Latest / Chris Thrall's Bought the T-Shirt Podcast / Are Demons Killing Our Veterans? | Claire Lilly

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Are Demons Killing Our Veterans? | Claire Lilly · Chris Thrall's Bought the T-Shirt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, I'm your host Chris Thrull, I'm a former
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Royal Marines Commando, I've adventured for better and sometimes worse
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: across 80 countries on all 7 continents.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Port Latisha Podcast.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Boom, Claire, how are we doing?
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm good, thank you, how are you doing?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm all right, but I'm not sat in Buckingham
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Palace like you, so....
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: So my shabby chic upcycled Buckingham Palace I'll have you know.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, it looks amazing. I'll just stay in the cheap seats. So, Claire,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: let's just get into it, basically, and let's just have
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: a chat about this whole thing. So your husband was
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Alan Forcer.
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, my former husband.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: You're sorry, I'm sorry, your former husband.
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I did. Betray myself as a weeping widow.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, I know. And I know you don't do that.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: You've taken a very pragmatic approach to this. But how
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: did you meet Alan? And how old were you?
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: Alan was 19.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I was 21.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: So here's my toy boy. We met in Knightsbridge, three horses, actually.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: So Alan had been touring in Kosovo and Ireland during
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: essentially the height of what we call the conflicts over
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: there at ages 18 and 19. He joined the military
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: at 16. He was actually attached to the Colston Guards
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: and he came across two Knightsbridge barracks on a bit
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: of a whim, really. His kind of superior sort of
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: said to him, because obviously he was you know struggling
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: with the aftermath of everything they said you know there's
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: this position going with horses how would you feel about
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: starting a career with horses and um he took the
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: role in Knightsbridge and that's where we met in 1999
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: um we married in 2021 and I was pregnant with
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: our son Josh as well he's now 25 he was
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: actually 18 when Alan passed away And yeah, he became,
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: he kind of, you know, went up through the ranks,
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: so to speak. He was doing really, really well in
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: lots of senses. He became a sperman, which is actually
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: a horse riding instructor, if you like, and was teaching
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: various kind of dignitaries, if you like, you know, from
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: the major general to the brigade major to the chief
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: of staff. So he was in household division. So it
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: was kind of in Knightsbridge, you've obviously got like the
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: household cavalry, which is the blues and royals and the lifeguards,
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: but you've also got household division. And obviously you have
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Scots guards, Irish guards, Welsh guards sitting within that. And
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: it was his job to sort of teach them how
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: to ride, basically, in preparation for things like tripping of
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: the column and, you know, state opening of Parliament and
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: all of those kind of bits and pieces. And one
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: of his particular favourites was actually the Chief Constable of
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: City of London Police, who we recently launched. So that
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: was very poignant for us in terms of the force
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: of protocol. Yeah, bless him.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we forget how big a role horses have played
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: in the military over the years, don't we?
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: They're essentially what makes it the unique and beautiful regiment
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: that it is, right? And my job, I mean, I
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: was a household civilian in the equestrian sector and it
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: was my job to kind of train anything to do
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: with sort of psychological welfare, you know, medical welfare, nutrition
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: and all of those kind of things and rehabilitation as well.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, I actually trained with Monty Roberts, who's classed
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: as the horse whisperer. And I think the movie, The
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Horse Whisperer, is actually based on him. So I kind
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: of specialized in sort of horse psychology and kind of
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: all different things, really, in terms of nutrition, herbal supplements,
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: those kind of things just absolutely fascinated me. And that
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: was the area that I was quite strong in.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: And what did you think of army life?
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: Interesting concept. I mean, I was a bit of a hippie,
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: you know, 18, 19, very anti-war, all of those kind
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: of things. But as I've sort of gone along and
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: obviously lived that life and gained a unique insight, not
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: just as a colleague, because I was very much boots
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: on the ground, you know, a wife, a friend, a partner,
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: a colleague, you know, all of those kind of things
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: you develop kind of inadvertently a unique insight into that
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: way of life. And I'm kind of, are in now
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: more and have done for many years. I do have
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: a deep interest in strategic defence, that's for sure.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: And did you notice signs in Alan that he was struggling?
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: That was probably one of the things that I suppose
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: naturally I'm a bit of an empath and quite attuned
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: to that kind of stuff, if you like, playing out.
