Hong Kong 14K Triad Mafia Hires Royal Marine Part 2: Chris Thrall | True Crime Podcast 76

we've had Cristal on before you love this story commando from the UK ends up working with the Hong Kong triad mafia and in part one and please if you've not seen part one is the link is at the top of the description box below this video Chris described his journey through the military into crystal meth psychosis and the extreme ups and downs he went through in his life to lead to him clicking up with the Triad mafia Chris has got two books out we've got eating smoke and forty nights available worldwide on Amazon Kindle and

paperback and he's gonna work in on the audiobook here soon Chris also has his own YouTube channel and a lot of his videos about military stories and protocol I've been getting some good views recently so if you would go down there and click over to his channel and check is other stuff out and support him we would appreciate that and please subscribe as well because we really appreciate him coming all this bloody way to the studio and spending time with us and telling us his stories so the last podcast left off of you clicking up

with a triad and we had the girl that died while she was almost gonna die and then you intervened and they were like she's worth let's just let her die basically but we were like kind of building up to you getting more involved in the triad stuff yeah I mean I should point out Sean as I always do I was never a triad that's not really what my books about my book is about a young man who left the Marines thinking you had life sussed as you do when you're when you're young you know I

think this resonates with you right and you know the demons of a damaged childhood came back they caught up with me and everyone has to pay the piper I just unfortunately pay two piper while working as a nightclub duel in a nightclub that happened to be run by the 14k but for people who are not familiar with your first podcast or the 14 cake just explain who they are yes so the Triads are an ancient group they go back thousands of years originally they were united in the underworld to fight against corrupt dynasties right so

your Ching don't some one don't correct me here but you know like your Ching dynasty this kind of thing they're putting out laws that are suppressing the peasants this kind of thing and and I guess you could say it was a peasant revolt you hear them refer to as the brothers of the marsh because originally they would meet in the marshlands to hold their secret meetings and like all good things it started as a benevolent organization for the people they obviously adopted their secret hand signs and methods of covert communication so they wouldn't be discovered

and obviously put to death fast forward to modern day like I say all good things kind of turn you know power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely so now it's more in turn international crime organization it used to be about extortion prostitution racketeering drug selling and drug smuggling this kind of thing I'm gonna make an educated guess here it's more about now how can they swindle the stock market invest in business I mean the crime has change isn't it well what we've CCTV cameras it's not like you can run up to someone in the street

and start chopping them with a butcher's blade which is the traditional triad form of revenge drug trafficking is the biggest profits for criminal organizations presently all right okay yeah yeah and also you've got things like facial recognition so what I'm trying to say is I think the street-level crime is is naturally going to come down right and they're going to move their operations into more secure more profitable areas and the triad what years were you involved with them I was in Hong Kong in 95 to 96 and he's described how you got involved with them

in the previous podcast did you really understand who they were at that point no I so I rocked up in this nightclub as I think I said before I was homeless or think I just sold my my first Rolex which was a little gift I bought myself after the Northern Ireland conflict after serving in the Northern Ireland conflict and I used my savings that are made there to buy this watch that I was I was looking out I just wanna say I was looking at it because it's just piece of class the Rolex Oyster it

wasn't about you know having a flashy watch although you know I was what bank when I bought it I was 19 maybe 20 so there was a bit of that and yeah in Hong Kong I had to go into a pawn shop hot my watch I got a flat and a part apartments two grand it was a really crappy flat on the top floor of an ageing tenement in the back streets of wine choy wine choice Hong Kong's nightclub district gangland district red-light district right and so there I've just just got this flat and I

wandered into the nightclub to see if my friend there Glen he was the doorman had any idea where I could get work I kind of burned my bridges quite you know in hindsight a lot of which was to do with being chronically addicted to crystal meth at this point unbeknown to me I'm in clinical psychosis which is maybe not a pair - you guys sat here but it's this internal dialogue that's going on in my head and it's this mix of chemicals in my brain can you say this that's making me interpret things with kind

of a conspiratorial slant but of course it's a conspiratorial I'm also in working in a nightclub for one of the biggest conspiracies in the world which is the Hong Kong triads so I wandered in to see Glenn he wasn't there the guy at the bar pointed me at this kind of unassuming chat dressed in a black suit that time had these kind of cross eyes which gave him a bit of a distinct look shall we say and so I said where's where's Glenn Oh Glenn GaN Thailand okay it's a doorman you can do doorman job

yeah yeah I can I can do doorman job okay start here tomorrow night I'll clock wow that was just music to my ears on you know I'd gone from being homeless and sitting on my backpack or my Bergen as we say in the Marines on Nathan Road i sat there watching all these BMWs fly by and Mercedes Hong Kong has the most Rolls Royces per capita in the world right I'm sucking these guys thinking someone just stop and say hello mate how you doing you look like a guy who's down on your luck you know

come and have a starting my company will pay you thousand pound a month it's all gonna be good you know but of course life doesn't work like that so yeah so there I was on I've got a job again Hong Kong's a very expensive city to live in I went out there to make my fortune I had a company that turned over a hundred thousand US dollars when I went out there and as you've said within six months I'm chronically addicted to crystal meth I'm experiencing psychosis that will explain the blanket story that I told

last time when I bought this blanket in the market and in my mind it's it's like infected with tuberculosis it's one of the blankets that the North American settlers gave to the indigenous Indian community to wipe them out or I don't know the history behind that but this is what my mind is telling me right so on top of all this I've now landed a job in a club I call it Club Nemo in my book anyone who's been in Hongkong any expert will know the club that I'm talking about and on my first night

there there was a what what you might call an old china hand there people that floated around Asia for a while they know the score they they just know all the stuff that a typical tourist isn't gonna know right and this guy said to me he said you know they're all Triads but the first thing said Chris isn't it and I'm like I was just surprising you know why would you know my name and he said you know they're all Triads well my ears just pricked up Shawn because I think you know I'm a guy

that's been primed for the Marines so I'm already primed for a it's called a gang of sorts right a brotherhood so naturally I'm gonna have a fascination with another brotherhood okay albeit a criminal one although you see the role of British military in recent years it's you know who's the criminal sorry know just I mean no disrespect there to anyone but you know it's it's got to be said right and yeah so my ears pricked up and he pointed to my two fellow doormen one of them was this six foot seven guy that looked like

a horse right and he said that's dicey he's an assassin every now and again he gets smuggled across the border into China to do a hit on someone and then they smokes yes smuggle him back in I I know it might sound surreal Shawn but like my whole life has been you know I've had a life across I said this in the last I'm 80 different countries on all seven continents and that's it that's just how I chose to live right I guess all in a quest to answer the question Who am I which when

you went you know when you're a damaged little kitty you carry with you all your life you know when things don't make sense and why you feel sort of different to the rest well then he points to the other doorman and said that's a couch I he's a street fighter Magi they say in in Cantonese and Magi is triad speak it means little horse so there you like your runners right your street runners they're the people they're gonna be running the drugs rackets on a street corner sort of thing and he looked I looked at

this guy and he's this sort of short squat very muscly triad but with this surprisingly cherubic face and now he said you know he might not look much chris but you watch one a fight kicks off he will pick up anything if he thinks he can smash an enemy he over the head with it right and I'm gonna find all this out right and yeah so my interest was peach you could say when was the first time you found that stuff out well at first it was all quite benign you know I'm thinking like I'm

a doorman in a club I'd done that job in two other clubs in Hong Kong but they were both owned by expats they were Scottish owned which I think goes back to the days of the old trading companies that were you know the Scots had a big influence in Hong Kong and of course there was no I don't know if they paid probably had to pray pay protection money to the local triad in wine chai the 14k but like I say my mind I'm just a doorman in a club in retrospect and probably more a

go-between and I my role there as I was to find out is to stop your typical drunken gobby expat business money has come out in the office his you know ties half-mast he and they would I mean to give you one example as one guy he slaughtered he's pointing at this dialogue so the guy the game in the job is a dial oh right that's gang leader he's in charge of this gang he's in charge of this gang in wine show Paul Eng call him or at least that's his name in my book right and

this drunk this drunken businessman is just in in he's telling me I have to pay you know it's it's like Tang Hong Kong dollars for a glass of water is about a quid so I might make make me calm the [ __ ] down you you're pointing it like the most important man in this area and in in Chinese culture Shan you have something called face and it's almost impossible for a westerner to understand it's like a deep-seated pride and if you make someone lose face which can be for the silliest of reasons right and

I fell foul of this syndrome as it were before they can hold what's the word like a vendetta against you for life till they get you back so to give you an idea apologies if I said this last time but there was a guy delivering coffee to it to uh Taylor's guys maybe a young triad I don't know it's it's not really important but he delivered the coffee to the tailor's and the tailor looked to him and said I didn't order that well what he should have said is oh oh right I'll just get my

wallet out mm-hmm right because by saying I didn't order he's telling the guy you didn't do your job right and you never make someone else lose face even if it means dipping in your wallet paying for goods that you never ordered right so when the tailor opens his shop the next day every single one of his suits had been slashed with a razor blade this right quite extreme isn't it you know so like I say when the dilo the tribe boss ordered me to throw the girl out with a rubbish when she was dying and

I was like [ __ ] am I gonna do that right you know British way of thinking of course I'm making him lose face so immediately for my first night in this club I'm onto a dodgy wicket I've upsetting the most important man in one shot he he like gave me some leeway give him credit the next day I just looked at him and I said Paul what I did the wrong thing last night didn't I I'm just trying to say the right thing Sean you know this is this has all got a bit serious

now all right and he just just nodded like that he'd never look at you he just he wouldn't speak unless he had to right so yeah the issue of face I'm not quite sure how we go around to to that subject but it's the way of all these stories right no no gorillas yeah so the point was you've got this drunk an expert pointing in the dialogue face making him lose face and my job there really is to say dude dude just just calm down look give him a water give me just just give him

all in and the barman would run over with a water and that sort of thing and a carne the guy down explain a situation and I'd know Jim I said look just just look over there and they'd be say group of 810 triads drinking they all used to wear these white shell suit tops jeans white trainer loads of gold tattoos finding an apple always hidden you never you know they were all full body tattoos right what are the triad tattoos um I can't pretend I really know Shawn other than what I've seen from you know

from the media it's the sprawling dragon because oh no sorry when I was in the I was a member of a gym for a while and yeah there's some big big guys there right big steroid bosons and they were covered in these sprawling dragons right and I guess there's a lot of what can you say like language were in there in the tattoos that you you're never going to understand right there's a some gang loyalty stuff right so yes I'm sexist guy that calm down look over there to see those eight guys yeah right they're

all gonna [ __ ] kill you mate they will pick up anything they'll pick up that ashtray they'll pick up the ice tongs they'll grab it they'll and when it kicked off in a club they would just push everyone out of the way and just try to go in for the kill Shawn and it was you know British bouncers can be a rough old lot quite nasty at times right but they might go out and like kick a guy when he's down and maybe another will give it a few seconds and you know give him

a kick [ __ ] off mate don't come back here again that sort of thing it's one situation where I'd been there a few weeks by this time and it like I say it all seemed fairly benign other than that girl incident and then look I'm stood most of my time in the club I stood at the bottom of the stairs all Chinese clubs have stairs that point upwards and they have and they're mirror lined and they face towards the sea so they've got the Hong Kong mountains behind them this is Fung shooey another thing

that in our culture we think it's some trendy nouveau like London thing you know you have your function it bring there it's really taken seriously and so you have mountains but Hynde you're building points at the sea it's all about prosperity if you can't have your building pointing at the sea you that's why the restaurants have the fish tanks in front so they have you know sea water right the mirrors is to reflect the evil spirits out of the club something that you and I go huh oh yeah right no no it it's it's a

different culture Sean you know in fact it's so serious that I've visited my publisher over there and he lives in a building that face the mountain and my publisher was like completely oblivious to all that I'm telling you now I I'm not even sure if he realized why they hung CDs on the railings all the way across the front of the building CDs being mirror-like right spinning in the in the wind reflecting the evil away from the building because it's got bad Fung shooey it's facing the mountain so yeah so I'm in the stairwell I

used to like look up to see the punters coming into the club or sometimes you'd go up the stairs and stand stand you know stand there just checking out what's going on on a busy night in wine choy but this time I'm at the bottom of stairs to chai is stood three paces from me at the other side of the stairwell and he's looking upstairs as if you know nothing's happening which it would you work which it pretty much wasn't I look to my right in this six foot seven assassin die suit he's charging through

the club and he's got you know in literary terms I'd say a little old man I don't know him I don't know the guys age right but kind of a seedy speedlight character in a cheap suit and he's charging towards the stairs with this guy over his shoulders and I'm looking at you to try thinking you haven't seen this yet what's going to happen now my my role in that situation is just stay the [ __ ] out of it our business right I'm a gwai-lo I'm a foreign devil there to do a job they

treated me like the family but you know it's kind of a I think it's fair to say it's kind of a superficial they they giving me face right I'm working for them they have to give me face that's why they'd invite me for breakfast every day with the family right so dicey comes charging over this old man hose him down in the footwell guys terrified Sean Chooch I hasn't seen dice who just starts kicking the [ __ ] out of him like you've never seen right I'm talking you know like a mill will support oh

that's cool who's Millwall's enemy Chelsea I don't know you know wet will there you go you know like they've got a West Ham fan and he's giving it to him two tries right and I could just see the start honest if that's a word we're authors right is that word but you know his face just was just a picture and he turned and the two of them just you know he ran over and they just proceeded to kick him as hard and as fast in the head as they could they're just kicking this guy in

the Swede you know Shearer it's it's whatever he's done it's gone against the face of the 14k right it's gone against the face of the club the people that work there the Triads that staff it so they're kicking this guy I'm just spread-eagled against the wall I was pretty sort of I don't know if laissez-faire is the right word but I'm like okay try a business not going again broke and stood there and this guy like looked up like he's just like a frightened mouse mate you know and he looked upstairs and he just made

his boat for freedom and he ran up the stairs and there screaming I think jeu de la mole which means go [ __ ] your mother's fill-in-the-blank right but what these two might try out my to try a doorman didn't see is a bit of paper felt came from his pocket so I just picked it up I know why I'm doing that if we're on camera but you know a Ben downer pick up this bit of paper and I just snuck it in my pocket and when I went home that night I pulled it out

and it was a list of racehorses and one of the things that used to happen in the club or two of the things that used to happen and used to make me feel kind of like I belonged is they come and just give me a tea knocked off mark Marlboro Marlboro smuggled in that there was fake Marlboro from China and then of course there was contraband mara but one of the trials would come in and just give me cigarettes and it made you feel like wow I'm really one of the boys there you know and

