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Speaker 1: very easy to find awesome examples in the rest of

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Speaker 1: the world. I mean North America is full of them, yes,

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Speaker 1: just some great examples in Africa and India and the

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Speaker 1: rest of the world. And we do have them in

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Speaker 1: the UK, but they're not spoken about their names that

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Speaker 1: if you were to mention them now, people wouldn't know

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Speaker 1: who they are. And that's kind of sad. And I've

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Speaker 1: just I realized this week in the long journeys, we've

405
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Speaker 1: been driving around and he's trying to readdress that a

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Speaker 1: little bit, and I have been putting them on the

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Speaker 1: back page, but it needs to be it needs to

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Speaker 1: be more than that some magazine that goes in the

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Speaker 1: bin every month. Yeah. No, I mean I've learned a

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Speaker 1: lot about it from you guys specifically, but without you guys,

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Speaker 1: I probably would still think it's you know, dudes and tweed,

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Speaker 1: you know, asking the gamekeeper if they can go out

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Speaker 1: and kill a red deer. But so talk about, um,

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Speaker 1: where do you come from? And it's kind of your

415
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Speaker 1: your upbringing in a little bit of you know, kind

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Speaker 1: of take us over to Scotland and give us a

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Speaker 1: little bit of an insight into your lives growing up.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to start going? Yeah, I can, I can,

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Speaker 1: I can start start Mr Navy Yes, so um me

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Speaker 1: and by while I was born in the Highlands, so

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Speaker 1: in Inverness on the banks of Loch Ness looking at

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Speaker 1: a monster. It wasn't really but I was born in Inverness.

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Speaker 1: I don't really remember my time up there too much

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Speaker 1: because you're around one years old. Yeah, but we had

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Speaker 1: a boat on Loch Nest and then we moved. Where

426
00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:23,480
Speaker 1: would we Where do we go to after that? Um? Yes,

427
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:25,960
Speaker 1: well where we live now? Yeah, it was straight for you.

428
00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 1: It was straight from from Invernessta there basically from there

429
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:33,679
Speaker 1: we um ever since we were I don't know, we

430
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,679
Speaker 1: could walk. My dad took us out hunting, rabbit hunting,

431
00:21:37,119 --> 00:21:41,200
Speaker 1: a bit of pigeon shooting, fishing, fishing, and that was yeah,

432
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:42,520
Speaker 1: that was just our life. We used to do a

433
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:45,080
Speaker 1: lot of like stock ponds because when you're when you're small,

434
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:49,040
Speaker 1: you want to it's it's better to catch a child's

435
00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:51,200
Speaker 1: attention if they're guaranteed. I used to do that. Yeah,

436
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 1: my dad, just take a drop your line in this

437
00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:55,320
Speaker 1: hole and you'll pull out of sunfish every time. It's

438
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,159
Speaker 1: more exciting and then and then you can move on

439
00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 1: to the days of no catching catching, which is quite

440
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:06,240
Speaker 1: common back home. But in the early days kind of

441
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:10,160
Speaker 1: hunting for us was a little more of a necessity

442
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:13,639
Speaker 1: than them for fun or anything. Because both our parents

443
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:17,480
Speaker 1: are from Rhodesia which is now Zimbabwie, and they basically

444
00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:21,680
Speaker 1: came to the UK due to uh well, it was

445
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: after the after the after the Bush War, and they

446
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:26,400
Speaker 1: saw that things we were going to go downhill. And

447
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:28,440
Speaker 1: while you can see the state of Zimbabwie now, it

448
00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 1: hasn't really changed since then, if not, it's worse than ever.

449
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: And they came to the UK and my dad will

450
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: tell you with two sick cases and four pounds, which

451
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 1: is probably probably true. And they were my dad was

452
00:22:42,359 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 1: shooting rabbits for for food, yeah, digging. He was also

453
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 1: told us about digging coal out from an old coal bunker.

454
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 1: And that's true for for heat, for heat, because they

455
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:56,960
Speaker 1: rented this shitty little cottage on a farm somewhere outside

456
00:22:57,359 --> 00:22:58,639
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to live He didn't want to

457
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 1: live in the city. Yeah, you want to live in

458
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 1: the countryside. But obviously you've gone forward to Florida. So

459
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 1: it's like the damp. He did point it out to

460
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 1: us once, just this damp, little one bed cottage with

461
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,320
Speaker 1: nothing to stay warm. But yeah, it was through it

462
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 1: was through a complete necessity of extra food meets expensive

463
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 1: um so shooting rabbits, pigeons, just whatever you could get

464
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 1: his hands on. He was working behind a bar. Um

465
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: there's not a huge amount of money to support a

466
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: family of four. And then as life went on, he

467
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: got a different job and we moved and the hunting

468
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:40,920
Speaker 1: aspect just stayed stayed with us our entire life. A

469
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: lot more fishing early earlier on a lot more fishing

470
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: because where we live now, where our offices, there's a

471
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: river that just goes straight past it. So that's kind

472
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:50,959
Speaker 1: of after school, we could go take our rods and

473
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:54,199
Speaker 1: just fishing Tenute walk. It was kind of like a

474
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: little section of paradise and it was all if it's

475
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: we can do about this later. But it was most

476
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 1: of the rivers and the lands private, and this was

477
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: owned by the local farmer who was a friend. So

478
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:08,919
Speaker 1: we had like four or five miles of river that

479
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: no one ever fished that we could fish. And we're

480
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,640
Speaker 1: like ten and twelve. Did your father in Zimbabwe did

481
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 1: they did they hunt there or did he just pick

482
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: it up like you said, ada nessess. I mean he

483
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 1: hunted a lot as a as a kid, you know,

484
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 1: with an air gun and uh, you know whatever else

485
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 1: is his our grandfather would bring back from the from

486
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: the army there. He was always bringing him back different

487
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: guns and stuff to shoot. But it was different times.

488
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 1: You know, he would give him a gun to say,

489
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: you know, here's son, you've I've taken this for the

490
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: weekend for you to shoot. But you know, here's six bullets.

491
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: You know. It's not like you know, we're spoiled now,

492
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 1: or it was. He had he had an air gun

493
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: that his um an uncle had bought him, if I'm

494
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 1: remembering the story correctly. And they didn't have a huge

495
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: amount of money either, so it wasn't you know, I

496
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 1: when I bought my first air gun. I bought five

497
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: thousand pellets just so that once I found the ones

498
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: I liked because I didn't want to run out, He'd

499
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: be given a little box of twenty five and that

500
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: was there, and then he'd have to go and ask

501
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 1: our grand making a better Yeah. So he did a

502
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:15,479
Speaker 1: lot of that, but not You would think growing up

503
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: in Africa that there would be lots of big stories

504
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 1: of big game, but there wasn't for him. But one

505
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: generation back there was. There's also a bush walk going on,

506
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: so he was doing you know, they were fighting people

507
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,199
Speaker 1: when they should have been having fun. You know, in

508
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 1: the teenage it was like national service. Yeah, you don't

509
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: want to venture too far into the bush because there's

510
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: people it's kind of kind of stolen from them. But yeah,

511
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: well and it sounds to me like despite you know,

512
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 1: I would say relative you know, poverty. When you guys

513
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: are growing up, you found that it seems like you

514
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,360
Speaker 1: had a happy childhood. We had a great I mean

515
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: we wanted for nothing. We can we can't go zero

516
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 1: complaints by the time we were you know, of any age. Yeah,

517
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:03,399
Speaker 1: Dad had forged on. Mom and dad forged on. He

518
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: had good jobs worked in the oil, and then that

519
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: was from working in the bar. Someone someone behind the bar,

520
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: was like, you shouldn't be behind the bar. I'm going

521
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 1: to give you a job in a while, and he

522
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: got a job. I got a job in a while, um,

523
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: and then was made redundant very quickly after a few years.

524
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: The year I was born was one of the big

525
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 1: oil slumps globally oil oil slump, which I then paralleled

526
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: then in two thousand and both of us two thousand

527
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:34,479
Speaker 1: and fifteen or whatever when this next global oil slump came.

528
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:39,120
Speaker 1: Because I was working in all times funny parallel. But

529
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 1: to continue with my story, I guess. Yeah. So growing up,

530
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 1: going through high school, I didn't really do a huge

531
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: amount of hunting or anything. Through high school, bar and

532
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 1: did a lot more than than I did. I would

533
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 1: go out pheasant shooting and pigeon shooting. I did that

534
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 1: quite a bit, but nothing too serious. I'm too busy

535
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: chasing girls. My brother. My brother still that this day

536
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: doesn't really hunt at all, or doesn't hunt at all,

537
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 1: and I attributed to his partying. Yeah that's what it was, buddies. Yeah,

538
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 1: it's Saturday morning. Would you like to get up early

539
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: in about four am and drafted a hunting spot and

540
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: spend all day walking around the woods, or would you

541
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: like to stay up all night and then go to

542
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: sleep at four am? See what he hasn't told you

543
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: is that his incentive of riding horses was also motivated

544
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: by that. It was do you want to place minated

545
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: by females? It was I was like the old lady

546
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: that could ride a horse. I found it a good

547
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: it's a good match. I was the only dude and

548
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: it was about fifteen girls. It was. It was a

549
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: no brainer. You're a smart man to be admired. What

550
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: was it was there a hunting culture growing up for you?

551
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 1: I mean, because was it as prevalent as you've seen

552
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 1: here in the States. It was definitely not as prevalent.

553
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 1: And the thing for us was, although like Daryl said,

554
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: Dad was, you know, showing us the ropes as best

555
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 1: as he knew. It was still a new country for him.

556
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 1: So the equivalent of my dad if he had grown

557
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: up in Scotland, you know, I would have known all

558
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: the plants all you know, all the floora, all the

559
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:12,880
Speaker 1: fauna and all the intricacies of the wildlife and management there.

560
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,239
Speaker 1: You know, by the age of like twelve, but he

561
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: couldn't tell us that because he didn't know and he

562
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: didn't know anyone either, So we had, you know, at

563
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:25,160
Speaker 1: the beginning, almost zero access too for shooting. I'm talking

564
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 1: about zero access to going shooting anywhere, because you especially

565
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: where we live, if you want to shoot easily accessible land,

566
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: then you've got to know farmer on the low ground.

567
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: So that's what we've We've their whole life now and

568
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: now we have access to all of it around our

569
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: little kingdom of our round the castle. I knew it, ah,

570
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: But why was asking about the culture? But there is

571
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: I mean we can and we can expand on that,

572
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: but the there is a There is a really there

573
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: is a good culture of hunting and an incredible historic

574
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: story of hunting in the in the UK and in

575
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: Scotland in particular. But it's not as sort of publicly

576
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: in your face as it isn't here. And I don't

577
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 1: mean that in a bad way, but it's very obvious

578
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: for me driving around here the person probably hunts. You

579
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: just see the way people addressed and the way people

580
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: act in the Rocky Mountain Foundation place around this. Yeah,

581
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: we're in the mecca of it. Aren't we. Yeah, you're

582
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: you're you're in the core of it here for sure.

583
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: So we had to you know, gun safety fishing. We

584
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: were given the elements to take it on if we wanted.

585
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: But a lot of what we did after was, you know,

586
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 1: we were teaching ourselves and then eventually teaching Dad because

587
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: he's been because he's busy working. He was away rafting

588
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: and working well to the age of what twelve thirteen

589
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 1: years old, working back he was still working in Africa. Yeah,

590
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: that's it's it's very similar to a lot of you know,

591
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: the Patrick Lennard Patrick lineal um, the way that it

592
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: happens here like it. For me, it was I grew

593
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: up my dad. My dad had this amazing ability to

594
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: you know, when I was a kid. He could name

595
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: every tree, name every bird, you know, name pretty much

596
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: everything and you know, for me and teach me that.

597
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: But um, at the same time, he came up and

598
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: he didn't his father didn't hunt. He came to hunting

599
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: on his own, and again he didn't have this like

600
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: this is the way we do it, this is how

601
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: we hunt. It's just honey, was the thing we did.

602
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: It wasn't It wasn't so structured. It was like, we

603
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: can buy a license, we'll go out and shoot this deer,

604
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,239
Speaker 1: we'll eat this deer. And we didn't talk much more

605
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: about it than that. I mean, it was kind of

606
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 1: that's what we We never talked about the philosophies of it,

607
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 1: or or our wild places or conservation. We never did

608
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: that because it was just part of it was just

609
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: part of our lives, part of our lifestyle, never to

610
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: be questioned, never to be you know, I really thought

611
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: through um on a deeper level. And that's that's not

612
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: to say anything bad about my dad, but that's just

613
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 1: how how it was. Then. It was just a more

614
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: accepted practice. I feel like at least where I where

615
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: I grew up then from well after I finished Chasing

616
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: Girls writing. That's also very natural for American for the

617
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: American hunter to like start hunting around twelve, hunt till eighteen,

618
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 1: taking a little break during college, chase girls, drink beer,

619
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: and then come back to it. In the early twenties,

620
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: I we we had an experienced try dive, So this

621
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: is kind of where my career started at the age

622
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: about sixteen, and it was basically going to swimming pool

623
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: try scuba dive in Aberdeen, and I was like this,

624
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: it's awesome being able to breathe underwater. It's like I

625
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: can fly, bloom, blew my mind. So I decided there

626
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: and then that's what I want to do for a living.

627
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: That's that's what I want to do. And kind of

628
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: I was like, how how do I achieve this? So

629
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: I was in my last year of high school and

630
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: I said to them, I want to be a diver.

631
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: They didn't really know what to do with me, because

632
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: that's an insane career choice as far as they were concerned.

633
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: And um, I managed to arrange to work at a

634
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: dive shop in Aberdeen on Fridays and they basically said, yeah,

635
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: you can take the Friday off school and you can

636
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: basically work experience. There's an hour from where we look,

637
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: so it's not exactly close, a bit of a community.

638
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: And my neighbor worked in Aberdeen as a recruiter for

639
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: the military and he was like, I'll give you a

640
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: lift um to the dive shop every day because he

641
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: kind of went past it, and you know, the weeks

642
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 1: go by, weeks go by, and he starts speaking. He's

643
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: like he's like, you know, the Navy has divers right,

644
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, I didn't know that. He's like, yeah, yeah,

645
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: let's um. If you want some more information, then they

646
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: do it. Come along to the office and they gave

647
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: me this this leaflet and it basically was just like

648
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: three pages of pictures of like divers doing underwater knife fighting,

649
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: bomb disposal, like Hawaii on a beach with ten women

650
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: and you can come up like I refused the bar

651
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: ladies ladies signs tried and I was like, that is

652
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:10,720
Speaker 1: That's the coolest thing ever. I want to do that,

653
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: and so I, um, I signed up, did all my

654
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: tests and what they didn't tell me originally, they were like,

655
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: there's basically a two percent chance of you you're doing this.

656
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: That's that's a success rate. From the moment that you

657
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: walk through the careers office to the moment that you

658
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 1: finish your dive training, there is a two percent chance

659
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 1: that you'll make it to the end. Um just due

660
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: to a number of factors. One, some people just don't

661
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: like the diving because it's mainly dark. Secondly the physical aspect.

662
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: I used to be a lot a lot fitter than

663
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: I was now. And thirdly the mental aspect, which is

664
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: probably the most most important. So I joined up basically

665
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: when I turned eighteen, because you had to be eighteen

666
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: to join that unit. And I went through training and

667
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: and I don't think I quite appreciated how much bomb

668
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 1: disposal was enrolled in because I was a wind clear start.