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: um yeah I mean fluctuations in his emotional regulation a
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: strong one was kind of anger regulation and then obviously
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: kinds of drug and alcohol addiction and even kind of
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: the things that we don't necessarily talk about like the
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: sexual promiscuity the risk-taking behaviors the gambling those kinds of
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: things yeah bar the gambling they were all things that
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: were very you know prevalent in alan's character in amongst
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: into woven with his beautiful beautiful little son.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: This is you know from your perspective this is the
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: kind of stuff people don't consider when they hear about
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: for example you know ptsd complex ptsd suicide that you're
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: you're you know you've thrown your job lot in with
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: someone that you clearly love And then these things come
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: to the surface and I'm, you know, I'll hold myself
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: up as an example here because I've got a beautiful partner.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: My God, why she puts up with me. But, you know,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: I think she does because I try my best and
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: I'm honest.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: We all have our fun ways as well. You know,
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: we all have our funny ways. You know, that's part
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: of relationships on every level, isn't it, really? You know,
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: whether that's a work environment, an intimate relationship, friendships, you know, business,
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: they're all relationships with.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, did you get any support yourself? Did you have
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: like a, you know, military wives or support groups or
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: was that not kind of a thing?
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, military wives is an interesting concept. You know, it's
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: a really, really beautiful people mixed in with all of
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: the drama, shall we say, that comes with kind of
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: military life. um did I get any support only in
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: terms of like my support network in terms of my
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: friends both in the military and outside of the military
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: really I would say yeah but not what what's kind
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: of in place today it didn't really sort of exist
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: or if it did I certainly didn't know about it
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: back then but you know we were only young we
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: were like early 20s right and if you knew now
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: what you knew then you know, and living with that
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: condition and the behaviours that present themselves wasn't easy. It
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: wasn't easy. And I know you kind of, and it's
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: something that I'm really passionate about is, you know, the
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: early stages of life. I mean, I've been heavily into
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: various people over the years, Gabor Mate being one and
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: who even then our son's psychological welfare needed to be
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: protected over both mine and Alan's psychological welfare, right? And
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: the behaviours that were starting to play out, I didn't
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: want to expose Josh to, but also I didn't want
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: to sever the relationship with Alan as his father, right?
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: And in fact, I remember kind of the moment where
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: he left the flat and we sort of called it
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: a day. I said, you know, you're still, we leave
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: everything at the front door here. You are still a
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: father to that boy. And I facilitated, you know, that
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: relationship and kind of scroll forward to the last probably
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: three years of Alan's life where we'd started to sort
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: of acknowledge his demons, if you like, and sort of
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: find some balance and peace to a degree in himself. He,
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: And I'm so thankful, and I have said this before,
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: for those conversations that played out because he was actually
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: coming out of prison. His condition had escalated so far
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: as it often does, right? And he didn't want to
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: go home to the area, if you like, where the
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: drama was. And I sort of said to him, you know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: go and grab the kids because he had two more
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: children married after our marriage. come here and spend time
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: with Josh. I'll move out, have the home decompressed from,
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: from being in prison. And he was like, Claire, you know,
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: after everything that I've done to you and we, we,
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: we can't believe that you're still here for me. And I,
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: you know, I said, you know, you know, you're the,
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: I've always said, you know, you are the father to
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: my boy. And that's always really, really, it's always, it's important.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: You know, it's really, really important that connection, you know, And, yeah,
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: the conversations that we had, he said, you know, back then, 100%,
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: you did the right thing. So in terms of guilt,
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: because it comes with suicide, right? Because you can't help
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: but look back and search for points across that timeline. Yeah.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: So I'm very, very thankful for those conversations. Let's put
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: it that way.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Did you get the... understanding from your your time with
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Alan had he had a turbulent upbringing I.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: Wouldn't say necessarily turbulent and I've got a bit of
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: a twist on this you know and I've seen it
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: in various inquests in terms of suicides, particularly within the
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: military sector, if you like. And I don't like that annotation,
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: especially with Alan's parents, who I adore sitting in there
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: with the narrative being that it's all the childhood.