the other thing they do is occasionally they just slip your horse and you'd go okay like that and of course they're telling you this horse is going to win the race the next race on Saturday at one o'clock or whatever and and you can go and put money it's a guaranteed win right a hooky horse so so yeah I'm guessing that this guy was in the club somehow punting these hooky horses but he wasn't 14k and that was just like a big no-no you know so yeah that was that was quite an eye-opener that the

gang get along with themselves or were the fallouts among the gang members I never really got that deep into it Sean I'm I'm literally I'm just working in a nightclub on seeing what goes on it it got a bit bizarre because I after that incident with the girl I turned up for work and there was a South African lad on the door I thought I was the only white guy the only gwai-lo working for the tribes in hong kong you know for the 14 k this guy turns out he's been there a few years and

he's kind of like their gwai-lo boy right you know they they trust him he kind of like understands their ways right and they it's arm trick short for Hendrik right and I'm like this is about the girl isn't there any went yeah I said Drake what what was I supposed to do she's dying on the floor I wasn't gonna chuck her out the rubbish he said Chris what'd you do when that happens is you pick her up you chuck her over your shoulder you go out and throw her in a cab I was like I

you know obviously hadn't thought of that right but um so I'm chatting I'm like so is that what this is about is this why you've obviously come here to like baby me that that's what it felt like right they said no well not just that sorry go on he said they think you're a cop that's when your heart starts going you know now here's the thing Shawn this you'd be completely open here I'd worked in this was my third Club I worked in in why enjoy now right I'd been in Hong Kong by this stage

eight or nine months it wasn't like I was a unknown face I took that with a pinch of salt I mean surely if like you that worried about me you'd know that I worked literally on that Club over there and on the door of that club over there I just took it with a pinch of salt but later that evening this whole bunch of triads piled into the club and they're all dressed immaculately talking like sort Kashmir isn't you know Kashmir sort of jackets and smart and Levitt you know smart leather shoes and they all

carried a leather hold all looked like a big sort of child's pencil case that kind of thing and it was obvious they'd been to some 14 K meeting right or for this part of the gang it was just amazing how smart babe you know but then again a gangster's renowned for looking smart aren't they but I I do remember just stood there looking at these eyeing these kind of wallets that they all had thinking he thought well they carry their chopping blades in is that you know do you know because they're vulnerable when they're out

on the street right you know they're vulnerable to attack from another tried it it happens I told you about my friend that got chopped up tonight did we do that one left remember that one yeah there was a guy when I first got to Hong Kong I didn't know the guy then but I got to know him later he used to pay me ecstasy pills right and he was working in Kowloon side which is the mainland side at Hong Kong is an island Kowloon is the peninsula that goes up into mainland China called partly new

New Territories right and the gang that ran is that the air is called chintz a toy and the gang that ran it the name will company wasn't the washing while it was anyway the name will come to me he was working in one of their clubs so he was doing my job but over the water right one night he was sat on the steps of his club and a transit van pulled up and they got out and they chopped this guide to bits I heard two different stories I've just had a Hong Kong expat approached

me and say no it wasn't quite the way that I was told it I was told he was doing nothing ten or twelve tribes piled out the back with chopping blades and they chopped this guy to bits right he's his thumb was hanging off where it put his hand up to protect himself when I knew him yeah his face was all crisscross with these big slashes the story I was told is that he was like this hard-as-nails Essex geezer that three days later he's back working on the door right and that it turned out to

be a case of mistaken identity the the story of subsequent being told his no it was a hit on the triads in this club by another try and he just stupidly got involved hence who I say my job is like just get out get out the way went and it kicks off right so yeah that's the chopping blade situation so all the time I'm in this club and I'm off my head Sean you know I'm it's not like your rave crystal meth isn't like you're on accessing yeah or you really dry it's it gives you

a feeling of supreme confidence calmness the ability to kind of do and learn amazing things like all the stuff they told you you're a failure at school you suddenly rose no actually I can do that hence why I started writing right the trouble is when you're addicted to it kind of comes a bit full circle and all those great qualities that you start out enjoying start to have the opposite effect and I know you know a bit about this you start to hallucinate because you haven't slept for days on end you lose incredible amount of

weight because you have you you have no appetite yeah when I was on it in the beginning my productivity just went through the roof I had extra confidence I felt like superhuman all this energy didn't need to eat didn't need to sleep but in the background the side effects are slowly rising you've got to pay the piper man with drugs that's it you know where there's a high there's a low and this this is you know this is the thing so by this stage Sean I'm really sketchy I'm sweating profusely because Hong Kong is a

tropical climate right I'm always let your timekeeping goes out the window you're always rushing you know I had one dormant job where I'd get from Mongkok on the mainland side to the island which should have been like a they said 25-minute commute on the tube they got a superfast tube called the MTR the motor transit railway in Hong Kong should be like a 25-minute trip for a normal guy I'd leave myself by 12 minutes and I'd got to the point where one of the things with meth was I could just run across the road I

could run across eight lanes of traffic so eight lanes in on the Nathan Road I can't remember but you know six lanes of traffic and I'm just using my peripheral it's not even my view but my sense and I just just judge it and blitz it across hammer down the escalators into the tube I'm that guy that catches the tube as the doors are closing and you get through I know you said I had to Shawn because I couldn't you know I couldn't lose my job right it's an expensive place to live so yeah how

did you get out of them thinking you were a cop well for start I don't know how much of that is real because it's not like they're gonna tell me I used to ask like my fellow doorman things like you know I spoke I wasn't fluent in Cantonese by any means it's incredibly difficult language is a tonal language so one word can be said in approximately six to eight different ways and mean a different thing right but I did like to try and learn as much as I could and I got to the point where

I could speak a lot more you know I could hold my conversation with a taxi driver for example for the course of the trip and they'd basic Gong on the like a whole uh you know you speak Cantonese really well you know seel seel seel co you know i just speak a little right and and so I mean I asked one of this guy to try one night like how do you write your name you know I'm just like a not I'm a young man Sean right you know I've been through the Marines you hear

that cliche don't you our military makes you a man and it it's not really worth the paper it's printed on I mean don't even know if I'm a man now if I was honest right I don't know if I'll ever get to that you know that level but yeah I'm just keen and I'm like me how'd you write your name and well course I'm like asking a Hong Kong try how he writes his name it's probably not like the spice thing to do and they just like look at me and disdain and walk away and

and you know all got it all got a bit messy so are you asking them to write the name that's like something a cop would kind of do like well this is it you know this is gonna find out the name this is I think they could tell I was quite harmless on it which didn't fit do you know I mean I I don't know how much they knew for example about the drugs it started to become obvious towards the end because I was just I wasn't well mate you know you've got a member I'm

living in psychosis a lot of this and psychosis comes and goes it's not with you all the time you you have different sort of episodes of it right so I mean to give you an example one episode of staring out the window of this flat that I told you about on the top of this apartment block and I'm looking down into the courtyard below and it was full of these sort of stray cats one of the cats that got up and rather than just bimble across the call I late like you'd expect a cat to

do right it it sort of went well my this this kind of you get like three voices in your head you get you you get your thoughts and then you get your psychosis thoughts right so the psychosis thought is going on cats puppets you know because it reminded me of do you remember muffin the mule when we I was just before my chopper there was a puppet on TV called muff in the moon when he used to go and and in my head it's going ah puppets so I stared at those cats for hours right

and I'm looking at the guy there was a restaurant below and there was a guy chopping meat out the back of the restaurant and I could have sworn Shawn he's chopping the meat twice opening the door chopping the meat twice open image right and I'm fascinated and my brains can perpetrate it's all puppetry where every puppetry start started in Asia didn't it oh my god these people are masters at this Wow it is everything in the Hong Kong office who's like oh it's crazy you know that we can laugh at it because otherwise Shawn it's

[ __ ] sad night you know I mean it really was I was just really young young but but I stare them for ages and then and and so for my next like bout of episodes would all be about puppetry I'll be walking down the street and I'd hear a car what car horn go beep beep beep and then a traffic light change beep beep beep and I'd hear this pattern in it all within our and I I thought the puppet master was this little old Chinese man that used to live in a building opposite

me and I was like ourselves that and well I thought he's controlling the whole of Hong Kong with pulleys and strings right and it got you know that that's just one episode of a whole vast you know a whole vast confusion of episodes I got to the point where you know when you start first finding out and I'm talking like being straight here now that that life isn't the way that you thought it was you start learning you know honest I use the term Illuminati loosely but you know that this there's stuff throughout the world

there's stuff going on in this world that most people just never see right and then you start to see the symbolism in television programs right and it's in it's all there well it's exactly like that except I'm obviously really unwell but back then but it takes that exact form so you're picking up a book you're looking at the back cover and you know you'll read in the blurb and to you there's a whole esoteric set of information on there you and I became obsessed with working out the cipher then I started to think what's going

on in the club right you know so there's there's this public conspiracy there's this triad conspiracy which is you know well I mean that that just is but then the expats that used to come in my club I just started noticing what at the time was strange things about them right and this guy Drake would turn to me and he'd say things like have you got it yet I like Jerry what the [ __ ] you on about nothing nothing right and he just leave he just dropped that in right now Shawn I'm willing to

admit I may have been just completely misconstruing that you you know I'm not trying to think he's trying to score drugs now he was like over well that was one thing he said to me you know Joanna want some money I'm yeah of course I'm I'm skin right is that well go and see Paul Paul will set you up smuggling gold through they used to smoke me through Nepal you familiar with this we have a guest it was busted smuggling gold through Nepal there you go yeah so Drake's like if you want to make some

money Chris I like have you done it you know yeah yeah what did you do so I'll go through Nepal diamonds through I don't know let's say current career like drugs did you it's like no drugs fool's game Chris drugs is the only thing in an airport you can't lie your way out right okay but Shawn I was never even though I'm obviously desperate by this stage in every sense of the word I never really considered that you know it got it I'd urge anyone if you want to make head or tail of what I'm

saying or learn more just read the book you know because it's I just tried to be honest in there about what it's like to go mad and I don't think many books have been written so it's valuable you know if you're studying social work or mental health if you just have an interest in you know I mean when I was a kid you got some homeless guy walking down the street shouting stuff used to just cross over the street right well if you read in smoke you're gonna learn why that guy is talking that way

what what is going through his mind how you know this kind of thing so yeah so I was really I'm obviously really unwell but then I started to I'm pondering what is this trick I go in when he's a knight have you got it yet have you have you got it yet and then I saw this expert coming into the club and they used to be like you're like a click you know there was the same old faces and you gotta remember they're coming into a Chinese Ron Club it's not it's not a westerner grin

and a lot of them seem to be doing really well for themselves but they didn't have jobs some thinking you know they deal in drugs for the 14 K is is this the deal and you know I've no doubt many of them were the trials will work with anyone Shawn you know you can only be a well and the legend has it you can only be a pure bloody Chinese to be a triad right and they don't trust they don't even trust Khan Kong Chinese who studied overseas right but that doesn't mean they won't work

with you if they think you can make money for them right which is I think that's the mafia the world world over so I'm stood there and I'm looking at this guy Drake and this is expat comes in the club my mind is frantic by this time trying to work out what is this conspirator is it to do with the cats is it the parties is a truck and the guy came into the club and he went and and Drake like that and I was like I've got it I've got it right when we're in

the Marines and we used to do parade row you know with our rifles and marching and all this kind of stuff we could do a whole section of that for say ten minutes without the drill instructor uttering a single command and we're moving towards each other's to let's say two troops and we're marching right through the middle then with changing position and going this way then we and our weapons up and doing all this clever trickery and the crowd are watching it thinking how do they do that no one's no one's saying anything you know

no one's given them any orders what it was is you had a guy called hissing said in the middle of the troop he was designated to hiss the commands so you knew when the commands coming in you knew what it was because you just memorized them and he would you marching along he'd go and you go that way and all of you you know because when you're out there on the parade square and you all let's just say 30 meters away from your audience they can't hear that right and I was thinking in this club

my god that's a isn't it how clever if you're if you're a member of some tricky expat triad or this kind of these expats that seem to be in cahoots with this Chinese gagging what a clever way you know I walked past you in the streets Shawn we don't have to look each other I go you go you don't even have to write you write you know immediately it's an esoteric form of communication right and then I saw him watching more and watching the other people that are coming into the club and I've had hand

signs on my mind for a while because it's well-known the Triads operate with hands science so you know this can mean something that can mean something touching there can mean something touching they're all come in different stuff right and I start to notice these experts these clicky ones they're coming into the club and I'm looking at their hands and I should add in now right I've been hearing the expression sit yin yang doing whole lot right which means smoke cigarette and one kind of coke Chinese always put the one before something so it's one book

one drink want one kind of coat right and I'm hearing his sick in smoke cigarette yep gun holdup and people used to shout it when he walked past the club is if they were shouting at me Shawn right and then there I was one day seeing this guy come in the club and I'm looking at his hands and what size he make him with his hand as he comes towards this guy dreck he's got one hand like this one hand like this smoke a cigarette one kind of coat and then they do that how clever

how really clever no other expert in Hong Kong is ever gonna suss these guys are communicating with each other acknowledging that they're in what what I started to believe was the foreign triad right now it might sound bizarre but when I was writing my book I googled foreign triad and I came across an article went written by a guy called Bill Sparrow and he'd been in Hong Kong and the club he talked about going into I'm pretty sure was the club I worked in right he talked about going like a relationship with a Filipino worker

and how they started to see each other and and so I'm talking 15 years later now when I'm living back in the UK doing my research and one day he sees this tattoo on the girl's arm this Filipino girl's arm and he says oh what's that then she like are nothing nothing you know come on she said sir it's the foreign triad he's like you know what what's that then she said no it's um it's a group of foreigners you know Westerners Filipinos Indians we they have their own triad and they work alongside the 14k

running their errands for them you know getting prostitutes for them smuggling drugs selling drugs for them this kind of thing well you can imagine how I felt 50 I don't I had that on my mind Shawn 15 years did I like was on imagine yeah it's like I wasn't imagining it I might have been reading too much into it but anyway going back to the club I'm stood there in this footwell and these tough cigarette posters on the wall of this footwell and I turned to one of them and I'm like ah it's a typical

cheesy cigarette poster one of them is a it's a guy sat at a beach party and he's he's got a can of coke in one hand and he's puffing his Chinese cigarette in the other and I'm yeah Kuno locks again yeah [ __ ] hole up and look at the next poster and it's a girl on a tennis court and she's got her tennis racket like you know making this hand sign she's smoking her Chinese brand cigarette I'm not advertising here now and I'm like oh my god how deep is this thing how freaky deep

