Men Beyond Survival

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Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
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for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
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your guide on this. Journey of exploration into the heart
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of inclusion, belonging and societal
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transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to
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create a world without? Remember, everyone not only
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belongs, but thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we
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uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo and
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share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to
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dive in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee
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or winding down after a long day, let's connect,
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reflect and inspire action together. Don't forget,
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you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to
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jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your
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insights or to join me on the show. So adjust
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your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the
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spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
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And today is episode 205 with
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the title Men Beyond Survival. I have
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the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Tom Gold. Tom is a
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Bushcraft instructor and life coach who helps
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men build real mental fitness in the outdoors, in the bar,
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beyond performative well being Talk. When I asked Tom to describe his
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superpower, he said that it is resetting in nature. One night out
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with a tarp, a notebook and sleeping bag and then coming back a new
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man. Hello, Tom, welcome to the show. Jo, thanks very much for having me
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on the show. And by the way, belated congratulations on
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205 episodes. You've just passed your double
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century. That's brilliant. Yeah, it's been a real achievement going since
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2005. 2020, sorry, five coming up for
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six years ago. This was started pre Covid. Yeah, I've had a number of
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guests from all over the world. It's been fascinating and. And yourself, you
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know, very diverse guests from different or from different
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perspective. Different. Different. Different areas. And yeah, I'm
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really looking forward to this conversation. So thank you, Tom. For those of you
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who listen to this and not watching, Tom is wearing a beanie and a
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jumper and he's happened to mention that he's in the middle of nowhere in some
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part of Scotland. So, Tom, where are you at the moment? Yeah, it's. It's a
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rural area just north of Glasgow. Little village called
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Balfron. I can see the Campsie Fells out of my window. They're a
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bit fogged in today. There's no snow up there. It's a very, very beautiful place.
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I'm extremely lucky, to be honest, Jo. And, yeah, this was my choice to.
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To live out here. I can walk out of my Door and be in
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forest, woodland, hills in no time flat. And that works.
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Works pretty good for me, definitely. So you, you work in the outdoors.
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So you're a bushcraft instructor, life coach. Did the where
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you live influence what you do or does what you do influence where you live?
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I was pretty heavily influenced by my dad
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growing up. He had a still does.
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I still have him. He's still around. A really impressive range of skills.
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My dad can navigate by the stars, he can find wild
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edibles in their hedgerows, he could light a fire with all sorts
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of very primitive methodologies. And as a
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small kid growing up in Northamptonshire, which is where we were,
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there were always adventures. We were having bonfires, we were
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building dens, camps, doing crazy,
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dangerous things. We abseiled the local quarry on some
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ropes that dad had found at the dump. We paddled our leaky old
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inflatable dinghy down the longest canal tunnel
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in Britain. Yeah, there were great adventures growing up. I mean, you know, we were
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only little and it all felt pretty real and exciting
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and yeah, if there's one, I did, if you want to know where it started,
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it started with him, really. Fair play to him. And this is all
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seek forgiveness rather than ask for, ask for permission. So you're just
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doing this and getting on with it and if someone chased you away, you just
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run away and go back another day. Well, in the summer holidays, which could
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seem quite long, I was lucky. I grew up in a little village and there
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were a lot of other boys. And my old man had this idea of
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forming a group with the boys and the dads in the summer holidays. And
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it was called the UDF Club, which stood for
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Utterly devoid of fear, which was something that came out of,
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I discovered later, the Eagle comic, long since defunct, which
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dad had read as a boy. So only people who were utterly
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devoid of fear could deal in on these adventures. And
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it would always end up with a picnic somewhere, but would involve some
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death defying health and safety vortex of a
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adventure. And I look back on all those times just with great
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fondness and happiness. And it formed a kind of blueprint for when it
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was my turn to be a dad, you know, I mean, moving forward a few
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years, you know, I gave a few more nods to health and safety than
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my father did. But I think looking back on that, for all the jokes
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he made about our slim chances of success and almost
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certain doom, dad never took his eye off the ball, you
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know, I always knew that if it came to the crunch, he'd bring us through
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it sometimes it was a close run
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thing, but I learned a lot about trust that way as well. I
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knew what it was to trust someone and I learned early in life what it
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took to, to elicit that in other people, what you
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needed to do. So yes, it was, yeah, it was, you know, it
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was a happy childhood and it's influenced a lot of
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what's happened in later years. Definitely. Do we do enough of that
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in the modern world? I mean, having everything you're saying there and the way
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you learned those skills from your father and you'll pass them on to your, I
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guess, your sons and your children and the work you do now, are we
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living too much behind computer screens in houses and we're not getting
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out there and taking risks and challenging ourselves physically and
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mentally in that way? Yeah, I think, you know, your listeners and
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viewers will be expecting the crusty looking old guy with a
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white beard and woollen hat to have some very clear views on that. And yeah,
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I do think there's still tremendous value in it. It
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can be tempered with health and safety. But the idea of
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the, you know, weekend or Saturday morning adventure,
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I think it's still eminently doable. I mean, a lot of the work that
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I've done in the past and continue to do with young
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people and with some, what seemed to me very young dads is
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empowering them with the skills to, you know, to say, right,
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here's what we're doing this weekend, you know, we're going to make a wee fire
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out here, we'll toast some marshmallows, maybe we'll find some
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animal tracks, whatever. And then, you know, what if the
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rest of the weekend is spent with everyone on their screens? It's
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still a win, it's still a win for the team and it
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builds really, really powerful memories that you carry forward with you.
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I mean, ask me how I know that into later life. One of the,
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I think it is the most like, pleasing bit of feedback I ever
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got was from a young man who'd been in a drugs and alcohol recovery
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group. He'd had his, his difficulties and challenges, that's for certain.
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He hadn't had any unsupervised time with his five year
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old son in three years, which was shocking because to me
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he seemed like a young guy. Anyway, as part of the session that we were
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doing larger group, we ended up making
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pizzas on the campfire. It just turned out that's what we were doing. And
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he wrote to me a week later because he'd had his first unsupervised
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visit with his son and he said, this weekend we went out
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and we made pizzas on the fire and I just thought, that's
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fantastic. He will, the little guy will remember that
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for a long time that dad showed up with all the goods and
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the two of them had a fantastic first day out. I couldn't have
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been happier for this guy, you know, it was well done to him.
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Yeah, I still think about that now. It was a couple of years back, but
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yeah, well done to the brother. I sincerely hope things continue to work out
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for him. Children, in
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my view, definitely need mum time and dad time. They're different
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sorts of experiences. And we hear the jokes that dad
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will bring you back filthy and mum will bring you back sort of clean and
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things like this. But I look at the way some of the things my children
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remember, they remember a time with me when they were younger going
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camping not alone but in a group with other, other kids and
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their, and their male figure in their life and they remember those times and
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you bring them back alive and filthy and
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they've had a real whale of a time. And I think kids just need to
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have that outdoor experience where they are closer to the edge and
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not cocooned a little bit and that helps them grow. Yeah, I think
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with find out a lot that, that way. I remember the dilemma I had
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when I found out my boys and their pals aged anywhere between 5
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and, no, I think they're a little bit older than that. The
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little group aged between about 6 and 9 had been exploring a
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ruined castle that's all fenced off not far from here, which
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had involved climbing quite high, very high into some of the
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windows. I mean, the whole building was condemned. And yeah,
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it was a dilemma for me because on the one hand I felt that's
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exactly what they should be doing. They should be exploring
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these things and finding out what danger and a little bit of
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fear actually feels like. But on the flip side of the coin,
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yeah, the place could have tumbled down on them at any time.
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They were taking some appalling risks. But this is, you know,
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in my view, how they develop some of those skills that will
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see them through later life. You know, they've got to know
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that difference between saying, yeah, I think, I think this
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is okay, and no, we should stop here and turn it around. If
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you've not experienced those things, it's a lot harder to
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make an informed judgement call on that. You know, if you've
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never sort of felt your knees shaking as you sort of crawl
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across a very narrow object that's very high up then. Yeah, I
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think it's going to be a lot harder to make those judgement
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calls later. That probably sounds spectacularly
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irresponsible, but yeah, what happened was myself and Jack
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and Nicholas, we had a long talk about it afterwards, about
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how safe they felt and did they think this was a good thing to
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do. You know, at the end of the day they'd gone out for an
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adventure, gone exploring with their friends. You know, I
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thoroughly approved. Yeah, I'm with you again
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on this. And I think that squeaky bum time is a learning opportunity
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because we don't learn without making mistakes or without having a reflection on something
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without looking back on it. And I look at some of the things I've done,
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I've done static wires across courtyard in a castle in Poland
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and this was like 50 metres across. Okay. I was clipped on, I couldn't go
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anywhere. But when you get to that middle of the wire and the wire
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gap between the wire you're holding onto at the top and where you are stretches
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and you're then suddenly right the tips of your fingers trying to cross this, you
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need those moments to sort of appreciate that feeling that reality, don't you? Yeah,
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they're moments of growth, I really believe that. And they can't really be
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experienced any other way. You know, I was saying that, you know, I
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took a very sort of kind of open minded view of some of the risks
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the boys were taking. But I do remember when I found out
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they were playing Call of Duty with their friends and I said that
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I didn't want that. I certainly didn't want it happening in our house
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because taking one look at this game, it
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basically trivialised death. Their great grandfather
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gave his life fighting for our country. He would have been
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horrified because this was actually, it was a version of the D
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day landings. I think I said your great grandfather was actually
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there. He would turn in his grave to think that this had been turned into
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a game. So it wasn't the fact that it's quite gory and
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bloody, it was the fact that it really trivialised a sort of
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a moment that changed history. That, you know, so many like really
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tremendous, very brave men, you know, went across the Channel that
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day, their great granddad amongst them. And this was my objection to it.