669
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 1: It was, it was, it was in the title. But

670
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 1: I didn't quite appreciate how much we were going to

671
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: be doing, which was really cool because I do like

672
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: blowing things up. It doesn't it doesn't like it is.

673
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: It is, like, its interesting if somebody says you're gonna

674
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: dive and you're going to diffuse, you're going to take

675
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,359
Speaker 1: care of these bombs, like it's pretty freaking badass man. Yeah,

676
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:27,839
Speaker 1: it was cool and I loved it, you know, as

677
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old like that, that's the coolest job

678
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 1: title on the planet. And yeah, I loved it. Um,

679
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: But I mean training was it was bloody hard. I

680
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:41,479
Speaker 1: mean when so once you go through basic training, basic training,

681
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 1: that's that's basically a piece of piss. It's it's just

682
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: tow the line, polishing, ironing, washing, marching, all that kind

683
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 1: of ship and you have a bit of like battle

684
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:54,319
Speaker 1: damage repair and it always quite cool. Actually, you do

685
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: spend a bit of time. That's like this huge like

686
00:34:57,160 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: part of a ship and then they pretend it's been

687
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: hit by missiles and it starts to flood and the

688
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:03,879
Speaker 1: whole thing is like on hydraulics and starts to rocks.

689
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 1: It's like the ultimate simulator and the components filled to

690
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,320
Speaker 1: the top. So if you don't stop the leaks, guess

691
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 1: what you're underwater? Um, So that's that's pretty cool and

692
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: basic training. But once you finish that, you're like, right,

693
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: dive training week one beaver in mind, you've already done

694
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: a selection to be on the dive course. This is

695
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: like the second selection and it's one week. We started

696
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: on day one with thirty eight people. By the end

697
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: of the week we had ten left and then when

698
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: I finished, so that basically by the end of the

699
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:34,839
Speaker 1: training it's it's almost a year basically once you've gone

700
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: through all. By the time I finished, there was four

701
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:39,280
Speaker 1: of us left. That was it. People are just dropping

702
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,280
Speaker 1: out because they can't hack it physically. Mentally, I would

703
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: say that it's a mental game. You do have to

704
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: be physically fit, of course, but a lot of it

705
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 1: was Yeah, it was just it was a mental game.

706
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 1: A lot of time by yourself. You were diving for

707
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: three four hours by yourself and the pitch black, out

708
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 1: of time and just swimming. I mean it was pointless

709
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 1: tasks in a way other than getting used to your

710
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: dive set in that but it was swim until you

711
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 1: run out of of a That was it and for

712
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 1: hours and hours now And what's it like being down

713
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,840
Speaker 1: there in the dark, like you know, like said flying

714
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 1: or you know it's suspended in some way. Well, I

715
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 1: was in a fortunate position where I'd actually done quite

716
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: a lot of diving before I joined, which was a

717
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 1: good and a bad thing, because it's kind of like

718
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 1: if you're learning how to drive and then you go

719
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,479
Speaker 1: on to do like an advanced driving course or please

720
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 1: driving course like I did, and then they look at

721
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: you can go your ship. We just dive once we

722
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: passed our like civilian course, all the gear, and then

723
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:40,880
Speaker 1: we just the two of us just went diving on

724
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 1: the cust So there's a lot of things that you've

725
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 1: got to kind of unlearn and then relearn. But diving

726
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 1: just gives you the most amount of freedom you can think,

727
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: especially if you're a nice, nice waters and we are.

728
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: When you're in training, the water is not particularly amazing,

729
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,319
Speaker 1: and at night because you're you're wearing a rebreathe most

730
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: of the time, and you've got a head up display

731
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: and the early dive set, which we kind of called

732
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 1: the death set because it killed so many people. Uh,

733
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 1: the eels used to come at night and see the

734
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 1: green light and the red light on your head up display,

735
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: and they used to hit you straight in the face,

736
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 1: square in the face, but you didn't see them coming.

737
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: Was pitch black, and I used to give the hard

738
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 1: heart rate going, um so, yeah, what Once I had

739
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: finally finished training, then it was into the big bad

740
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:31,359
Speaker 1: mix and you've basically gone a ship for three three years,

741
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: about three years. Um so I ended up doing two deployments,

742
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: one out into the Baltic Sea, which is basically it was.

743
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: It was basically a piss up around Europe well blowing

744
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 1: up money and we basically visited nearly every country in

745
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,720
Speaker 1: that basin. So what years released? It was two thousand

746
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: and so I joined in eight oh nine, and then

747
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 1: I think it was two thousand and ten was my

748
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: first deployment, and that was seven months part of a

749
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 1: NATO task force. And yeah, so we basically spent like

750
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 1: two weeks just looking for ordinance and then and then

751
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: go ashore and then get drunk and run around Europe.

752
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,840
Speaker 1: And yeah, that was it, I mean a proper sailor.

753
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, in my first deployment, I visited maybe ten

754
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 1: eleven countries in my first appoint and that was that

755
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: was really cool. And also we're working with so many

756
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 1: other nations as well, and a lot of the stuff

757
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: we were looking for was stuff from World War One,

758
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: world War two. That was and there was some modern

759
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:35,879
Speaker 1: day stuff as well. We found a U boat, which

760
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. So they used sonar to look on

761
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: the seabed and we found a U boat. But that

762
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: was like like some ridiculous steps, so we didn't get

763
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 1: to go into now. We didn't. It was way too deep.

764
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: Could it have been full of gold potentially? Potentially? But

765
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: we the Germans were with us. The story was going,

766
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 1: we found the goal and that's why we've got a castle,

767
00:38:56,200 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 1: as you well know. We found the goal. Um yeah,

768
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: and yeah, we we found a lot of audence. We

769
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: actually found one um it was German c mine and

770
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:11,320
Speaker 1: it was it was almost in the harbor entrance of Estonia.

771
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: There are main harbor entrance where they have maybe ten

772
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 1: plus ferries a day going in and out of there,

773
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: like huge passenger ferries. And this was like a two

774
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: thousand pound c mine. It was huge. And we found

775
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 1: it and we're like, okay, well we'll go and get

776
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 1: rid of it. And the Germans that were with us,

777
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: we're like, no, that's right, it's our it's our mine.

778
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: So we did it. We did it, We'll deal with it,

779
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,280
Speaker 1: and we we we found it, and we don't always.

780
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:39,840
Speaker 1: We didn't always used to do it. We used to

781
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:41,799
Speaker 1: send basically an RV down to have a look at it.

782
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: Um that didn't always happen. Sometimes most of the time

783
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 1: it was the divers that went down and did the

784
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: initial see what it is. But this time we sent

785
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: r V and we I did it, and the Germans

786
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: sent down there r V when it was their time

787
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 1: to go and get rid of it, and there are

788
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,279
Speaker 1: of a hit it and it went off. And this

789
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: was from World War two. Yeah, it was. It was

790
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 1: like we but basically the rule thumb was if it

791
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,760
Speaker 1: was German, it was very well made and it probably

792
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 1: still functioned, uh not always. I mean, I mean I

793
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: could go into the different ways of uh you know,

794
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: the different way in the whole afternoon with different ways,

795
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 1: different minds and the way they functioned. And some of

796
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 1: them have safety devices in them, so after i know,

797
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: like a hundred days or a hundred twenty days, basically

798
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: explosive cutters would would blow through the side. So that

799
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: means that you could use an area again it was

800
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: like a safety device. Um, but they didn't it didn't

801
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: always function. You know. These things were made on mass

802
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 1: in factories by on the whole um young children and

803
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: women because all the men were fighting during the war.

804
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 1: Um and Russian minds particularly were quite dangerous because they

805
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: looked like they were made in the garden shed, probably

806
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: because they were I mean to the point of they

807
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: were armed from the moment they went came out the factory.

808
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: So it was quite dangerous transporting them. But they can

809
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: you imagine that Laury full of mind put them in

810
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: the way by the German and the British minds. They

811
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: had soluble plugs. You plopped them in the water and

812
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: twelve hours later they would they would arm themselves. But yeah,

813
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: so that's what we were doing. We also found a

814
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: torpedo as well a few a few other things. But

815
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 1: we also did stuff on land, so UM. We didn't

816
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: actually end up doing the job, but we um one

817
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 1: of the town's near one of the harbor cities. They

818
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 1: had found it was even in Germany, a construction site

819
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 1: they had found a whole heap of ordinance because there

820
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 1: was probably it was probably usked it was it was

821
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: that was bombing it UM and it was actually the

822
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:37,839
Speaker 1: German dive team that went and dealt with that. But

823
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 1: you know, we were doing all sorts of things and

824
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: then came back home. You do a lot of trading

825
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: and the next point was out to the Middle East,

826
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 1: so we went out there seven and a half months

827
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 1: out there, huge range of stuff. It was basically a

828
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:55,479
Speaker 1: lot of it was forced protection, keeping shipping channels open,

829
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 1: but we're also doing um some stuff on land as well.

830
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: And then we went out awards Um Somalia as well

831
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: and was doing some anti piracy things out there just

832
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 1: as a as a force role as part of an

833
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 1: American Task force. So most of the time in the

834
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: Middle East you were working with the American units, which

835
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 1: is is pretty cool. After that deployment, came home and

836
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: then I was part of a bomb team based in Glasgow,

837
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: so West coast of Scotland in falls Lane, and our

838
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: job was kind of to support the submarines aroughout the

839
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:35,439
Speaker 1: world because that's where the main submarine basis, that's where

840
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 1: the people the nuclear weapons, and the other role was

841
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 1: bomb disposal. So on that team, they've got I D

842
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: and UM E O D on that team. So we covered.

843
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 1: Our range was huge. It was like all the way down.

844
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:49,840
Speaker 1: It was like part of the way down to England,

845
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: the whole of Scotland and part of northern Ireland as well,

846
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: So it was a huge range. And yes, so that

847
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: that was an amazing time because you just youve got

848
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: to drive around the kind tree blow things up on

849
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 1: beaches and um hand grenades. We had one where a

850
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: walker and found hand grenade and they walked into a

851
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: police station and put it on the counter and the

852
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 1: police are like, what the fuck they exactly I found?

853
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: Hey guys, look, I don't know what this is. I

854
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 1: don't know how it functions, but can you take it? It

855
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: It had a pin in it, I don't know, I

856
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,839
Speaker 1: don't It turned out it was some weird I can't

857
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 1: because we couldn't even idea properly. We we did eventually,

858
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 1: but it was some Eastern European hand grenade that we

859
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: hadn't hadn't even seen before. Um, and you plunked it

860
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: on the counter, and obviously that the whole pee station

861
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:42,359
Speaker 1: has to evacuate when when you do that, and they're

862
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: like cheers. I mean the normal small bomb. But the

863
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: normal advice is if you find a piece of orange,

864
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: leave it where you found it, and then just call

865
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 1: the police and then and then they'll call whoever needs

866
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: to be called. Um, if anything comes out of this podcast, folks,

867
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: if you find leave it be Yeah, we were. We

868
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:01,359
Speaker 1: were once in the same place at the same time

869
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: I was. I was doing some hunting up in the

870
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: Isle of Sky and Daryl knew that I was up there.

871
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 1: So it was when he was in this team and

872
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: he says, are you still in the sky? He says, yeah,

873
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:12,720
Speaker 1: and I'm still here. I'm here with our body Scott McKenzie,

874
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 1: who's interestingly the last full time gamekeeper and stalker on

875
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:19,839
Speaker 1: the island used to be full of them, but it's

876
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: the last like managed to stay. Um. So I was

877
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: doing stalking with him and taking some pictures and Dara said, well,

878
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 1: I'm on my way up right now. We've got the

879
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 1: lights on. They've found something on the beach, and it

880
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:34,280
Speaker 1: just so happened that his boss was big into hunting,

881
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 1: and because I wrote for one of the hunting magazines,

882
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: he also had like read my articles on that. So

883
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 1: he he said to Daryl, if he can, if he

884
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:43,319
Speaker 1: can be there, you should come down and we can

885
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,240
Speaker 1: have a look and I can watch the team work

886
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: and watch my brother work. And I said, well, you know,

887
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: I'll try I'll try it for can. But we had

888
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: we had an agenda. We were getting content stuff for

889
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:54,959
Speaker 1: the magazine. So that then he messaged me back and says,

890
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 1: the boss is that if you can make it, you

891
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: can press the button to blur it up. Okay, yeah,

892
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:04,920
Speaker 1: it's okay, every range. So I don't think it really was.

893
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:06,239
Speaker 1: I think it was just a piece of scrap metal.

894
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: But they did a lot of put a lot of

895
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: explosives on it so that I could press the button

896
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: and it was. It was a very you know were

897
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: you couldn't even see it where we pressed the button from,

898
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: just to make sure that we weren't in the blast range,

899
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 1: but you could feel it in your chest. You pressed

900
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: the button and it was there's vibration, So yeah, it was,

901
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:29,440
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was pretty cool. We we

902
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what one more. I was gonna say

903
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,240
Speaker 1: any close calls along the way, because I am interested

904
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: in this subject. I had close calls diving. Um. On

905
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:42,879
Speaker 1: my it was a day before my nineteenth birthday. We're

906
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:46,279
Speaker 1: in the middle of the English Channel and I my

907
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 1: captain said to me, I hadn't This was my first

908
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: piece of ordinance I had done on my completely on

909
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: my own. And he said to me, your birthday, congratulations,

910
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 1: happy birthday. Yeah, we found something. So I went down

911
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 1: that did the first first dive, did all my measurements. UM. So,

912
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: basically how it works is that most of the time

913
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,280
Speaker 1: you're working in the dark. The North Sea is particularly

914
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 1: bad for visibility, so you measure everything with your body parts.

915
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:14,720
Speaker 1: So that's a lot of your training is you know,

916
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: knowing your measurements. You're thumbed, your arms, so on, so on,

917
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:19,320
Speaker 1: and you've got to be within ten percent. And basically

918
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: if you put all these measurements in and the shapes

919
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: and sizes of it into a computer, then it will

920
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 1: bring up what piece of ordinances and I'll tell you

921
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: where the explosives is and basically the best place to

922
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 1: place charges or anything you want to do to it.

923
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: So I went down, did the the wrecky on it,

924
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: and I did it. It It was a five pound German

925
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: air drop bomb and it's just been rolling around the

926
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:47,720
Speaker 1: seabed and it was in a fairly busy shipping channel.

927
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 1: I mean, the English Channel is probably one of the

928
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 1: busiest in the world in the world, and so we're like, oh,

929
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 1: let's get rid of it. So a few hours later

930
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 1: it's it was now Yeah, I was poke about three

931
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: four in the morning now and they're like, right, you can,

932
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 1: you can do it. It was four twos under the water.

933
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 1: So I went down and basically because the depth, I

934
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: only had a certain amount of time before I could

935
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 1: um go into stops and stops facing means that when

936
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: I come up, I might have to wait at ten

937
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:16,239
Speaker 1: ms for ten minutes or fifteen minutes and then and

938
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 1: so on so on. And the idea. The idea is

939
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: that if you're placing explosives on a piece of ordinance,

940
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: you don't want to be doing any stops, or you

941
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: can do drifting stops where the boat kind of takes

942
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: you away from the piece of ordinance. UM And I

943
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,759
Speaker 1: went down there and I didn't make the explosive pack up,

944
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: so basically it's um it's plastic explosives with debt chord

945
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 1: going all the way to the surface onto a float.