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, of course.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: He places the blame on them. And, you know, again,
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: young parents... You don't get kind of a handbook on
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: how to, you know, they did the best within their
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: capabilities and the information that was available to them and
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: the wisdom, if you like, really, at that particular point
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: in their life. And I mean, I've had very fractious
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: relationships with my mum. I haven't lived with her since
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: I was 14. I've no desire to really connect with
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: her now or be part of her life. But I
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: understand the role that she played in a negative way,
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: in a damaging way. but I don't blame her because
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: I also know that she was young you know so
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: there's kind of be this balance about that whole narrative
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: now there are people that have had a great childhood
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: that experience a tragedy or a trauma later on down
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: the line as well you know and it creates PTSD
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: complex PTSD TBIs all of those kind of things so
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: yeah I think it's a very complex arena but But
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: it's in the culmination of all of it is my,
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: and I do have a lot of empathy and forgiveness
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: for people that are struggling. I mean, I draw the
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: line at kind of pedos and rapists and, you know,
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: but yeah.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. I mean, they call it complex PTSD
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: for a reason. And one thing I've come across, Claire,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: with all my, you know, interactions with the veterans community,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: and I get approached by a lot, a lot of
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: that i'm sorry i'm saying it like it's a chore
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: but no i'm in a privileged position where a lot
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: of people feel they can you know expose their their
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: life to me and it.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Is a heavy weight to carry so you know you're
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: saying it's a chore in part it is very yeah.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: It's it's a chore as in i get messaged like
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: chris could you give us a quick bell i'm like
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: dude like i'm.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: Got to recalibrate myself, I mean.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: You know, I've got a life here. I've got so
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: much shit on myself. I don't have time to time
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: my shoot. But I don't know. I still feel that,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: you know, I've got a chap I've got to call
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: today that I've never met and he's struggling. And anyway,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: but no, what I was sort of getting at, Claire,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: is I get a lot of people. and I want
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: to help them get to the root of why they're struggling.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: But the way society's set up with our preconceived ideas
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: and our status symbols, I very often get, oh, no, Chris,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: I had a great childhood. My dad was wonderful.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, it can be very, very subtle. I mean,
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: to touch on something that Gabor Mate talks about, I mean,
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: he talks about being a child of war, a Jewish child,
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: And his mum, you know, gave him away to his
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: aunt to protect him. But on a level in a
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: child brain at that particular age, he felt abandoned, neglected.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: But it was actually essentially a very loving act from
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: his mum. But it still leaves you with that, you know,
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: and obviously there are. You know, beatings and psychological and
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: emotional abuse that can go on. There's horrific stuff that
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: plays out, you know, some child trafficked and all sorts
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: of horrific things that can happen in a child's life.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And with these people that often contact me, Claire,
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: it's kind of it doesn't have to be that extreme.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: When you dig a bit below the surface, oh, my
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: dad was a, he was a wing commander in the RAF. Okay,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: so you remember, like, good times with him? Well, no,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: not really. To be honest, Chris, he was always away. Okay, so, like,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: did he come back and he's loving you and hugging
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: you and, you know, you're the, well, no, to be honest,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: he was kind of, like, went out with the boys,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: you know, that was, you know, but that's his job, Chris.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh, dude, you just don't, You know,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: every kid needs a mother and a father. A boy
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: specifically needs this bond with a father figure. And hence
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: the bloody knife crime and stuff we've got in London,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: because there's a lot of the, you know, there's a
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: lot of communities, let's say, where the marital thing is
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: not such an issue. So you've got so many young
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: people in this country now in a society where we
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: promote the family unit. But they're like, hang on, I've
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: never even known me, dad. And yet I'm going to
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: a school where they're, you know, this is the kind of.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Carla talks a lot about that, doesn't he? I mean,
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: my kind of view is it's about kind of that
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: perfect balance of masculine and feminine influence as well. You know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: a father, you know, people from broken homes tend to,
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: you know, gravitate towards a masculine figure of some degree.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: how well aligned that masculine figure is or influence is,
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: you know, whether you strike lucky or not, right?