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Just the trivialization of something so important. I
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said that as a recompense we could try in the
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little workshop I had in the garage to recreate some of the weapons and
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equipment that were featured in the game which my now
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ex wife was Furious about. But I didn't want them playing Call Of
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Duty. It just, you know, it didn't. On a variety of levels, didn't sit right.
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Yeah, I get that. Yeah. As you say, it's trivialising a.
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A really sad time, but also it trivialises
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what people sacrifice and. And what's going on at times, isn't it? So no
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attaching a score to it. Yeah. You know, making it competitive. You know, this
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is how many people you. You killed.
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Or you get killed yourself and you come back to life again straight away and
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it's. It's not reality. Is a. It's not reality. I guess maybe that
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desensitises people to knife crime and gun crime. You're so used to
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respawning when you get killed and then suddenly you walk in
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the streets with a knife or you're in gang violence and you're.
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Becomes more trivial because you're so used to being killed or killing.
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Well, I do wonder. That's behind some of it. Scotland, where I
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live, has a long and very unhappy history of knife crime going
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back quite some years. I
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attended a session given by a youth outreach
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organisation in Glasgow about this sort of endemic
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knife crime in a part of the city called Easter House, which was
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absolutely chilling. A number of young men who were dying over
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nothing. Over nothing of any tangible value. They weren't even
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fighting over sort of drug territories or money or anything. Absolutely
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horrific. Yeah. I mean, that's another storey. But these were
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boys in their teens with, you know, their whole lives in front of
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them and for. Yeah, reasons I still don't fully understand.
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You know, for some years there, it was absolute carnage. Some very brave
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people took it upon themselves to turn that around with this
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outreach programme. I don't think I've ever been more impressed by anything in my life
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because they could have just left. They could have just got to live someplace
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else. Yeah, that was. Yeah, impressive. So that might be a bit of
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a tangent, Jo. No, not at all. It's worth exploring
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that. One of the things we'll talk about before we click the record button is
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that you have struggling to come to terms with the fact that your. Your.
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Your boys, which we've been talking about, have now become men. What do you mean
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by that? Yeah. I always wanted to be a
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dad. I'd always wanted to have sons as a first choice.
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I think I would have done a pretty good job if I'd had girls. But
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I feel exceptionally lucky. I had two
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fine, healthy little boys. They're 18 and 19 now,
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and based on the blueprint I got from my dad. We spent a lot
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of time doing, you know, crazy things. We went on lots of adventures
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in our canoe in the. The lochs around here. We
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built dens, we lit fires, we camped out with their friends and
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it was. It was a lot of fun. Endless nonsense. And
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also that role of being their dad. You know, when their mum and I
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split up and I moved in here, the house was. It looked
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very, very sad. It hadn't been lived in for a long time and it was
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nothing like the place they'd, you know, that their mum still had. And
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I said, our job here is to make this into the coolest house in the
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street. So, you know, that is our mission. So we're going to make furniture,
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we're going to redecorate, we're going to do a lot of this stuff. And it
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felt like a. Again, it felt like a bit of an adventure. We even had
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a long discussion about what we should call it. And we came up with the
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awesome House as its official name, which they're very
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embarrassed to be reminded about now in front of their friends. And,
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yeah, they've both. They've both moved out, moved on. That is
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sad. You know, I have recollections of the, you know, crazy stuff we
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did and I realised that's a chapter that's now closed. How they turned right
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in front of my eyes into, you know, confident
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young men and now they're. They're running their own thing. And, yeah, that's
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been a little bit difficult sometimes. And I have to be very conscious,
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not when we're together, not to be constantly harking back to those
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times, which for them are now the sort of dim, distant past.
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For me, they're some of the happiest moments of my life. And that can
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be a little bit difficult. And for reasons I'm still not
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absolutely sure about, I still worry about them a lot. You know, they
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don't need anyone to do that for them,
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but I still do. I try and keep the lid on it and, you know,
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I'm not, like, expressing that to them. So, yeah, it's been.
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It's been tough. You know, I'm still their dad. My role has changed now.
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I'm there to sort of support and encourage and assist
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where I can, but the decisions, well, they're pretty much
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all theirs. That's really the way it's. It's got to be. But
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I even miss little things, like, you know, at 9:30 each night we'd
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have countdown to initiate Wi Fi. Shutdown
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where I'd pull the router and, like, take it to bed with me. And
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there'd be this, you know, big countdown or sort of
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pizza nights when we used to make our own pizzas or what they
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christened sad Chinese, which was when the Chinese
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takeaway, which we didn't use very often here, shut. And I said, well, hey, don't
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worry, I can do Chinese. Anyway, it was christened
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sad Chinese because Dad had made it. Yeah, I miss those things a
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lot. But, you know, I got to remember that we did most of it in
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order to encourage them to be the independent men that they
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are now. So, yeah, this was the trade off.
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It's difficult. Some days it's difficult, but, you know, this is what I wanted. This
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is what we worked for. So, yeah, my youngest, Nicholas,
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got himself into a lot of trouble some years back, which,
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yeah, a tremendous amount of stress and worry for me.
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I honestly didn't know if he was going to survive his teens
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or whether he'd actually end up doing time. And I think
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as dads were fitted with a can't quit switch.
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It's like a wiring problem that just doesn't let you walk away.
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You are stuck with it until you win or it ends.
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And that was hard because obviously I couldn't give up on Nicholas. But yeah, he
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put us through it and no mistake. Yeah, we're out the other side.
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In the intro, I use the word performative. And we've talked
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about this in our briefing call before this and when we first got on
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before we press record. The challenge at the moment is men are being
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encouraged to speak up and
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have conversations and not be alone when they're suffering their
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mental health. And one of the things we talked about the other day when we
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did the briefing was the. The fact that not every man wants to speak
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and have a Kumbaya, sit around and share all their
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feelings all the time. And so how do we as a society engage
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with people who are very introspective and not big
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talkers or make assumptions that they're suffering, maybe they're
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not. They can still be part of it even if they don't want to say
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anything. I've run a lot of men's groups, either
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like as actual men's groups or groups that turned out to be
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exclusively men. And you'll get a lot of guys who won't say anything, but, you
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know, they actually. They're in a good place because I run a lot of my
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sessions outdoors. You'll find some guys who just want to chop Wood
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or saw up timber and split it with an axe for sort of most
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of the session. Tender fire, etc. Just enjoy the space. And
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I'm totally okay with that. They are part of the group. They're
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contributing towards it. You know, they're sitting in with us and they're listening.
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If they're not ready to speak, that's absolutely fine. They certainly
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given to understand that they're not on their own while they're part of
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this. And when that guy, after sort of three sessions,
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you know, of saying nothing, clears his throat to speak, you know,
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it's going to be important. And if you've done your job right. If I've done
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my job right, then, you know, we've created that atmosphere where they feel
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okay to do that. And it's a funny thing that I've
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seen many times when somebody is brave enough to speak up and say,
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do you know what? I'm really struggling with this. Other people sitting around that
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same campfire will acknowledge it often in very subtle ways. It might be
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a sort of a clap on the shoulder. It might just be a nod, or
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they might just say, yeah, I get it, you know, or I'm dealing with the
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same thing. But I didn't want to say anything. So thank you for
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sharing. I think there's an understanding that we can't all fix it. You
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know, we can't fix this for each other. But that sense of
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community can make a huge difference. You know,
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you're not the only person dealing with it. So, yeah,
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I think that pressure to talk more. I find it
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unhelpful at times. Men need to talk more. This is the
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message being pushed by DEI. And there aren't that
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many guys, men working in DEI. So I do sometimes
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wonder if, you know, people are just picking up on
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this popular trope, this comfortable, cartoonish
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image of a man who, you know, he can't cook. He might take
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six weeks to put up a set of shelves and he doesn't talk about stuff.
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And I think pushing that image, that gives men permission to
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deal out, you know, because they can revert to this, hey, I'm not
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going to tell you, I'm a typical bloke. So I'm not going to engage with
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this for the same reason that I can't make a shepherd's pie without
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screwing the whole thing up or needing a tremendous fanfare to
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accompany it because they've. They've done this. It's a
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comfortable kind of vision. There was something in the news
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recently complaining about Peppa Pig. And Daddy Pig, who
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is this well meaning, useless buffoon who, you
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know, gets everything wrong in a domestic sense. And you know what, it's
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giving people permission. And I don't know that it. I
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sometimes talk about a thing called the Man Code, which, you know,
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has a few very simple tenets, which is project outward strength at
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all times, tell everyone you're fine and keep the lid nailed down
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tight shut on all the sort of clamour in your head.
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And the reason that we still do this is, firstly,
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it's really, really easy. It's not difficult to follow
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the Man Code and it certainly isn't difficult to,
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you know, follow that popular trope of being a guy who doesn't talk
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about stuff and, you know, doesn't deal well
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emotionally. And it's been tremendously successful
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in the past. You look at some of the history's great men.