946
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 1: And the swell had picked up by the time we

947
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: got out there, and basically there was like a two

948
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 1: m kind of swell. And the person who I think

949
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: I know who it is, We're not gonna mention it

950
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 1: had hand hadn't taken into account the swell. So basically

951
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: the debt chord was slightly too short. So I'm down

952
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 1: there and I've got half a meter of between the

953
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 1: bomb and where I can actually pull, and I'm like,

954
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: how am I going to explosive pack underneath or like

955
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 1: around this thing? Eventually I kind of like anchor myself,

956
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: like holding onto the bomb, and and I managed to.

957
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: I got one bomb here. I managed to pull it

958
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: underneath so like the pressure is pulling it up so

959
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 1: that the float doesn't yank it, and I managed to

960
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: tight on. I took a bit longer than that than

961
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: that it should have taken, but I didn't go into

962
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: any stops. And I came back up and about we

963
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:38,880
Speaker 1: blew up and it all that all went fine, But

964
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:41,279
Speaker 1: about an hour later I just started losing the vision

965
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: of my eyes like blurry, couldn't see within thirty centimeters

966
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:47,919
Speaker 1: of me. And we had a phone call at home

967
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 1: from I don't know, somebody on this ship. It was

968
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 1: my it was my exit that called, and I was like,

969
00:48:56,080 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: oh shit, like this is this is not good. And

970
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:03,759
Speaker 1: it it was really cold as well. It was like

971
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 1: minus twenty celsius and I mean it was so cold

972
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: that that that we had like icicles off the site

973
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 1: at the side of the ship. I mean, it takes

974
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 1: a lot to free seawalls. And we we're lucky enough

975
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 1: that the Germans that were with us, they had a

976
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: diving nurse who specialized. We were all medics to help

977
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:24,800
Speaker 1: each other anyway. So I was sitting in the chamber,

978
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 1: our dive chamber on our ship and it broken. It's

979
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: the seal had broken on it. So we're like our

980
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 1: dive chambers out and so I was transferred to the

981
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: German ship and the German nurses there and she's they're

982
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,080
Speaker 1: doing you know, all all everything you can think of,

983
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 1: and she's trying to put bloody ivy in me and

984
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 1: she missed four times in my arms and I told

985
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 1: her to funk off because I was like as she

986
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: because she said to me, do you do you have

987
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 1: wanted in your foot? And I was like you can know? Boy, well,

988
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 1: I was like, go away, I don't need fluids. And

989
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 1: event they had a seeking helicopter come and pick me

990
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 1: up and take me to a place called hell Go Land,

991
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: which isn't I think it was helleg Land, an island

992
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: off the west for voting. Yeah, uh, basically an island

993
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: off of Germany. And they had a diving doctor on

994
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: that the island, and they took me there and you've

995
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: gotta fly really low level because if you're still you

996
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:26,440
Speaker 1: basically no, you still know, so you're not completely not blind.

997
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 1: But I can't see like it literally I couldn't. If

998
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 1: I was holding my phone, the entire screen was blurred.

999
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 1: How long did this go on for? It lasted two days.

1000
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 1: It's quite a long time. I was thinking that two hours,

1001
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,280
Speaker 1: two days, unbelievable. They flew me there and the diving

1002
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 1: doctor was like, I have no idea what's wrong with them,

1003
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: because they started just ruling things out there like we

1004
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:50,040
Speaker 1: don't think, we don't think it's the beds and I

1005
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: didn't think it was either. I don't know what it was,

1006
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 1: but I just like, it's just there's something wrong with

1007
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: my vision, but I don't know what it is. Eventually

1008
00:50:58,040 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 1: they made the decision not to put me in the chamber,

1009
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: and this is this is the British military all over

1010
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 1: made the fantastic decision. I've gone, I've got no idea

1011
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 1: why they did this. They're like, you need to fly

1012
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:12,560
Speaker 1: home now. Bear in mind they had no idea what

1013
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:15,280
Speaker 1: was wrong with me. So I then they they dropped

1014
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: me off with a rib on the jetty in Germany

1015
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: with a piece of paper beare in mine I couldn't

1016
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 1: see properly to the taxi driver gave it to him.

1017
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:24,799
Speaker 1: He took me to the airport and then I had

1018
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 1: a note in German basically saying on me to keep

1019
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 1: on me if I pass out, what's wrong with me

1020
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 1: on the plane because there was a high chance that

1021
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: something might happen if flying because now he's going to

1022
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:40,839
Speaker 1: alt But after two days they kind of were it's

1023
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 1: relatively safe, all right back to the UK and my

1024
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 1: vision just started coming back. I got no idea why

1025
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: I went. I went to an ice specialist and she

1026
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:51,840
Speaker 1: was sitting with Google open, and I was like, I

1027
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:54,799
Speaker 1: was a good. Do you don't think the German doc

1028
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 1: you have no idea what was wrong with me. Basically,

1029
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:00,840
Speaker 1: the conclusion that they came to it was actually a

1030
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:04,240
Speaker 1: combination between the diving and the really cold temperatures basically

1031
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:08,000
Speaker 1: made my um the muscles and that in my eyes too.

1032
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:11,480
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's muscles, but basically you know

1033
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 1: when your eyes focused, and clothes like a camera. Basically

1034
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: they had just frozen, not frozen, but they just stopped

1035
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:22,320
Speaker 1: functioning for whatever lagging like yeah, but yeah, that was

1036
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: kind of the closest the closest call two days, and

1037
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:28,800
Speaker 1: it was pretty It was pretty scary because I didn't

1038
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:30,879
Speaker 1: really know what was wrong with me, but I had

1039
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 1: confidence that I was going to come out on the

1040
00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: other side, and I did. I went straight onto Christmas

1041
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 1: leave after that, because it was actually the end of

1042
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 1: the deployment that that's what really annoyed me. It was

1043
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: like three days before the end of the deployment. I

1044
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 1: got sent home and I booked flights personally myself that

1045
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:46,640
Speaker 1: I paid for because the dive team was allowed to

1046
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 1: go home slightly earlier because we were doing another job

1047
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 1: after and they flew me home for free. Anyway, and

1048
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:54,440
Speaker 1: my flightside just booked paid for I couldn't use. And

1049
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: then I was diving like three weeks after that, and

1050
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:00,319
Speaker 1: it was part of a crossover course of new I said.

1051
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: And after a week of it, someone comes in diver base,

1052
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: we've got a thing here saying that you're not actually

1053
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 1: medically clear to die. No one had told me. I've

1054
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:10,719
Speaker 1: been diving for a week. So then I had to

1055
00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 1: go to the experimental diving medicine place and they did

1056
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:17,400
Speaker 1: loads of tests on me and just made sure that

1057
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: I could. I was gonna be okay. I never had

1058
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: a problem since. Yeah, I never had a problems. That's

1059
00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 1: not calmon that it can't be calming, I mean, the

1060
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 1: way you describe it, Yeah, I don't. I don't think

1061
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:26,879
Speaker 1: anyone had a clue. And to this day, I still

1062
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:29,400
Speaker 1: don't know what what happened, what went wrong, But I

1063
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 1: was fine afterwards, no ill effects. My eyes are sharp

1064
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 1: as anything. I'm just glad it's never happened. Happened since

1065
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 1: all this time your brothers are around as an outdoor writer, Well, yeah,

1066
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 1: there you were doing some other things. But uh I

1067
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,640
Speaker 1: did care though, like let me get this deer down.

1068
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: And then then I'll deal with this, then I'll come

1069
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:52,880
Speaker 1: home and make sure you can see. So during all

1070
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:56,799
Speaker 1: this time, what were you doing? So I had, I

1071
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:00,839
Speaker 1: did quite well at school. And one of the frustrating

1072
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:05,759
Speaker 1: things that I I've come to realize since then is

1073
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:09,160
Speaker 1: that there's an expectation from most people. You go through

1074
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 1: high school, next step university. Yes, I'm sure it's the

1075
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: same here, especially if you've done kind of same here.

1076
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: Though I didn't have. I didn't do well enough. You

1077
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: could have gone to university probably if you really want,

1078
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:22,839
Speaker 1: if it would have been a waste, it would have been.

1079
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:24,760
Speaker 1: And you know what really annoyed me is I joined

1080
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: the Navy because I was like, I hate exams. Honestly,

1081
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 1: I hated I liked school. I was good. I was

1082
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: good at school. By I never did particularly well in

1083
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 1: any magxams UM other than the ones I was really

1084
00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: passionate about, like P because it was just physical exercise

1085
00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:40,440
Speaker 1: and history. I did really well in History UM. But

1086
00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:41,799
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm going to join the Navy and

1087
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:47,759
Speaker 1: then fuck exams. I did more exams and then I

1088
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: have ever done in my entire life. It's funny, how like,

1089
00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 1: you know, my brother is a world class artist. I

1090
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:56,320
Speaker 1: can't draw sticks figure like you know, I'm a writer.

1091
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 1: He can't write his way at any enjoy like the

1092
00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:02,920
Speaker 1: but drawic pagassa. This is funny how those It is strange,

1093
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 1: isn't it. You know whether that's nature or nurture, who knows,

1094
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:09,279
Speaker 1: but you you have a degree in economics. I went

1095
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 1: the stupid things you think when you're sixteen. So I

1096
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:15,720
Speaker 1: actually left school year early because I had everything I needed.

1097
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:18,319
Speaker 1: When I finished school, I was still sixteen, but I

1098
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 1: was seventeen by the time I went to university. A

1099
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 1: lot of the university's actually they would have taken you,

1100
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:25,919
Speaker 1: but they recommended, you know, you've got in, but wait

1101
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:29,399
Speaker 1: until you've a year older, a bit more drink. Yeah,

1102
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: well yeah, that's part of it, because you can drink

1103
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:34,640
Speaker 1: to here to your eighteen. But I had this great

1104
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:38,320
Speaker 1: plan that I was gonna go and work in the city,

1105
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:41,000
Speaker 1: be a fun manager or something like that, or stop

1106
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,719
Speaker 1: broke and retire at thirty From thirty one, so I'm

1107
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:46,600
Speaker 1: definitely not retired yet, so you can tell that that

1108
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: plan never worked. But you know the motivation. The motivation

1109
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 1: for that was because I wanted to do the things

1110
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 1: that I really wanted to do, which was the only

1111
00:55:55,680 --> 00:55:58,120
Speaker 1: thing that I did when I wasn't studying at school

1112
00:55:58,200 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: or swimming, both of us. I was missed a massive

1113
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:02,279
Speaker 1: part of his growing up, which we did a lot

1114
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 1: of competitive swimming um which helped me in the water situation.

1115
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 1: So that I mean that took up a lot of

1116
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: our time when we were when we were younger. Was

1117
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 1: that I just wanted the time and money to be

1118
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: able to do the things that I wanted to do.

1119
00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: So this was my grand plan. Sacrifice ten years of

1120
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 1: your life. We all have grand plan. Man up, tough

1121
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:21,319
Speaker 1: it out, get in there, get the job done, get out.

1122
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: So I studied economics, which is a perfect thing to

1123
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:27,920
Speaker 1: do if that's where you want to go. And I

1124
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:30,799
Speaker 1: knew sort of, so I went to studied at the

1125
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:34,279
Speaker 1: University of Sterling and I got I actually got a

1126
00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 1: sports scholarship for swimming for the first year, but I

1127
00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:39,719
Speaker 1: knew within about six months later. It's really not interesting

1128
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:43,279
Speaker 1: me that much. I'd rather I'd rather go fishing. My

1129
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: cousin incidentally, who now lives in New Zealand, but he

1130
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 1: was my good sort of fishing hunting buddy growing up.

1131
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:52,880
Speaker 1: He he did a similar thing and he went to

1132
00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:55,160
Speaker 1: study medicine, and he liked fishing so much that he

1133
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:57,200
Speaker 1: failed to use in medicine. But he still became a

1134
00:56:57,239 --> 00:57:02,759
Speaker 1: very and was moved to short the Mecca fishing. But

1135
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 1: you know, parents are always encouraging you to, you know,

1136
00:57:06,719 --> 00:57:09,560
Speaker 1: stick in and kind of tough it out. So I did,

1137
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:12,160
Speaker 1: and I was quite good at it, you know, I did.

1138
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:14,960
Speaker 1: I did. I did well well. And exams and the

1139
00:57:15,040 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 1: sort of competitive nature in me is probably more than

1140
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:20,920
Speaker 1: anything else what made me do well at it just

1141
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:23,440
Speaker 1: a lot of study, more than any more than anything.

1142
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:26,240
Speaker 1: But after three years, I just kind of I just

1143
00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 1: had it, kind of had enough, like that, I want

1144
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 1: to be in the bush. I want to I want

1145
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 1: to be I want to be in Africa. I spent

1146
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 1: my whole childhood reading capstick and hearing the stories, you know,

1147
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 1: from my dad, and then we we visited all the

1148
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:41,760
Speaker 1: time anyway to see my grandparents. But it wasn't until

1149
00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:43,680
Speaker 1: years later that I really saw Africa when I worked

1150
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:48,280
Speaker 1: there myself. So I ended up but somehow through summer

1151
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 1: gardening jobs, um getting a role or being involved in

1152
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: a in a company that manufactured and design tranquilizing darts

1153
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:58,720
Speaker 1: for darting big game, and they were based literally five

1154
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:02,000
Speaker 1: minutes from my parents house. So I started doing some

1155
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:04,480
Speaker 1: stuff with them, and then the opportunity came as part

1156
00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: of the sort of testing and development to go out

1157
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:11,760
Speaker 1: to Africa and start darting elephants and in in Kruger

1158
00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 1: National Park. That's right, you've done your research, Ben, I'm

1159
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:18,040
Speaker 1: just reading the thing I got. No, I've done no research.

1160
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:21,480
Speaker 1: Now when I read, I just was reading all that

1161
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 1: this morning about you guys, and that came across that

1162
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:25,520
Speaker 1: and I thought I knew we were going to talk

1163
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: about Where did you read that? It's on your website.

1164
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:32,240
Speaker 1: It's an easy mark, real fucking research clicked on the web.

1165
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: Kruger Park um, which is you know, you know probably

1166
00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:40,439
Speaker 1: in my mind is stands up to the Yellowstone Park

1167
00:58:40,480 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 1: because it's it's not right. Most people will probably know

1168
00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 1: Krueger if they had to name an African park. So they,

1169
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:49,280
Speaker 1: I mean, all the stuff that we were doing there

1170
00:58:49,360 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: was all the rhinos were d horning or chipping for

1171
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:57,120
Speaker 1: obviously rhino poaching. The stuff with the elephants was recallering, um.

1172
00:58:57,320 --> 00:58:59,920
Speaker 1: So they actually I didn't dart it, but I was

1173
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:02,720
Speaker 1: there with the team and the helicopters and stuff. They

1174
00:59:02,800 --> 00:59:05,200
Speaker 1: darted this, at the time, the second biggest bull in

1175
00:59:05,280 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 1: Kruger Park. Interestingly, that day when we did that, they

1176
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:12,840
Speaker 1: went up in the helicopters and they found the elephant,

1177
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:15,720
Speaker 1: and they hadn't darted any elephant. Um, well, this is

1178
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: what I was I was told. I haven't actually checked

1179
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:19,840
Speaker 1: that this was true, but no reason to doubt it.

1180
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:22,320
Speaker 1: They hadn't actually darted any elephant on foot there for

1181
00:59:22,360 --> 00:59:24,080
Speaker 1: a very long time, because it's quite dangerous. That was

1182
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 1: gonna be my question. Normally it's out of a helicopter.