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm just trying to highlight here how
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: kind of we're all a bit deluded of just about
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: everything in the area of PTSD. People don't even understand
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: their own trauma. And I'm not criticising them. I'm just
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: saying it's the way... This is why I kind of
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: have an issue with the charities that sell it. It's
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: like walking with a wounded and... combat hero he said
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: whoa these chaps that are committing suicide they probably never
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: even served in combat or if they did they were
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: like me it was their job and they took it
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: on the chin and we all came home and you
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: know we we we had our memorial services for the
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: you know in our case it was one chap that
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: we we we sort of loved that that didn't make
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: me end up chronically mentally unwell drug addicted and homeless
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: in hong kong yeah it's it's everyone would like to
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: think That's the reason because that's what they sold through
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: the Rambo movies and all this kind of stuff. But no,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: the truth is, is my life was a reflection of
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: a severely damaged.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: And I suppose it depends on your lifeline and the
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: trajectory of that and how much impact trauma you experienced
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: along that timeline in terms of how you alchemize that
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: a later date as well. And then you obviously factor
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: in things like drugs and alcohol. And some suicides are
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: classed as misadventure. You know, you factor in those kind
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: of things and they change the chemical structure of the hormones,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: both positive and too much, you know, adrenaline, cortisol, those
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: kind of things. It's about all of it. All of
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: it is relevant. All of it is relevant. I mean,
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: I'm not a big one for, I love, I love reflecting.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: you know, I do enjoy kind of reflecting and I
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: have spent an extensive day, you know, calling that how
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: you want shadow work, inner child work, you know, however
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: you want to experience that. But it's also learning about
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: not only yourself, but learning about, you know, gut health,
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: for instance, I think is a really, really crucial thing,
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: given that, you know, 60, 70, 80% of serotonin is
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: actually made in the gut pre and probiotics. utilizing modalities
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: that change or help regulate the autonomic nervous system you
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: know breath work cold water therapy yoga walk in nature
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: walk with the dog connected with good company and good
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: food you know it's about implementing all of those things
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: in your toolkit and or using one or the other
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: or sometimes going off of one because it's a bit
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: too much and utilizing something else right it's about all
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: the things that we're talking about here But at a
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: certain point in time, things like combat stress and walking
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: with the wounded could be that vital bit, that missing
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: piece at that time to help you just get you
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: further along that path. Because as you said earlier, it's
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: a constant thing going on, isn't it, inside of you?
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: And a dialogue, our own negative kind of self-beliefs and
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: thought patterns as well and retraining. those imprint you know
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: those things that have been imprinted in your way looking
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: at where that come from and a lot of us
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: can remember moments that either terrified us or our parents
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: told us off or someone told us off or gave
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: us a Bob Marley song mama's gonna put her fears
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: into you those kind of things you know we are
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah absolutely but I'm sort of getting at All this
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: stuff like the cold water plunges, the saunas, I'm a
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: big advocate, walk around the block in the morning or
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: jog around, whatever your thing will go for. All this
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: is kind of post-healing, as it were. And I really
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: take an issue, Claire, and I have to say this.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: These charities, they cropped up during Afghanistan. They made a
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: lot of money on public sympathy and public naivety about
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: why veterans get ill. And now what they're doing is
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: with this approach that, you know, this warrior, you know,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: it it is that they're putting off the people that
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: absolutely need this because they're going well i served in
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: combat but that was like my job it didn't affect
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: me stuff stuff happened it's unplanned i mean you know
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: we i think i said this we look.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: We It doesn't always have to be, you know, war.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: It could be like earthquakes and helping with that and
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: supplying food and medication. And there's all different things that,
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: you know, could happen.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: We just need a charity that says, hey, are you
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: a veteran? Are you struggling because you had a damaged childhood? Right,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: we're for you. And there isn't one.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: That's an interesting word in itself, the terminology veteran. Now,
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: I'm about to launch MET. Obviously, Armed Forces Week on Thursday.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: And I've got a guest speaker, Stacey, female veteran from
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: the LGBT community, if you like. And I feel that like,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: you know, when I talk to the police officers, it's
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: kind of like, what is a veteran? Because a lot
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: of the younger generation don't actually necessarily identify with the
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: terminology veteran. A lot of the female cohort don't necessarily
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: identify with the terminology veteran. And the reason to bring
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: me to my point in terms of bringing Stacey's influence
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: into this, it's about educating the police officers. You're not
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: just typically looking for, you know, the older guy or
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: female from World War Two, for instance. You know, you
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: could be in contact with a woman. She could have
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: been sexually abused in the military or sexually abused. You've
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: got the reparations from the LGBT community and the people that,
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: you know, lost their careers, their military careers and how
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: that impacted them mentally. And, you know, it's about understanding
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: the type of person and all the unique differences. You've
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: got kind of like a subcategories within a category there.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: So I tend to use the terminology, obviously, veteran for ease,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: like you are, but, you know, those with armed forces
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: service history. I mean, even understanding a child, you know,
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: that's got themselves into a bit of trouble having lived
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: in a military environment, you know, that's not unknown, you know?