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They were, you know, often appear outwardly as very
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emotionally closed off people. History now tells us that a lot of them
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did have some sort of significant mental health problems going on. And I
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think, you know, some of the sort of heroes of the Edwardian and Victorian
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era, if they were sort of more closely examined now, we'd find that they had,
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you know, a whole host of sort of mental illness issues
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going on. But the Man Code allowed them to navigate that and
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achieve greatness at the same time. And this is what we remember them
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for and this is, you know, in a way, why we use them.
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But it always makes me think when I read about these guys, and
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they do, because they love sort of true life adventure storeys, what else they could
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have achieved if they weren't dealing with all the sort of the
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demons in their head, if they weren't constantly suppressing those, if
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they had an outlet for them, if they were able to, you know, achieve a
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little bit more emotional coherence, sometimes called vulnerability.
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Not a word I'm particularly fond of, but there it is. And this is
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something that I like to, you know, present to, to some of the guys I
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work with now. You know, as they're thinking about what you can achieve or what
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your employees can achieve. You know, if they're not dealing with this,
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you know, a lot of them are already doing pretty well. You've got to wonder
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how much better, how much better they could do. So, yeah, I think that's
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part of. Your Bushcraft, your outdoors activities. Is this where you take people
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out into the. Into the wild and return them a bit to
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nature? It's not really the wild, Jo. I mean, we're
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Extremely blessed here in Scotland in that, you know, our
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biggest cities are ringed at the very closest edge by
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beautiful scenery countryside, woodland hills. So
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escaping from the city is pretty easy. And finding places to
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bring a group together that doesn't involve a lot of travel,
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it's quite easy here. We also have some unique access to the
396
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outdoors, rights of access to the outdoors that make these
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things easier. The sort of focal point is a fire with a kettle
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hanging over it and a group of people sitting in a circle round
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it. And that is a meeting format. That's roughly, if you
400
00:25:53.975 --> 00:25:57.810
subtract the kettle, roughly 400. That's when it's now
401
00:25:57.810 --> 00:26:01.370
believed the first early Neanderthals were deliberately
402
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creating fire as a sort of focal point. And we can see
403
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minor digression here. We often think of the discovery as fire as leading to
404
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cooked meat, which enhances the protein uptake and makes you more
405
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intelligent using fire to harden wooden
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weapons and later to create metal. The first
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real spin off benefit of that discovery was social because for
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the first time our ancient ancestors had a
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reason to come together when it was cold and it was dark. And
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that format, the fire, where people round it in a circle, is more or less
411
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identical to that. And I think somehow we have some
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sort of genetic memory for it, which is why I've never had to tell a
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group of people to form a circle around the fire. Everybody knows that bit.
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There will always come a point in that session where no one's
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saying anything and everyone's just looking inward at the fire. It's a very
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captivating thing to look at, particularly as it gets dark and you watch the
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sparks twist up into the night. It's a great thing and
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it's worked for 400,000 years. So
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creating that environment, very, very straightforward. And it's a
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real pleasure to share the skills that go into doing it, because this is something
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I want them to take away and use. But it's also kind of an elemental
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format as well, and it encourages people to be more talkative.
423
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I've seen that many, many times. Guys who wouldn't speak up
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in a room with white walls, with all the chairs in a circle, can become
425
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a lot more thoughtful, philosophical and vocal in that
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environment. Maybe it just speaks to them, can't be absolutely certain,
427
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but I've just seen it work so many times, which is why I do like
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to use it. It's not the most practical way of doing things. This is the
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format in which we're speaking now. But given the choice, Jo, we would have
430
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headed out into the woods. I'd have put up a tarp, we'd have hung the
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kettle over the fire, then we'd have talked completely. I mean, I've
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spent many, many nights around a campfire, around
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a fire. And as you say, there's something really hypnotic about
434
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sparks. The embers, the flames dancing, the
435
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crackle, and that kind of innate instinct to
436
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just burn stuff. You know, it's. Everyone becomes a
437
00:28:17.090 --> 00:28:21.050
pyromaniac. Can we burn this? Will this burn? Wonder what happens
438
00:28:21.050 --> 00:28:24.730
if. What happens if I put a. An empty bottle of Heineken? Will the glass
439
00:28:24.730 --> 00:28:28.410
melt? Will the can catch fire? And should we just try a little bit of
440
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paraffin in there or maybe a little bit of diesel or petrol and see what
441
00:28:32.130 --> 00:28:35.690
happens? Or get the lighter fluid out and squirt it and see if we can
442
00:28:35.690 --> 00:28:39.650
make a jet of flame or something? Or the aerosol can comes out
443
00:28:39.650 --> 00:28:43.210
and we end up with the flames. Yeah, but that. It's. It's that fascination
444
00:28:43.370 --> 00:28:46.410
with being outdoors and the fire and the flame and
445
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experimenting with that. That element, as you say. Well, yeah, you are
446
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indulging in and sharing in something that our, you know,
447
00:28:55.750 --> 00:28:59.710
early Neanderthal ancestors did the same thing. They
448
00:28:59.710 --> 00:29:03.510
must have been similarly fascinated. You know, what can we burn next? Will this
449
00:29:03.510 --> 00:29:07.470
work? What happens if we do this? At some point, someone will have discovered
450
00:29:07.470 --> 00:29:11.390
that wafting air at the fire, using a, you know, a flat
451
00:29:11.390 --> 00:29:15.350
surface, will actually make it bigger. And, you know, they will have discovered
452
00:29:15.350 --> 00:29:19.190
the sort of properties of various natural resources. Some are going to
453
00:29:19.190 --> 00:29:23.010
burn real good, some are just gonna, you know, take you all night to make
454
00:29:23.010 --> 00:29:26.850
a fire with. And. Yeah, absolutely. You're seeing that exact same
455
00:29:27.170 --> 00:29:31.090
fascination, experimentation and, you know, sometimes just
456
00:29:31.090 --> 00:29:35.050
joyfulness that comes with that is priceless. We're experiencing
457
00:29:35.050 --> 00:29:38.650
something that. And this is why I think it's somehow it's in us. You know,
458
00:29:38.650 --> 00:29:42.530
maybe on a sort of genetic level, it's passed on this fascination for it.
459
00:29:43.250 --> 00:29:47.050
I think it's the same reason. Warmth, social. It's
460
00:29:47.050 --> 00:29:51.040
safety, it's light, it generates so many things at
461
00:29:51.040 --> 00:29:54.880
a very basic level, isn't it? And as you're talking, I'm remembering a
462
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:58.600
holiday that I went on with my
463
00:29:58.600 --> 00:30:02.600
family and a friend's family. So there was four of us. Four of them. We
464
00:30:02.600 --> 00:30:05.960
had a cottage in. I think it was Majorca,
465
00:30:06.520 --> 00:30:10.320
and it had a bit of farmland around it, a bit of waste
466
00:30:10.320 --> 00:30:14.240
ground. Adjacent to the building was an outdoor barbecue,
467
00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:18.130
which was a brick built with a roof and it had a chimney
468
00:30:18.130 --> 00:30:22.090
at the top of it. And I remember we we were left, my friend
469
00:30:22.090 --> 00:30:25.970
and I, we were left alone with the kids that night whilst our partners
470
00:30:25.970 --> 00:30:29.970
went off into town and for their night out and we started
471
00:30:29.970 --> 00:30:33.930
cooking on this barbecue. And then all of a sudden we just
472
00:30:33.930 --> 00:30:36.810
wanted. It started going out, so we wanted to burn something else. We were out
473
00:30:36.810 --> 00:30:40.170
at Coles and we found all these bits of wood in this, in this waste
474
00:30:40.170 --> 00:30:43.820
ground around the property and we kept bundling things on and bundling things on. Eventually
475
00:30:44.060 --> 00:30:47.820
we got this real roaring fire going in this barbecue area
476
00:30:47.900 --> 00:30:50.620
and we got to the point where flames are coming out of the top of
477
00:30:50.620 --> 00:30:54.060
the chimney. And we were really pleased with ourselves that we'd managed to get the
478
00:30:54.060 --> 00:30:57.579
fire really, really roaring up there. And then we started
479
00:30:57.579 --> 00:31:01.380
reflecting. Let's hope the chimney doesn't catch fire. And I
480
00:31:01.380 --> 00:31:04.340
think the only thing that really stopped us was we ran out of wood, we
481
00:31:04.340 --> 00:31:08.020
ran out of combustible material and we, we were. I think if we'd have drunk
482
00:31:08.020 --> 00:31:11.970
a bit more, we would have seriously gone inside and maybe dismantle the dining
483
00:31:11.970 --> 00:31:15.850
room table if we were that. That keen to burn something else. But it was,
484
00:31:15.850 --> 00:31:19.730
it's a. And I. I've been on a number of camping trips and, and barbecues
485
00:31:19.730 --> 00:31:23.730
and away weekends where that, that draw and I think, as you say,
486
00:31:23.730 --> 00:31:27.090
it's the. That real elemental primaeval
487
00:31:27.250 --> 00:31:31.250
draw for light safety, protection and cooking and all these sort of
488
00:31:31.250 --> 00:31:34.610
things come together. And this fire is something we need to tame.