1183
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:28,960
Speaker 1: But the whole point behind the new dart system was

1184
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:31,680
Speaker 1: that you could dart at much longer ranges. You could

1185
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:34,680
Speaker 1: I mean I shot at plenty. You could dart out

1186
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 1: almost hundred meters very successfully. So this was kind of

1187
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:42,520
Speaker 1: the point. Let's start on foot. So they found the

1188
00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:45,000
Speaker 1: elephant that they wanted to dart with the collar on it,

1189
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:47,160
Speaker 1: and they went in. They darted it. It took a

1190
00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:50,040
Speaker 1: little bit of time to find it after it went down.

1191
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:53,919
Speaker 1: Um no, sorry, it took quite a lot of time

1192
00:59:54,160 --> 00:59:56,840
Speaker 1: and much longer than they they it should have taken

1193
00:59:56,880 --> 00:59:57,960
Speaker 1: to find it. And so they went up in the

1194
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 1: helicopter again and then they found the elephant still standing,

1195
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:02,640
Speaker 1: so they thought they had missed it, so this time

1196
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: they darted it from the helicopter, and it turned out

1197
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:08,080
Speaker 1: they darted two elephants and there was another elephant there

1198
01:00:08,120 --> 01:00:09,800
Speaker 1: with another collar that they didn't know it was in

1199
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 1: the area. So they ended up changing the collar that

1200
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 1: needed collar that they needed changed, and then just checking

1201
01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:17,320
Speaker 1: out the other elephants and then you know, giving the

1202
01:00:17,520 --> 01:00:19,400
Speaker 1: revival stuff and they're being on their way. It was

1203
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: the one are the mechanics of changing an elephants color.

1204
01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 1: It's I mean the box on it's like the size

1205
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:28,360
Speaker 1: of your laptop, like this deep um and it's just

1206
01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:32,480
Speaker 1: a big I don't know, I can't remember a synthetic

1207
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:36,480
Speaker 1: collar that held on with bolts, so it's just ratchets,

1208
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 1: you know, It's like six bolts and you just ratchet

1209
01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:41,160
Speaker 1: it off and then ratchet it back on. And I

1210
01:00:41,160 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 1: guess there was a new battery pack in there so

1211
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:45,720
Speaker 1: that they could keep tracking them. So that was definitely

1212
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 1: one of the coolest things I did when way cooler

1213
01:00:50,400 --> 01:00:53,280
Speaker 1: than I thought. It's not that I think you were cool,

1214
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: but like you die. You died in the English channel

1215
01:00:56,720 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: and put out a bomb and you were darting elephants

1216
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 1: and Krueger. Well, I don't know what I was probably doing.

1217
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:04,960
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention chicks in a bar in Maryland.

1218
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 1: I probably had the most expensive fishing bow on the

1219
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:10,560
Speaker 1: planet because because I was on a mine hunter when

1220
01:01:10,600 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 1: they were when they were hunting for mines, they travel

1221
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 1: at like almost nothing, but it's enough for a trawling speed.

1222
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:22,240
Speaker 1: So I, yeah, throw a line over the back of

1223
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:25,480
Speaker 1: the ship and just troll for fish. And when when

1224
01:01:25,520 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 1: I was out in the Middle East, I actually used

1225
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:28,920
Speaker 1: to catch loads of fish off the back and I

1226
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:32,400
Speaker 1: used to trade them with a local guy for like

1227
01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:36,160
Speaker 1: ice creams and chocolates and DVDs like Pirate of DVDs

1228
01:01:36,200 --> 01:01:38,920
Speaker 1: and all that kind of thing. And yeah, I used

1229
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:40,840
Speaker 1: to trade and trade of fish for doing that. But

1230
01:01:41,200 --> 01:01:45,640
Speaker 1: fish were literally arranged from some some of them I

1231
01:01:45,640 --> 01:01:47,280
Speaker 1: didn't even know what they were, and I just knew

1232
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:49,360
Speaker 1: that he would buy them. It looks like this guy

1233
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:53,720
Speaker 1: like this thing. Yeah it looks edible. Uh, But a

1234
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:56,800
Speaker 1: mine hunter is the most expensive ship per square meter

1235
01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:00,880
Speaker 1: because it's made out of fiberglass. Entire ship, so it

1236
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 1: was the most expensive off the trolling off the back

1237
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:06,200
Speaker 1: of it. And it doesn't have props either, so you

1238
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:08,960
Speaker 1: can you're lying, can go straight down almost and you

1239
01:02:08,960 --> 01:02:12,280
Speaker 1: know you won't get caught in the props. Pretty pretty

1240
01:02:12,320 --> 01:02:18,640
Speaker 1: and empty. I got nothing, nothing one time, So you

1241
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:22,000
Speaker 1: you know what a lot of interesting subjects we had

1242
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:24,400
Speaker 1: to that was speed up you had to go. But

1243
01:02:25,200 --> 01:02:27,320
Speaker 1: that for me to see. The weird thing with that

1244
01:02:27,760 --> 01:02:30,040
Speaker 1: kind of initial experience was as I said earlier, we

1245
01:02:30,040 --> 01:02:31,760
Speaker 1: we've been going back and forth Africa for years, but

1246
01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:36,480
Speaker 1: becausins their grandparents still lever obviously parents from that, but

1247
01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:38,480
Speaker 1: I kind of always gone. Even though they lived there,

1248
01:02:38,840 --> 01:02:41,200
Speaker 1: none of they can. My grandpa fished and stuff a bit,

1249
01:02:41,240 --> 01:02:43,320
Speaker 1: and they did some cool stuff called bikes and jet

1250
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:45,480
Speaker 1: skis and that, but they weren't hunting and they weren't fishing.

1251
01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:47,920
Speaker 1: They weren't involved. We would go to Kruger Park and

1252
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:50,560
Speaker 1: you look around, but you were tourist. And then I

1253
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: was there and I was like part of the team,

1254
01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:55,680
Speaker 1: and I was like ship. Now I can smell Africa,

1255
01:02:56,320 --> 01:02:58,320
Speaker 1: and it really got onto my skin. I mean it

1256
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:01,240
Speaker 1: was under my skin anyway. But I was just completely

1257
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 1: screwed after that because I ended up going um, So

1258
01:03:04,680 --> 01:03:08,280
Speaker 1: I had two years out of university UM during that

1259
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:10,800
Speaker 1: period of time, and I went back to Africa in

1260
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 1: that sort of two years and I spent a couple

1261
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:15,760
Speaker 1: of months there. My grandparents very kindly kind of looked

1262
01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:18,200
Speaker 1: after me as I was bouncing around visiting different people,

1263
01:03:18,200 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 1: and then that was kind of my HQ. I'd go

1264
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:21,800
Speaker 1: back to their house. They were they were very kind

1265
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:24,360
Speaker 1: to kind of put up with. Somebody was a bit

1266
01:03:24,440 --> 01:03:26,560
Speaker 1: lost trying to work out, you know what, what the

1267
01:03:26,560 --> 01:03:28,680
Speaker 1: hell do I really want to do? But I made

1268
01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:30,960
Speaker 1: us some awesome friends during that period, and a lot

1269
01:03:30,960 --> 01:03:34,240
Speaker 1: of my hunting bodies and phs out there now are

1270
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 1: people I met during that period of time. I was

1271
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:39,800
Speaker 1: during most of that I was writing for a hunting

1272
01:03:39,840 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 1: magazine UM back in the UK, Sporting Rifle, and a

1273
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:45,760
Speaker 1: few other publications, and it became my kind of gateway,

1274
01:03:46,520 --> 01:03:50,120
Speaker 1: an excuse to visit places. So I literally just arrived

1275
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:55,160
Speaker 1: on that the second trip, and I wrote about thirty

1276
01:03:55,200 --> 01:03:57,880
Speaker 1: emails to outfits to say, you know, I right back

1277
01:03:57,880 --> 01:04:00,000
Speaker 1: in the UK, spent a lot of time in Africa.

1278
01:04:00,480 --> 01:04:02,080
Speaker 1: I'd love to if you've got a hunt going on,

1279
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:04,640
Speaker 1: I'd love to just just join it. You know I'm not.

1280
01:04:04,720 --> 01:04:06,520
Speaker 1: I don't expect to do any hunting, but I'd love

1281
01:04:06,560 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 1: to just write about it, take some pictures and then

1282
01:04:08,920 --> 01:04:11,200
Speaker 1: you can get some exposure back at home. And a

1283
01:04:11,240 --> 01:04:14,080
Speaker 1: handful of them got back to me and I made

1284
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:17,439
Speaker 1: some great friends that way, so that was pretty Yeah,

1285
01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:20,520
Speaker 1: that was pretty incredible, and I've gone back once or

1286
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:24,840
Speaker 1: twice a year ever since. But after sort of two

1287
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:27,560
Speaker 1: years out so we needed to four years to get

1288
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:31,160
Speaker 1: your honors degree back at home, I kind of came

1289
01:04:31,160 --> 01:04:33,600
Speaker 1: to the realization that what I was doing with that

1290
01:04:33,640 --> 01:04:36,680
Speaker 1: the company wasn't really going anywhere, and they've actually folded.

1291
01:04:36,680 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 1: They don't exist anymore. So even in hindsight, it was

1292
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:44,400
Speaker 1: a shrewd move, and I think there was always this

1293
01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:48,440
Speaker 1: element of it's probably fair to say, sort of disappointment

1294
01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:51,120
Speaker 1: from my parents that I didn't finish my degree properly.

1295
01:04:51,120 --> 01:04:52,760
Speaker 1: I had a bachelor's, but I mean that doesn't really

1296
01:04:52,760 --> 01:04:55,360
Speaker 1: mean anything. Didn't finish my honors and at that point,

1297
01:04:55,400 --> 01:04:58,120
Speaker 1: like no one else in the Pace family had a degree,

1298
01:04:58,200 --> 01:04:59,880
Speaker 1: like I was the first to go to university in

1299
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:03,120
Speaker 1: that line. So I didn't need to do much to

1300
01:05:03,160 --> 01:05:05,160
Speaker 1: finish it because I've done quite well, so I just

1301
01:05:05,200 --> 01:05:06,720
Speaker 1: like sold it. Let me just go back. So I

1302
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:09,920
Speaker 1: went back. I got my honors degree, and now I've

1303
01:05:09,960 --> 01:05:12,080
Speaker 1: got this honest, this first and economist. Like what the

1304
01:05:12,120 --> 01:05:15,200
Speaker 1: hell they do? Feel? Yeah, feeling a little bit pressured.

1305
01:05:15,520 --> 01:05:17,440
Speaker 1: I mean not that they put pressure on me, but

1306
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:19,800
Speaker 1: you just feel it like you know people around you

1307
01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:21,920
Speaker 1: and like, what the hell you've been because I hadn't.

1308
01:05:21,960 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 1: I'd had a lot of fun for two years, and

1309
01:05:23,560 --> 01:05:26,560
Speaker 1: I've been trying to find myself, but I didn't have

1310
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:29,360
Speaker 1: a career. I was doing some writing that would put

1311
01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:31,440
Speaker 1: a little bit of food in my mouth or no,

1312
01:05:31,880 --> 01:05:34,439
Speaker 1: I was eating about my parents table. I was using that,

1313
01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 1: let's be honest, but I you know, I applied for

1314
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:40,600
Speaker 1: jobs that you would get with an economics degree, and

1315
01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:43,520
Speaker 1: I ended up getting a job with black Rock's largest

1316
01:05:43,560 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 1: investment company in the world. I think it still is,

1317
01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:48,760
Speaker 1: certainly was at the time, but at two thousand and eight,

1318
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:51,480
Speaker 1: so just when he's going to Navy, I get a

1319
01:05:51,560 --> 01:05:55,040
Speaker 1: job at the start of the financial crisis in finance brilliant.

1320
01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:57,880
Speaker 1: But I was a risk analyst, so that was the

1321
01:05:57,920 --> 01:06:01,680
Speaker 1: one thing everyone needed. No one knew what anything meant

1322
01:06:02,120 --> 01:06:05,320
Speaker 1: or what it's worth. Was so they needed risk analysts

1323
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:07,600
Speaker 1: to work it out. So that's what I did, and

1324
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:09,360
Speaker 1: I knew within like the first five days of that

1325
01:06:09,440 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: job I hated it. I was there was there any

1326
01:06:11,720 --> 01:06:15,600
Speaker 1: exciting moments. There was there was. There was one highlight

1327
01:06:15,680 --> 01:06:19,120
Speaker 1: in that two and a half or three years. So

1328
01:06:19,160 --> 01:06:23,240
Speaker 1: I started in Edinburgh, um, which was which was good

1329
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 1: for me. Edinburgh a beautiful city, so I had to

1330
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:27,720
Speaker 1: live in a city Edinburgh. I could probably stomach it,

1331
01:06:27,720 --> 01:06:29,960
Speaker 1: and I did for for a couple of years. But

1332
01:06:30,040 --> 01:06:33,240
Speaker 1: basically on Friday, when I finished work, because we started

1333
01:06:33,240 --> 01:06:35,160
Speaker 1: at six in the morning and we could finish a

1334
01:06:35,240 --> 01:06:38,320
Speaker 1: bit earlier. That very rarely happened, but on Friday always

1335
01:06:38,320 --> 01:06:39,800
Speaker 1: tried to finish it earlier. I got in my car

1336
01:06:40,200 --> 01:06:42,520
Speaker 1: and I drove straight homes that I could hunt all weekend.

1337
01:06:42,640 --> 01:06:45,200
Speaker 1: That was That was my routine every week. I basically

1338
01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:47,200
Speaker 1: it was stupid of me because I didn't see much

1339
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:49,240
Speaker 1: of Edinburgh even though I lived there for two and

1340
01:06:49,240 --> 01:06:52,160
Speaker 1: a half years. But the highlight of that black Rock

1341
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 1: experience that obviously talking a lot of life lessons, but

1342
01:06:55,120 --> 01:06:56,920
Speaker 1: the highlight of it was I helped set up the

1343
01:06:56,960 --> 01:07:00,720
Speaker 1: fixed income side in India because they were continually trying

1344
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:02,720
Speaker 1: to cut costs, so that was why they moved our

1345
01:07:02,720 --> 01:07:05,880
Speaker 1: team from London to Edinburgh. And then eventually I set

1346
01:07:05,960 --> 01:07:08,040
Speaker 1: up the team that I had been part of in

1347
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:12,320
Speaker 1: India UM for a couple of months and my my

1348
01:07:12,440 --> 01:07:15,000
Speaker 1: plan there was just kind of work the Monday to

1349
01:07:15,040 --> 01:07:18,960
Speaker 1: Friday and then experienced India was so I was taking

1350
01:07:18,960 --> 01:07:22,520
Speaker 1: trains up into the mountains and um fishing the rivers there.

1351
01:07:22,520 --> 01:07:24,760
Speaker 1: There's there's there's no hunting, but just trying to immerse

1352
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:27,200
Speaker 1: myself in the culture as much as I could. I

1353
01:07:27,200 --> 01:07:29,320
Speaker 1: actually took a train. This was kind of near the

1354
01:07:29,400 --> 01:07:32,640
Speaker 1: end of my trip. I wanted to go up to

1355
01:07:32,640 --> 01:07:37,240
Speaker 1: to fish the Ganges River because on I knew that

1356
01:07:37,240 --> 01:07:39,439
Speaker 1: there was Golden Marsiera in there, and I had seen

1357
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:43,560
Speaker 1: Golden Marcia in the Corbett River. Obviously, the famous writer

1358
01:07:43,600 --> 01:07:45,920
Speaker 1: and hunted Jim Corbett had been in his National Park

1359
01:07:46,680 --> 01:07:49,880
Speaker 1: UM the weekend before that, and the only way to

1360
01:07:49,920 --> 01:07:52,920
Speaker 1: get there was basically to take a train. So I

1361
01:07:52,960 --> 01:07:56,320
Speaker 1: took this sleeper train, which is very very different to

1362
01:07:56,360 --> 01:07:59,840
Speaker 1: the sleeper trains that we have at Hume up hours

1363
01:07:59,840 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 1: and hours. It was like six or seven hours UM.