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: It's such a complex kind of space, you know, But
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: going back to what you were saying, something that I
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: also say in my talks, if you like, it's not
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: that I'm putting veterans health above mental health above anyone else's.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: It's that it's unique mental health genre with more in
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: place than any other genre of mental health. And that
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: has posed a huge question for me. And as I've
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: gone on down the line of the force of protocol
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: and I've had to learn, I mean, I've had to
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: create a CIC and trademark to protect it because there
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: are sharks in this space, you know, and it's a
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: corporate world. A charity is not necessarily just a charity.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: you know, charitable kinds of, there are a lot of
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: people doing amazing things, but it is a business and
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: in its cut rate, there's a lot of money in
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: that space. And it doesn't necessarily always end up with
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: the veteran and where they end up and the services
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: that they're in, like, you know, drug and alcohol addiction, housing,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: you know, and there's so much duplication of services and
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: duplication of funding, it's like, oh, here we go, like
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: another rebrand basically of an idea that was already had
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: millions put into it, you know, and it just confuses
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: that space. But I also want to say, to give
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: that balance, there are some incredible people doing some incredible,
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: amazing things.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely. You know, absolutely. I was on the phone
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: for an hour yesterday with Saver Warrior UK and, you know,
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: there's some amazing people advances in the psychology of what
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: we're talking about and understanding.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: And erasing things you were talking about, like the cold
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: water therapy and the nutrition.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: But also that like the reframing of language is so important.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: You know, you're two things, you know, you're either a
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: victim or you're not. And when you're in victim mode, whoa, not,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: it's not a lot good is going to happen to you,
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: you know, until you learn to say, hey, that was experience.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: wasn't particularly pleasant but i've learned i've sort of learned
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: from it you know but.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: Claire easy thing it's not an easy thing to do
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: i don't ever want to kind of you know preach
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: how easy that is.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: No it's it's a process you know it's it's and
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: in my case it nearly killed me um you know
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: it it it's it's a process you know people claire
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: people like look at addiction as like the worst thing
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: in the world. Oh my God. You know, all the
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: people that watch Grange Hill when we were kids, Zamo,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: you know, with his smack in the toe. And the
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: irony is if I was ever to do a TED talk,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: my title would have to be like how addiction gave
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: me my life, you know, how it gave me my,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: you know, it really, it was like the endurance course
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: in the Marines. It put me through my paces and,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: It smashed me down and it made me think, whoa,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: hang on, where am I going with all of this?
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: But I wanted to ask you, just to track back
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: a bit, what's the experience like of losing a loved
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: one prematurely to suicide?
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: Uncomprehensible and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, you know,
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't. But I learned quite quickly that I wasn't
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: alone in the space, became part of a group of
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: over 100 families from all different, what's the word, stances,
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: like a mother or father losing their child, a brother
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: losing their sister or their, you know, brother or a
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: grandmother losing their grandson, a friend losing their, a colleague
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: losing that, you know, I saw it from kinds of
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: all angles really. Yeah, what? Undescribable whole world of pain.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: But something inside of me just kicked in in terms
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: of a protective measure, you know. And I mean, I
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: encountered grief quite early on in terms of helping our
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: son through that grief process as well and putting various
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: mechanisms in place to support him on that trajectory, if
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: you like. And I mean, going back to what you
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: were saying, I mean, I've never actually, I mean, I
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: smoked a bit of weed, you know, up to my
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: early 20s, late teens. But my brother was a, and
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: I'll get on to why this is relevant to Josh
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: in a second. My brother was a drug-induced schizophrenic. And
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: I saw the dark side of drugs, if you like,
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: and how it can alter someone, you know, outside of
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: an accident, being under the influence of that, but on
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: a mental and emotional level. And we lost him then.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: Similarly with Josh, I mean, I never want, and I
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: was cross with Alan when he went into prison because, again,
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: I wanted to facilitate that connection between him and Josh.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: And that meant that Josh at Christmas or holidays was
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: going to the prison to visit his dad, right? And
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: he was subjected to things like, I remember a couple
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: of weeks later after a visit, Josh come out with,
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: you know, we're all moved to the other side of
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: the prison prison. you know, last time I went to see, oh,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: why was that done? Because the pedos have to see their,
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: you know, their, their family as well at Christmas time.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: And you can imagine that, you know, I'm trying to
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: psychologically shield Josh from, you know, those experiences, but on
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: the flip side of that, Josh is obviously now 25. He's,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: he's not gone down the route of drugs and now
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: okay you know he's had a couple of nights out
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: on the drink or whatever you know and has tried
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: a spliff but he's not you know participated in that
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: because what I used learn you know from the scenario
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: of my brother but how that affects you psychologically mentally
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: and emotionally and thankfully you know it's not so in
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: a way that adverse experience for Josh was a positive
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: as well Yeah.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: Sort of life experience, really, in the dark side. I
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: talk to my son all the time about pedos. I say, son,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: if anyone tries to touch your winky, you fucking knock
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: them out, mate. We're all kickboxers in our family, and
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: he's got the hardest punch out of all of us.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: But I've just always been open with it. I've said
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: it could be a teacher, darling. It could be a relative.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: You know, you've done nothing wrong. You fucking run, and
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: you shout like fuck.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Everyone was a potential pedo when josh was young until
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: he was at a point where he was capable enough
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: of making his own sort of you know judgments on
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: things if you like but yeah i mean it is
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: a predatory world it can well it can be you
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: know it's a beautiful world.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: Claire i'm not trying to be you know scandalous or
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: whatever the word is uh but Are we allowed to
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: ask how did Alan take his own life and who
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: found him?