489
00:31:34.770 --> 00:31:38.530
Absolutely. And to be able to pass on the
490
00:31:39.490 --> 00:31:43.210
really relatively straightforward technical processes that it
491
00:31:43.210 --> 00:31:46.970
takes to create it out of nothing, even if you were just out in the
492
00:31:46.970 --> 00:31:50.970
woods, is, you know, one of the most pleasurable parts of what I
493
00:31:50.970 --> 00:31:54.730
do is seeing people go away thinking, wow, you know, I could do this at
494
00:31:54.730 --> 00:31:58.610
the weekend, you know, with, with the girlfriend, with the kids, with
495
00:31:58.610 --> 00:32:02.570
whoever, maybe just on my own, you know, I can find a little bit of
496
00:32:02.570 --> 00:32:06.330
space out there away from everybody and I can just, you know, be
497
00:32:06.330 --> 00:32:10.210
alone with, with my thoughts. A lot of the work I do is with people.
498
00:32:10.910 --> 00:32:14.750
Their recovery journeys from drugs and alcohol and
499
00:32:14.750 --> 00:32:18.430
the ability to create a warm, dry outdoor space
500
00:32:18.510 --> 00:32:22.510
out of some very, very ordinary, cheap items gives them
501
00:32:22.510 --> 00:32:26.150
another place to go when it gets difficult. That isn't, I don't know, the
502
00:32:26.150 --> 00:32:29.950
betting shop, their ex wife's place or the pub. You know,
503
00:32:29.950 --> 00:32:33.710
it's empowering them with this, you know, knowledge and this idea
504
00:32:34.110 --> 00:32:36.990
that, wait a minute, I can take myself away from all of this if I
505
00:32:36.990 --> 00:32:40.590
want to. There is a place I can go. And it feels so suitably,
506
00:32:41.150 --> 00:32:44.750
suitably manly. You know, because the majority of
507
00:32:44.910 --> 00:32:48.430
people, certainly here in Scotland who, you know, find their way into these
508
00:32:48.430 --> 00:32:51.870
programmes are men. And it's been an absolute
509
00:32:51.870 --> 00:32:55.709
pleasure to share the campfire with so many of them now. I
510
00:32:55.709 --> 00:32:59.510
find them just the best company, perhaps, you know, one of the
511
00:32:59.510 --> 00:33:03.470
things that makes them unique is people who are recovering
512
00:33:03.470 --> 00:33:06.670
from sort of drugs and alcohol addiction are
513
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:11.200
fantastic at looking after each other. It's something they do better
514
00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:15.080
than any other group that I've worked with together. They're unbeatable
515
00:33:15.080 --> 00:33:18.880
and very, very strong. And being in their company while they support one another is
516
00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:22.679
quite a powerful thing, actually. Yeah. Been a great pleasure many
517
00:33:22.679 --> 00:33:26.600
times, empowering them with that knowledge and that understanding that, absolutely goddamn
518
00:33:26.600 --> 00:33:29.920
right you can do this. And it's a huge win as well, if you make
519
00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:33.120
that work, you know, especially for a group of other people.
520
00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:37.560
Well, you're a flipping hero, you know. Oh, wow, well done. Or to be able
521
00:33:37.560 --> 00:33:40.720
to say, look, don't worry, I got this, I'll fix it. I can make us
522
00:33:40.720 --> 00:33:43.600
a fire, no problem, and then we'll stay warm, you know, for as long as
523
00:33:43.600 --> 00:33:47.480
we want to be out here. That's great. You know, you go home as the
524
00:33:47.480 --> 00:33:50.600
guy who did, and if it's been a long time or a while since you
525
00:33:50.600 --> 00:33:54.080
last had a win or you had people saying, well done, thank you,
526
00:33:54.320 --> 00:33:58.160
then that's huge, you know, hopefully makes people think about other
527
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:01.940
areas of their life where they can show up, you know, similarly, do we. It's
528
00:34:01.940 --> 00:34:05.900
a problem sometimes is when. When we're. When we're getting
529
00:34:05.900 --> 00:34:09.700
into these conversations, do we want to try and fix the people we're talking to?
530
00:34:09.700 --> 00:34:13.580
And I hear a lot of time where it's really hard to just talk
531
00:34:13.820 --> 00:34:17.700
without somebody trying to cure you or give you
532
00:34:17.700 --> 00:34:21.340
a solution. Absolutely. Is that why people don't want to talk? Because they don't need
533
00:34:21.340 --> 00:34:25.161
fixing, they just want someone to listen to them sometimes. I couldn't agree
534
00:34:25.161 --> 00:34:28.776
with you more. I mean, going back to when my youngest was
535
00:34:28.776 --> 00:34:32.706
getting into a lot of trouble, it was causing me a tremendous
536
00:34:32.706 --> 00:34:35.693
amount of stress, is putting a big strain on my
537
00:34:35.693 --> 00:34:39.625
relationship. And I had a lot of people in the end, you know, I
538
00:34:39.625 --> 00:34:43.476
was very careful about who I told about this because people
539
00:34:43.476 --> 00:34:47.169
were very close to me. Friends were saying, well, here's
540
00:34:47.169 --> 00:34:50.704
what you need to do, or this is what I do in your shoes, or
541
00:34:50.704 --> 00:34:54.555
what I think you need to do is. Or I wouldn't put up with that.
542
00:34:54.555 --> 00:34:58.484
And none of it was helpful, Absolutely none of it. But this is
543
00:34:58.484 --> 00:35:01.785
kind of a blokeish way of addressing another man's
544
00:35:01.785 --> 00:35:05.480
problems, to offer comparison and advice. We can do a lot
545
00:35:05.480 --> 00:35:09.331
more by active listening, you know, perhaps an acceptance
546
00:35:09.331 --> 00:35:13.261
that you can't fix this straight away, but you can show up for
547
00:35:13.261 --> 00:35:17.100
that other guy. Because just physically showing up for me is
548
00:35:17.100 --> 00:35:20.806
90% of it. You know, go to see that guy who's struggling, you
549
00:35:20.806 --> 00:35:24.739
don't have the answers, but he knows you showed up and it counts
550
00:35:24.739 --> 00:35:28.220
for a tremendous amount, you know, trying to. Trying to
551
00:35:28.220 --> 00:35:32.004
understand the problem rather than constant sort of advice
552
00:35:32.004 --> 00:35:35.711
and sort of comparison, which, you know, I found extremely
553
00:35:35.711 --> 00:35:39.572
unhelpful at a time when I was already very stressed out. But,
554
00:35:39.572 --> 00:35:43.279
yeah, I mean, that's a fantastic point you make, and I don't
555
00:35:43.279 --> 00:35:46.911
know if you'd agree, but I think that's a sort of typically
556
00:35:46.911 --> 00:35:50.618
blokeish way of trying to help another man, is by, you know,
557
00:35:50.618 --> 00:35:54.326
advice as if it was a blocked sink trap or, you know, a faulty
558
00:35:54.326 --> 00:35:58.260
carburetor or whatever, or a radiator that needed bleeding or
559
00:35:58.260 --> 00:36:01.741
something. It's not always the same. I appreciated the
560
00:36:01.741 --> 00:36:05.590
support, but I couldn't make use of any of it, really. Yeah,
561
00:36:05.590 --> 00:36:09.310
because we joke about mansplaining, you know, men explaining things to women,
562
00:36:09.390 --> 00:36:13.270
but men explain things to other men. It's not just. It's almost like an
563
00:36:13.270 --> 00:36:17.110
ingrained habit or way men are brought up in
564
00:36:17.110 --> 00:36:21.110
order to know what they're talking about, be in control, having an answer
565
00:36:21.110 --> 00:36:24.830
for everything, being the protector, being the provider and that pressure.
566
00:36:24.830 --> 00:36:28.590
So almost like you feel like you have to have an answer. If someone's coming
567
00:36:28.590 --> 00:36:32.430
to you saying, I've got a problem, I can fix it for you. And it's
568
00:36:32.430 --> 00:36:36.310
not just men's men to women, as I say, it's men wanting to
569
00:36:36.310 --> 00:36:40.310
show that they have a capability and a value
570
00:36:40.310 --> 00:36:44.190
in this world. Absolutely. I remember it
571
00:36:44.190 --> 00:36:47.870
wasn't long after I moved in here, I just split up with the boys.
572
00:36:47.870 --> 00:36:51.670
Mum. My life was in an absolute turmoil. This place just looked
573
00:36:52.300 --> 00:36:56.180
terrible. It hadn't been lived in for a long time. I had the boys round
574
00:36:56.180 --> 00:37:00.060
that weekend and my dad and his partner decided to visit
575
00:37:00.300 --> 00:37:04.260
to help out. Well, gosh, it was difficult and I thought, now I've got
576
00:37:04.260 --> 00:37:08.019
to keep them occupied as well. So I said, right, we're going to build
577
00:37:08.019 --> 00:37:11.860
a boot bench for the hall and long storey short. My stuff
578
00:37:11.860 --> 00:37:14.700
was in such a mess, I couldn't find any of the things that I was
579
00:37:14.700 --> 00:37:18.580
looking for and I was trying to keep everybody occupied and happy and I
580
00:37:18.580 --> 00:37:22.140
was just. I was in a very, very sort of precarious state myself at the
581
00:37:22.140 --> 00:37:25.960
time. And I went into the garage to look for some screws, which I
582
00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:29.760
couldn't find because it was just piled up with boxes. And for the first time
583
00:37:29.760 --> 00:37:33.480
in my life, I just sat down on the stool in the corner and I
584
00:37:33.480 --> 00:37:37.320
just didn't know what to do next. For the first time ever, just couldn't think
585
00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:40.840
of anything. The next step had just completely
586
00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:44.560
eluded me. Everyone was probably wondering where it was gone. I don't even know how
587
00:37:44.560 --> 00:37:48.560
long I'd been there when my dad came in and found me. And he
588
00:37:48.560 --> 00:37:51.930
didn't have any words. He just put his hand on my shoulder. That was it.