is this thing this is did you see what I'm saying and a third poster was something equally as confirming Shan should we say right so all that went on I'm just my mind is just 100% occupied with trying to suss this out in that right and a couple of things happen which will build up to the story I'm going to tell you there were two things I'm not sure if I mentioned this when I swear last time but there was a homeless guy right used to come in the club and what the Triad bigbrother the

dilo would do is he would let these guys come in they would walk around the club and then they would leave wouldn't have a drink they would just come in dressed in you know not not rags but Street you know they stunk of stunk of nicotine when they've been scavenging cigarette butts right their eyes would sort of bulging black which I don't you know I just assumed that was a drug of some sort right and they'd walk around the club they'd hold their head up like you know keeping the face and the sort of try

out boss would like not at them like like that and then they would leave right but this one guy he'd always stop we know he wouldn't always so he went to go out the club and he turned and he asked me something like ah me nothing and he turned to walk out and I said no you you're alright mate yeah yeah you look fine to me oh and then he would come and he would grab the sleeve on my shirt he wouldn't let go and I looked at his arm and it was all just messed

up with what probably were infected mosquito bites in hindsight but it looked like drug sites Shawn right you know from injecting and and he would mumble this stuff it was he was in some sort of psychosis of his own he kept going on about horsepower and pointing at the air conditioning unit and there I get you the 172 horsepower one 500 horsepower and I didn't know if he was talking about drugs and the different strengths or I I bring the girl I bring the girl to the man right which I just took as he's getting

girls for prostitution in in the clubs which obviously is a big big thing over there and so that was that but my fellow doorman came over to chai and I just sort of look to him and said to chai popped up right I popped up me means take drugs now I honestly swear I wasn't trying to be a hypocrite it wasn't I wasn't trying to get the guy in trouble or anything I mean it was uh it was sort of obvious that this guy was you know four sheets to the window whatever what I was

trying to do is show like I know the job of doorman you know I know how to like you would in an English club like are you mate you're not coming in you your [ __ ] wine could [ __ ] off come back when you straight you know that sort of thing right and this couch I just look at me and just give me this look of disgust that they would do whenever I [ __ ] up basically so I'm just feeling awful thinking I wasn't trying to get him in trouble Shan are we

you see it comes down to face this guy's got nothing he's homeless he's lost everything he's got no house no nothing as he keeps telling me and what do I do then effectively Dobbin in to one of the church I'm just trying to do my best right but of course what am i doing I'm stealing his face you don't do that in Hong Kong right so that was that the other thing was got to one night where he said he's continuing to me mean nothing I mean no money no house in Hong Kong stature is

massively important Shan the first thing a Cantonese person will ask you is what is the size of your flat yeah I know it sounds crazy right but what it is is they measure the square feet in Hong Kong and the more square feet you have the more status you have because living quarters is limited over there right he's really expensive so if you say I've got an x amount of square foot fry so all you immediately you know go up in sums and estimation and so yeah so him sang me nothing me no houses he's

just sang on the lowest of the low and like a say Shailaja could John I he was called Johnny and I couldn't Johnny horsepower because he's always pointing up and talk about horsepower right so in my mind I just he's Johnny horsepower all right and ok now mean nothing you know understand Johnny look list let's meet tomorrow morning oh yeah I'll meet you in a part what time well I finish here about 8:00 I think I finished at 7 or 8 in 1 oh ok he smiled just lights out that I'm giving him facial and

you see you know he's got nothing and I'm a while oh who they kind of secretly they would never admit this but they kind of look up to the West we're a bit revered you you can get a job in a Hong Kong business just for being a westerner because it's all about prestigious nests and this kind of thing right so anyway I said that because I'm so wired I've got this massive conspiracy right I'm not well I completely forgot to go and meet the guy in the morning I'm just heading back to my flat

like I always did and rather than do the sensible thing which get my head down try and get some sleep or at least you know lie down for a hour or two no I'm so addicted to this stuff Sean on my mind I'm just gonna go and smoke some more right and I couldn't stop doing that which is why I've got you know why my problems of building so well that I you know didn't didn't think about obviously and then there was a situation in the club the dialer was away at doing business at another

club he's kind of like deputy manager was at the bar he's talking to another triad and they just keep looking at me so I'm stood there by the door trying to look like I'm not off my head and I you know know how to do a doorman job and and I'm it's just not going unnoticed they just keep looking at me and they're talking to a girl well you know you're in a red-light district right you know so you could probably describe this girl was she looked like she probably like left many sailors drugged up

and wallet listen a B and BS you know I'm saying you looked a bit rough right a bit of a sociopath maybe and they're chanting to her the next thing she walks over and I'm stood by the side of it I'm not blocking the door or anything and she stumbles into me she just looks at me this evil look park I cry low well poor kaiser time you don't use on anyone Sean it's the worst form of insult it's kind of in English it would just mean [ __ ] you but as I said with

the issue of face like you you don't say that you know you you never say that it basic means like I want you to drop drop dead right it wasn't the friend of the guy that you were supposed to meet in the park by Anik you know no but you gotta remember you know they're all talking it's all chitchat about and obviously you know a lot of its gonna be about me because I'm displaying got unique behavior I'm trying to hold it together on the door Shawn and look you know I've got sweat literally running

and rivers down into my boxer shorts and I'm there trying to look like I'm not absolutely anxious as [ __ ] and the more this episode went on the more crap I just became Shawn right but the way that she kind of accidentally on purpose merged into me kind of tome well just told me she done it on purpose so she said [ __ ] off gwai-lo and I said I'm sorry luv I don't speak Chinese but I said it in that way that you know I'm trying to get a reaction however it's just a

stupid thing to do right I'm 25 Shawn you know no I'm I've been 26 by then it's when I was 25 right anyway she just looks at me daggers that I dare talk back to her I still don't know if this is game play but this is my experience right and immediately my heart starts to go ah Chris that may that just wasn't so smart really she charges back over to the bar to this triad you know manager in the club he's talking to this other tried and then they're then they're aggressively like looking at

me pull out their mobile phones and they're looking at me and they're stabbing into the keypad right and I'm like yeah okay I get it like you know you're not happy you're caught they did this thing right if I had a 14k get in trouble say for example another gang are gonna come and attack them the first person who spots and come in can just text a key word I never had a mobile back then it was whoa I had won it I was one of the first in the UK to have a mobile for

my business before I went out there so the nobles will quite new but they they they could make a phone call and just say one key word and every try then that would just be you know you call five people given this key word they call five people with a call five people all the Triads in all the local businesses and all the local flats we'll just send mob-handed to protect their honor right you know and protect them protect their club we'll protect themselves it was one scrap on la carte Road and over 200 triads

turned up to battle it out right I'll member saying to this old China hand how do they like how do they know who's who he said I'll don't Chris they they have their ways what ways might be like a matchstick in the mouth you know might be the way you know the Hat they've got on this kind of thing right so on there my heart's just it's it's starting to flutter Shawn you know who were they calling next thing I'm looking up the stairs and this triad from another club and some of them made way

were [ __ ] hard as nails you know they just looked they used to come in the club when I've been finding the Yanks off the ships you know for yank kicked off in a bar they would just go in like well I've already told you how violent they are right one night one of the guys from the other clubs came anyway haha he waved his hand at me all the skin was off his knuckles right haha we just killed a gwai-lo like that he didn't mean I don't think they meant they killed a guy

low but he meant that like we've just smashed the American sailors right so I'm well aware this this is a thing plus you got a minimum or mate got chopped up in my mind for doing the wrong thing or at least that's why I thought so I'm stood down this chart just comes charging down the stairs and he looks at me her--her why though we got to kill you and on I can't really explain it Shawn that level of fear it's a very unique place to be in life and this happened the next wing there's

another couple down bounding down the stairs going into the club huh great are gonna die tonight and my heart is just [ __ ] beating out my chest now I've got this like a stare aisle you know that feeling like when you know you're gonna be sick I wasn't gonna be sick that wasn't it but that that feeling you get in your body your mouth starts to and it was almost as if everything went white but I'm still there and this just went on and on you know five or six times with and and eventually

there was I don't Sean it it was what 15 20 years ago I can't put a number on it but there's a big mob of triads all at the bar all like looking at me like this giving it a mustard and the only way I can like in that fear is you remember those beheading videos in Iraq and stuff mmm they were [ __ ] nasty weren't there you know I used to just think of that poor guy in the orange pajamas knowing this is it mate you went out to Iraq to do what you

you you bought the ticket you paid a piper now write that this is this is this is that is exactly how I felt I'm there I'm trying to steady myself Ryan calm down and I'm thinking Chris hang on hang on you've been a doorman on like three clubs in why don't you like right they can't just drag you out the back and chop you up I mean there's experts in this club now right they're gonna witness this guy and what they're going to say to Interpol ha this guy just like spontaneous didn't we never saw

him again you know there's going to be questions and I'm I'm thinking right before even for that I thought now [ __ ] it Shawn I'm not being intimidated by anyone you know at the end of the day these are cliquey [ __ ] gangsters after hanging around more banded doing all these hand signs to feel good about South right they've got no clave right I was a rule Marines commando and I'm not talking about being hard now I'm talking about the [ __ ] pride that we have and I ain't gonna be scared by

any of these [ __ ] right laughs all right next one it comes down that stairs I'm gonna it just say one thing I'll get the entry stamp I'm just gonna smoke it in your [ __ ] forehead you know yeah yeah I know it you know maybe it's a bit of bravado Shawn but you know what what else could I do you know wasn't gonna be intimidated you you don't know me what have I done - I've done nothing I'm just basically a lost young man and you have no clue why they've got it

in for you just that I think they had a woman well I'll tell you the hindsight afterwards right so sit there but then I'm starting to figure hang on they can't just do away with me well they can say to the police what you know okay they control a lot of the police non but what you know there's gonna be an investigation gonna be the International was it Interpol or whatever I can't just say all that guy was on the door woman II just know I think they're having a laugh Shawn okay it's not a

very nice laugh facts just call it chuckle as far as I'm concerned I fought and then the next person Oh No as this is all going on right before I've kind of got to this contemplative reflective stage the next guy in a club is an expert that I was talking to the night before right he'd come over to see his cousin who was working in Hong Kong and while he was chatting to me I said maybe noticed anything like what what these trials all where the white shell suit we've got the white trainers the jewelry

it's like you can when you look around the club it's just obvious who were the Triads right and in the Marines Shawn we had the same thing any marine will tell you he served back when I did in the 80s and 90s you wore a Helly Hansen green fleece you're an ocean pacific t-shirt you wore faded jeans and chukka boots that was our uniform you could be anywhere in the world and see another marine like straight away right so obviously the tries are going to have their own form of recognition their own sort of underground

uniform so I'm saying to this ex bastard look and you look to me like I was a bit you know conspiratorial can we say and he wandered in into the club going out his drinking I didn't think anything more of it now he's coming downstairs in my club he's got a white show suit top and white trainers and he looked to me went well lookie here what am I wearing ha ha and he went into the club now here's the thing Shawn in hindsight that could have meant anything it could have just meant I put

a white you know add a desktop on today you have got white trainers and look unlike the guys you you know it could have just been nothing but in my mind it's like oh my god he's a foreign dryer I've been pouring my you know secrets out to this guy he's [ __ ] one of them what but of course is up in my fear even more I'm then and this is the icing on the cake the Drik guy comes back to the door this so this South African man he's like you're gonna get it

tonight Chris what nothing straight what the [ __ ] you on about oh you mean when you told chichay that Johnny does drugs I was like drink nuts [ __ ] all mate I was just trying to show to Joy I like I know how to be okay and suddenly my heart's going Oh Chris why did you do that [ __ ] you [ __ ] hypocritical bastard it sounds all fall here in it you know so it just shows they're talking about me right because this guy knows a conversation that happened you know between

me meet me someone else there was another thing right there was a guy he's got one ear right he was a barman in a very plush hotel before he started working out he down a bottle of vodka he was really bad alcohol problem when I was on the door used to go easy on him Shawn that I felt for the guy he it it came across to me that because he was disfigured he was drinking to make up for it and he didn't feel like he could be attractive to you know this is how it

came across I call him in one club well I wasn't working on the doors just drinking in that Club we went on the dance from starting to pull his trousers and pants down right and I grabbed him I mayn't make me that's that's enough come on let me get you a drink oh and I take him outside I used to put him in a cab and he's looking oh thanks wait Thanks so he he just appreciate what I did for him and I did this happened a few times and one time I was in the

toilet in my triad club just taking a leak right and he came in the urinal next to me I was skinned Shawn desperate and I looked at the guy I can't remember his name now Martin might be in my book but I said he said yeah you like Christmas yeah but it's candy so arm Oh make me it just immediately went for his wallet because he's full of gratitude for me Shawn you know anyway just take it take it and he give me like 200 bucks it's about 20 quid so I'm a dude you know