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, we can discuss that. So basically the
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: force of protocol started because I called the police. I
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: had serious concerns of his welfare. I knew that he'd
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: had suicidal ideation since he was 19. He'd actually said
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: to me when we first met, You know, I saw
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: you for the first time and I looked at the
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: stable bars behind you and thought that's a nice place
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: to hang myself, right? So you you've got like and
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: this will this factors into the force of protocol it's
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: like a lot of people have a plan about how
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: and where they would do it or have idolized how
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: that would happen so Alan's I called the police with
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: serious concerns for his welfare. I was detailing, and I've
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: said this time and time again, you know, he's a
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: war veteran, drug and alcohol addiction, been in and out
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: of prison, on probation, should be known to you. A
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: strong suicidal ideation, has tried to take his own life before,
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: 20 minute conversation passed between 11 different police officers over
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: a period of three days. Get to Alan's inquest, and
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: it became very clear that we were missing a key
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: opportunity amongst several other missed opportunities. within the welfare care pathway,
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: both military and civilian. But the force of Proto was
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: essentially a suicide policing prevention strategy for those with an
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: armed forces service history. Now, I called the police, and
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: as I say, three days later, he was found slumped
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: underneath a tree with a ligature around his neck. He'd also,
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: in previous months, bought Zeus, who lives with us now.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: He's a Malinois, beautiful boy, high maintenance.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Is that your dog?
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's Alan's dog.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: God, I went out on a limb there saying that,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: didn't I? If it turned out to be like your lodger.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Claire, I should just explain, when I'm looking over here,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: it's because I'm getting photos up for our friends at home.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: I've got another screen. I'm not ignoring you, as a
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: lot of people think. Chris, you just ignored your guest
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: and surfed the internet. No, I'm just showing some pictures.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: What a beautiful dog.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: He is beautiful. He is beautiful. Bless him. And, you know,
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: he laid by Alan's side for, well, three days. Lord
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: didn't leave his side. And all these components kind of
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: kick in because Alan kind of went cross border. I
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: reported him to Cleveland. He was found under Stockton on T's.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Hence why we have the online portal, because that could
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: slow down the search, getting that information, extracting it from
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: another police force and stuff. There's instant access to you know,
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: suicidal ideation, different types of conditions, you know, all sorts
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: of stuff. You know, their number plate, their IMI number
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: on their phone. There's also a whole host of, to
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: speed up the search, because you have something called the
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: golden hour principle, right? So Alan across border. So a
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: passerby had noticed Alan's car. It finally flagged their system
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: because he was only ever assessed as medium risk. At
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: that point, he went high risk on system. Police officers
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: attended the scene with their dogs. I'd always said to them, look,
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: he's got Zeus with him. He's a Malinois. He's, you know,
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: he's a PTSD therapy dog, but he's also a protective
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: guard dog. You know, don't want you to take that
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: into account, basically, because, you know, and I need you
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: to take into account that, you know, if you go
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: in with all blue lights blazing, that's not conducive to
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: de-escalation of something for someone like Alan, right? You know,
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: so you're going to need to kind of go in
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: with a, Anyway, his car was parked in a country lane.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: Number plate obviously finally flagged the system. He went high risk.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: Police officer comes in with the dogs. They hear Zeus
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: barking in an extensive sort of goodland. They put their
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: dogs away and the officer went over towards Zeus and
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: Zeus bless him. Yeah. He jumped up into the policeman's arms.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we get it.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: Knowing that, you know, and we kind of, Alan went
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: missing on the 19th, wasn't found till the 21st, but
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: we know through extensive autopsy, I mean, the stuff that
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: I read, you know, about how much his brain weighed,
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: how much his heart weighed, you know, what drugs were
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: in his system, you know, the marks on his body, everything.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: It was horrific, you know. I mean, I didn't even
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: want Alan's parents to read it, but I needed to know,
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: you know, how much sort of sertraline he had in
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: his system, what drugs, you know, those kind of things.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: I just needed to know, like, answers. And I went
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: off down this, you know, piecing it all together. But,
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: you know, Josh, bless him. When the news hit, I mean,
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: it was during lockdown, even the post, the beacon post
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: that went up. I mean, I clocked it the other day.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: It said people are encouraged not to go out and
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: look for him when the beacon, you know, because of
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: the lockdown. And lockdown was a huge issue for me
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: because Alan's actual only remaining coping mechanism was the gym.