589
00:37:51.930 --> 00:37:55.810
And that's, you know, that's showing up. He couldn't fix this for me. He'd come
590
00:37:55.810 --> 00:37:59.610
to help, and I really appreciated it, but actually, his,
591
00:37:59.770 --> 00:38:03.530
you know, assistance was. Yeah, but,
592
00:38:04.730 --> 00:38:07.490
yeah, he just came and stood next to me. Just put my hand. His hand
593
00:38:07.490 --> 00:38:10.850
on my shoulder. You know what? I got it. I got it. Thanks, dad. You
594
00:38:10.850 --> 00:38:14.370
know, let's get back to it. I'll find the screws. That knowing silence isn't it.
595
00:38:14.370 --> 00:38:18.320
That is that just knowing that you know that I know that
596
00:38:18.320 --> 00:38:21.400
you know that I know. We don't need to say anything about this. It's just
597
00:38:21.640 --> 00:38:24.920
absolutely. Yeah, you know what? I've probably.
598
00:38:25.640 --> 00:38:29.400
We've never talked about that since. I should probably tell him sometime
599
00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:33.280
soon how very much I appreciated it was. You
600
00:38:33.280 --> 00:38:37.000
know, I was able to take a breath. I knew he had my back. We
601
00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:40.800
both know he couldn't fix it all. But, yeah, it was
602
00:38:40.800 --> 00:38:44.700
okay. I said, thanks, dad. Yeah, well, we'll find the screws. They're in here
603
00:38:44.700 --> 00:38:47.940
somewhere. And we got on with it. He's not an especially
604
00:38:48.100 --> 00:38:52.060
emotionally coherent man. He lost his father in the war. He
605
00:38:52.060 --> 00:38:55.860
was told very early in life that he had to be a brave little
606
00:38:55.860 --> 00:38:59.300
soldier and, you know, crack on and stuff like, you know, so many men of
607
00:38:59.300 --> 00:39:03.140
his generation. So I knew, you know, I knew what to expect
608
00:39:03.220 --> 00:39:06.820
from him and what not to expect on a sort of supportive level. And,
609
00:39:06.900 --> 00:39:10.420
yeah, he showed up in a fantastic way. You know,
610
00:39:11.310 --> 00:39:14.990
I think sometimes it's tempting to see people
611
00:39:14.990 --> 00:39:18.990
see the way men support one another as being very poor. They're being
612
00:39:18.990 --> 00:39:22.830
a great poverty in the way that we do that. But I've seen
613
00:39:22.830 --> 00:39:26.789
many times, not just my own experience, those small gestures, they just say,
614
00:39:26.789 --> 00:39:30.750
I see you. You know, I get it. I'm here. That's about it.
615
00:39:30.990 --> 00:39:34.494
But to me, that's like 90% of it. There is a
616
00:39:34.494 --> 00:39:38.004
fascinating video you might remember this show show,
617
00:39:38.004 --> 00:39:41.748
roughly 80s. This Is Your Life with Eamonn Andrews. Every
618
00:39:41.748 --> 00:39:45.570
week he would surprise some celebrity and then they'd come
619
00:39:45.570 --> 00:39:49.548
into the studio and they would bring people from their past in
620
00:39:49.548 --> 00:39:53.526
to talk to them. One time they did wartime fighter ace Douglas
621
00:39:53.526 --> 00:39:57.348
Bader, a man who was very emotional. Tin legs, yes, both his
622
00:39:57.348 --> 00:40:01.092
legs in a flying accident before the war, then went on to be
623
00:40:01.092 --> 00:40:04.758
this tremendous hero. You know, he was a sort of cold, you
624
00:40:04.758 --> 00:40:08.658
know, emotionless. Appeared to be a cold, emotionless sort
625
00:40:08.658 --> 00:40:12.480
of fighting man, you know, who just had his, his job to do and
626
00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:16.224
stuff and yada yada. But they brought in members of his old
627
00:40:16.224 --> 00:40:19.656
squadron and it's worth looking it up because it is on
628
00:40:19.656 --> 00:40:23.290
YouTube. The way they greet each other. These aren't
629
00:40:23.290 --> 00:40:26.850
emotionally coherent men at all. They're almost cartoonish by
630
00:40:26.850 --> 00:40:30.810
today's standards in their inability to discuss their feelings because
631
00:40:30.810 --> 00:40:34.090
it was something that they never did. But if you watch the video, you can
632
00:40:34.090 --> 00:40:37.810
find it easily enough. The way they greet one another is massively
633
00:40:37.890 --> 00:40:41.690
significant. They shake hands, they incline their heads
634
00:40:41.690 --> 00:40:45.450
towards one another and there's an arm clasp on the other hand.
635
00:40:45.450 --> 00:40:49.170
And to me it's conveying a great depth
636
00:40:49.330 --> 00:40:53.290
of understanding and closeness. They'd shared
637
00:40:53.290 --> 00:40:57.250
horrendous times together, they didn't hug each other, they weren't those sort of men.
638
00:40:57.250 --> 00:41:01.130
And there wasn't any sort of gushing, tearful, God, it's so good to see
639
00:41:01.130 --> 00:41:05.010
you. None of that was present. But for someone who, I don't know knows
640
00:41:05.010 --> 00:41:08.730
what to look for, or for someone who believes that men don't
641
00:41:08.730 --> 00:41:11.970
communicate with each other very well, watch that.
642
00:41:12.370 --> 00:41:16.170
It's. You can almost feel it, you know, there's such a depth of
643
00:41:16.170 --> 00:41:20.050
emotion in there. Yeah, it's special. Very, very interesting.
644
00:41:20.130 --> 00:41:24.130
To me, I found that interesting and it speaks to the way men will
645
00:41:24.130 --> 00:41:28.070
often support one another in that showing up, you know, clap on the
646
00:41:28.070 --> 00:41:31.950
shoulder, I'm here, mate. Yeah, maybe not me, not maybe not many
647
00:41:31.950 --> 00:41:35.750
words being exchanged. Is it important, I don't know. To know that
648
00:41:35.750 --> 00:41:39.670
people have your back is important. So, yeah, I mean, for your
649
00:41:39.670 --> 00:41:43.590
viewers. If they want to look that up, they'll find it. Well, I
650
00:41:43.590 --> 00:41:47.430
reflect on sort of the two halves of my life, you know, the male dominated
651
00:41:47.430 --> 00:41:51.310
life and now the female dominated life post gender transition and the
652
00:41:51.310 --> 00:41:55.240
conversations amongst in all male groups and the competition is in all
653
00:41:55.240 --> 00:41:59.000
female groups, you can tell the difference. There's a complete polar opposite.
654
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:02.800
And women groups I'm part of will often talk about
655
00:42:02.800 --> 00:42:06.320
the feelings, the challenges they want to sort of share and
656
00:42:06.560 --> 00:42:10.000
support each other. Whereas the male groups I've been tend to talk about
657
00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:14.240
stuff, you know, football or car or
658
00:42:14.480 --> 00:42:17.680
what they're doing here and there and it's more, more of a nod and a
659
00:42:17.680 --> 00:42:21.490
yep, yep, yep. And it's, it's, there's less
660
00:42:21.490 --> 00:42:25.410
emotional giving in male conversations and I really see the
661
00:42:25.410 --> 00:42:29.330
polar difference. I find it personally much easier to be
662
00:42:29.330 --> 00:42:33.210
in female conversations where there are emotions being shared and there isn't more
663
00:42:33.210 --> 00:42:37.050
depth. And I find sometimes going back to my spending time with my male friends,
664
00:42:37.210 --> 00:42:41.210
I come away feeling unsatisfied because it's been very transactional, very.
665
00:42:41.210 --> 00:42:45.130
It's been okay, but there's been no emotional sharing. And
666
00:42:45.130 --> 00:42:48.170
yeah, there's definitely, you know, without going to stereotypes,
667
00:42:49.130 --> 00:42:52.810
there's a definite difference, which is why I'm a strong believer that
668
00:42:52.970 --> 00:42:56.370
you do need male only groups and female only groups to better
669
00:42:56.370 --> 00:43:00.330
communicate in the way that makes sense for that group. As soon
670
00:43:00.330 --> 00:43:04.210
as you mix the two groups together, conversation changes again. It
671
00:43:04.210 --> 00:43:07.774
ends up in the middle. Everything
672
00:43:07.774 --> 00:43:11.394
changes. Yeah, men's group is kind of a, it's a subtle,
673
00:43:11.394 --> 00:43:15.094
fragile thing. Yeah, absolutely concur. Jo can be very
674
00:43:15.094 --> 00:43:19.035
transactional, you know, without the emotional content.