I paid him straight back out of my you know there was nothing I wasn't gonna steal his money or anything Shawn there's nothing like that right so this trick guy hung their heartbeat in he sight what about when you borrow 200 bucks from Sir Jeremy and you didn't pay him back I'm not sure it you know fuck-all about that mate that this is a conversation that took place in a urinal between two you know he did how could he even know anything about it right strange right I'll see you know fuck-all about that mate I

said if you did you know I paid Jeremy back out of my pay packet and he said and who you supposed to me in the poll this morning ah that was that was it Sean that was like the guillotine coming down I'm suddenly feeling like the worst bastard in the whole world this guy's got nothing he likes it that I'm nice to him and I'm not nice to him because I'm trying to be sure you know we're all equal in this world right it doesn't matter who you are and I've always sort of felt that

and but the fact that I'm the one positive in this guy's life and he's gonna meet me in the part and I forgot about it then my heart just starts like like like like being right this trick guy disappears into the bar to do that you know the bouncer walk around at the bar sort of thing and I'm stood down and then then I'm doing this thinking hang on I'm like I've worked in three clubs that they can't just I wonder if this is a piss-take is this some sort of like bizarre triad humour or

you know Chinese have a very unique sense of humor as it is okay and as I'm thinking this I look up and in the in through the top doorway comes the Filipino girl and she was a girl used to go out dancing with oh I wouldn't go out with her but we'd always be in our favourite nightclub it used to be called the Big Apple who it's funny now I'm like friends with all the people from back then through Facebook and I'm you were doing Skype and they're like Chris you were like this along it

was I yeah we didn't know yeah it's been fascinating Sean right fascinating but this girl's coming down the stairs and she looks like a frightened faun she's just taking one step at a time she's got her eyes are just wide and she came up and she just grabbed my aren't you Chris they [ __ ] me you don't don't tell anybody who there kill me like that and she just went into the club so I just stood there and I was like I so glad Sean I hadn't run out there you got things smashed one

of the things I so glad I just stuck up you know kind of stuck up for just kept my dignity you know I have I thought if I die I die that to us that's just it right and this girl you know you it might sound that might sound nothing to English you know American people like she's nothing and she's a Filipina they are just the lowest of the low in the eyes of the Hong Kong triads you know then lived a basically prostitute Sean if they don't like I said that when they go collapse

of the drug overdose throwing it throw in the alleyway no the fact she done that for me was just the ultimate human courage you you can say it's on there so in this trick guy comes back and he's like you're gonna get it now like I'll mate [ __ ] off and I hope at him on the back of her head and I said something you know something disarming like I can't like I can remember like yeah okay mate thanks for that and I walked in the club there's all these triads all pretending to like

look daggers at me and then oh there's a crescendo in the music you know coming from the dance floor I just did a Michael Jackson 360 spin and then just walked onto the dance thrown out of dance and and that was just my way of saying you know trying to like put some [ __ ] clothes on it and yeah that was a yeah that's a little part of my life Sean there was a situation where two triads are the fights of mobile phones this is where if it's not bizarre already right this is before

this what in my book I call it the murder right because that's how I felt at the time yeah the I'm stood in the stairwell usual price and one young Magi so a foot soldier for the 14k comes running out of the club and behind him he's got another try out chasing him and he's screaming jeu de Lomo you know go [ __ ] your mother's so and so again you know you don't say that sort of stuff to anyone but he's absolutely furious with this guy the guy turns around in the stairwell right in

front of me so I do the spread-eagle thing and they proceeded to battle it out and the one of the guy I can't believe it's both of them one that guy had his mobile phone and he's just using it as a dagger and he smacking it into this guy's head right blood starting to spurt out everywhere the one guy who was obviously too you know the not the Alpha mer there to just seized his chance and he turned and bolted for the stairs and the guy in a stairwell reached out and grabbed his shirttail and

he ripped the shirt off his back but this guy didn't even stop he's gone and he's screaming yeah all this you know Cantonese insult chasing at this guy's heels right I thought okay now again you know you'd think I'd learn by now my immediate thing is protect the club right the dialers looking after me and Confucius not under Confucius's rules can we say but also the Triad rules you respect your boss in turn you boss will respect you that's where he gave me money to furnish my flat and all this sort stuff right so my

first thing is protect the club you know respect the dialogue so I ran to the cleaning cupboard grabbed a mop and iced I been walking up this blood of course I'd [ __ ] up because the cleaner thing came out you mr. Chen is seventy year old man that's his job sure right you don't take someone else's job how can I explain no I'm not trying to take your job mate I'm cleaning up [ __ ] blood cos the cops are gonna be you know if the cops come in any minute just blood all over

the floor if anyone comes in is so I'm okay sorry mr. chan you know there's [ __ ] there's your mark he's like looking at me cool mopping his film literally two minutes layer who appears but the boys in blue and you got remember the boys in blue in Hong Kong probably triads Sean right this is just just how it works they've been infiltrated all areas of life and they came in and he looked me ah you see fight in here tonight I'm like fight in here tonight you know right yeah I'm like dumb as

a bear on masterminds right and oh okay and they and I could see the dilo like looking at me and I felt Oh at least I've done something right you know anyway they they disappeared I fought is strange why they even turning up I mean who would have called the police this is a triad run club run by triads stop you know is staffed by triads this [ __ ] happens who and the expats don't have mobiles because we didn't have them Matt then ask Wireless we all carry pagers Sean right so at least someone

on a house phone or an office funky ghetto da we didn't have a mobile so who's cool to place so again I'm thinking is this some sort of setup when they left the club stood in the stairwell and I look down there's a [ __ ] fake blood capsule on the floor like broken in two and it it been pushed to the edge of the stairwell where mr. Chen had been sweeping with his mop right and I'm just like been down double double check yeah it's like what used to buying the joke shops when you're

a kid those fake blood if you're gonna ask me Sean like what was that about I have no I dear right all I can say is you get involved in crystal meth that you get weird experiences that you just can't they don't even make sense in hindsight you just can't put any you know you can't put any logic to it so yeah so there's a battle with the Sun Yi triad but it almost kicked off with that yeah this sunny on that was the the try again I was trying to remember the name of their

the guys that run Tim site which is the island side of the peninsula side of Hong Kong and now again I'm just stood during the club I'm actually in the club this time and I'm looking at the door and suddenly these triads are coming through it and you you learn to spot them straight away Shawn I can't really you just see it's like the way you can tell a service money you know just see the way to hold themself and they coming through the door in this big snake but they're not 14k they're not dressed

like 14k and they came in the club and immediately you could see the 14k guys all pulling back like this and I swear I might this might I'm this might be my own imaginary but I swear they used to talk there I Shawn like you know they could just say a lot of communication with just their eyes and these guys are all look the 14k all just looking around next thing you know it's like 20 guys from another triad in the club there's no logic to it you don't do that it's it's it's like they're

making this club lose facial right in amongst them was their gwai-lo doorman who funnily enough also used to be cool Chris and I knew Chris cuz whenever we used to go to after parties after you know work there's some crazy parties in Hong Kong Shawn you know mad drugs Hong Kong's you can get any drug you want there just like that and then it's not hugely expensive writers you can imagine it's the dancera rave sort of time some pretty crazy parties and I used to sit down you know maybe smoke a spliff with this guy

Chris so I sidled up to him I'm like Chris what are you guys doing this side and he's like Oh stiff like this and he's like looking and he said I think we're leaving now like that and with that one of the tribes must have made some sign I don't pretend to know and they just turned Sean like all returned as one just filed out the club like a snake it was you know it's like a Mexican standoff there for a moment yes you mentioned the assassin the really tall guy have you got any stories

about him I think it's funny that he liked me he was it was the to try the the cherubic faced the street fight a guy that kind of had a you know I just wound him up the wrong way I guess you said but dice it was okay he'd you know they keep their distance Sean they're very conscious that their English is but you know most Hong Kong people speaking is a second language it's not an issue but these aren't your typical office workers these are guys from some of the hardest sink estates is what

we would call them you know they've not known love they've not known secure family they come to the Triad because it offers that that Brotherhood and that's where the loyalty becomes so so strong right but ya know I'd be a liar mate if I could tell you any hits that you know but it was just never I never came across that but it was a funny situation where what we used to do in the morning is after all the punters has gone you grab a torch and you go around the dance when you just scan

the floor looking for any valuables and there was always something you know there's money someone's dropped a bag of coke or crystal meth or this sort of thing and one morning he picked up he picked up something I can't I think it was a lighter and this is another thing in Hong Kong you don't give people things because that's patronizing or it can be sent you did you know I I this little ol apologize if I use the expression little old man a lot but you know it is like that cliche Hong Kong movie over

there Sean you get these little wizened old guys and one of them real good friend of mine we used to go dancing together and I used to stop it at 7-eleven and get him a pak'ma'ra and I'd be like push it across the table he never accept it and I never knew why until after I left Hong Kong and I learnt more about the cultures you don't to give people gifts like you're patronizing them sort of thing right but anyway in this case this six-foot-seven assassin dye suit gave me you like this it was a

cigarette lighter or something and I was like oh okay yeah six foot seven assassin likes me and he's giving me the cigarette loan there was a pen so I picked up the pen and I went die - he's like mmm you see you see do you see what I'm saying the [ __ ] couldn't accept it so I thought about for a second and I thought they hate the Indians right in in Cantonese yeah no Yan so Indian man Indian man yonder Yan and a very racist sister Hong Kong's quite a racist place they call

black people hog wire like black devil and I've been on the MTR the underground where black person's came in sat down and the Chinese person next one will just get up and move carriages Shawn you know it's it's not I couldn't tell you exactly why but there's all you know all these aspects of culture coming into this that we couldn't understand but they used to hate the Indians coming in the Indians will always try and come in the club and they hate you're paying the entrance fee yes you know they come from impoverished countries it

is they come to Hong Kong to make their fortune they probably worked in a restaurant earning next to nothing right but the try this tries just had a real disliking for them so he like held the pen out disco dice her and I say ya know young and I just mimic shove it up his bum right and he just starts laughing and they eat then he takes the pen right so yeah that was that's kind of the closest we we sort of got how did your work with the Triads and oh yeah I became too

ill Shawn that was one night where this guy direct keeps going he knows now that I'm on the drugs and he's keep saying things like Chris you know I had a problem with the alcohol apparently that 14kg found him sleeping in McDonald's and they given him a job this is how gangs work you know they recruit from people who've got nothing in their life right and they've given him a job they got in the flat and he was like the proud to work for them that right he's saying Chris you know I like a drink

yeah wing wing but I don't do it before work and I think yeah like crystal meth that simple right it's just a different kettle of fish but then I got to thinking I despite everything that went on I like this job Shawn you know I don't know that my jury's out of what the hell that was all about if I was honest right but I liked it I liked being the frontman of a of a Hong Kong nightclub staff by headcases it and I didn't want to lose the job so one night foot right I've

got a not the meth on the head when you come off you know when you're coming out with diction Shawn you have these moments you have a lot of them you know relapse is all a part of getting your psychology around what what's been happening to you right but this one time this is like one of the first time I actually look myself in the mirror well I would have done if I hadn't smashed it but and I said Chris come on you got to sort this out mate you know you've got people that like

you and they trying to help you and they can see the way this is going and you've got a boss that gives you money to get your furniture so a bit stupidly Shawn I just decided to knock it on the head but you can't do that with math because you're so tired you are literally you know you haven't slept for maybe five or six days you haven't eaten more than maybe like a croissant or someone from the seven Levin that you've had to force down you because your mouth is so dry right you know I

know you know what I'm coming from right so I rocked up at work 24 hours after knocking it on that you know for my next shift basically I was fine to get there he still got a bit of meth buzzing around your bloodstream Ryan I stood there just suddenly start to feel tired before I knew it I was too tired to stand up Sean so I took himself in that in the back room it was where they kept all the sort of beer crates and stuff and I sat down on his crate of Schweppes or

something and I'm like my head is just rolling from side like I couldn't get it together and I'm not going to right and as I'm sat there and I've been there about an hour you know let's be honest I'm pretty [ __ ] not good to anyone am I really even though my heart is that you know my intentions were right and one of the bar staff just came and said kwisa the boss say you no need to work here anymore I was like I said thanks and it's crazy just lost another job you know

I'm gonna win us out SIA sunt down against the front of this shop and just sound the dirt in the pavement I thought it was tempting to feel sorry for yourself at times like this Sean but I just thought my nan always said life ain't fair why would you want it you know why would you expect it to be so ah you know and that was my attitude and pick myself up and you know you're gonna hit you you're gonna hit different things if you read the tabloids they like one of the famous lines was

oh it it was something like the Sunday sport it made me laugh and it was you know when you're trying to promote your book Sean you're going to take this interview and now you sometimes you do them with publications you wouldn't really read yourself and you wouldn't you don't sort of condone that whenever wherever it's exes and all this but you know we all kind of compromised ourselves a bit at times right I I just wanted to make it as an offer so I've done every interview that I've been asked to do and this one

interview said it was I was too hardcore for the Hong Kong triads because like I've never even read my book it so every everything I told you it's all in there this is just them you know the media take your story and they want to sell you know TV programs radio shows things and they'll so so yeah that was quite um quite funny but the truth is just what I told you guys [ __ ] Sean so what did you do next I'll keep this short cuz I have just told this story to our good

friend James English and probably no point going going over everything I told him but one of the things I ended up in my mind my Marines training specifically the commando cruel that we're taught in training at limp Stern that's where you lay your stomach onto a rope and you crawl across a canyon the idea is like you're getting onto a ship or you're crossing a valley in you know a ravine in the nature of something right my my psychosis is telling me well I should say on the roof of my building there was a wire

it went from my building to the building opposite and plastic up to it was a hose pipe so for some reason my buildings feeding feeding water to that other rooftop I'm guessing it's because it a lot of the homeless population live on the roofs in Hong Kong Sean right so there's some kind of arrangement that this guys feeding that guy water or whatever I don't know what excuse me so get it into my head or may have this this third voice is telling me if I can do the commander krohler across this wire and I'm

on the top this is a top-floor Shawn so we're we're since a 20-story building I'm lying on that wire I'm looking down and the people in the street below they look like ants the cars are tiny it's swaying from side to side and I'm starting to inch across it and what my mind's telling me is if I can get to the other side I'm gonna suss all this conspiracy right yeah the funny thing was it gets even more let's let's make it hilarious because it's you know you got a laugh right but there was a

woman in that the flat opposite mine and in her kind of pebble I don't worry you call that a bathroom window in fact you know that frosted frosted window she there was obviously a mirror behind this window and this woman used to brush her hair in a mirror every night right but the microphone in that cellar looked like she was singing into a microphone so my psychosis is telling me this is not over and she was a you know large woman can we say so my psychosis and this isn't over until the fat lady sings

right and this little cliche sound bites like that that when you'll this ale really take on new meaning Shawn and you're reading all this like stuff into them right so on I'm that um well I'm about to try and crawl across this wire 70 meters above the ground and to see the fat lady sing doing my commander shrink is my psychosis now is telling me the Marines was nothing about going to fight wars or you know my my combat in Northern Ireland no Chris it's about this moment in your life it's prepared you it's trained

you and I've got this image that when I get across this wire it's almost like the heavens gonna open and everybody I know is gonna come rushing towards me clapping and st. Chris you made it make well done you know we doubted you there for a minute but you've come good you know yeah this is suck this is our childhood childhood trauma manifests you know when you when you take crystal meth so I I'm starting to call across it's why it's really hard because the plastic us were like digging into my my my skin it

wasn't just like shinning across a rope I'm I get about five meters out and I'm swaying they're looking down you drop off this your dirt oh not that I would I wouldn't have dropped off it sure my training was even if I fell off and was hanging on by my arms the Marines teach you how to get back on it we call it a regain right that's not the issue the issue is I didn't set this thing I I don't know how secure it is I didn't know how secure it was I didn't know if

it's gonna snap right and probably need to cut a long story short here but I started thinking about my kid brother you know he's some six years six months and six days younger than me and when you know he's been like a rock in my life Shawn he even when we haven't seen each other he's he's my best friend right you know that's what your brother essentially is and I am it just occurred to me I like I'm spoke to him for months I don't know I think I spoke to him once this when in