1364
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:04,880
Speaker 1: So I got on it in the evening, and I

1365
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:08,600
Speaker 1: found my little space, which was my bed wasn't much

1366
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:10,760
Speaker 1: wider than your laptop, and it was sat on chains

1367
01:08:10,760 --> 01:08:13,240
Speaker 1: and there was three on each side, and then seats

1368
01:08:13,720 --> 01:08:16,200
Speaker 1: because and that that was like one of the premium

1369
01:08:16,200 --> 01:08:19,960
Speaker 1: carriages as well. So I didn't sleep at all because

1370
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:23,000
Speaker 1: it's really noisy, absolutely stinks, and I was also worried about,

1371
01:08:23,080 --> 01:08:25,160
Speaker 1: you know, people stealing my stuff, so sleeping on on

1372
01:08:25,200 --> 01:08:28,599
Speaker 1: my rucksack. But for some stupid reason, I had never

1373
01:08:28,600 --> 01:08:29,960
Speaker 1: thought to think to myself, how am I going to

1374
01:08:30,000 --> 01:08:31,880
Speaker 1: know when I get off? Because if you get on

1375
01:08:31,920 --> 01:08:34,280
Speaker 1: a sleeper at home, you know when you stop it

1376
01:08:34,360 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 1: and someone comes and chaps on your door. They even

1377
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:38,240
Speaker 1: bring you a cup of tea. Yeah, it's pretty good.

1378
01:08:38,240 --> 01:08:39,640
Speaker 1: I used to take the sleeper down to London when

1379
01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:42,920
Speaker 1: I worked there, so right only costs about five thousand pounds.

1380
01:08:43,400 --> 01:08:47,320
Speaker 1: I wasn't I wasn't paying for it. I wasn't paying,

1381
01:08:47,640 --> 01:08:49,840
Speaker 1: but obviously you don't have that on on these trains.

1382
01:08:49,880 --> 01:08:52,800
Speaker 1: So I woke up as the train had slowed down,

1383
01:08:52,800 --> 01:08:55,200
Speaker 1: and I look out the window, and out the window

1384
01:08:55,400 --> 01:08:56,920
Speaker 1: I can see the name of the place I'm supposed

1385
01:08:56,920 --> 01:08:59,479
Speaker 1: to get off. In the trains going and this train

1386
01:08:59,520 --> 01:09:02,320
Speaker 1: went right to the north of India like next stop

1387
01:09:02,400 --> 01:09:06,000
Speaker 1: big in China. Um. So I'm like, what the hell

1388
01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:07,280
Speaker 1: am I going to do? And there wasn't many stops.

1389
01:09:07,280 --> 01:09:10,519
Speaker 1: That only stopped like three times in seven hours. So

1390
01:09:10,600 --> 01:09:13,320
Speaker 1: I ran to the door and all the doors were

1391
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 1: opened with my backpack on, and I'm looking just like

1392
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:18,680
Speaker 1: at the railroad going past and all the bush and

1393
01:09:18,720 --> 01:09:22,280
Speaker 1: in the distance I can see some lights. So I'm

1394
01:09:22,280 --> 01:09:23,960
Speaker 1: just gonna have to wait. There's nothing I can do.

1395
01:09:24,080 --> 01:09:25,760
Speaker 1: I can't exactly jump off at this speed. And then

1396
01:09:25,800 --> 01:09:28,280
Speaker 1: it slowed down, like thirty minutes later, it slowed down

1397
01:09:28,320 --> 01:09:30,639
Speaker 1: a bit but didn't quite stop, and I could still

1398
01:09:30,640 --> 01:09:32,000
Speaker 1: see lights in the distance that I just saw it.

1399
01:09:32,000 --> 01:09:33,559
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna jump off because I don't know what's

1400
01:09:33,560 --> 01:09:34,840
Speaker 1: gonna happen. How am I going to get to where

1401
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:36,559
Speaker 1: I need to go. So I jumped off the train

1402
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:38,719
Speaker 1: and it's like four o'clock in the morning in the dark,

1403
01:09:39,280 --> 01:09:42,400
Speaker 1: and then walk through the bush like minutes to this

1404
01:09:42,439 --> 01:09:45,680
Speaker 1: little village and eventually imounaged to solicit a ride to

1405
01:09:45,760 --> 01:09:48,840
Speaker 1: the place I needed to go to uh and then

1406
01:09:48,920 --> 01:09:52,519
Speaker 1: I I camped and in a little hammock and walked

1407
01:09:52,520 --> 01:09:56,160
Speaker 1: down the river back to a place that fishing, back

1408
01:09:56,200 --> 01:09:58,439
Speaker 1: to a place that I thought I could get a

1409
01:09:58,960 --> 01:10:01,400
Speaker 1: lift back to the train station. And long story short

1410
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:05,599
Speaker 1: there that I ended up at a whitewater rafting camp

1411
01:10:05,640 --> 01:10:08,720
Speaker 1: by mistake, and the owner there, who was an Indian guy,

1412
01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:11,160
Speaker 1: I thought I was completely mad to be walking out

1413
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:13,760
Speaker 1: there by myself because I saw leopard prints in the

1414
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:16,320
Speaker 1: sand where I've been camping. I think they were leopard.

1415
01:10:16,360 --> 01:10:18,000
Speaker 1: I don't think they've been tiger, but they looked like

1416
01:10:18,080 --> 01:10:20,720
Speaker 1: leopard to me. And he just thought that it was like,

1417
01:10:20,760 --> 01:10:22,479
Speaker 1: what on earth are you doing, your little white boy.

1418
01:10:22,520 --> 01:10:28,200
Speaker 1: I don't understand, just a risk analyst, exactly what I'd

1419
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:32,720
Speaker 1: calculate that lately I was living. And he so gave

1420
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:34,600
Speaker 1: me food and everything. I ate it his camp. And

1421
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:36,840
Speaker 1: then I met this Indian couple there. It's it's weird

1422
01:10:36,880 --> 01:10:39,360
Speaker 1: how life works out this who just got engaged and

1423
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:40,600
Speaker 1: they were there with their friend. It was kind of

1424
01:10:40,600 --> 01:10:42,320
Speaker 1: a weird honeymoon because it was a couple of plus

1425
01:10:42,320 --> 01:10:44,920
Speaker 1: they had their body there and they'd lost their camera

1426
01:10:46,080 --> 01:10:48,040
Speaker 1: and they were so gutted that they had lost their

1427
01:10:48,080 --> 01:10:50,120
Speaker 1: camera and they had no photos from like the last

1428
01:10:50,120 --> 01:10:52,880
Speaker 1: week up there and I have obviously had a camera

1429
01:10:52,960 --> 01:10:55,960
Speaker 1: with me and they were like would you mind Obviously

1430
01:10:56,000 --> 01:10:57,639
Speaker 1: because I looked at a place, they ended up speaking

1431
01:10:57,640 --> 01:10:59,439
Speaker 1: to me. It's like, would you mind taking pictures? Like well,

1432
01:10:59,479 --> 01:11:01,519
Speaker 1: we're just us and around beach for the next half

1433
01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:04,479
Speaker 1: an hour and you know, send into the class case

1434
01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:06,720
Speaker 1: we got nothing from our honeymoon. It's like, yeah, of course,

1435
01:11:06,760 --> 01:11:08,240
Speaker 1: no worries. And then they gave me a lift all

1436
01:11:08,240 --> 01:11:11,960
Speaker 1: the way back to the day. So that was but

1437
01:11:12,080 --> 01:11:16,200
Speaker 1: I left that because the moment there, I ended up

1438
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:19,920
Speaker 1: going work back in Edinburgh. I've told the story a

1439
01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:23,120
Speaker 1: few times but people have taken something from it. So

1440
01:11:24,160 --> 01:11:26,479
Speaker 1: I was sitting in Edinburgh at my desk looking at

1441
01:11:26,479 --> 01:11:31,280
Speaker 1: my three screens of graphs and analytics, just I was

1442
01:11:31,320 --> 01:11:33,120
Speaker 1: looking for any excuse art. I thought I was going

1443
01:11:33,160 --> 01:11:36,400
Speaker 1: to become a helicopter pilot. Anything can must be better

1444
01:11:36,439 --> 01:11:39,400
Speaker 1: than this, and I was desperate, desperate to get out.

1445
01:11:39,400 --> 01:11:42,639
Speaker 1: But you still got to make a living. So I'm

1446
01:11:42,840 --> 01:11:48,559
Speaker 1: fairly young still, I'm twenty four or five at the time.

1447
01:11:49,439 --> 01:11:52,080
Speaker 1: And we've had a week where we've had a lot

1448
01:11:52,080 --> 01:11:54,639
Speaker 1: of like big dogs over from New York and stuff,

1449
01:11:54,760 --> 01:11:56,400
Speaker 1: and we've been out for a lot of dinners, and

1450
01:11:56,479 --> 01:11:59,160
Speaker 1: I'd heard a lot of stories. And you know, if

1451
01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:00,920
Speaker 1: if you and I were to go out for a beer,

1452
01:12:00,960 --> 01:12:02,640
Speaker 1: and or any of the people that I've been with

1453
01:12:02,680 --> 01:12:05,040
Speaker 1: this week, it's it's like, it's fascinating. You're talking about

1454
01:12:05,080 --> 01:12:06,840
Speaker 1: really interesting ship and I was just bored up my

1455
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:09,200
Speaker 1: mind all week. I'm eating in fancy restaurants in places

1456
01:12:09,200 --> 01:12:11,759
Speaker 1: I can't afford to eat, and you're starving afterwards, You're

1457
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:15,080
Speaker 1: starving arswers, and I'm hearing all these insignificant stories about

1458
01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:18,639
Speaker 1: fast cars and lap dance and clubs, and it's just bullshit,

1459
01:12:18,720 --> 01:12:20,920
Speaker 1: you know, stuff that Okay, yeah, we we all do

1460
01:12:21,000 --> 01:12:24,960
Speaker 1: it and can appreciate that two dimensional yeah, but it's

1461
01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:26,880
Speaker 1: like life is more than that. So I literally at

1462
01:12:26,880 --> 01:12:29,360
Speaker 1: the end of that week, I wrote my resignation letter.

1463
01:12:29,400 --> 01:12:30,720
Speaker 1: I printed it off in the printer behind me, and

1464
01:12:30,760 --> 01:12:33,120
Speaker 1: I gave it to my manager and I said, look,

1465
01:12:33,600 --> 01:12:35,519
Speaker 1: I don't want to leave you guys stuck, because it

1466
01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:38,479
Speaker 1: was it was an important job, So tell me how

1467
01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:41,000
Speaker 1: long you need me for and then I'm afraid I'm

1468
01:12:41,000 --> 01:12:43,800
Speaker 1: out of you. And after that I went, I went

1469
01:12:43,840 --> 01:12:48,479
Speaker 1: back to Africa, and then kind of I paddled around

1470
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:51,360
Speaker 1: for a bit writing doing started to do a little

1471
01:12:51,360 --> 01:12:57,080
Speaker 1: bit of film work, and then again I was looking

1472
01:12:57,120 --> 01:12:59,160
Speaker 1: for a direction, but also knowing that I really needed

1473
01:12:59,160 --> 01:13:01,000
Speaker 1: to kind of get a serious job. I need to

1474
01:13:01,160 --> 01:13:04,080
Speaker 1: I need to buy a house, you know, I got

1475
01:13:04,080 --> 01:13:06,120
Speaker 1: to do something that's that's a bit more. So I

1476
01:13:06,200 --> 01:13:09,640
Speaker 1: ended up going and I started studying petrolleum engineering and

1477
01:13:09,680 --> 01:13:12,880
Speaker 1: I got a job in oil for three years as

1478
01:13:12,880 --> 01:13:15,640
Speaker 1: a drilling fluids engineer. But then the downturn came, and

1479
01:13:15,680 --> 01:13:18,320
Speaker 1: then that's kind of where our paths and lives crossed.

1480
01:13:18,320 --> 01:13:20,080
Speaker 1: So during this whole time, I'm I mean, I've missed

1481
01:13:20,080 --> 01:13:21,800
Speaker 1: out all the hunting and fishing because but that was

1482
01:13:21,840 --> 01:13:24,679
Speaker 1: like that was every spare minute that I had um

1483
01:13:24,680 --> 01:13:27,679
Speaker 1: I was reading, writing or hunting or fishing. That's basically

1484
01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:30,479
Speaker 1: what I lived for. But there are paths crossed at

1485
01:13:30,479 --> 01:13:33,000
Speaker 1: this point because Daryl had come out the Navy and

1486
01:13:33,080 --> 01:13:36,200
Speaker 1: had done a year in Australia commercial diving and had

1487
01:13:36,240 --> 01:13:39,400
Speaker 1: come home and was trying to find a job commercial

1488
01:13:39,439 --> 01:13:45,360
Speaker 1: diving and spear fishing, comercial diving. That's basically spend my

1489
01:13:45,439 --> 01:13:48,000
Speaker 1: year day. Were you married at that time? Now that

1490
01:13:48,040 --> 01:13:55,680
Speaker 1: time you got an Australian to my wife that's from Scotland,

1491
01:13:55,720 --> 01:13:59,240
Speaker 1: but she came out with me to Australia. Yeah for

1492
01:13:59,240 --> 01:14:03,840
Speaker 1: a long time. Yeah uh. And I really enjoyed my job. Now,

1493
01:14:04,080 --> 01:14:05,800
Speaker 1: it was a really good job and I was I

1494
01:14:05,880 --> 01:14:09,439
Speaker 1: was good at it, but it's still not hunting or fishing.

1495
01:14:09,439 --> 01:14:11,760
Speaker 1: And the reason that I did it was one it

1496
01:14:11,840 --> 01:14:13,680
Speaker 1: was interesting, but two of us six months off a year,

1497
01:14:14,080 --> 01:14:16,240
Speaker 1: some rotation work three weeks. You're off three weeks. What

1498
01:14:16,280 --> 01:14:18,040
Speaker 1: can I do in those three weeks and go hunting fishing.

1499
01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:21,840
Speaker 1: But when the downturn came, that kind of all went

1500
01:14:21,880 --> 01:14:25,680
Speaker 1: to ship because loads of people lost their jobs. I didn't, fortunately,

1501
01:14:25,760 --> 01:14:28,639
Speaker 1: but it meant that they were always trying to make

1502
01:14:28,680 --> 01:14:30,360
Speaker 1: the best use of resources. So I was never at

1503
01:14:30,400 --> 01:14:32,640
Speaker 1: home and I was not doing my job most of

1504
01:14:32,640 --> 01:14:34,799
Speaker 1: the time either. I was doing ship jobs like cleaning

1505
01:14:34,880 --> 01:14:37,840
Speaker 1: pits of just crap out of oil rigs on that

1506
01:14:37,920 --> 01:14:41,599
Speaker 1: because they were like, well you should, you should feel

1507
01:14:41,640 --> 01:14:45,160
Speaker 1: lucky that you've got a job now, and we I

1508
01:14:45,200 --> 01:14:48,160
Speaker 1: said to Darryl. Whatever reason, I still can't quite know

1509
01:14:48,200 --> 01:14:51,080
Speaker 1: exactly what the catalyst was, just like there is a

1510
01:14:51,160 --> 01:14:53,960
Speaker 1: gap in the market in the UK to make some

1511
01:14:54,560 --> 01:14:57,360
Speaker 1: hunting films that means something and I've done a bit

1512
01:14:57,400 --> 01:14:59,960
Speaker 1: of filming before. He hadn't, but he'd always you know,

1513
01:15:00,040 --> 01:15:01,640
Speaker 1: taking pictures and use the camera and said, what do

1514
01:15:01,640 --> 01:15:03,439
Speaker 1: you think let's try and let's try and start this.