675
00:43:19.035 --> 00:43:22.897
Unless it's people talking about stuff that angry about.
676
00:43:22.897 --> 00:43:26.679
That's usually quite sort of. Yes, you'll probably hear
677
00:43:26.679 --> 00:43:30.297
that. But yeah, on the other levels, yeah, not so much.
678
00:43:30.540 --> 00:43:34.340
But I do believe that, you know, that sense of community, getting
679
00:43:34.340 --> 00:43:38.300
that right, making that happen first, I do believe that's the
680
00:43:38.380 --> 00:43:42.340
greater part of it and it's what so many men are missing. The stats
681
00:43:42.340 --> 00:43:46.100
tell us that, you know, our dads had a lot more close male friends
682
00:43:46.100 --> 00:43:49.980
than we do in this generation. And that's, you know, numbers only
683
00:43:49.980 --> 00:43:53.600
getting smaller. The number of men who actually say they've got
684
00:43:53.680 --> 00:43:57.600
close friends in the first place. You know, I can't remember them all
685
00:43:57.600 --> 00:44:01.440
here, the stats, but it's, it's not great. And it's, it's, it's, it's still dwindling.
686
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:05.440
So being able to create that space is difficult, but it's very, very, very
687
00:44:05.440 --> 00:44:09.320
important. And there's always a fear, I think, amongst men that they're going to be
688
00:44:09.320 --> 00:44:13.280
asked to do odd stuff like gongs, robes, role play
689
00:44:13.280 --> 00:44:17.010
or group hugs or if it's a men's group and there are
690
00:44:17.010 --> 00:44:20.330
groups that, yeah, a lot like that. But you know, for me
691
00:44:20.730 --> 00:44:24.410
it's a lot more straightforward than that. You know, an
692
00:44:24.410 --> 00:44:28.250
inspiring setting, a group of guys, something to actually do
693
00:44:28.250 --> 00:44:32.170
physically, you know, even if it's, you know, just taking down the timber to make
694
00:44:32.170 --> 00:44:36.050
that fire. And these can be priceless times. Fascinating. Yeah.
695
00:44:36.050 --> 00:44:39.450
There's perhaps not a sort of, you know, a great depth of emotional content, but
696
00:44:39.530 --> 00:44:42.890
it's community at the same time. It's just so important,
697
00:44:43.530 --> 00:44:47.530
he said there. That men feel passion when they tend to
698
00:44:47.530 --> 00:44:50.610
be angry about. Are we seeing a rise in male
699
00:44:50.610 --> 00:44:53.850
disenfranchisation from the norm? If you like.
700
00:44:54.490 --> 00:44:58.090
We see patriotism with flags and roundabout painting.
701
00:44:58.570 --> 00:45:02.170
St. George's Cross. People get behind that, maybe borne out the fact that
702
00:45:02.250 --> 00:45:05.570
it's hard to be proud to be English. You can be proud to be Scottish,
703
00:45:05.570 --> 00:45:08.570
you can be proud to be Welsh, you can be proud to be Irish, but
704
00:45:08.570 --> 00:45:12.250
can you be proud to be English? Unless you're supporting a football team, but
705
00:45:12.480 --> 00:45:15.200
in the general run, and then you're seeing people who have
706
00:45:16.240 --> 00:45:20.040
a flag they can wave because they're queer. What can a white
707
00:45:20.040 --> 00:45:23.960
man wave? People have Ukrainian flags and Palestinian
708
00:45:23.960 --> 00:45:27.360
flags, but you can't have this, you can't have that. And you see the rise
709
00:45:27.360 --> 00:45:30.960
of the incel movement and that's showing that men feel
710
00:45:31.920 --> 00:45:34.080
disempowered or
711
00:45:35.360 --> 00:45:39.280
emancipated using their masculinity. Is that what's going on in the world at the
712
00:45:39.280 --> 00:45:43.047
moment? Yeah. Try to answer that on a few levels, Jo.
713
00:45:43.047 --> 00:45:46.283
Firstly, yeah, the. The flags thing's been
714
00:45:46.283 --> 00:45:49.879
massively divisive. And Whilst, yeah, that St.
715
00:45:49.879 --> 00:45:53.835
George's Cross can be a very divisive emblem, here in
716
00:45:53.835 --> 00:45:57.432
Scotland we have the saltire or the St. Andrew's
717
00:45:57.432 --> 00:46:01.388
Cross, but you can go through parts of Glasgow and see
718
00:46:01.388 --> 00:46:05.343
them flying on every lamppost. And they're there for
719
00:46:05.343 --> 00:46:08.758
the same reasons that, you know, we're seeing
720
00:46:08.758 --> 00:46:12.495
painted roundabouts and stuff in England. It's
721
00:46:12.495 --> 00:46:15.862
just that in Scotland, the Union Jack or the St.
722
00:46:15.862 --> 00:46:19.574
George's Cross has sort of political connotations
723
00:46:19.574 --> 00:46:23.372
that speak to the sort of Protestant Catholic divide
724
00:46:23.372 --> 00:46:27.343
that exists in certain parts of Scotland in a very, very
725
00:46:27.343 --> 00:46:31.054
clearly divided way. So they choose the saltire as a
726
00:46:31.054 --> 00:46:34.680
sort of symbol that unites, if you like. Yeah. I can
727
00:46:34.680 --> 00:46:38.650
remember furious rows online, which I tried to stay out
728
00:46:38.650 --> 00:46:42.449
of. Following the Unite the Kingdom maps, there were
729
00:46:42.449 --> 00:46:45.989
pictures of young guys draped in flags and they'd
730
00:46:45.989 --> 00:46:49.443
stopped at street vendor stand, who was still in
731
00:46:49.443 --> 00:46:53.326
falafel and samosas, and people were saying, oh, have
732
00:46:53.326 --> 00:46:57.296
they even noticed the irony? They were on their way back
733
00:46:57.296 --> 00:47:01.267
from the cricket, nobody would have turned a hair. Is it
734
00:47:01.267 --> 00:47:05.064
somehow ironic that they weren't eating chips? That
735
00:47:05.064 --> 00:47:08.861
the assumption that because they're wearing the St.
736
00:47:08.861 --> 00:47:12.832
St. George's Cross, they should be so overtly racist as
737
00:47:12.832 --> 00:47:16.371
to not even wish to eat anything made by a person of
738
00:47:16.371 --> 00:47:20.256
foreign descent or food that, you know, originates in
739
00:47:20.256 --> 00:47:24.226
another culture. I've never heard anything so utterly
740
00:47:24.226 --> 00:47:27.930
ridiculous. You know, the headline guy stops for
741
00:47:27.930 --> 00:47:31.850
something to eat on the way home from a. A match. You know,
742
00:47:32.410 --> 00:47:36.130
it's about all it was, but it's. It's difficult. I mean, perhaps we can, you
743
00:47:36.130 --> 00:47:39.690
know, Both remember the 2012 Olympics. The Union Jack was
744
00:47:39.690 --> 00:47:43.690
flying everywhere and it was like we had our flag back. We were united.
745
00:47:44.170 --> 00:47:48.170
Very, very proud of the fantastic job our athletes
746
00:47:48.170 --> 00:47:51.650
were doing because they were leading the field in the medals table for quite a
747
00:47:51.650 --> 00:47:55.490
while. What a great time that was. And, yeah, you
748
00:47:55.490 --> 00:47:59.370
know, it's like we had the flag back now it belonged to everybody.
749
00:47:59.370 --> 00:48:03.290
We could unite under it. I can't remember that, you know, since now.
750
00:48:03.530 --> 00:48:07.490
Yes, a big problem. Yeah, it's sad. You know,
751
00:48:07.490 --> 00:48:11.370
you want to talk about the Union Jack, you know, fascism
752
00:48:11.370 --> 00:48:15.210
was defeated by men who marched under that
753
00:48:15.530 --> 00:48:19.450
flag. Now they're Nazis. You know, I mentioned earlier
754
00:48:19.450 --> 00:48:23.410
my great grandfather, he would turn in his grave as well at
755
00:48:23.410 --> 00:48:27.220
the thought that, you know, after giving his life fighting the
756
00:48:27.220 --> 00:48:31.020
Nazis, you know, they had now been reinvented
757
00:48:31.020 --> 00:48:34.580
as the sort of the bogeyman in the country he was
758
00:48:34.580 --> 00:48:38.060
fighting for. It's sad. The flags, then men have an
759
00:48:38.060 --> 00:48:41.540
identity to gather under. No, I suppose not, actually.
760
00:48:41.780 --> 00:48:45.740
Tricky. I went to a diversity event in Edinburgh just a
761
00:48:45.740 --> 00:48:49.420
couple of weeks ago, and out of 45 people, I was one of three
762
00:48:49.420 --> 00:48:53.040
men in the room. You know, if we're not part of the conversation,
763
00:48:54.880 --> 00:48:58.800
we're not likely to reap too many of the benefits either.
764
00:48:59.200 --> 00:49:03.120
That's going to be tricky. It's interesting you say that, and I'm well aware that
765
00:49:03.120 --> 00:49:06.520
most of the conversations I have for people tend to be women and people who
766
00:49:06.520 --> 00:49:09.920
are not white. So maybe you get black men or brown men in the room.