Hong Kong he's my best and what am i doing now I'm I'm like trying to prove myself took to him what those [ __ ] wankers in the club that set me up to be murdered well these expats doing all this funny thing you know and a lot of my friends desert they they are well they kept the starting to keeping their distance from me now Shawn and I'll become a laughingstock right you know this is how you know mental illness is just not understood right and I'm swaying on this cable and I'm I'm thinking

back to when we were kids and our parents split up for like the third time before you know finally getting divorced and we used to get pulled out a primary school right your mum's waiting for you in a car park we'd have to hop on a train go 300 miles way up north live with our grandma we get shoved into a new school it'd always be the same you know the girls always took a shine to me the boys always wanted to you know try and bully and fight me so I'd have to stick up

in myself but one of the things that Mae that the I'll tell you this Sean one of the hardest most poignant moments of my childhood was when one of these times happened my mum had got on a train she'd shot up north right to be with her mother my dad got me and my sister together and he said he said your mum's left me you've got choice kids you can stay here with me in Devon we can go out to Lincolnshire I will stay with you that we're [ __ ] kids Sean you know we'll

stay with you dad you love you you know for whatever went on in my family and it was a lot of ups and downs Sean you know as I said before it's all forgiven so we don't even don't go down you know but like you love your parents you know and I'm a boy what that is you know my hero right I'm gonna stay with you dad next day calls us back in the kitchen guys your mother's on and I heard the funcle' Sean my mother it never occurred to her we'd want to stay with

our dad and we not cuz my mom was bad it's good we will we love our dad this is our home we go to school here right I remember hearing my mum screaming down the phone at him you know you'd not take my kids away vijaya so it was sorry kids we're in the car right we still have like crappy old Morris travelers the ones with a wooden timber on the back it's been beerus driving to school because that fungus would grow however timbers right and in this occasion I think we had a little Morris

a little minivan that my dad had as a work car because he was always in the carpet business he drove us 300 miles Shaun to Lincolnshire got to my Gran's house you know friends of mine you have a cup of tea don't you have a little walk chill out you get in a car maybe have asked my sister hops out of the car oh I can't wait to see mum and Grandma right and I just remember thinking you don't get it you don't get it sister you this like we're not gonna see my dad again

she won't run it skipping into the house and and I'm there just stood on the pavement in shock you know my dad says he's got the bags from the car Sean just dumped him on a pavement and he said I love you so much son and he hugged me that's like the second hug I got off him that's only the second time he hugged me and my whole life Sean you know my parents with that generation right and he just popped back in the vehicle and as he drove down the road I'm looking in the

winger and he's waving out he's crying [ __ ] eyes I'm sure you know and I'm known I'm just like you know I wasn't trying to hold it gether but I'm holding it together and my mum come Ashwin Oh where's she dad and he stopping for a cup of tea and hold my yeah anyway I just I say that to give you the idea of how powerful love is because when I'm on that wire Sean I'm thinking of my brother I'm thinking of when we went to these strange schools he was in the like you

know he'd be like four you know in the very baby year I uh I was about ten by this time so I was in the the boys thing right it's a horrible school they may use to make you sit in order of how smart you were from the eleven plus passengers so if you is the you know stereotypical thick kid you had to sit at the end of the class right this is how backward it was in that you know in the seventies and this is coming into the 80s now and what what we used

to do to make it not so lonely with all this divorced stuff going on his art they had a rule in the school that's the small kids playground this is the big kids not allowed to go in right I'm like [ __ ] adults then they not stop with me soon my kid brother Sean you know so he used to sit halfway down out of one playground on the step and I used to sit halfway out of ours and we just spend our lunch time together in it it wasn't so lonely in orrible and you

know just having my little brother there with me so I'm on this wire in Hong Kong and I'm looking down and I'm thinking what are you doing what are you trying to prove - who is there [ __ ] wankers in there [ __ ] wankers you you don't owe anything to these people you owe your kid brother who's home in England you own him spoke to him for months if this wire snaps now you're gonna spiral to your death and they're gonna get a phone call back in English say ah your brother became a

drug addict in Hong Kong and he committed suicide threw himself off a building Sean that wouldn't have been the case I never lost respect for myself you know even when I was chronically mentally ill like nothing wrong with me you know that's why I've never had any AAA meetings no no na no no no I've never seen a doctor you know I've seen doctors they've given me medicine I chucked it straight in the bin everything I've got in my life I just you know repeat myself across 80 countries seven continents achieved everything on my bucket

list fact I'm the only person I know that has done that right done it all myself coming from this point that I'm telling you and I'm thinking about my kid brother to stop crying and I'm writing on this way and the tears are just pouring out my [ __ ] eyes Sean I'm like I just miss my brother suddenly just so much so I just missed him you know like what am i doing proving myself to [ __ ] who think they're big big many nightclubs when they [ __ ] all you know they've been

in the Marines got no idea how hard it is to earn the green berry right and I'm I'm like trying to impress her oh [ __ ] that I only owe one person in the world that's my brother and that's it and I climb a climb back off that wire and went back into the apartment smashed everything up you know in what I now come recognize is a nervous breakdown right and that was the first of probably about three or four before I finally had my Epiphany you can say and self on the journey to

enlightenment which just brought me to you're good company Sean so from the highwire point how much longer were you in that country I was about there another month my next job and you remember I'm still inside Sean you got mem and mentally ill people aren't gonna hurt [ __ ] anyone occasionally you get shot you know you get this sight got it thing and they go and stop you know that is so rare statistically the reason I say that is my next job is I've got a job as a school teacher and I was teaching

these kids but I couldn't get it together because I'm rushing I'm late all the time and I've got this job they love me sure right it's just um go in a classroom and Chinese is strict right it's it's done in a certain way but I'll just be like catch you outside they hold like look each other kiss you know you don't go outside and sit in the sports fields you know it's just never been done before I am like so we sneaking out the classroom I might leave you back leave you bags and we crawled

under the windows of all the other classes and we're cruel and you can hear that the other guy low teachers going right today we're doing Madison two plus two is four and I'm like if we sneaking out right the kids are going just giggling their heads off right so got the point where I couldn't make it to school one day and I ran into the playground and all the classes had gone to class you know I've lost another job I lost another job in the head of English you called miss Lynn she come walking across

the playground to me you know so miss Lynn I'm so sorry I'm so you know I won't be late again so now Chris don't worry she say do you come by tomorrow she I have another teacher take your class you know if I'm do the accent short when it's just it's not you know Hong Kong just such a unique place just doing an English accent it doesn't doesn't have the same effect right but yeah so she said yeah come by tomorrow it's okay okay thanks miss Ling right and as I turned to a girl she

said earth Chrissa yes miss Lin she said um the children say your class is their favorite class and you are their favorite teacher mm-hmm and I was like oh thanks miss Fiona Shaw allowed to turn around cuz I burst into tears you know I've just took like ten steps and tears are just coming down my face because I loved them gates you know I would have done anything for them I loved being their teacher it was giving back to the generation that you know our generation has so much stolen from us in that respect you

know and the fact that I'm getting is some amazing feedback that he's actually the person I want to be in this world not this drugged up [ __ ] clown that you know you know and I walked away and I was just just like so emotional and anyway I had that job that came to a head I I got so I had such a bout of psychosis one day but you're off the drugs no no I'm still I'd gone back on Christian you know it's real actual I don't realize you're never gonna hit it the

first time it's yeah it's a learning curve and this is fine you notice what I teach people now realized it's fun that's where you learn you know if you go to someone it says right stop you've got a it yeah that can work and that can say P it was nice but what you lose and you lose all the learning that comes from falling down but that's another subject yeah so I'm back on a crystal meth you know bunking with a friend because I got kicked out of the flat that I smashed up and yeah

don't if I should tell you the anger that's my story or my book Sean but you know just got to a point where I had to admit to myself this none of it's working anymore and at that moment my dad had got in contact with me through a friend of mine and you know Chris how about like that like I get you an air ticket to come home I'm like no dad you know I was there to make my fortune in Hong Kong so I'll still intent on that right I'm like you can't afford it

and you know we weren't a rich we've never been a rich family Sean it's like ticket from Hong Kong's at 800 quid or something right and I'm like no dad you can't do that he's like look I'll just put on the card when I put on the card they said I call you back ten minutes all right in a SAP HANA for some it's not working anymore Shauna's a you know I'll burn all my bridges I've got no money bunking with my lap with a Chinese guy me you know was best friend at the time

and I'm awful you go go back to UK make you know you got to and that was there in that ten minutes my dad had booked a flight with virgin I rocked up on the time that the flight left might you know my manic time keeping my four-eyes the five o'clock flight from Hong Kong you know [ __ ] them what was it was the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport real famous landing at Kai Tak right like an idiot I rocked up there at five when the flight was due to leave and a girl

at a desk went no cannot fight gone already so gone it can't be gone my dad's paid like she said wait wait one more one moment she made a phone call by some freak of the you know the air traffic control timings it was still on the apron Shan and okay wait here this guy from immigration come legging it down that the concourse went he picked out all these bad it's all in a book you know but all these random bags ran me into his office right okay you know carry anything you shouldn't should you

some mmm convenient or in the little pocket of crystal meth I've got stashed in my boot right and it this is where 40 nights comes in this is where you know I left Hong Kong Sean I had no regrets fortunate I didn't like her other than like not meeting Johnny horsepower I didn't it's not like I hurt anyone you know I know nothing against Hong Kong Hong Kong people I'm just like Chris get on a plane mates another phase of your life that was it it was funny when I got on the plane because it

been on the ground so long and because they then had to wait for me that was the only person on the bus out to the plane Jordan is like the first time in a year in Hong Kong I was the only person on a it was mental and when I got on the plane of course I had all my luggage with me and the stewardesses the air flight attendants you call them now don't you they were like but where can we put it they put it in their locker that their staff locker they very kindly

put my stuff in there right I took my seat and they'd already started serving drinks because the flight had been delayed so long right and I sat down and the stewardesses serving the guy behind me he says yeah a gin and tonic please and and then I turn and I just happened to like catch his eye and he went can have some ice in that place I went yeah yeah I uh that's how I'm well I was sure and I thought this was some he was signaling me or that this was some little dig at

me and and yeah full on on mental as we say down in Devon so what happened when your bag of meth ran out I just I was absolutely fine within like three days all the psychosis is cleared I was what you'd call the old crap me okay I'd lost a lot of weight but did you sleep for a few days I probably did but it was a bit of a buzz beam you must have had this when he came out of prison I was a bit of a boss just being back in the UK and

reverse culture shock it was summer and it was nice and my family trying to spoil me and go no all I want to do is get y'all get back to Hong Kong ASAP get down the gym put a bit of weight back on get back on door you know I loved Hong Kong Shore more than I could ever explain at least I did I did then right when when it was such a big thing in my life but no I went probably about week without drugs maybe ten days then the little voices like oh just

a little bag of amphetamine would be nice that all kind of sort you know and I did it a couple of times and then I luckily I'd let my house go right I just said the bank can just take you about our you know I was too busy with triads and working girls and and conspiracies and I couldn't be worrying about a mortgage back home there's my lottery or my person living in my house that up and left right and trashed it and all this stuff but luckily my my dad really kindly got together with

my uncle and they kept the interest payments going so I was thousands of pounds in debt right so I still have my house warm which is well just an amazing thing they did for me because that's really helped me obviously in subsequent years and along the house no no I was in it for for many years and then when I met my gorgeous girl she came around one day to that house and I said Chan I thinking of sorting a few things out getting rid of her she said yeah I think you should because I'm

pregnant cuz I was like who's the lucky guy said she you know and as you know that's another episode of this crazy how did you control the impulse to go back to Hong Kong then it just never happened Shawn I entered what I now know was a chronic depression you know I've been living the high life for a year I've been in 24/7 in the most exciting nightclub district in the world with the rogue list of characters the most interesting of expats the girls who used to come out dancing it was you know you want

a beer at 3:00 in the morning you just walk down the road and grab a goalless MLM grab a beer Shawn you know you want to call your mate you want to hook up with your mate well he'll probably be in that nightclub dancing I've got you know it was just that to come back to England I had no qualifications other than you know and you know 2o levels and 3G SES I did the GCSEs in the Marines I'd no trade I felt I had nothing to offer anyone and I just hated oppression and that

and the only way I could like raise my head off this sofa bed that I slept on for 18 months was when I could get some what's called base in the UK which is the strongest form of amphetamine but it's about you know 20% as strong as ice right and yeah 18 months I did that for Sean and Hong Kong despite what I've told you was quite a bit of a blast living in the UK chronically addicted to drugs massively depressed and not understanding why because no one no one back then could explain what depression

was to you so you didn't know why you felt this emptiness and this lack of direction right so yeah that's that's all in 40 nights can we talk about triathlon now it's something positive well we got a few dark stories here left did you want to just do those on another occasion and you can is it Lee was a bad episode yeah you nearly taking the LSD yeah Lee was a as you go through life Sean you know you forget what you think from Facebook you realize you got 10 best mates and you can count

one you know your best matching accountant probably on one and maybe two not these thousands of likes and whatever right and Lee was one of them guys we drove to India together we won't go into this but when I got when I finally had my epiphany and I started going into the light instead of staying in the dark right I wanted to help kids in Africa so I did a charity fire walk and I walk 120 feet over red-hot coals to earn the money to attend a school in Norway that trained you as a volunteer

worker to go and work in Africa while I was there they said would you drive a bus to India so Lee and I drove a bus from it from Norway to India and then he says that say about three and a half months until three and a half months took a lot longer than anticipated Zeus has got a go on bolts and stuff is it around Greece and Italy I think we got a ferry to Italy you're from Italy to go to Greece rather yeah from Italy to Greece to earth Venice you know how to