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: And that was closed as well. You know, so there's
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: lots of contributing factors to Alan's passing, I believe, but
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: no one specific area of blame. And I mean, even
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: within the policing, you know, too late by the time
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: it's got to a police officer with all those resources
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: and stuff in place. You know, it's a bit like,
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you're familiar with Scotland Police Scotland's work.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: They've got something called the Missing Persons Framework developed in 2016.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: And as a result of this connectivity of that framework
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: and the cohesiveness of it, because that is an issue,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: the fragmented nature of the veterans welfare landscape is something
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: that I've always said. The number of missings in Scotland
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: have actually come down as a result of having that
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: in place. And I'm a great advocate of that mechanism
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: being utilised. But yeah, and I mean, I was here,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: as I say, and two of my friends arrived and
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: we were in the garden. I'd said to Josh, That day,
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: go to work down the marina, you know, and I'll
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: come and get you. It was good for him to
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: be outside and with his friends whilst he was worrying about,
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: because we didn't know at that point that Alan had
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: taken his life. There was always kind of a little
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: bit of hope, even though I kind of knew. I
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: was in the garden with my friends, Oliver and Claire
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: and Vicky, and got a phone call from the police
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: officer saying that his car, that he'd found his car
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: and that they were going in And I was like, right.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: And my friends were kind of saying, you know, it's
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: going to be all right, Claire. And I just knew,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: like in my stomach, I knew. And I drove down
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: to the marina, which is not too far down the road.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: And I could see Josh coming towards me up the
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: jetty on the phone. And it was his nana telling
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: him that. So it was actually Josh who told me,
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: it's not a good mum. He couldn't breathe. You know,
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: it was horrific. And I was, you know, trying to
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: get him into the car and, say to his boss
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: I'm taking him home we're going you know out there
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: and literally as we're in the car driving back up
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: the road because I'd always said no dogs actually and
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: where I'd been a single mum pretty much for most
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: of it you know I didn't want that level of
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: commitment if I'm honest you know let alone a Malinois
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: who needs.
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: College you know a guy who may need that kind
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: of various tools implemented to stop them from going bad
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: if you like psychologically and josh has sort of said
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: to me mama you know i can't feel my face
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: i can't feel my legs and i've got my hands
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: on his knee and i said like you know just
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: breathe just breathe and he said can zeus come and
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: live with us and anything to appease that in that
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: moment i just said yes like absolutely you know And
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: I mean, all that night I was in and out
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: of his bedroom like he was a newborn baby that
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: was poorly, you know, just his stomach, vomiting, just the physical.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: Pain that he was in at the shock of that news.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: And I mean, I look back to things like the
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: previous Christmas that Josh sort of told me afterwards because
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: he was sort of 18 at this point. He was
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: in the middle of his exams as well at college
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: doing his media studies and he sort of was talking
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: about the Christmas before. And in hindsight, in terms of signs,
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: one of the other things that I kind of missed
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: was that Alan actually gave Josh his tag here watch.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: And that's another sign, if you like, that someone is
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: contemplating and making plans to exit, giving away things of
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: emotional value. And he'd said, you know, look after it, boy,
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: don't ever sell it. You know, and he's got a watch,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: bless him. But the Christmas before that, when we were
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: talking about that, Josh said, like, I mean, again, techniques.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: His dad was having an attack, an anxiety attack, and
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: he was putting his weighted blanket on him. He was
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: putting his ear pods in to put the meditation music
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: on for him, trying to regulate his own father through
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: that episode. Yeah, and just the things that Josh has seen,
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: there's a lot. Yeah, and I've never really talked about
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: this particularly before, I'm.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Sort of mixed feelings here. On the one hand, Claire,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: you know, part of the reason, like, I wrote a
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: book about my chronic addiction. I've written books about me
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: best mate drowned in front of me eyes. I do
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: wonder sometimes whether all that shit should be left in
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: the past and we need to heal, because I literally
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: wouldn't think about it. It's only that because my media presence,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I talk, you know, I've just... climbing down everest we
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: we thought one of the chaps had died um and
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: so what i'm trying to say is i'm sorry to
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: put you through.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: This i'm actually fine i'm fine with it it's important
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: that i i say.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: It yeah that i i just want people to hear
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: because i i got a buddy he's called chunks we said.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: We tragedy story is it you know it's not i
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: know that that's not your energy right so don't worry about.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: That yeah i just want people to sort of understand
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: the the the horrendousness of the of suicide and He
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: doesn't even.