767
00:49:09.920 --> 00:49:13.440
It's very hard to engage the average typical white man in
768
00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:17.130
conversations because. I don't know, because
769
00:49:17.770 --> 00:49:21.610
maybe you have an inkling, but it seems to be that the conversations aren't relevant
770
00:49:21.610 --> 00:49:25.490
to them. They're not brown, they're not black,
771
00:49:25.490 --> 00:49:28.250
they're not this, they're not that. And all the initiatives in D and I seem
772
00:49:28.250 --> 00:49:32.250
to be promoting women, promoting black people, promoting queer people, whatever it may be.
773
00:49:32.330 --> 00:49:35.850
Who's there fighting for the white man? Is that the problem, that people go, well,
774
00:49:35.850 --> 00:49:39.290
can't be for me then, can it? Yeah, perhaps part of the problem is that
775
00:49:39.530 --> 00:49:42.890
the white man is always, by definition, fine,
776
00:49:43.400 --> 00:49:47.120
obviously, even though, you know, he's coming home to teenage
777
00:49:47.120 --> 00:49:50.920
children who no longer speak to him or a menopausal wife who he doesn't
778
00:49:50.920 --> 00:49:54.880
fully understand. He's under enormous pressure at work, but he can't
779
00:49:54.880 --> 00:49:58.200
say anything about that because he needs to show up as a
780
00:49:58.200 --> 00:50:02.000
competent, capable team member and he doesn't have as
781
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:06.000
many friends as he used to. Yeah, really difficult. You know, if you
782
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:09.960
put all those characteristics together, you think, yeah, this is probably someone
783
00:50:09.960 --> 00:50:13.930
who needs some, some help. And he's being told that
784
00:50:13.930 --> 00:50:17.920
he needs to be an ally to everybody. Absolutely, yeah.
785
00:50:17.920 --> 00:50:21.762
What if you're not actually in a position to support
786
00:50:21.762 --> 00:50:25.692
other people right now? This assumption that part of
787
00:50:25.692 --> 00:50:29.086
your role now is to help dress address a gender
788
00:50:29.086 --> 00:50:32.481
imbalance in this business, in this company,
789
00:50:32.481 --> 00:50:36.055
whatever, by mentoring women so that they can be
790
00:50:36.055 --> 00:50:39.808
better represented on the top floor. Yeah. What if
791
00:50:39.808 --> 00:50:42.845
that guy isn't okay himself? What if he's
792
00:50:42.845 --> 00:50:46.509
struggling? Yeah, that's tough. But it would be a
793
00:50:46.509 --> 00:50:50.440
brave man to put his hand up and say, do you know what? I
794
00:50:50.440 --> 00:50:54.283
don't want anything to do with this. That's going to
795
00:50:54.283 --> 00:50:58.213
end badly. Been hearing more and more recently about
796
00:50:58.213 --> 00:51:02.055
the modern workplace's unreadiness for the influx
797
00:51:02.055 --> 00:51:05.718
of sort of non politically aligned but right wing
798
00:51:05.718 --> 00:51:09.559
leaning young men who are leaving school, who are in
799
00:51:09.559 --> 00:51:12.863
university and who will be beating a path to a
800
00:51:12.863 --> 00:51:16.437
workplace that is not ready for them, one that's
801
00:51:16.437 --> 00:51:20.191
geared to every other group but them. I think we're
802
00:51:20.191 --> 00:51:23.765
going to see some, yeah, some interesting, what
803
00:51:23.765 --> 00:51:26.810
would you call. It, exchanges just in collision
804
00:51:27.770 --> 00:51:31.750
ideology, frank conversations. I think they need to be,
805
00:51:32.070 --> 00:51:35.110
to be wise to this. A lot of the young men that I meet and
806
00:51:35.270 --> 00:51:38.470
work with do have, you know, non political
807
00:51:39.270 --> 00:51:42.750
right wing views. They have so little faith in sort of
808
00:51:42.750 --> 00:51:46.470
politics. Perhaps they inherited it from their parents that they're not actual
809
00:51:46.630 --> 00:51:50.350
party politics doesn't interest them, but, you know, highly
810
00:51:50.350 --> 00:51:54.030
charged political issues do. And we're seeing this, this is why.
811
00:51:54.030 --> 00:51:57.773
We're seeing people like Andrew Tate, the Incel movement, the
812
00:51:57.773 --> 00:52:01.588
United Kingdom, Tommy Robinson, these kind of figures that are
813
00:52:01.588 --> 00:52:05.546
giving people that belonging, people that are listening to their
814
00:52:05.546 --> 00:52:09.505
voices and saying, yeah, and I see myself represented. And that's
815
00:52:09.505 --> 00:52:12.888
even though maybe not politically aligned, but they are
816
00:52:12.888 --> 00:52:16.780
emotionally connected to these messages, aren't they? They are.
817
00:52:16.780 --> 00:52:20.220
And I think, yeah, I see a lot of this. Just not far from here
818
00:52:20.220 --> 00:52:24.150
in Falkirk is the clad hand. It's asylum seekers
819
00:52:24.150 --> 00:52:27.390
hotel. It's been the focus of a whole series of
820
00:52:27.390 --> 00:52:30.710
increasingly angry demonstrations
821
00:52:31.110 --> 00:52:34.950
recently. And a lot of angry young white men my
822
00:52:34.950 --> 00:52:38.909
son's age involved in It. Somebody is speaking to
823
00:52:38.909 --> 00:52:42.710
them, someone's saying, look, we need you. You're included.
824
00:52:45.430 --> 00:52:48.310
That's worrying. I think the Andrew Tate thing,
825
00:52:49.460 --> 00:52:53.260
he is offering something else. As I see it. I
826
00:52:53.260 --> 00:52:56.740
watched quite a lot of his content because my youngest son got very
827
00:52:56.740 --> 00:53:00.020
interested in Andrew Tate. So I thought, well, I'll try and understand who this guy
828
00:53:00.020 --> 00:53:03.780
is so we can have those conversations. People think that he's
829
00:53:03.860 --> 00:53:07.540
selling sexism, misogyny and just this
830
00:53:07.540 --> 00:53:11.380
really unpalatable version of a man. But I think what he's actually
831
00:53:11.540 --> 00:53:15.420
selling is freedom. If you make enough money, if you get yourself to a
832
00:53:15.420 --> 00:53:19.340
certain level, you can do and say exactly what you want. And
833
00:53:19.340 --> 00:53:23.290
he's done embodies that in everything he says and does.
834
00:53:23.290 --> 00:53:27.250
I think it goes way beyond the, yeah, you know, your woman's there
835
00:53:27.250 --> 00:53:31.170
to cook you a steak. It's. It's. I don't know, it's beyond that.
836
00:53:31.170 --> 00:53:35.090
It's getting to do and say exactly what you want. And this is exactly
837
00:53:35.090 --> 00:53:39.010
what he does. Yeah. You don't hear so much from him nowadays,
838
00:53:39.010 --> 00:53:42.690
but it's an absolutely fascinating guy. You can see
839
00:53:43.010 --> 00:53:46.890
the appeal. He's offering a blueprint. You know, here's the steps,
840
00:53:46.890 --> 00:53:50.370
guys. It won't be easy. In fact, it's going to be really difficult. It's going
841
00:53:50.370 --> 00:53:54.070
to cost you a lot in terms of relationships, friendships.
842
00:53:54.070 --> 00:53:57.870
But, you know, the reward is. Is this, you know, a guy who can.
843
00:53:57.950 --> 00:54:01.550
Yeah, you need to be an alpha male. You need to behave like this,
844
00:54:01.710 --> 00:54:05.510
act like this and you will get what? What, Whatever you want. Yeah. You will
845
00:54:05.510 --> 00:54:09.510
be untouchable. It's compelling, highly compelling. But I think a lot
846
00:54:09.510 --> 00:54:13.510
of people only take what he's saying at face value. They hear
847
00:54:13.510 --> 00:54:16.910
the sort of. The snippets, the sort of.
848
00:54:17.230 --> 00:54:20.660
So people. Few people know what a misogynist is.
849
00:54:20.900 --> 00:54:24.740
It's a word that's got a lot more currency thanks to him. I mean, I'm
850
00:54:24.740 --> 00:54:28.500
not in any way excusing some of the things he's said, but I think
851
00:54:28.500 --> 00:54:32.380
he's offering a lot more than sexism and a return to
852
00:54:32.380 --> 00:54:36.260
sort of 70s and 80s male values. He's taken those on board
853
00:54:36.260 --> 00:54:39.860
and run with them to produce something. Yeah.
854
00:54:40.180 --> 00:54:44.060
Much more compelling and valuable. I mean, let's face it, I was.