Dame lose on the boss they were about started off with 16 volunteers volunteer journalists so our role I was a driver Lee was a driver our role was to write articles about people living in poverty and kind of exchange culture it was the early days of the internet so the school had a kind of website set up and we didn't actually do a lot of that because it was a 1978 British Leyland bus not a good advert for Leila and it broke down almost every day Sean so Lee and I'll eat Lee was from Manchester

and we were fellow bad boys you know we'd done a bit of life got the point where we couldn't cane the drugs anymore and we'd had this in Lyme and we wanted to help others and that's why we were on this this journey together fixing his bus every day covered in grease we spent three and a half weeks in a garage you know garage in Turkey living with a mechanics that was you know in the group immigrant mechanic sleeping on the floor and it was it's his stuff for another book right but anyway we we

drove to injure him back Lee and I and we always kept in touch and he was a dear friend because he's one of them once he'd just call you out the blue which is quite a rest you know doesn't tend to happen now right quest yeah been out last night you know how you did and they told me about this latest girlfriend and this one thing anyway we had this relationship that pretty much any time we got together we'd bashes drugs Sean you know it's just what it's just what we did right and what I

did back back at that stage in my life right bit I live a bit of a healthier lifestyle now I guess you can say he came around my place employment he drove down from Manchester once and we're going to go out you know this is this is like Thursday night gonna go out down to Plymouth Union Street the nightclub area and she would pop a pill before we go yeah yeah good idea you know and Lee would have pop - because he all is overdid it Shawn and I used to get I was worried about

you know likely you don't know how strong them pills are me come on just I need sometimes each spin out I just start throwing up everywhere as we walk into a nightclub and this kind of thing but yeah that that that long weekend he came we never got out the house we just kind all these pills drinking drinking ordering in a takeaway watching DVD after DVD so yeah that was kind of like you know when we got together we kind of bash there but anyway round about the time of study at University of studying youth

work right I've got a phone call Chris it's late boom festival like what you on about site it's a psychedelic trance festering Portugal I'm okay I've never heard a psychedelic trying I mean you obviously you know everyone knows trance music psychedelic trance I I got some up on a you know Internet listen to it was gonna say just warm my finger I was like into uplifting spiritual house and dancing all night right and this is like boom boom boom boom it's almost like hardcore grungy you know techno sort of sort of music but anyway I

of course just I look forward to being with Lee and we're gonna drive down a porch all together and he'd become friends with this third lad let's just cool in no Steve right so I'm waiting Aaron Plummer if they're driving down the line I'm like come on guys and we had you know they obviously could text people then where are ya traffic mate you know I say yeah cos I'd those texts on my phone for for a while as you gonna find out and so they rock up the call D spliffs ready rode his mates

got a brand new it wasn't crying it kind of Lexus but it won't far off it you know one of these all gadgets resoures and all taking a turns in driving hit the fair we go across to France got to a place called I think he's called Biarritz or I'm it's it's north coast of France right we parked her we've been driving you know all day and he says we'll go for a swim yeah okay put our shorts on went down to the sea and we had a little swim and I turn round looked at

Lee and he sought-- doing this doggy paddle thing right so you're you your ice is our Kris I've just taught myself to swim I've only I couldn't swim all my life I've just been doing it in the last couple of weeks okay obviously you know didn't think anything more of it got down to Portugal got this festival by this time the guy that we rave and this is not I'm not disrespecting or anything Shawn it was just he was becoming really problematic bit rude a bit obnoxious he had issues he was in a wheelchair and

he's like and they'd fallen out and it was just anyway we rocked up at this festival Town place and it was by beautiful Lake and the festival was on one side of the lake and all the people that gathered there the day before camped on the other shore waiting for the gates to open and then there'd be this big line of cars and fight a lot it was just left a car in the middle of the road there was so many people go into this festival and we pitched our tent we'd bought a couple of

beers some geezer came around some Portuguese guy open French it's just everyone of all different cultures there at this you know on this lakeside obviously a lot of Europeans right traveler types this kind of thing guy comes up guys Co understate you know coke um MDMA so we bought a little bit of this and a you know a little bit of that I think we did a line of coke drunk a couple of beers and let's go for a walk so walk down the beach the guy in a wheelchair electric and his special roulette motor

on his thing training could pretty much go across countries and that wasn't an issue we found these two DJs this set up like this tent on the beach and they were blaring outside trance which was the thing we're tired you know we've been in the car Fink three days now two and a half days or something we slept in the car got a couple of our slaves who weren't really feeling like partying but then this guy appeared so it's getting into the evening now like this guy appeared he looked he reminded me of a court

jester because he had his pinstripe like Pantaloon things on and it's colorful you know people to go to these kind of fest was all about color and imagery because it's all or a big part of is centered on LSD right no that's not wasn't massively my thing shown right I'm always that guy that's always going to try Jun on I mean if there's something there okay just just just a bit right only because it's just not it's not my drug I have really bad experience on it years ago and I think it I think it

can psychologically damaged you that stuff right and so we're at this this this DJ 10 and we'd sort of dancing as you do and this guy came over and I think he was French and he said and he like nudge me and I looked down and he put a line of ketamine on his hand right so oh okay and I looked at Lee and went well what what is it I've never seen ketamine before at this stage right and these like scamming so do you have you done some well of course he ad Lee would

always do everything right he said yeah all right then I'll snorted off this guy's hand and within seconds wow it's just amazing wasn't like going down the K hole or anything like that it's just a light you know pick-me-up next thing are you dancing and it's just really just chucking out these shapes that you didn't know we're in you read alright this went on a little bit all the women just I think they were pretty stunning anyway Sean you know these are not Latin Latino isn't the right word but you know Spanish Portuguese and it

was just so friendly all the guys you know just like being in a dance party right and next thing I know he's banging my elbows just you want some liquid acid oh my oh here we go it was bound to happen wasn't it you know and when you looked around you could see a lot of these party people all carrying these little brown vials with a squeezy eyedropper thing and there's a science to it tional there's a kind of chemistry to it that you measure out certain amount of milligrams depending on where you are in

your buzz for the weekend because if you hit it too hard like in the first day your tolerance goes up and you can't feel it again right so it was they were all really seriously or what seemed like everyone was seriously into this stuff so when in Rome right and suddenly you've done something yeah yeah okay so I put my hand out and I said to the guy this Fran acid a little right I just want a drop short do you know and he drenched my hand it was running off my fingers in a in

a river right I'm like dude dude and I went like that I just took one you know one lick maybe a DAB a lick the other guy will with this dis Verdi Steve we called him didn't we just grabs my hand and sucks it all off right he's like immune to this stuff and this is where you know things changed a bit because the next thing I knew I was waking up on the beach I was on like a pile of rocks on on the shore of this lake I'm out they may I've I've collapsed

I've hit the deck right I know to anyone listening that's not something you know you associate that it what Cal app no I was out I must have done that right and I've got up and and you know obviously now I'm he's drenched my hand he goes in through the skin right I mean just the biggest trip that you could ever imagine and I've just been unconscious then I woke up and I looked on sudden he suddenly was lying on the rocks about to me is for me I'm likely you're right dude hey you're right

man you know no more not Chris I'm my are for [ __ ] sake this is all just suddenly got really serious there's a party literally just over there with hundreds of people and we're here and weird with [ __ ] mate you know so I said come on lady just get back to the tent man - skipper I just fought so we can get back the tent calm you know just just get back to the base right anyway my memories a bit hazy about how it actually happened but I managed to get Lee up

and we got back to this party Sean and start to like loosen up a bit you know massively tripping Laird like never ever before right but not in that kind of you know unconscious state obviously and I'm there now suddenly just started trying to best night in my life I know you have a few best nights of your life when it when you pie your eye and it's hard to put your finger on one but this it was just amazing mate the girls are all coming out hugging you and giving you kisses the blokes all

up [ __ ] handsomest [ __ ] in there come out right you know and giving you cigarettes and you dance and then it was just amazing absolutely went from being in hell to suddenly this is like the best boy in the world and then I look to lay any sort of like look like he's gibbering to himself a bit I didn't think much of it and then and this is Sean I'm just gonna tell you what I remember because this is all over a night right this went on until the next morning but suddenly

I looked at Lee and it's like lips are crack right I'm Lee drink some warm and drink some women okay and he's just Juba at gibberish right say to the other guy look Steve is Leo or are they just it always gets [ __ ] Christ he's always like this might just don't don't worry I'm on combat in the tent get some kit right he could sleep on this this you know on this this trip right so he went back the car next thing I know Lee runs at this stranger this high it was a

Portuguese lad who had his moat moped on the beach right and he stood holding his moped Lee runs at him just [ __ ] plants the guy and I'm like did I just see what I don't run over and I separate the guys mates and it's mellow it's a party Shawn it's mellow but of course they're not gonna they can't just let their mate get attacked so they're all like right you know up for the scrap and I'm jumping in the middle guys guys guys I take care of it I take care of it Lee

come the [ __ ] they calm the [ __ ] down I calm the [ __ ] down what is the matter with you huh you know and and then we carry on the part anything I'm just gonna cut the Shawn short Shawn but at one point I looked him Leo you're right man he's just went bang and he's stuck there not only right [ __ ] in my best mate or I love to bet and he loves me it's just stuck they're not on me in a party I didn't it wasn't like it hurt

me I just like pull my head badly [ __ ] calm down man calm down right and it was some um you gotta mention I'm tripping off my face I've never been this you know [ __ ] bollocks before on the LSD right it's a full-on thing I'm trying to make sense so I don't have that ability of just like rational right we're gonna do this this and this and you know in hindsight should I just on the [ __ ] you know and dragged him back to ten and just sat watch what whatever so

then this this went on didn't attack any more people and I'm not apologizing to the people he's her and and then as it started to get towards morning he came back and I noticed his shorts were wet but I didn't think anything of you know he didn't think anything of it Sean and of course he's been four swimmers and they you know in his stay he's been he's trying to be like he's learning to swim and in his Martin for some reason he's obviously been in the lake and he came back and it just got

to the point where I started really even though I was off my ed mate I could tell this is this is bad he's he's not he's gone over the edge and he's not coming back and this morning came I wouldn't say like my trip wore off any but I was making sense of things more all these girls were just stripping off running in the lake the blokes were following her it's just the most idyllic scene people still come up hugging you and all this and yet there's me where my mate you ain't well and and

I didn't you know so I'm like right laid come on let's get back the tent let's get to this fest online come on let's get back and he broke away from me and just ran off it's on thinking a [ __ ] right okay what to do what to do what to do right I'm gonna go and tell Steve this is [ __ ] serious now we need to make a plan so I went back to the car Steve had been in Chi at the radio on all night listening to the radio chain-smoking his spliffs

and I said Steve man like Lee ain't Lee ain't well nah [ __ ] him he's always like this Chris he always over does it it'll be fine you see come on get the [ __ ] packed up let's get to the festival [ __ ] me you can I'm right late you don't understand I'm not pissing around he's like seriously unwell I think we need gonna need to [ __ ] call the police mate or or an ambulance like no I can't be stupid don't be daft right as we're having that conversation this girl

appears starts walking towards a car right and it's just a pretty little French girl excuse me um no no sorry before I spotted her suddenly on this idyllic beautiful tranquil Lake [ __ ] sirens broke out I mean like you know like in a film Sean and I looked down the track that led to this lake there's a police car hammering it skids on the beach wheel spins and he just drives flat out down the beach followed by another one followed by another all blue lights on all sirens wailing bhai name is two ambulances behind

that there's another police car oh oh [ __ ] he's dead it's decent nah [ __ ] off man I said Steve he's [ __ ] dead over he's dead or he's [ __ ] killed someone it so Steve starts rolling another spliff right I'm sat there thinking and as I'm certainly getting my thoughts this French girl proaches she says I have you got a friend I said yes we have is is he dead she said as he a tattoo on his letter said yeah yeah yeah is is he dead she um you just must

get to the lake so like I knew he's dead Shawn you know yes and Steve tries to start a car and of course it won't start because he's been listening to the CD player all night right I was just just just wait here I'll go and if did like like the long walk I suppose you call it off my [ __ ] nut mate right on a situation as I'm walking through these tents people picnic in you know getting ready all game starting to pack up to go into the festival they all just stood down

there looking like this like they already know right and and I walked down had to walk about quarter of a mile and I finally got to an ambulance and the driver was stood by the door and uh I can't advise but I spoke Portuguese because of working in Mozambique right the disaster guys when is my friend dead and he said yeah and I looked turned my head and there there was a blue like a plastic tarpaulin laid out on the shore and I just walked over as I approached I could see his tattoo sticking out

at the tarpaulin you know and I just lifted it up me you [ __ ] idiot man you [ __ ] idiot you know gave him a kiss Sean [ __ ] rolled a cigarette no shits just got [ __ ] real we know so I'm sat there rolling this cigarette and this group of Portuguese walk up to me really lovely young people make and they like it is your friend yeah oh we're so sorry you know we saw him in the water he's struggling we all rushed in to try to help him but we

couldn't get to him and by the time we pulled him out you know the guy so I was I'm trying to give him mouth-to-mouth and all this puke is just coming in my face you know and I think we swapped like email addresses or something and then the press rock up and his obvious camera shoved in my face with this big boom yeah microphone excuse me is this your friend can you say a few words for Portuguese television said no love I can't get out my way and she just like knew to just you know

just leave it and it's on there for our garden Steve doesn't know does he so started walking back towards the car I think one of the policemen said to me look can you get to the nearest police stations about 20 miles away in the nearest village in the nearest town rather I said yeah of course so I stopped there started walking back to the car and by this time Stevie got it hot-wired but you know jump-jump needed with someone he's driving support I mean he stopped the car and he just like looks like that he

went you what so he's dead my dad no I can't be dead I said I told you he's it was serious it's [ __ ] dead and then this guy just broke down Sean you know like just that that just a scream the place down you know and yeah so I hopped in the car like mate we got to go to the police station give statements and we're gonna go to the morgue and see Lee trove into town at a WA you know I'm trying not to be angry with this guy Sean but it was

like I told you we needed to do something and you just [ __ ] laughed and said [ __ ] it I'm not blaming him Sean it's not about that I'm just saying this is how it was at the time right stopping a car every like two miles he just cries eyes out and then rolled a spliff and then we drove into town they had this one-way system I'm still off my head Sean you know what it's like at the best of times trying to make sense of things when you weren't when you trip in

right we just got caught in this loop it's like Groundhog Day we drove around and got back to this place okay right now try that way down we drove around there we've got in the end I'm like almost you know just shaking with the not no I wasn't shocked at all it wasn't like I'm just seeing a sigil I said he's gonna die you know but I'm it's just it's you know we're trying to get to the bloody police station we can't even get there and this I guess the stress is like building out Ryan

we just stopped the car this guy climbed out of a Land Rover and walked over he said and it said can I help you Portuguese guy says I I'm a policeman would you like some help we're like yeah could you take us to the police station please he's like sure follow me it's like a angel out of an angel when you needed it Sean you know and so we followed him he took us with the police station I was sat in a waiting room waiting to go and give my statement still tripping balls oh man

you all day long and there's two posters on the wall and this poster here is one like don't drink drive one of those kind of ones and it's the one where the face is normal on one side and it's all just scarred and and no ragged on the other side and it's all just doing this mm-hmm and the eyes are just staring right at me no no I look at a carpet instead it was a rug wasn't it like a Persian type one of those like Persian type rug effect things the paisley effect is what

what I mean and the rug is going all the colours are just moving around oh look at that poster oh this is a don't beat your wife poster you know some like so mystic [ __ ] violence thing and this organize what you're gonna say in your head yeah ah I'm just gonna I'm gonna wing it Sean you know what else can I do right and I'm looking at this gun she's been battered by it by a you're not doing me any favors you know and yeah that was said when him gave his statement there

very relaxed actually on drug laws in Portugal but we we kind of weren't to know this and this didn't stop them asking us so you know had he done any drugs on in my mind I'm like like I'm [ __ ] going to admit that in a foreign country plus the fact that the that's what an autopsy is for right so I was like no no no few bears rebase like okay okay and then that was they gave statements they they attached someone from the embassy to us and again he was like an angel mate

you know it was just just helping you deal with little things like where to go and he got us a hotel so we went from this three-day bender where all smashed mashed up tired hallucinating to walking into this top hotel air conditioning straight to the bar you know those kind of goes without saying and then we hit the morgue and went just to just to see Lee really you know and it wasn't pretty because they'd they done the autopsy immediately by this stage and a full-on autopsy it's it's it's just not nice you know just

don't and does your mate you know and yeah then went back to the hotel and of course I'd never met any Elise family I just knew him from you know being out and about in the world and and and him visit me in Plymouth so I and this was like early days of Facebook this kind of thing so it wasn't like we knew who to contact but unbeknownst I asked the embassy had contacted his family but hadn't told them why so I'm there with this guy Steve in the room [ __ ] fungos doesn't it