1515
01:15:04,400 --> 01:15:09,040
Speaker 1: So we at the same time, there was these Merlin

1516
01:15:09,080 --> 01:15:11,760
Speaker 1: groups were starting up in the UK, which was a

1517
01:15:11,840 --> 01:15:16,120
Speaker 1: collection of areas around Scotland initially that were designed to

1518
01:15:17,240 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 1: basically helped portray in a positive manner how our uplands

1519
01:15:21,200 --> 01:15:25,479
Speaker 1: are managed and they needed to tell the story que

1520
01:15:25,600 --> 01:15:29,120
Speaker 1: us just starting to make films and we there are

1521
01:15:29,200 --> 01:15:31,840
Speaker 1: local group which has been one of the most successful

1522
01:15:31,880 --> 01:15:35,800
Speaker 1: in their endeavors to our films, part partly due to

1523
01:15:35,800 --> 01:15:37,519
Speaker 1: our films, but also because they've got an awesome court

1524
01:15:37,520 --> 01:15:38,720
Speaker 1: and they do who is now a very good friend

1525
01:15:38,720 --> 01:15:44,400
Speaker 1: of ours. Um. We we kind of got together and said, yeah, yeah,

1526
01:15:44,400 --> 01:15:45,640
Speaker 1: we can do that. We didn't know we could do it,

1527
01:15:45,680 --> 01:15:48,400
Speaker 1: but we said we could do it. And Darrel eventually

1528
01:15:48,520 --> 01:15:52,400
Speaker 1: left his laboring job that he was doing. I couldn't

1529
01:15:52,400 --> 01:15:54,840
Speaker 1: get a job diving. I came back from Australia and

1530
01:15:54,880 --> 01:15:56,720
Speaker 1: I was like, what have I just done? Because I

1531
01:15:56,760 --> 01:15:59,040
Speaker 1: had a really good job out there and I came back,

1532
01:15:59,080 --> 01:16:01,320
Speaker 1: I was I kin find any work, and then I

1533
01:16:01,360 --> 01:16:03,880
Speaker 1: was just doing a laboring job, and yeah, it was

1534
01:16:03,920 --> 01:16:06,920
Speaker 1: soul destroying. So this was a lot more fun. These

1535
01:16:06,920 --> 01:16:08,880
Speaker 1: are the yeah, man, these are the best stories. Like

1536
01:16:09,280 --> 01:16:11,280
Speaker 1: so we just we just started. We just started, and

1537
01:16:11,479 --> 01:16:14,320
Speaker 1: I kept working in all of our money and yeah, yeah,

1538
01:16:14,520 --> 01:16:16,240
Speaker 1: I kept working in all for a year just to

1539
01:16:16,320 --> 01:16:18,680
Speaker 1: kind of help support the start of the business. And

1540
01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:21,080
Speaker 1: after a year I left. We had done a couple

1541
01:16:21,120 --> 01:16:23,960
Speaker 1: of films for the Merlin groups. But over that period

1542
01:16:23,960 --> 01:16:26,960
Speaker 1: of time our kind of idea of showcasing what we

1543
01:16:26,960 --> 01:16:28,840
Speaker 1: could do. I believed we could do it. I didn't

1544
01:16:28,880 --> 01:16:31,040
Speaker 1: quite know how we would do it. But it's very

1545
01:16:31,080 --> 01:16:32,400
Speaker 1: difficult to go to company and say, hey, do you

1546
01:16:32,439 --> 01:16:35,439
Speaker 1: want to make your film? It's gonna be awesome. Never done, yeah,

1547
01:16:35,479 --> 01:16:37,080
Speaker 1: oh yeah, just show me something you've done before. Oh no,

1548
01:16:37,160 --> 01:16:38,920
Speaker 1: I haven't actually done anything, but I promise you it'll

1549
01:16:38,920 --> 01:16:41,920
Speaker 1: be awesome. Like it's very it's very difficult by self belief.

1550
01:16:43,520 --> 01:16:47,720
Speaker 1: So we so Fortunately, because I've been writing for so

1551
01:16:47,760 --> 01:16:49,720
Speaker 1: many years, I had a lot of good friends who

1552
01:16:49,720 --> 01:16:53,640
Speaker 1: were connected with different companies in the UK, and I

1553
01:16:53,720 --> 01:16:56,240
Speaker 1: managed to convince them that we could do it, and

1554
01:16:56,280 --> 01:16:58,280
Speaker 1: we were going to do a film, a short six

1555
01:16:58,360 --> 01:17:01,240
Speaker 1: part series m A called Into the Wilderness, and it

1556
01:17:01,320 --> 01:17:03,040
Speaker 1: was just going to be us hunting the way we

1557
01:17:03,080 --> 01:17:05,360
Speaker 1: like to hunt, which is actually quite different to most

1558
01:17:05,360 --> 01:17:06,960
Speaker 1: of the hunting in the UK. It's much more like

1559
01:17:07,040 --> 01:17:09,639
Speaker 1: how you guys hunt, but trying to tell a little

1560
01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:11,720
Speaker 1: bit of the culture in the story in it. That

1561
01:17:11,800 --> 01:17:14,400
Speaker 1: was kind of the original thought process. So we got

1562
01:17:14,400 --> 01:17:18,040
Speaker 1: some sponsorship in for it that kind of just paid

1563
01:17:18,160 --> 01:17:22,120
Speaker 1: enough to be able to afford to sponsorship, and that

1564
01:17:22,320 --> 01:17:26,720
Speaker 1: was that kind of little portfolio was the catalyst for

1565
01:17:26,800 --> 01:17:29,160
Speaker 1: everything else that followed. And actually we always thought we

1566
01:17:29,200 --> 01:17:30,920
Speaker 1: would carry on doing stuff like that because we like

1567
01:17:30,960 --> 01:17:32,479
Speaker 1: and we get to hunt a lot, and even if

1568
01:17:32,520 --> 01:17:35,639
Speaker 1: we're filming ourselves, and we've basically done nothing like that sense,

1569
01:17:35,680 --> 01:17:39,160
Speaker 1: because off the back of it, we've continually been asked

1570
01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:42,440
Speaker 1: by various people or companies to be involved in projects

1571
01:17:43,200 --> 01:17:47,000
Speaker 1: where we've been the people filming or producing or taking pictures,

1572
01:17:47,000 --> 01:17:49,400
Speaker 1: which I'm not complaining about because it's a lot different

1573
01:17:49,400 --> 01:17:50,600
Speaker 1: than being in front of the it's a lot of

1574
01:17:50,760 --> 01:17:52,799
Speaker 1: being in front of the camera and we've got to hunt.

1575
01:17:53,280 --> 01:17:55,880
Speaker 1: Hunting inverted commas, some of the most awesome places on

1576
01:17:55,920 --> 01:17:57,840
Speaker 1: the planet. And to it's certain extent, I don't care

1577
01:17:57,960 --> 01:18:00,760
Speaker 1: like I don't. I've hunted a lot, and I don't

1578
01:18:00,800 --> 01:18:03,080
Speaker 1: need to be killing something every time, and I've shared

1579
01:18:03,160 --> 01:18:05,680
Speaker 1: the experience, like like the bison hunt, Yeah, I was

1580
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:07,560
Speaker 1: on I wasn't going to be pulling the trigger. No.

1581
01:18:07,600 --> 01:18:09,040
Speaker 1: I could see it in your eyes when you're telling

1582
01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:10,920
Speaker 1: the story. You know that the brief story about your bison,

1583
01:18:11,120 --> 01:18:15,400
Speaker 1: Like your eyes were lit up just to be there. Um.

1584
01:18:15,520 --> 01:18:18,599
Speaker 1: I think that's something a lot of hunters could learn from. Yeah, yeah,

1585
01:18:19,080 --> 01:18:21,360
Speaker 1: but yeah here, And I've seen a lot of our

1586
01:18:21,439 --> 01:18:23,439
Speaker 1: industry and I've been that way some parts of my careers.

1587
01:18:23,439 --> 01:18:25,120
Speaker 1: Like you just want to hunt. You don't just want

1588
01:18:25,120 --> 01:18:27,320
Speaker 1: to hunt, you don't really like you're not thinking about

1589
01:18:27,360 --> 01:18:29,520
Speaker 1: the end result. You just want to go out there,

1590
01:18:29,960 --> 01:18:32,080
Speaker 1: smell it, find it, Like wherever it is, you're gonna

1591
01:18:32,120 --> 01:18:33,880
Speaker 1: find it. And if it's you have a job where

1592
01:18:33,880 --> 01:18:38,080
Speaker 1: there's like maybe a hunt, you'll do anything. Yeah. Yeah.

1593
01:18:38,439 --> 01:18:44,960
Speaker 1: The best stories. The thing that I was so gutted

1594
01:18:44,960 --> 01:18:46,920
Speaker 1: by when I was back at Black Rock was that

1595
01:18:47,000 --> 01:18:49,400
Speaker 1: the stories were ship that all these people were telling.

1596
01:18:49,439 --> 01:18:51,920
Speaker 1: It's like, these are not interesting stories. Like Darrell's just

1597
01:18:51,920 --> 01:18:54,200
Speaker 1: told you a heap of interesting stories the name and

1598
01:18:54,240 --> 01:18:59,680
Speaker 1: he's only scratched the surface. It's like, get a whiskey plan.

1599
01:19:00,040 --> 01:19:02,240
Speaker 1: I cannot live my life and be an old man

1600
01:19:02,520 --> 01:19:05,799
Speaker 1: and have those stories. Yeah, I mean that's my life.

1601
01:19:05,960 --> 01:19:07,760
Speaker 1: What is the point? Like I said, I always say this,

1602
01:19:07,800 --> 01:19:10,120
Speaker 1: there's the two dimensional life and the three dimensional life.

1603
01:19:10,120 --> 01:19:12,799
Speaker 1: Like a two dimensional life are the stories you're talking about?

1604
01:19:12,880 --> 01:19:17,200
Speaker 1: Like I have this, I have, this is what I have. Yeah,

1605
01:19:17,240 --> 01:19:19,320
Speaker 1: but what is it giving you? Really? And what's it

1606
01:19:19,320 --> 01:19:21,679
Speaker 1: giving the people around you? Like you've been to Nepal,

1607
01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:25,439
Speaker 1: you could free you know, you could share and now

1608
01:19:25,680 --> 01:19:28,280
Speaker 1: through experiences you have shared connections. So like when we

1609
01:19:28,320 --> 01:19:30,559
Speaker 1: when you were on our podcast the first time, I

1610
01:19:30,600 --> 01:19:33,280
Speaker 1: started off asking you about Nopole because we there was

1611
01:19:33,880 --> 01:19:36,679
Speaker 1: this weird connection that because we've been in the same

1612
01:19:36,720 --> 01:19:40,320
Speaker 1: place at a slightly different time, and it brings people together. Yeah,

1613
01:19:40,520 --> 01:19:43,519
Speaker 1: there's something about that, you know. I'm sure you guys

1614
01:19:43,560 --> 01:19:46,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't wouldn't say this, but I feel like when I

1615
01:19:46,120 --> 01:19:48,080
Speaker 1: look over to your part of the world or anywhere

1616
01:19:48,120 --> 01:19:52,920
Speaker 1: close to where you guys, are you the most prolific photographers, filmmakers, podcasters.

1617
01:19:52,960 --> 01:19:56,880
Speaker 1: I mean it is, Uh, the breath and depth of

1618
01:19:56,920 --> 01:19:58,920
Speaker 1: work you've been willing to that you've put out over

1619
01:19:58,960 --> 01:20:02,560
Speaker 1: the last year is amazing. I mean, it really appreciate

1620
01:20:02,600 --> 01:20:04,920
Speaker 1: you saying that. And you've spun these like you know,

1621
01:20:05,000 --> 01:20:07,800
Speaker 1: you guys are smart dudes with passion forward and you

1622
01:20:07,920 --> 01:20:10,599
Speaker 1: found it because you had to the point. I don't

1623
01:20:10,600 --> 01:20:13,400
Speaker 1: think it was a choice. Yeah, you just like you.

1624
01:20:13,520 --> 01:20:16,960
Speaker 1: Just like you said, you just like you, You're always

1625
01:20:17,000 --> 01:20:19,280
Speaker 1: looking for it, even if even if you get lost

1626
01:20:19,320 --> 01:20:22,800
Speaker 1: in a career choice or you know, some destination you

1627
01:20:22,800 --> 01:20:25,639
Speaker 1: think you have to head towards. You Still the podcast

1628
01:20:25,720 --> 01:20:28,160
Speaker 1: was an interesting one because we we just we started

1629
01:20:28,200 --> 01:20:30,320
Speaker 1: that just because we felt there was a lack of

1630
01:20:30,439 --> 01:20:33,519
Speaker 1: education in in the UK and we just wanted we

1631
01:20:33,560 --> 01:20:37,439
Speaker 1: wanted an open plant, an access for free. And how

1632
01:20:37,479 --> 01:20:39,720
Speaker 1: long you've been doing the podcast? Yeah, three and a

1633
01:20:39,720 --> 01:20:42,799
Speaker 1: half years and so three years? And how many podcasts

1634
01:20:42,840 --> 01:20:45,160
Speaker 1: do you feel like are hunting fishing related in in

1635
01:20:45,520 --> 01:20:50,000
Speaker 1: this Well? Yeah, but I mean so one only started

1636
01:20:50,040 --> 01:20:52,719
Speaker 1: six months ago, another one was probably a year. Yeah,

1637
01:20:52,760 --> 01:20:55,200
Speaker 1: it's not that regular, it's not that regular. So yeah,

1638
01:20:55,320 --> 01:20:57,960
Speaker 1: we were we were the first in the UK. Yeah,

1639
01:20:58,160 --> 01:21:02,080
Speaker 1: I mean, and what's the you know, there's obviously the

1640
01:21:02,080 --> 01:21:04,840
Speaker 1: American influence, right, I mean that I talked about if

1641
01:21:04,880 --> 01:21:06,680
Speaker 1: you talk about that all the time around, like how

1642
01:21:06,760 --> 01:21:09,240
Speaker 1: much of the American culture and our value systems and

1643
01:21:09,320 --> 01:21:15,200
Speaker 1: our model conservation has affected other UM hunting cultures around

1644
01:21:15,400 --> 01:21:18,639
Speaker 1: the globe. But like, what do people where you're from

1645
01:21:18,640 --> 01:21:20,760
Speaker 1: saying about what you're doing? You know, are they what

1646
01:21:20,840 --> 01:21:23,040
Speaker 1: we do? Yeah? Are they inspired by? Do they pick

1647
01:21:23,080 --> 01:21:25,080
Speaker 1: up a rifle and go a field because of of

1648
01:21:25,120 --> 01:21:28,320
Speaker 1: what you're doing? That's the beautiful thing and I a

1649
01:21:28,360 --> 01:21:32,320
Speaker 1: combination of the film, but probably more importantly the podcast podcast.