855
00:54:44.060 --> 00:54:48.032
Saying that if he is selling something that people are buying, they're
856
00:54:48.032 --> 00:54:51.936
buying it for a reason. They're disenfranchised with the status quo,
857
00:54:51.936 --> 00:54:55.840
with whatever's out there. So it's understanding why they're buying
858
00:54:55.840 --> 00:54:59.544
his brand. To understand where in society we need to Reconnect and
859
00:54:59.544 --> 00:55:03.247
understand what we're missing. And I think that's what we've been
860
00:55:03.247 --> 00:55:07.085
doing. Too busy focusing on maybe this DEI. Everyone's welcome, but
861
00:55:07.085 --> 00:55:11.058
forgetting about the people we're leaving behind who don't think it's
862
00:55:11.058 --> 00:55:14.965
for them, and no one is talking directly to them. And that's what we're
863
00:55:14.965 --> 00:55:18.520
doing here. The Andrew Tate characters, people who have these Tommy
864
00:55:18.520 --> 00:55:22.440
Robinson views, they're speaking to these people. Even Trump in
865
00:55:22.440 --> 00:55:25.960
the. In the US is speaking to a group of people who feel they're not
866
00:55:25.960 --> 00:55:29.840
being connected with. In the other view. Yeah, that's the
867
00:55:29.840 --> 00:55:32.720
challenge we've got to try and address. Yeah. And then. And again. Yeah. We have
868
00:55:32.720 --> 00:55:36.520
to remember that this is a client group that's, you know, traditionally
869
00:55:36.520 --> 00:55:39.760
quite difficult to reach. I mean, ask me how I know that. The idea that,
870
00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:43.210
you know, you're not. Fine, it's not, you know, it's not a natural
871
00:55:43.450 --> 00:55:47.410
state for sort of men of a certain age who were raised in
872
00:55:47.410 --> 00:55:51.330
a. A certain way. You know, it's. It's the man code. It's so easy
873
00:55:51.330 --> 00:55:55.090
to follow and it's so deeply hardwired. And it
874
00:55:55.090 --> 00:55:58.770
works. You know, you can get through. You can do more than get through. You
875
00:55:58.770 --> 00:56:02.490
can really succeed in life by following it. I mean, the
876
00:56:02.490 --> 00:56:06.210
fallout, the people around you and for yourself, can be fairly sort of
877
00:56:06.210 --> 00:56:10.030
catastrophic, but you can. You can achieve that way. But, yeah, I
878
00:56:10.030 --> 00:56:14.008
mean, I always come back to, you know, what more could achieve
879
00:56:14.008 --> 00:56:17.986
if you were a little. If you could stay strong and find peace at
880
00:56:17.986 --> 00:56:21.730
the same time. Is it too much to ask for both? It's a big part
881
00:56:21.730 --> 00:56:25.474
of what I try to help people with. I mean, I can mention this
882
00:56:25.474 --> 00:56:29.218
now, Joanne, because it would have passed by the time this
883
00:56:29.218 --> 00:56:33.040
show is aired, but in January, I'm putting together a men's
884
00:56:33.040 --> 00:56:36.862
retreat right here in Scotland. We've got the Rowardennan
885
00:56:36.862 --> 00:56:40.762
Lodge. Beautiful place on the shore of the East Loch Lomond.
886
00:56:40.762 --> 00:56:44.584
It's very, very peaceful. We're going to climb Ben Lomond.
887
00:56:44.600 --> 00:56:48.080
We're going to swim in the loch. We're going to chop wood and make fire.
888
00:56:48.080 --> 00:56:51.840
We're going to cook on it. We're going to do a walk with burning
889
00:56:51.840 --> 00:56:55.760
torches, which will be fun, and we may
890
00:56:55.760 --> 00:56:59.440
even on one of the evenings, sit down and watch a good old Arnie movie.
891
00:56:59.680 --> 00:57:03.200
Because I'm really interested to hear what people reflect on this
892
00:57:03.600 --> 00:57:07.400
now, you know, all these years later. But on another level,
893
00:57:07.400 --> 00:57:10.560
for guys, when was the last time they watched a, you know, one of those
894
00:57:10.560 --> 00:57:14.480
unbelievably foolish movies with a few beers and some other guys.
895
00:57:14.640 --> 00:57:18.520
So it will be about community, first and foremost. I'm
896
00:57:18.520 --> 00:57:22.400
really looking forward to it, actually. Conan the Destroyer or something, One of
897
00:57:22.400 --> 00:57:26.320
those little old Arnie films. Yeah, I think I might have to go with
898
00:57:26.320 --> 00:57:30.240
Predator, which was like a real classic because it's just so
899
00:57:30.240 --> 00:57:34.200
unbelievably silly, but so much fun to watch because it's the
900
00:57:34.200 --> 00:57:37.730
collision of these alpha male ego types all
901
00:57:38.050 --> 00:57:42.050
at the same time against this deadly creature out in
902
00:57:42.050 --> 00:57:45.490
the jungle with loads of guns. I mean, yeah,
903
00:57:45.890 --> 00:57:49.810
it's actually something I'm looking forward to doing. I loved those movies as a young
904
00:57:49.810 --> 00:57:52.650
guy, so the chance to watch one with some of the guys, obviously we'll be
905
00:57:52.650 --> 00:57:55.850
doing some constructive stuff. I just thought I was going to throw that one in
906
00:57:55.850 --> 00:57:59.850
there just for just. Yeah, so even though. Even though
907
00:57:59.850 --> 00:58:03.520
by the time it's broadcast that would have passed, you're. You're going to be
908
00:58:03.520 --> 00:58:06.960
planning others in the future, so it's a good excuse for people to get hold
909
00:58:06.960 --> 00:58:10.720
of you. So how can people connect with Tom? Yeah, thank you for
910
00:58:10.720 --> 00:58:14.640
asking, Jo. I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. I
911
00:58:14.640 --> 00:58:18.639
post there quite regularly on some of the subjects we've been looking at
912
00:58:18.639 --> 00:58:20.760
today. You can also find me at
913
00:58:20.760 --> 00:58:24.680
BeyondtheMancave.co.uk a
914
00:58:24.680 --> 00:58:28.600
website or Instagram of the same name where
915
00:58:28.600 --> 00:58:32.220
I post workout and outdoor videos. All pretty
916
00:58:32.220 --> 00:58:35.940
wholesome, honest stuff. Nothing dodgy in there at all. Bear Grill
917
00:58:35.940 --> 00:58:39.100
survival stuff, is it? Yeah, there's a. There's a little bit of that because I
918
00:58:39.100 --> 00:58:43.100
want people to understand how straightforward these things are, how easy they are to
919
00:58:43.100 --> 00:58:46.500
do and how ultimately rewarding they are when you go out there and
920
00:58:46.900 --> 00:58:50.660
share them. The outdoors will reduce your heart rate, blood pressure.
921
00:58:50.660 --> 00:58:54.660
You'll become more creative, thoughtful. You'll get more oxygen in your lungs, which
922
00:58:54.660 --> 00:58:58.180
makes your brain work better. It's why we feel better when we go out there.
923
00:58:58.800 --> 00:59:02.720
If you can make that experience comfortable at the same time, that's kind of
924
00:59:02.720 --> 00:59:05.800
what Bushcraft is, then you're going to be able to stay for longer and it
925
00:59:05.800 --> 00:59:09.560
will mean more. And if you can share that with other people at the same
926
00:59:09.560 --> 00:59:13.560
time, if you can be the one that takes care of them, well, it
927
00:59:13.560 --> 00:59:16.840
makes you a little bit of a hero too, for what that's worth. Yeah, I
928
00:59:16.840 --> 00:59:20.745
still think that's important. Tom, we've had a fascinating conversation. This has
929
00:59:20.745 --> 00:59:24.682
been amazing. And if you're listening in, do make contact with Tom, Check him out
930
00:59:24.682 --> 00:59:28.561
on LinkedIn. I've been following Connecting with Tom for a little while now and
931
00:59:28.561 --> 00:59:32.322
that's probably how we really got engaged in this episode. Just saw Tom post a
932
00:59:32.322 --> 00:59:36.025
few things and I said, tom, let's come and talk about this. That's why you're
933
00:59:36.025 --> 00:59:39.560
here. So brilliant. Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much. Well, Jo, can I thank you
934
00:59:39.560 --> 00:59:43.280
enough for having me on the show today? Really appreciate
935
00:59:43.360 --> 00:59:46.560
and I look forward to seeing it in a few months time. Well, by the
936
00:59:46.560 --> 00:59:49.040
time I'm saying this, it will be that time. Thank you.
937
00:59:50.560 --> 00:59:54.146
As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to
938
00:59:54.146 --> 00:59:57.906
express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener,
939
00:59:57.906 --> 01:00:01.140
for lending your ear and heart to the cause of
940
01:00:01.140 --> 01:00:04.639
inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord.
941
01:00:04.639 --> 01:00:08.487
Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become
942
01:00:08.487 --> 01:00:11.985
part of our ever growing community driving real
943
01:00:11.985 --> 01:00:15.833
change. Share this journey with friends, family and
944
01:00:15.833 --> 01:00:19.593
colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter.
945
01:00:19.593 --> 01:00:23.440
Got thoughts, stories or a vision to share there? I'm
946
01:00:23.440 --> 01:00:25.013
all ears. Reach out to
947
01:00:25.013 --> 01:00:28.774
jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk and let's make
948
01:00:28.774 --> 01:00:32.360
your voice heard. Until next time, this is Joanne
949
01:00:32.360 --> 01:00:36.033
Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
950
01:00:36.033 --> 01:00:39.882
more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire
951
01:00:39.882 --> 01:00:43.530
and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world
952
01:00:43.690 --> 01:00:46.730
one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.