Steve like look to me it was next to his bed yeah I took it hello yeah cool from the UK for you it's Lee's mom mmm she's not high you know is everything all right least round I'm afraid [ __ ] way Sean you have never heard a human being in that much distress in your life I could hear the scream across the room and I could hear the scream as she turned and the family realized she wouldn't have to say anything you could hear it in that that like animal bellow oh you could hear

that the scream going through the family you know and yeah it was I might lay imagine and then you got your hustle on I'll show now I hope when I made a video about this right and that's because there's quite a few podcasts where hallucinogenics came up come up but she the ayahuasca thing it's it's quite and I'd I'm not I have no view on you know if you people want to take drug fine ask you did you live your life I'm gonna live mine right now that that's fine I've got no you know I've

got my views on it all obviously it's not about prohibition or anything but I just want to tell one of the other side of the story so people can see that there is that you know for some people is going to trigger off a mint a mental episode and it's a lottery because you don't know if that's going to be you right so all I'd say to any if you're gonna do that [ __ ] be with someone who can take charge of you if it all goes Piton you know yeah so you were making

money smuggling tobacco from Belgium yeah this was some yeah this was there yeah interesting part of my life Sean really - as I started to come out of this depression in the UK and I was you know using various fixes on myself learning new staff forgiving lots of people which is a big part of moving on with your life right learning to appreciate my days smiling I've got a rule to this day smile at the Sun every morning well I don't but it's it's a philosophy Sean you know I'm saying appreciate you get one chance

on this planet you know you've got to get out you know smash your life because no one's gonna do it for you right and when it's gone it's gone so I'm starting to formulate this way of thinking now I'm appreciating my days instead of getting up to drugs on I'm making a nice cup of tea Shawn and I'm appreciating it well that's my drug now you know and putting a putting distance between my binges you can you can say and in by putting that distance in my life just got better friends came back I was

able to fix my house up money starts coming in buying and bought clothes for three years right and one day I met a guy I think he's Carlos in my book gangster Carlos right guy that my brother knew and he came around to my brother's house he starts pouring all this contraband tobacco on the floor so I'm like dude where did you get that it's like our we smuggle it in from Belgium I'm like really he said yeah he said he said I'm always looking for extra hands if you're up for it I'm like how

much you pay back man we're talking you know this is what back in the late 90s so even 30 quid a day then sure was when you're you know when you want benefits that's quite a quite a extra money to have every month right so I'm like yeah I'm I'm up for it and that's that he gave me the call and I joined this kind of like it's bad like a six-man gang his uncle is a big face in Plymouth one of the sort of original borstal boys mad guy used to just walk into like

an electrical shop pick up a telly just walk out with it if anyone challenged him he'd just keep walking you know and just just tell him to F off right mad mad dude but anyway he got this gang set up where they drive across through the Channel Tunnel cross France into Belgium hit tobacco warehouse there and load the car you know to the gunnels with tobacco drive it back through customs under the kind of under the kind of idea if we get stopped we just sets for personal use obviously - and our thousand packets of

tobacco each was inferred was clearly not for personal use but we were kind of exploiting the fact that the law was very vague around this because technically even though it's cheap as chips in Belgium it's like it's like 50 P a pack compared to five pounds in the UK you'd paid the tax in Belgium right so technically you hadn't actually committed a crime but of course you know customs is a bit of a law unto itself right so we drive back to her backpackers or a B&B in Dover dump this lot off hop in a

car again all you know this this was like a 24 hour maybe 30 our apps so no sleep or anything you just drove back drove back through the tunnel tunnel again back into Belgium rock up at this warehouse again fill fill the car up go back through for all fingers cross that you're not going you're not going to get appalled by customs and yeah we were we we were good we never got that pull and of course these 30 quizzes are mounting up for me Sean and it means by this time I'd set my goal

on going to Africa to work with these street children and I needed to raise two thousand pounds to go to pay my school fees in Norway so this money's you know it's a godsend for me really and yeah we we're doing it and it all went well and then one day it came came to a head I can't quite remember how it was because Carlos drove a top-of-the-range Beemer right and sometimes we took that across and back in those days Sean it was like you hitting a motorway you just done a tunnel or you know

one as me a few speed crowd was starting to pop up then but you just turned it and then back again used to get home not slept 4:30 hours i have a slugger run smoke a spliff crash out and this one time we were coming back and as we pulled off the Channel Tunnel which is a train for people who've not been on the Channel Tunnel you you you put your car on a train right there was the cops where there stood on the platform and they just go I held his hand up stopped us

went right follow that car there so we followed that car this cop it was kind of like you know could we make a break for it and not mmm just gonna have to try and lie our way out of this and so yeah Carlos followed this guy luckily I think on that day we had a really shitty car it wasn't the Beemer I think he'd borrowed it off his uncle so it was it was a runaround but it was still you know 1,500 quids worth of vehicle right and it's loaded to the gunnels with yeah

I don't know if it's thousands of euros worth I can't my mass isn't that yeah you know a couple of thousand euros worth for tobacco let's say and of course all our hearts are going off [Music] followed that car he took us to a customs shed where the customs guys then took over and we had to say sit on this bench in this massive warehouse in that warehouse there was about 50 other cars and you just cast in your eye oh because it was obvious what all the owners had been doing right what the bigger

gangs did deliver the Liverpudlian gangs they were just higher rental vans fill them up to the roof we're talking thousands upon thousands and they had joke they were just playing the numbers game that if we get nine through and one get stopped the money we're gonna make off that nine he easily pays for you know the one that we lose and of course cuz it's a rental company you don't lose the vehicle the rental company I've gotta go through this long drawn-out protracted process to try and get their vehicle back and I'm led to believe

they did that you know they didn't bother right so we're in this big big hangar rental vehicles lined up and and sat on this bench and they're unloading the tobacco and the custom guy looked at Carlos and went how many Carlos just goes ton and H basically was saying look we know you put the same amount in each bag because when you distribute it in our case back down in Devon you know you're gonna hand this bag of 100 to this guy back of 100 so he was Carlos was just making the guys job easier

right and then they took us in for interview in and you don't you know Sean you don't know how this is going to go right that's what right so you you know how long you been smuggling tobacco sorry smuggling no we're not smugglers that's that's that's for us you know and you know that you're lying they know that you're lying but you're just spouting the law at them right what else can you do and it was something like it's like right look if you can stick with that story fine but we're taking a car we're

taking everything in it and you will release you on like a bail or something like this I can't remember remember that the way it all went but it was broke and but you'll have to come back up and you'll all go to court and you can argue in court that two and a half thousand packets of tobacco is for personal use and we said well you know what's the alternative if they said well do turnovers just leave here and walk away so they were kind of pulling a fast one with Sean because there wasn't a

you know there was no hard-and-fast law but they knew we were smuggling you know it was obvious so which I just looked at Carlos he looked at me I looked at the other couple of hours and we just started walk walking out of that hangar we had to walk into I knew it was like Maidstone or somewhere who stood at bus stop is like sewing out Trainspotting host you know who stood in a bus stop waiting to get a bus to London so that we can you know get a coach back to Plummer who took

the hit on that one then well it would have been the guy that we work for so is my mates uncle but they make so much on the other journeys they're accepting that and by this time it all started coming to her head customs would just really clamping down on it and it's fine I guess if you're a bit ganging you can afford to take those hits but when you're a you know when you're a small merchant should we say some quite a lot to lose a car did you make its Africa yeah yeah what

was that like [Music] in a nutshell phenomenal Sean you know it's funny you know it doesn't matter where you going or you carry a you know you can be in paradise and it can be [ __ ] right it was hard at first because I I turned up at this Beach it's couldn'ta Carla if anyone wants to look at that on Google Earth Nick Carla Porto in Mozambique incredibly poor as you leave the puto which is the city where I think you flying to you get on a bus and as you you go into the

rural area it just gradually just becomes nothing except scrub and desert and jungle and then suddenly a mud hut appears and then another one and another and and a it's such an eye-opener Sean and there's people walking between these mud huts with a pot on their head there's people carrying firewood and they're all just dressed raggedly and you where's the shops where you know where's the hotel there's nothing right so I worked in one such village my village was a fishing village on the edge of the coast I chose that place because I wanted to

be by the sea right so I used to go swimming with the kids in the school and snorkeling with it the divers would you'd get these snore snore clothes rather that would make their own spear guns Shawn I was so in ingenious and they would make their own diving masks out of a bit of perspex and wrap a bit of car you know and then screw it together by by twisting wire this sort of thing was real I don't know I'm slightly disappointed at first because we our team had studied in Norway and that the

house that we all shared would she like that house isn't really the right word for it but it was better than the mud huts put it this way but it wasn't what we'd think of a very basic Chalet we shared it with a Danish team and they studied in a different part of Scandinavia obviously and it was one of those situation where on the first night together they said you want to run down on this organization and what I say to you no power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely it just seems to be the case

in all walks of life right so this charity that we're working for that it's doubt started out in the seventies it was all benevolent it was all the hippies that hitchhiked down to Africa because they wanted to build schools it it all gone corruption they'd worked out this financial system where everyone was paying into this pot and the the even at the very minimum if they scraped the interest off this pot is a huge amount of money it wasn't going to those Africans you know many of the teachers you know in this all the African

teacher hadn't been paid for months it was it was disappointing and you know this is like a dream for me Sean I've come from nothing I've raised the money you know I've done the trips to Belgium I've done the fire walking it was a I had a phenomenal time at this organisation in noise we studied in a an old ski hotel on top of a mountain of course I could go out skiing every day cross-country skiing we'd muck around in a sauna at night and go and roll in the snow learning Portuguese obviously we cook

community so you cook for 70 other international volunteers used to put on plays theater it was just amazing it's all drug and alcohol free had a rule at this school and you don't need it sure when you're in a good when you when you've got community you don't need all that stuff it's just happy to sit down and have a cup of tea and chat with someone and so to get out to Africa and be hit with all this information from these other teammates this is all a big scam reading and and and do you

know that there's so many people have tried to take this organization to call their track record on safety is just abysmal you know to the point where people had died the the headmaster at this school that I study no he got stabbed to death by student because it was it was it was bizarre Sean you know it was just bizarre but I thought right Chris what we're gonna do it I always say Sean have a plan B it backs up your plan a so you can do your plan a really even if you have to

reshape it you know and I thought right you've come this way you're in an amazing part of the world a little bit you know very impoverished just be it for those kids you know spend time with them exchange culture be a bit of I don't know a a spoil European can be a role model but this I did my best you know made some of new amazing relationships with people and of course I'm rebuilding myself short so it was so nice to hear people say such nice things and got a glowing report from my six

months at this school they're all the students filled in a book for me and the messages when it when I left the UK I hit this school running I was like the old Chris commando was taking people for like endurance course runs in the forest teaching people skiing they had to do Street fundraising right which some people found really hard and I just went out and smashed it and I said I was gonna smash it right I just said watch today there was this 20-year record that someone had made 300 pounds in a day selling

postcards from us I I'm gonna smash that today right we didn't say smash back then but you know what I'm saying and I went out on the street of Oslo and I nailed 9000 crown crowns of us in 900 quid 900 pounds selling postcards for 30 P each or wherever so yeah I was firing again mate you know able to be myself able to use all my my learning from what I've been through for something positive kids and I would go fishing I I went around the shops in Norway before I went and I asked

can you give some sports gear for these children in Africa and they gave me fishing stars and footballs and this kind of thing so every day I'd rock up in the morning take the kids for sport I painted the classrooms did all this art and again used my my you know my newfound self that was totally was a failure at school and I'm painting these amazing murals and stuff in the evening I'd leave the compound and all the other workers would stay there you know being sort of perfect Pete's I'll be out straight to the

local hooch merchants by some it this wickedly strong brandy over there I mean that's 60% or some in a gone by that you know gone by some that mix it with I think he used to mix it with with long life milk it was the only mixer I could get and then it'd go up and there was a guy and you in the village that would sell weed and I just got going up into the village and we'd dance around a campfire they'd get the drums out and it was like hot you know anyone that

remembers Tarzan from the seventies it's just like that you know it's just like that and yeah it was a it was good six months so I just creates an amazing bond when I was kid Sean when when we used to come back from the market say to do our weekly shop would have gone that when they call it chapeau which is like a pickup truck right and everyone travels around and pickup trucks there you chalk everything on the back then you climb on top of it then you spend the whole day stinking of whatever it

was that you so if it's like Barrett bundles officials oh man you stink official day and as the truck left that the main road to come down through this village all the kids would be crazy and they just come running from all directions and I just go and play some silly silly you know sing some silly songs in their tribal language not Portuguese and make up these ridiculously you know songs and they just go crazy for it they they love to have fun right one at night I'd go out of a torch and I'd go

running off through the bush and hide and the whole village of case would come looking for me and I just flash the torch on my face with sort of three seconds and turn it off again and run somewhere else and they'd all be running through the bush and it did be good John you know it did me good to be myself it did you know it did me in a world of girden and coming towards the end of that six months over there they asked if I would drive the bus to India and that was

just I couldn't believe they'd ask me I secretly wanted to do that job all the time I'd been with this organization and and driving across the deserts in Pakistan two o'clock in the morning it's pitch black there's a wind wind storm blowing the sand across the roads you can't hardly see the road we've got massive attack blaring on the stereo everyone else is asleep on the bus sometimes I drove one time I drove for 36 hours without any sleep I drove all the way across I think from Iran to Istanbul and in one go right