1650
01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:35,080
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it was people are inspired by also,

1651
01:21:35,320 --> 01:21:37,600
Speaker 1: not by us. It's more the guests. The podcast is

1652
01:21:37,640 --> 01:21:42,200
Speaker 1: probably the biggest thing that really gets people thinking. And

1653
01:21:42,400 --> 01:21:45,679
Speaker 1: we've had more emails and messages from people saying, I'm

1654
01:21:45,720 --> 01:21:50,559
Speaker 1: getting my my certificates for rifles, UM doing my first

1655
01:21:50,640 --> 01:21:52,559
Speaker 1: hunt because of the back of this, this and this

1656
01:21:52,600 --> 01:21:54,559
Speaker 1: and this that they've listened on the podcast or they've

1657
01:21:54,640 --> 01:21:57,880
Speaker 1: now email s Now, I get it. There's something I

1658
01:21:57,920 --> 01:22:01,280
Speaker 1: didn't know before I had a um a misconception about something.

1659
01:22:01,360 --> 01:22:03,400
Speaker 1: Now I get it. Or yeah, maybe I don't fully

1660
01:22:03,400 --> 01:22:07,600
Speaker 1: agree with you, but I understand more and that you know,

1661
01:22:07,680 --> 01:22:10,400
Speaker 1: sometimes it can be sometimes you can wander, especially with

1662
01:22:10,439 --> 01:22:13,080
Speaker 1: the podcast, and what our intention for it was is

1663
01:22:13,080 --> 01:22:15,800
Speaker 1: whether if you're really making a difference because we can

1664
01:22:15,840 --> 01:22:18,400
Speaker 1: talk all day to hunters and it's good fun, but

1665
01:22:18,680 --> 01:22:20,400
Speaker 1: is that really going to make a difference to the

1666
01:22:20,520 --> 01:22:24,920
Speaker 1: understanding of what we do in the greater the world? No,

1667
01:22:25,800 --> 01:22:28,759
Speaker 1: we need to reach we need to reach out, and

1668
01:22:28,880 --> 01:22:32,360
Speaker 1: this is a it's a free medium, it's hopefully easily consumable,

1669
01:22:32,800 --> 01:22:34,519
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you have a lot of people listening

1670
01:22:34,520 --> 01:22:37,640
Speaker 1: to your your podcast who have found it somehow, who

1671
01:22:38,280 --> 01:22:40,240
Speaker 1: it's maybe not a big part of their life, but

1672
01:22:40,400 --> 01:22:42,600
Speaker 1: and we don't want it. We are not saying that

1673
01:22:42,680 --> 01:22:45,840
Speaker 1: everybody needs to hunt, but it's good that people can

1674
01:22:45,880 --> 01:22:48,200
Speaker 1: at least understand it from a different point of view.

1675
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:51,759
Speaker 1: And that's been I mean, that's been incredible. I always

1676
01:22:51,800 --> 01:22:53,559
Speaker 1: every time I get an email like that where I

1677
01:22:53,560 --> 01:22:57,080
Speaker 1: hear from somebody who is not inside the general hunting

1678
01:22:57,080 --> 01:22:59,760
Speaker 1: community who has taken something from a conversation with one

1679
01:22:59,800 --> 01:23:02,200
Speaker 1: of the awesome guests that we've had on it just

1680
01:23:02,240 --> 01:23:04,840
Speaker 1: makes me smile. Yeah, we have a good contingent of

1681
01:23:04,880 --> 01:23:08,479
Speaker 1: people that don't hunt on our podcast. And a part

1682
01:23:08,520 --> 01:23:10,000
Speaker 1: of that it's just due to some of the guests.

1683
01:23:10,040 --> 01:23:11,799
Speaker 1: Some of our guests are just not they're not hunters

1684
01:23:11,800 --> 01:23:15,439
Speaker 1: in any way, but they're adventures explorers, you know, just

1685
01:23:15,479 --> 01:23:21,400
Speaker 1: doing really cool ship stories and living life as it

1686
01:23:21,439 --> 01:23:23,600
Speaker 1: should be, which means whatever you're doing, you need to

1687
01:23:23,600 --> 01:23:25,320
Speaker 1: find meaning and you need to enjoy what you're doing.

1688
01:23:25,720 --> 01:23:28,360
Speaker 1: And anyone who enjoys what they're doing in life is

1689
01:23:28,400 --> 01:23:31,200
Speaker 1: going to be a cool person and have awesome stories.

1690
01:23:31,600 --> 01:23:34,320
Speaker 1: And it's about sharing that. I mean, who are your

1691
01:23:34,840 --> 01:23:37,000
Speaker 1: your I guess this can be cliche, but who are

1692
01:23:37,000 --> 01:23:39,760
Speaker 1: you're like outdoor heroes? Who are the people that you

1693
01:23:39,840 --> 01:23:44,360
Speaker 1: know drove you to that if you have them for adventure, yeah,

1694
01:23:44,520 --> 01:23:47,160
Speaker 1: or just just sometimes you read some somebody who's like

1695
01:23:47,200 --> 01:23:50,080
Speaker 1: shared ideas like clicked in you that you know, we

1696
01:23:50,600 --> 01:23:52,840
Speaker 1: tell stories all the time around here about you know,

1697
01:23:53,080 --> 01:23:57,120
Speaker 1: books and writings and people that that you know there's

1698
01:23:57,160 --> 01:23:59,240
Speaker 1: something inside of you that you you can't explain, and

1699
01:23:59,240 --> 01:24:02,559
Speaker 1: then someone explains hunting or explains fishing in a way

1700
01:24:02,600 --> 01:24:06,040
Speaker 1: that you're like, that's it for me. I mean, I

1701
01:24:06,040 --> 01:24:09,360
Speaker 1: mean it's were we well, now, I there was two things.

1702
01:24:09,439 --> 01:24:13,680
Speaker 1: One watching you McGregor and Charlie Boorman go around the

1703
01:24:13,680 --> 01:24:16,280
Speaker 1: world on a motorbike. When I saw that, it just

1704
01:24:16,400 --> 01:24:19,240
Speaker 1: kind of it kind of blew my mind. When I

1705
01:24:19,240 --> 01:24:22,759
Speaker 1: watched them first do that and the adventure they had

1706
01:24:23,479 --> 01:24:24,760
Speaker 1: going around, I was like, I want to I want

1707
01:24:24,760 --> 01:24:27,519
Speaker 1: to do something like that. And the second one was

1708
01:24:28,360 --> 01:24:30,600
Speaker 1: Ed Stafford. He was the first man to walk the

1709
01:24:30,640 --> 01:24:33,320
Speaker 1: full length of the Amazon. We're lucky enough to actually

1710
01:24:33,320 --> 01:24:35,559
Speaker 1: just have him on our podcast, which is really cool

1711
01:24:35,560 --> 01:24:38,040
Speaker 1: because it's here in mind. And then he comes on

1712
01:24:38,240 --> 01:24:40,360
Speaker 1: our show and I saw him talk as well a

1713
01:24:40,400 --> 01:24:43,920
Speaker 1: few years ago, and he's just a phenomenal inspirational person.

1714
01:24:44,120 --> 01:24:48,400
Speaker 1: And the trips and the expedition he does solo are

1715
01:24:48,720 --> 01:24:53,679
Speaker 1: absolutely They're incredible. I was incredible, say if if I was, Yeah,

1716
01:24:53,720 --> 01:24:55,679
Speaker 1: going by his book, I think it's just called Walking

1717
01:24:55,680 --> 01:24:59,439
Speaker 1: the Amazon. It's also TVDM well Worth, well Worth going

1718
01:24:59,439 --> 01:25:02,240
Speaker 1: to see. For me, it was it's probably a little

1719
01:25:02,280 --> 01:25:05,240
Speaker 1: bit more, a little bit more cliche for the on

1720
01:25:05,280 --> 01:25:08,120
Speaker 1: the hunting fishing side. When I was younger. On the

1721
01:25:08,160 --> 01:25:11,839
Speaker 1: fishing it was a um an English, a very famous

1722
01:25:11,960 --> 01:25:14,720
Speaker 1: English fisherman and naturalist called Hugh Focus. I don't know

1723
01:25:14,720 --> 01:25:17,479
Speaker 1: if you've ever combined that familiar but beautiful book, the

1724
01:25:17,520 --> 01:25:20,479
Speaker 1: book on Sea chat in particular. I used to read

1725
01:25:20,520 --> 01:25:23,400
Speaker 1: that book when my mom was driving us to the

1726
01:25:23,439 --> 01:25:25,599
Speaker 1: swimming pool to go swimming training every night. I mean,

1727
01:25:25,600 --> 01:25:27,439
Speaker 1: it's a big, thick book like this, and I consumed

1728
01:25:27,439 --> 01:25:30,080
Speaker 1: it multiple times. So he was probably my first sort

1729
01:25:30,120 --> 01:25:33,160
Speaker 1: of hero of the countryside would have been Hugh Folcuse,

1730
01:25:33,200 --> 01:25:35,559
Speaker 1: it turns out later as I found out more about him,

1731
01:25:35,600 --> 01:25:37,400
Speaker 1: he was a complete womanizing, a bit of an asshole.

1732
01:25:37,880 --> 01:25:41,160
Speaker 1: He was a fantastic but he was a fan. I've

1733
01:25:41,200 --> 01:25:42,559
Speaker 1: never met him, but it was just what I heard,

1734
01:25:42,560 --> 01:25:45,000
Speaker 1: so it might not have been true. But but he

1735
01:25:45,040 --> 01:25:49,439
Speaker 1: was an amazing naturalist. His the detail with which he

1736
01:25:49,680 --> 01:25:55,000
Speaker 1: studied what he was passionate about was incredible. And then

1737
01:25:55,000 --> 01:25:58,880
Speaker 1: on top of that, I mean the usual suspects for

1738
01:25:59,040 --> 01:26:04,360
Speaker 1: um being intrigued about Africa and then North America, the

1739
01:26:04,400 --> 01:26:06,519
Speaker 1: one that is there's two books that have impacted me

1740
01:26:06,600 --> 01:26:10,559
Speaker 1: most in recent times. One is Aldo Leopold's book Sam

1741
01:26:10,600 --> 01:26:14,200
Speaker 1: County Almanac, and I yeah that you yeah, it's in

1742
01:26:14,280 --> 01:26:18,120
Speaker 1: that bag sitting there. And the second one was a

1743
01:26:18,160 --> 01:26:19,960
Speaker 1: book which I literally have only read in the last

1744
01:26:19,960 --> 01:26:21,920
Speaker 1: six months, and it was sent to us by a

1745
01:26:21,960 --> 01:26:24,519
Speaker 1: podcast listener completely out of the blue, with just a

1746
01:26:24,640 --> 01:26:28,400
Speaker 1: letter in it by Gray Owl, and it's one of

1747
01:26:30,120 --> 01:26:32,360
Speaker 1: the name of the actual book. He didn't write that

1748
01:26:32,400 --> 01:26:35,080
Speaker 1: many is has slipped my mind at the moment, and

1749
01:26:35,120 --> 01:26:38,360
Speaker 1: he is one of the great conservations for the Canadian wilderness.

1750
01:26:39,120 --> 01:26:43,559
Speaker 1: And that book just was unbelievable, the section about I

1751
01:26:43,560 --> 01:26:45,280
Speaker 1: gave it to my dad when it arrived and he

1752
01:26:45,320 --> 01:26:47,200
Speaker 1: was sitting in his office. He's just retired, but he

1753
01:26:47,720 --> 01:26:51,120
Speaker 1: had an office next two hours and I gave it

1754
01:26:51,120 --> 01:26:52,559
Speaker 1: to and said, you know, I can believe this podcast

1755
01:26:52,560 --> 01:26:54,599
Speaker 1: Listen just sent us a first edition book about Gray

1756
01:26:54,720 --> 01:26:56,800
Speaker 1: l with a with a handwritten notes saying, I heard

1757
01:26:56,840 --> 01:26:59,000
Speaker 1: you mentioned this film about Gray al and this book

1758
01:26:59,040 --> 01:27:00,519
Speaker 1: made a big impact of my life, Soti. When I

1759
01:27:00,520 --> 01:27:02,120
Speaker 1: saw it in the bookshop, I just bought it. That's

1760
01:27:02,120 --> 01:27:03,679
Speaker 1: why I want you to share it with you guys,

1761
01:27:03,720 --> 01:27:06,760
Speaker 1: which was incredible. Our listeners are awesome are And I

1762
01:27:06,800 --> 01:27:08,120
Speaker 1: gave it to my dad and I went back in

1763
01:27:08,160 --> 01:27:10,120
Speaker 1: like forty five minutes later, and he's always busy and

1764
01:27:10,280 --> 01:27:13,040
Speaker 1: he was reading the book. So have you been reading

1765
01:27:13,040 --> 01:27:14,639
Speaker 1: the book the whole time? He says, I can't take

1766
01:27:14,680 --> 01:27:16,920
Speaker 1: my eyes off it. And it was like that for me.

1767
01:27:17,040 --> 01:27:21,240
Speaker 1: So when I remember the Pilgrims of the Wild, Gray

1768
01:27:21,280 --> 01:27:23,880
Speaker 1: Our Pilgrims of the Wild, that book is unbelievable. And

1769
01:27:23,880 --> 01:27:26,720
Speaker 1: if you can't appreciate nature after reading that book, then

1770
01:27:26,760 --> 01:27:30,280
Speaker 1: that's there's no hope. Yeah, you're hopeless. What do you guys?

1771
01:27:30,479 --> 01:27:32,720
Speaker 1: What's what's on the horizon for what you you know?

1772
01:27:32,880 --> 01:27:37,120
Speaker 1: For your adventures? Ah, we're off to Africa. We are.

1773
01:27:36,800 --> 01:27:39,439
Speaker 1: We're off to Africa in April. We've got some clients

1774
01:27:39,439 --> 01:27:41,799
Speaker 1: going out um and we're going to be making some films.

1775
01:27:41,800 --> 01:27:44,799
Speaker 1: We're doing some filming with pangulin. So we've just started

1776
01:27:44,800 --> 01:27:49,120
Speaker 1: an auction to raise some money for some panguin research

1777
01:27:49,720 --> 01:27:52,360
Speaker 1: and we're hopefully working with a company that was approached

1778
01:27:52,439 --> 01:27:55,400
Speaker 1: us again through the podcast Funny Enough Um, to try

1779
01:27:55,479 --> 01:27:59,160
Speaker 1: and get some software together for tracking pengulin with a

1780
01:27:59,200 --> 01:28:02,439
Speaker 1: guy over there in South Africa who we've got to know.

1781
01:28:02,920 --> 01:28:06,240
Speaker 1: If you don't know what penguin is, it's like an

1782
01:28:06,320 --> 01:28:09,799
Speaker 1: armadillo looking creature. I guess which is the most traffic

1783
01:28:09,840 --> 01:28:12,240
Speaker 1: mammal on the planet. Really, I didn't know that. I

1784
01:28:13,000 --> 01:28:14,840
Speaker 1: was thinking. I bet people listen to that don't know.

1785
01:28:15,520 --> 01:28:18,120
Speaker 1: I think there was the most trafficing is most most

1786
01:28:18,160 --> 01:28:21,360
Speaker 1: traffics and they're they just found a big consignment of

1787
01:28:21,360 --> 01:28:26,040
Speaker 1: it recently. They're they're endangered that these guys are poached

1788
01:28:26,240 --> 01:28:30,880
Speaker 1: for their scales, which have zero medical benefits, the same

1789
01:28:30,920 --> 01:28:32,800
Speaker 1: as your nails that are on your hands, and people

1790
01:28:32,840 --> 01:28:35,760
Speaker 1: are you know, grinding them up so they can get

1791
01:28:35,760 --> 01:28:38,640
Speaker 1: a big hard on. And that's basically what it is.

