I Haven’t Always

My body is my temple, Buddha’s Temple

Anon

I had no interest in looking after myself. In my early 40s, the closest I ever got to exercise was playing golf and exercising my arm afterwards with a cold beer and a plate of chips on the balcony.

At that time I played golf at Bearwood Lakes Golf Course, it was beautiful; Arguably one of the best courses in Berkshire, where I lived. Every hole was memorable, one more so than the rest.

I don’t remember the 14th par three hole because it’s the signature hole in the club literature, or because someone once lost eight balls in it during a club championship.

I remember it because I was guaranteed to be out of breath by the time I got to the 15th tee and then slice my ball towards the out of bounds!

The 14th was a stunning hole, it was 166 yards off the white tee, 140 yards of which were over Bearwood Lake. If you were fortunate enough to carry the lake, but land short of the green, the ball would inevitably roll backwards into the water.

The walk from the 14th to the 15th was up Heartbreak Hill, or that’s how it felt to me at the time. It’s a 200-metre walk up an incline, carrying or pushing your clubs.

I couldn’t even walk 200 metres up a slight incline without getting out of breath, and I was only 41.

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I had a ten-year career in the Royal Air Force. Those of you that have served in the military will understand that the Royal Air Force isn’t exactly known for its fitness.

At that time the Royal Air Force’s fitness test was 30 push-ups, 30 sit-ups, and the bleep test until you were a little out of breath – no rush, eventually was okay! I’m doing the RAF a disservice, it isn’t quite that bad, and the fitness test has progressed since I last served. I have to take the Micky out of being in the RAF myself before other “real” military types do; the kind of person that would rather live in a hole in the ground than a four-star (at least) hotel with room service.

My trade training was at RAF Locking in Weston-Super-Mare, I joined the military to be an Airfield Technician, maintaining the RAFs airfield navigation aids, radars and radios.

To say I trained is an exaggeration. I failed my training and was “meched out”; sent to a unit at a rank less than I’d hoped, with less responsibility and significantly less pay. Weston Super Mare was quite a party town, and I made the most of it. I partied a lot.

And I didn’t learn; I continued to party throughout my time in the military; and beyond.

The RAF posted me to Cornwall after Weston-Super-Mare, and I had a house in Newquay. Those who know Newquay will understand what this would have been like for a young airman, away from home in a tourist hotspot; I lived a great life, it was like living in a permanent 18 to 30s holiday, my memory of those days is a little vague.

The shift roster was fantastic, we worked two days, two nights and had four days off; as a consequence of this, I could party six nights a week. It was great fun!

Those aged over 40 will remember being able to eat or drink whatever you wanted.  Our metabolisms ensured that it didn’t impact our bodies too much, nor did we feel awful for 48 hours after a wild bender. Those days seem to disappear overnight; the weight is quickly gained, and much harder to lose.

I did exercise a little whilst in Cornwall, though nothing serious. I regularly ran with my best mate, Tim. We would often run a mile and a half around the airfield when on night shifts or run in the hills around RAF Portreath when off shift.

In the mid-90s I was promoted, and afterwards posted to what became my dream job; Tactical Communications Wing. We would often deploy with short notice; if something was on the news on a Friday, we could be there on Saturday.

The job was hazardous at times, and being fit helped. I regularly worked with Gurkhas, physically trained hard with them; and ate lots of Goat curries.

We’d typically spend six months of the year away, in the mid to late 90s the vast majority of the deployments were sandy. I spent time in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kosovo on operations, plus other training deployments around the UK.

I got divorced whilst there and volunteered for extra deployments; In my last year, I was away for around nine months.

We always had a Kate Adie Alert State sign in our Comcen; You knew you were in trouble if she was on camp and it hit “red alert”. If you don’t know who Kate Adie is, you probably haven’t hit mid-life crisis yet; I’m not sure who the modern equivalent is.

The first race I recall entering was with Tim; it was a 10km road race in Newquay. I remember going to see the doctor for Ibuprofen the week before the race to get me through pain from shin splints. It’s often said that an army marches on its stomach, it would have been more accurate to say the British Military marches on Ibuprofen.

We both finished the race, though I don’t remember the times; for some reason the internet doesn’t have race times from 1994.

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My drinking carried on well after I left the military, regularly to excess and far beyond what a typical social drinker would consume.

My favourite bar in Reading is The Purple Turtle. It’s a grungy rock bar, populated with all types of characters. It’s a regular haunt for university students, those in their midlife crisis, or people looking for a late bar.

When the UK introduced 24 hours licenses, the Turtle chose to stay open until 0400, I regularly took advantage of the late license with my usual drinking crowd, and often on “school nights”.

I always wanted to be the last man standing, and when you are in a crowd of ex-military hardened drinkers who all want to be the last man standing you know that it’s going to be a late-night; When we found out about another bar which was open until 0600 things got very messy!

I was never the type who used to end up in a real state, unable to stand on two feet, or get home. However, I did have many nights with memory gaps, unable to recall precisely what happened, or how I got home. My wife once found a novel way of ensuring I was aware I’d got home, and waking me up; lying me down in the bath and giving me a cold shower to clean the vomit off me on one occasion.

I often joked that this period of my life was my mid-life crisis. Thankfully, it never got to the stage where I needed a sports car or traded my wife in for a younger model.

However, it did get to a stage where I started to wonder what I was doing with myself and how far I would let myself go. As has happened so many times in my life, small seeds sown by positive role models led to me making positive changes to my life.

Hopefully, by the end of this book, it will be apparent to everyone reading, no matter how far you have let yourself go, there is always a way out. One step at a time, one minute at a time is all it takes to beat those who stay sitting on the couch.

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