just loved it and your life just amazing we got to one spot as the baluchistan desert and it's also the home with the veloute spam bandits right this this 300 kilometer stretch where you don't stop for anything one of the yeah one of the diesel pipes on our buses at fractured so we're only running on seven of the eight cylinders which might not sound a lot but it just throws the whole balance to the end you know I kept getting out and clamping it down we replace this hose two or three times but for some

reason the vibration of this old bus snapped it every time so if we've got the beginning of the Bluetooth sound desert we know that there's these merciless bandits ahead they can they will you know they don't just stop and rob you they stop slow or all of you you bodies are never found because they hide them in the desert and they steal everything you've got or at least this is the story so we would parked up at the beginning of this dangerous stretch this other bus comes in the driver gets off comes over he's out

right so what have you got what do you mean what have we got you know what weapons have you got like looking around this bus and there's the bread knife bread knowledge it's like you have no guns no we've got no no guns ah now you better follow me stay close right we have guns we've lots of guns okay right guys we've got to go now everybody out we going now that's it guy sets off I'm hammering after in this 1978 bus just a move move across from one side of the road together like this

you know every corner every sand dune sure you like your heart's going like this right I got a mile in and that pipe snapped again the bus went from well it wasn't fast anyway but it went from about 60 mile an hour and we were doing sixty or seventeen keeping up with this guy who's our angel I'll save your right so let's stop he's not stopping for anything right he's gone we fooled the rest of that 279 K at 30 mile an hour or it took hours and and like I say you know you can't

you can't stop you know yeah and then you were helping out in a post prison training facility yeah I just saw on the subject a true-crime er I mentioned that Sean I was some very fortunate - well it's very fortunate . to do a degree in youth work and i was at they had like a an exhibition one day at the university i was out and it was all the placement people offering their placements and kind of exchanging with the students and I got talking to one that it was a big old kind of manor

house up on Dartmoor where they would cherry-pick young offenders in prison who showed signs that they wanted to put that life behind them obviously ninety-eight percent was drug-related right so that's another thing again you know we can talk about you know everyone can be a victim Sean can't now you know these guys come from pretty tough backgrounds a lot of them would not look known any loved they weren't horrible by any means they all that really nice kids you know I was not much more than a kid myself but um yeah so I got chatting

with a guy at this placement fair and I said look can I just give you my CV this seems right on my tree and he was a bit off issued a yeah got a phone call or an email couple of days a I Chris read your CV we'd like you to come we think you can be you know you'll be the perfect man for the job sort of thing so that was really nice to hear and rocked up there and there's all these starry-eyed lads that have been you know they've done two years three years

some of them were just that's all they'd really you know know young offender Institute's this kind of thing and I probably wasn't the most professional boundary person back then like this health and safety culture now so I was able to just say tell them my story Sean you know I said I fell foul of the law while I was in the Marines like big time you know very lucky I didn't get sentenced had I been sentence I'd have been the boat that you guys are in but listen I can tell you that like it's it's

not worth it it really is not worth it or not then I showed them some photos from a traveling you'd never believe how much of fact that can have on young disenfranchised men Sean you know they were just like gobsmacked day with just all eyes and from that moment I guess I became their mentor right you know the guy that they looked up up to and one lad went right right wait there wait there wait there he went away he came back with a book right he only had two copies of this book but it

was a book on young people's stories and they'd obviously picked people that had really and it was horrible stories and neither people living homeless in you know in their local on their local common in a tent scavenging food and and of course all the drug problems on top of it was also booked full of these stories and he was one of the young people that was featured in there right and he'd gone away and he got this book me when Chris I want you to have this my stories numbers number six you know and yeah

it was a big learning curve but cause because I got the marine side of me I might write that football today everyone out there you know so we're out there right you lot shirts off you in go we played this football matches right losers in a lake and there was this stagnant kind of stagnant lake and so that it was the skins team the other team lost the match Sean right like 3:1 or something and there's Luke you know and it's all swearing right all sweat swearing and all roly's and they start walking down towards

this lake like this I just looked on my team I went like that and everyone just looked at each other excited we just ran and burst past these guys and then they realized what we were doing and they're like right and all of us just ran and dived in this in this lake and it was a real real magic moment but to get funding for that Sean is so hard this organization was run by fellow ex-marine had to close it down can't get the fund it rather just put people in prison Sean cost the taxpayer

of fortune no rehabilitation really to speak of criminalizing people that are pretty much victims in the first place I'm not I'm not saying that's everybody but criminal oh no addiction as well and criminalizing addiction not a very big business not a very nice system Sean you know so more recent years than you have done your quadruple Ironman yeah we may remember you said to me you've bought your plans and I spoke to you last time didn't you and I said I'm thinking about quadruple Ironman and you laughed okay yeah umberto yeah nailed it mate yeah

what kind of training just to do for that well I entered my first triathlon as an addict when you start getting into that light show and then you start there eating well and you didn't you know put the drugs as far away from use you you can and especially the alcohol which is a big big depressant right you you enter this different world right you took a spiritual you get like this probably getting a bit deep but you get like this spiritual buzz and when you get into triathlon it's like the perfect sport for it

because you're doing these three different disciplines the swimming cycling and the running and of course it's quite quite a challenge as well so that really kind of appeals to certainly appeals to people like me so round about this time I'm starting to get get things really together I thought I'll enter in my first triathlon entering an Olympic one so that's a a mile swim 25 mile bike ride and I think it's an eight models six mile run came last okay got my little boy going Danny you're not gonna get on that bike yet I'm trying

son i'm trying right well i so proud Sean to come last because it's not about winning I know this is cliche it everything I've done in my life I've just set my bucket list gone and done it I don't care if I'm first last don't care what people think about me it's irrelevant I'm not wearing all the triathlon like Christopher I am they're a pair of Shores than an old t-shirt and I came last I was really surprised I didn't realize that a triathlon is so hard the cycle went on for ages right so I

thought right how can I put this right I know do a quadruple Ironman and I'll do it in eight weeks time because it might be a it might have been a bit bit bit more this was July I did the July yeah it was July I did the Olympic triathlon and came last so for my 50th birthday which was September I thought yeah I'd do a quadruple Ironman and ourselves didn't have much time to train or made sure wasn't gonna drown which you thought would be a good start spent an awful lot of money on

equipment because it's not a cheap sport right and yeah that was it I booked the Plymouth lied opal which this beautiful outdoor pool and swam the first half of my 9.6 miles in there then it got too cold because at September the the temperatures just dropped too much for people who haven't got a lot of body fat like me right feel the cold really bad so that's what I just swapped to the indoor pool then and I did the other half of my 9.6 miles indoors hopped on a bike cycled 450 miles over the next

four days got on the telly always good to get on the telly it's for a good cause Sean you know I was doing it for a charity called rock to recovery which is formed by Jason Fox of the SS who dares wins program whose former Royal Marine SAS vs special boat service he's formed this charity to help veterans who were struggling with another chap called Jamie Jamie Sanderson so I thought yeah that could be a you know knowing where I've come from in my life Sean if I can stop someone committing suicide it's it's um

got to be a worthwhile thing right so yeah and I finished the 450 my host cycle literally jumped in my car drove up north to a hundred mile running race that I'd entered and it was through the when I said of Robin Hood's race Sherwood Forest isn't it yeah it's through the beautiful Sherwood Forest but it was hot it was a hot unlike the swim which was cold this was really hot and I set off yeah to run a hundred miles after swimming ten miles and cycling 450 and ended up going to dance so many

wrong turns on this run because it's a trail run they marked the trails with bits of tape and stuff right if you miss one of those bits of tape you just end up going miles in the wrong direction so in the end one across the finish line I run a hundred and eight miles and I don't like begging these things up Shaun because I want everyone to do this stuff it's not you know when I ran a length through the UK there's nothing stopping anyone doing that really you might not want to run an ultra

marathon every day but if you are as big as what you can dream you aren't you it's just it really is that simple but the hundred eight it damaged me it put me so much in the pain cave yeah I was just running through sheer pain for the last mmm quarter of it and I haven't recovered when I got out the car at the studio today I thought oh my God all that pain just coming back in my hips so yeah but now good result mate you know it's it's amazing as I said I came

last in my first triathlon and eight weeks later I did a quadruple Ironman or a quadruple Ironman distance triathlon it wasn't the official Ironman race obviously and yeah I just say to anyone live your dreams you know you get one life and you can see where I've come from I've had to make sense of it all myself and you know just get out there and smash it Chris you're such an easy person to talk to this has been and the all-time longest podcast we've done are showing you're brilliant appreciate you being so generous with your

time and I think the people who are out there watching this your stories are just so engaging and it's great that you took the time to really let us know where you're at right now in your life I think is well I think that was really important today and I'm sure people watching this I just find you so inspirational and want to support you so they can support you by clicking down and subscribing to your YouTube channel that's it it's free to do that it's not that's not going to cost anybody anything they can support

you by buying you books Chris doesn't make much of his books they are available on Amazon we've got the two books got the forty nights so have you got a patron or anything like that yeah a YouTube channel sure I just want to be honest on it I've learned in life now there's only two things you need you need honesty and you need love yeah and if you haven't got that you ain't got not you know you Guinness you you're never gonna find that happiness I'm really lucky to have found so in my youtube channel

some of it's about the military I tell what we call debts which is stories and anyone who's been in the Marines will tell you this unbelievable you know there's some very as mad as Hong Kong was that there's nothing compared to what happens in the room Marines right but I tell these twists but I'm also honest about it Shawn you know I'm splaining people that you know big thing about hero-worshipping now the force isn't there and that's not what that's not what forces people do that's not what we want get a lot of people on

my channel oh thank you for your service and it's really kind that they say that Shawn but that's just American propaganda right too big up their illegal Wars it's not it's not you know so I'm honest like this I tell you what the role of the modern soldier is project for new American Century you know rebuilding America's defenses if people want to Google this it's it's some quite quite eye-opening isn't it some of someone else you might be confusing for some people are you saying that America is using UK armed forces for ulterior motives well

you just got to read these documents right you know project for a new American Century was a American think tank that put two was put together and I'm no you know not scholar in this sensual but they basically were the drive behind the bush cabinet right now if they call it a cabinet but this this push for war that they had right you've only got to read their policy documents to see it's all laid out in there they wanted to further establish American they're going to call it military presence in the world right which aka

dominance right in order to do it they need to do this that and that you can see where they're focusing worn-out strategic weapons because it looks good in you know having dead soldiers on the news isn't good for the public you know for their cause right so you can see where this documentation is pushing these you know pushing the agenda you can you can say the and of course you know what did they say they said all of this this dot this domination in the world won't come around without a new Pearl Harbor and then

of course you know think you're our friend david icke it would have a lot to say about that right it's a lot about that yeah and so I don't want young men going and getting their legs blown off in the Middle East by thinking armor here I'm absolutely wasn't I was a broken damaged kid I joined up to prove myself I don't probably prove to my family that wasn't you know the worthless person I'm so fortunate I never got to do stuff it while I was in combat that I might live to regret because I

I think this is obviously you know gonna cool is causing a big problem for people Sean and yeah I don't want people signing up off the back of my exploit so just want to be honest this this is the role sorry you know not really heroes you need to see war for what it is it's about profit it's about money and it's about keeping these Psychopaths that have been running this whole goddamn show since what the days of the pyramids you're just keeping them in power by reselling and repackaging this lie and and well you

see a dad crying in a pub as he's lost his boy it's because of those lies that they told you know Blair bush it he breaks your actual you know I agree but blown the bush crime family some of the most evil people have learned that definitely and if you I want to talk about now but I think if they knew the truth about who Tony Blair is or was why he was able to be what appeared to be blackmailed into this you know it it just gets more disgusting again so what about this presidential

candidate salt see she was a Gulf War veteran and she says exactly what you just said that she wants to end all the wars in the Middle East and bring all the troops back to America Wow yeah I mean probably a bit too much for this podcast Sean it's it's up it's a very complex subject if you want to see a real hero research Ben Griffin you tell you what war is what it's about he'll tell you about muskets that were found I think at the Battle of Gettysburg where when they they excavated the site

they found muskets with like six balls in them right and it's where because it's not a natural instinct to kill your brothers right go to war you killing other working-class kids to make these nutcases even more richer than they already are and they don't care about you you know they do not care about you don't kid yourself all this election nonce you know it's it's all rigged right they found these muskets and they reckon that these people so much didn't want to kill their brothers from across the border that they were just pretending to load

you know or load him pretending to fire load in again and then you know they were they were copying a big one and then rifle was getting buried and of course years later it's it's kind of evidence that they didn't want to kill each other because human beings don't write bang Griffin is an amazing man ex or former SAS should I say that really puts this across well he talks about the indoctrination that's involved in going into the forces how they dehumanize you how they take away these natural feelings of not wanting to but anyway

sorry for getting a bit heavy what I wanted to sell my youtube channel is Marines videos I tell some funny stories but you know there's also the truth is is there I try to put a lot of stuff on there to help people who might be struggling in any way in their life I have my patreon sure and I say to people come on board the team to pound a month so it's not even like a cup of coffee right it I tell you now that's the best two pounds you'd ever invest in your life

and I don't you know the money it cost me to come here today I what I'm trying to say is I don't make money from you know it's not about making money off people I just want to share my story I I had a phone call one of my chaps the other night suicidal three beautiful children doesn't know where it's going I can pick up funks come on mate what's going on Oh what it is no mate don't [ __ ] me what how much coke you want well about you know everyday you know I

mean it's like I know I know people Shona know people stories they don't have to feel like I'm going to judge them because I love everybody oh and I'll think I always have done and it's a good little thing we got there on that patreon you get to come and meet me we're gonna do an annual talk drinks afterwards get all my books for free in eBook form which is you know probably worth the money in itself you get to ask for a YouTube video although I hope my backlog is a quite quite my backlog

of requests is mounting and yeah so I just suggest to anyone invest in yourself because these psychos aren't like they're not going to do it you know so all the links to Chris's stuff and we'll put his patreon down there as well in his YouTube channel on his books or in the description box below this video we hope you've enjoyed it please let us know put your questions and comments down there as well huge thank you to all people who have subscribed to the channel and if you've not subscribed yet it is free and the

logo to subscribe in the bottom right hand corner of this video also huge thank you to all people who donated on patreon PayPal and Just Giving so that we can produce these true-crime podcasts at the studio quality level with a professional cameraman and sound engineering you really are helping us keep this all rolling out so thanks again bro I'm out [Music]