1792
01:28:38,680 --> 01:28:42,160
Speaker 1: It's for viagra and all different it's not for viagra

1793
01:28:42,640 --> 01:28:47,000
Speaker 1: like like foodoo, medicines that don't work and uh, And

1794
01:28:47,040 --> 01:28:49,920
Speaker 1: we're working with the guys in Africa because there's actually

1795
01:28:50,080 --> 01:28:54,600
Speaker 1: species of pangulin in Asia as well, and well, I

1796
01:28:54,600 --> 01:28:56,400
Speaker 1: don't know how they're going to tackle that because obviously

1797
01:28:56,439 --> 01:28:59,400
Speaker 1: it's quite hard with governments there and that's where most

1798
01:28:59,400 --> 01:29:01,800
Speaker 1: penguins are going anyway, so it would be quite hard

1799
01:29:01,840 --> 01:29:05,639
Speaker 1: to any kind of rescue effort over there. But in Africa,

1800
01:29:05,680 --> 01:29:08,240
Speaker 1: there's there's there's still hoping, there's people on the groundings

1801
01:29:08,560 --> 01:29:11,639
Speaker 1: really cool stuff. And so I mean in our media future,

1802
01:29:11,720 --> 01:29:13,360
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's what we're doing next. We're going to

1803
01:29:13,439 --> 01:29:18,000
Speaker 1: make a film film about it, and and the calendar

1804
01:29:18,040 --> 01:29:23,440
Speaker 1: will undoubtedly book up. Yeah, I'm often Ambia in May

1805
01:29:23,760 --> 01:29:27,439
Speaker 1: um for that a conference for the Council of International

1806
01:29:27,439 --> 01:29:31,559
Speaker 1: Conservation to talk about basically the future of the future

1807
01:29:31,600 --> 01:29:34,160
Speaker 1: of conservation and hunting. So that's gonna be interesting. We'll

1808
01:29:34,240 --> 01:29:36,000
Speaker 1: probably be off to Norway at some point. I was,

1809
01:29:36,120 --> 01:29:38,280
Speaker 1: I've been. We we keep going back to Norway. I

1810
01:29:38,280 --> 01:29:42,760
Speaker 1: was there in October November last year. Oh yeah, we're

1811
01:29:42,840 --> 01:29:46,960
Speaker 1: photographing a moose hunt. Wow, that's a whole story in itself,

1812
01:29:47,160 --> 01:29:50,800
Speaker 1: an incredible experience. That's that's the place in the world

1813
01:29:50,880 --> 01:29:52,200
Speaker 1: that I most want to get. Are you got to

1814
01:29:52,240 --> 01:29:57,320
Speaker 1: do in a This is like hunting moose in the

1815
01:29:57,360 --> 01:30:00,880
Speaker 1: mountain and it is your your leg are just killing

1816
01:30:00,880 --> 01:30:03,000
Speaker 1: you by the end of a few days. But you know,

1817
01:30:03,040 --> 01:30:06,120
Speaker 1: you're walking so many miles each day, and it's it's

1818
01:30:06,160 --> 01:30:08,719
Speaker 1: such a cool community thing they have over there where

1819
01:30:08,840 --> 01:30:10,320
Speaker 1: you'll be ten of you that kind of go out

1820
01:30:10,360 --> 01:30:13,040
Speaker 1: in the morning and you're spotting in the mountain mountain

1821
01:30:13,160 --> 01:30:15,720
Speaker 1: range and these are steep, steep mountains, and you see

1822
01:30:15,720 --> 01:30:17,200
Speaker 1: a moose and then you'll go out and you'll walk,

1823
01:30:17,360 --> 01:30:20,320
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen miles kind of across these these things,

1824
01:30:20,360 --> 01:30:22,360
Speaker 1: and they'll shoot a moose out right at the back

1825
01:30:22,400 --> 01:30:26,320
Speaker 1: of where a probably a glacier would have been and

1826
01:30:26,479 --> 01:30:28,880
Speaker 1: once it shot, they were the one we did shoot

1827
01:30:28,920 --> 01:30:31,240
Speaker 1: on kind of the last day, it's all cut up,

1828
01:30:31,320 --> 01:30:32,680
Speaker 1: hung up in a tree because it was later in

1829
01:30:32,720 --> 01:30:37,120
Speaker 1: the day. And then the following day we hiked down

1830
01:30:37,120 --> 01:30:39,240
Speaker 1: the mountain, went back up again. Whole community, the whole

1831
01:30:39,240 --> 01:30:42,080
Speaker 1: community kind of walked. It was like ten eleven people.

1832
01:30:42,200 --> 01:30:43,960
Speaker 1: We were up there by seven in the morning, and

1833
01:30:43,960 --> 01:30:46,640
Speaker 1: there was people already with backpacks walking back down. And

1834
01:30:47,120 --> 01:30:49,680
Speaker 1: when they when they come back down, they finished the

1835
01:30:49,760 --> 01:30:52,839
Speaker 1: job in a garage and then that shared out between

1836
01:30:52,880 --> 01:30:55,160
Speaker 1: all the people that were hunting and in that community

1837
01:30:55,160 --> 01:30:57,519
Speaker 1: all of the meat. I might start a commune just

1838
01:30:57,600 --> 01:30:59,760
Speaker 1: like that. That's very cool. I think I'm weird, but

1839
01:31:00,560 --> 01:31:03,160
Speaker 1: like that's I you know, people that a lot here

1840
01:31:03,160 --> 01:31:06,040
Speaker 1: in the States talk about solo hunting and celebrate going

1841
01:31:06,080 --> 01:31:08,640
Speaker 1: out in the wilds by herself. I do enjoy that,

1842
01:31:08,720 --> 01:31:11,439
Speaker 1: but nowhere near as much as I enjoy like being

1843
01:31:11,479 --> 01:31:14,000
Speaker 1: in a camp with a bunch of people, being surrounded

1844
01:31:14,000 --> 01:31:16,960
Speaker 1: by a bunch of people, like the counterflast stories, campfire stories,

1845
01:31:17,080 --> 01:31:19,720
Speaker 1: man camp fire stories. Well, we're gonna get our ass

1846
01:31:19,760 --> 01:31:24,320
Speaker 1: kicked by an ex navy sealing you guys, better go ye.

1847
01:31:24,600 --> 01:31:28,000
Speaker 1: This dude, he will kick yours. I've met him a

1848
01:31:28,000 --> 01:31:30,599
Speaker 1: few times. I don't know him. I've heard the rumors.

1849
01:31:30,680 --> 01:31:33,360
Speaker 1: The Mountain Tout Fitness is like, but we gotta work

1850
01:31:33,360 --> 01:31:37,879
Speaker 1: out twelve we've been traveling. If we're late, that workout's

1851
01:31:37,920 --> 01:31:42,360
Speaker 1: gonna be even more painful, feel bad. Let's close the

1852
01:31:42,360 --> 01:31:44,880
Speaker 1: podcast about you telling everybody we figured out earlier what

1853
01:31:44,920 --> 01:31:49,200
Speaker 1: your poor names were, What was it, what wasn't? It's

1854
01:31:49,200 --> 01:31:51,519
Speaker 1: the first it's your first. Pete is the first name,

1855
01:31:51,520 --> 01:31:54,559
Speaker 1: and your last name is You didn't have a street

1856
01:31:54,600 --> 01:31:56,200
Speaker 1: where you grew up in the town where you grew up,

1857
01:31:56,439 --> 01:32:01,640
Speaker 1: so it would be Bimbo inch Bar would be my well,

1858
01:32:02,600 --> 01:32:04,640
Speaker 1: the same pet, but my first actual pet that was

1859
01:32:04,680 --> 01:32:08,360
Speaker 1: mine was a dull, cold Sparky and they're close close

1860
01:32:08,439 --> 01:32:10,519
Speaker 1: to inch Bear where I went to school is Edzel,

1861
01:32:10,600 --> 01:32:14,360
Speaker 1: so be Sparky, ed Sparky, Edsel and Bimbo inch Bear.

1862
01:32:14,720 --> 01:32:16,519
Speaker 1: You almost got through the podcast that I haven't I

1863
01:32:16,640 --> 01:32:22,439
Speaker 1: almost forgotten. Then you brought up the the boner down

1864
01:32:22,520 --> 01:32:24,680
Speaker 1: to boner scales. In my mind was like I had

1865
01:32:24,720 --> 01:32:26,720
Speaker 1: to make sure I mentioned I dragged down the podcast

1866
01:32:27,880 --> 01:32:30,799
Speaker 1: ruined the end. I ruined the ending all right, boys,

1867
01:32:31,080 --> 01:32:33,439
Speaker 1: thanks for coming appetially. What you do. It's great speak

1868
01:32:33,439 --> 01:32:35,120
Speaker 1: to you again. I need to come to your neck.

1869
01:32:35,320 --> 01:32:37,479
Speaker 1: There is an open invite for you in Scotland and

1870
01:32:37,479 --> 01:32:40,120
Speaker 1: the Highlands, so alright, make that journey. Convinced Ronella, let

1871
01:32:40,120 --> 01:32:48,719
Speaker 1: me out of Montana. Alright, that's it. That is all

1872
01:32:49,000 --> 01:32:52,000
Speaker 1: number fitting of books. Pretty cool, pretty cool discussion with

1873
01:32:52,040 --> 01:32:54,080
Speaker 1: those two boys. It was early in the morning, snow

1874
01:32:54,160 --> 01:32:59,320
Speaker 1: was falling in Montana. Um, but it was an interesting conversation,

1875
01:32:59,479 --> 01:33:01,280
Speaker 1: and it's good to know a little bit about their

1876
01:33:01,320 --> 01:33:04,639
Speaker 1: backgrounds and what they do. I'd love to have them

1877
01:33:04,640 --> 01:33:07,080
Speaker 1: back or go visit them in Scotland and learn a

1878
01:33:07,160 --> 01:33:10,160
Speaker 1: little bit more about wildlife management and and things and

1879
01:33:10,240 --> 01:33:13,600
Speaker 1: land use over there. They're part of the world. But

1880
01:33:13,760 --> 01:33:16,080
Speaker 1: we just had an interesting conversation. We got rolling and

1881
01:33:16,080 --> 01:33:18,120
Speaker 1: didn't get to it, but we'll get to it next time.

1882
01:33:18,120 --> 01:33:21,439
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this one either way. I love

1883
01:33:21,479 --> 01:33:26,440
Speaker 1: those guys. What else, what else? What else? Well, Um,

1884
01:33:26,479 --> 01:33:28,360
Speaker 1: a lot of things going on, but but number one,

1885
01:33:28,400 --> 01:33:30,880
Speaker 1: we're still rocking and rolling on the Mediator Live Tour.

1886
01:33:30,960 --> 01:33:32,960
Speaker 1: You've heard me say it before. I would imagine if

1887
01:33:32,960 --> 01:33:35,479
Speaker 1: you're listening to this that it's going. So if you

1888
01:33:35,479 --> 01:33:37,920
Speaker 1: go to the meat Eater dot com, you go over there,

1889
01:33:38,640 --> 01:33:41,680
Speaker 1: what you're gonna find is the events page. Click on that,

1890
01:33:41,840 --> 01:33:44,439
Speaker 1: find the event near you, and then go. We just

1891
01:33:44,520 --> 01:33:47,799
Speaker 1: launched the We just announced the Austin podcasts. I believe

1892
01:33:47,840 --> 01:33:51,519
Speaker 1: it's on April two in Austin. Come see us, man,

1893
01:33:51,560 --> 01:33:53,320
Speaker 1: I'll be there. I'll be on stage and I hope

1894
01:33:53,360 --> 01:33:55,759
Speaker 1: to see all you Texans out there cheerings on talking

1895
01:33:55,840 --> 01:34:00,840
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing. Um. You know, regular business. Subscribe to

1896
01:34:00,840 --> 01:34:04,360
Speaker 1: our newsletter. Go to the website to do that. Go

1897
01:34:04,439 --> 01:34:06,120
Speaker 1: to the website, look at our stores. See if you

1898
01:34:06,120 --> 01:34:10,040
Speaker 1: find anything in there you'd like to wear, or stickers

1899
01:34:10,040 --> 01:34:11,920
Speaker 1: you might want to put on your truck or vehicle

1900
01:34:12,040 --> 01:34:15,280
Speaker 1: or prius who knows. I like reasons are fine with me.

1901
01:34:15,320 --> 01:34:18,519
Speaker 1: I'm fine with it. But all those things you can

1902
01:34:18,520 --> 01:34:21,360
Speaker 1: do here with our folks at the Meteor dot Com.

1903
01:34:21,400 --> 01:34:23,080
Speaker 1: But I would say in closing for for ups at

1904
01:34:23,120 --> 01:34:26,439
Speaker 1: number fifty, uh, it is exciting to be a part

1905
01:34:26,520 --> 01:34:28,840
Speaker 1: of this company. I am running around every day for

1906
01:34:29,000 --> 01:34:34,120
Speaker 1: meeting to meeting, discussing concepts for content, new content around people.

1907
01:34:34,200 --> 01:34:36,880
Speaker 1: You know, some people you don't ideas you that I've

1908
01:34:37,240 --> 01:34:41,400
Speaker 1: never considered. It is invigorating and inspiring to be around

1909
01:34:41,439 --> 01:34:45,320
Speaker 1: these people, and I cannot wait for you all to hear,

1910
01:34:45,640 --> 01:34:49,519
Speaker 1: to read, to watch what we're producing here right now

1911
01:34:49,640 --> 01:34:51,919
Speaker 1: in the future. I think it's gonna be an exciting

1912
01:34:52,040 --> 01:34:54,559
Speaker 1: year years for us, and I know some of the

1913
01:34:54,560 --> 01:34:57,479
Speaker 1: concept we're discussing and pitching and batting around here and

1914
01:34:57,520 --> 01:35:02,439
Speaker 1: even producing already our heller and it's it's a pleasure

1915
01:35:02,479 --> 01:35:05,479
Speaker 1: to be a part of this crew that includes Ryan Callahan,

1916
01:35:05,560 --> 01:35:10,479
Speaker 1: you as Matelas, Steve Vannella Morgan Mason, Spencer Newhart, Sam Longren,

1917
01:35:10,560 --> 01:35:14,280
Speaker 1: Miles Nulty, all the guys I'm working with. Um It's

1918
01:35:14,320 --> 01:35:16,799
Speaker 1: it is an amazing team, and I am very excited

1919
01:35:16,840 --> 01:35:19,800
Speaker 1: for all of you too to hear and watch and

1920
01:35:19,840 --> 01:35:23,040
Speaker 1: listen to our content going forward. So I'll get off

1921
01:35:23,040 --> 01:35:25,800
Speaker 1: my soapbox in regards to that, but it's a it's

1922
01:35:25,840 --> 01:35:29,600
Speaker 1: been a good time here in Bozeman lately, and so

1923
01:35:29,640 --> 01:35:31,960
Speaker 1: that's all I have for this episode. Join us next

1924
01:35:31,960 --> 01:35:36,679
Speaker 1: Tuesday for some more talking and hopefully the next time

1925
01:35:36,720 --> 01:35:40,200
Speaker 1: you will join us as well here on the Hunting Collective.

1926
01:35:40,760 --> 01:35:41,280
Speaker 1: Bye bye,