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: Just, his just, his passing alone was a shocker, right?
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: But it's the whole 19, you know, you talk about
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: what we spoke earlier about, you know, widowed. I was
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: widowed 19 years ago, you know. Alan was dying back then.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: Every part of his soul was.
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: And it's been a long, long road. And in a way,
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: and it sounds horrific, the only thing that brought me
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: comfort was I was relieved that he wasn't in pain
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: anymore as well, mixed with that. You know, that's the
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: thing that I kept, he's not in any more pain,
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: he's not in any more pain. Because it is fucking
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: painful what you experience.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: The police officer that found him, how was his, how
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: did that affect him, do we know?
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Well, I said to him, again, I don't know where
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: this kind of came from, but I said to him,
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: I'm really sorry that you've seen what you've seen today.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: It's all right. This is my job. And I was like,
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: it's not cool, though, is it? It's not cool. You
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: must see trauma after trauma, day after day in your role.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: And obviously police suicides are, you know, and ambulance, paramedics,
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: you know, anyone that's working in the trauma field. visually
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: they're seeing trauma after trauma after trauma and that's why
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: you know four tours in afghanistan on top of kosovo
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: iraq on top of a childhood experience impact you don't
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: get any like let up to you get no healing
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: and you talking earlier about reflecting and moving forward yes
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: to a degree but i think you have to kind
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: of go back to kind of put it all into
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: its little space before you can move forward or whilst
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: you're moving forward because with the movement and the moving
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: forward comes those memories and those aha moments and penny
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: drops and you know I mean I haven't really got
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: a great deal of expendable energy for questions that are
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: clearly quite unanswerable I mean Zeus knows more about he
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: knows things that we'll never know and seen things that
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: one would never want to see as has that police
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: officer right.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah exactly it's funny Claire the whole moving on process, healing,
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: whatever we're going to.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the language is very limited, right, to articulate all
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: of that.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: It's... You know, when our lad got shot dead in
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: Northern Ireland, the lad that gave him first aid or
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: tried to save him, and he was unsavable. You know,
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: he was dead when he hit the ground, basically. I
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: won't say the chap's name, but he was a Falklands
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: veteran and he got down and he, you know... tried
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: to save our boy and he got up and just went.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: And that had a profound effect on my life to
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: the point, to the point of, I don't know how
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: appropriate this is, but what I'm trying to say is
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: I I've lost, I've been in the presence of four
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: people that have died. Now one died in a scuba dive.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: The girl opposite me in a boat in, in the
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Antarctic polar circle died. japanese girl she went off diving
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: i was literally the last person to see her before
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: she drowned my best buddy uh who i call liam
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: in in my book he we went to a music
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: festival in portugal and he drowned in the lake um
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: and then you're stood there with your best mate at
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: your feet thinking fucking hell i got you twat what
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: you know and then the police get involved and then
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: the media are there with the cameras and and and
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: And then recently on Everest, we lost a Sherpa, or
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: at least we thought we did. But I guess what
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to say is I was quite fortunate from
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: my military background that that literally meant that to me.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: But these individuals weren't like you, Claire. This is your partner,
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: your life partner. These were people that I loved dearly. Well,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I didn't know the girl in
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: the boat other than, you know, being on the expedition
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: with her.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: My relationship with Alan was very, very different. I mean,
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Alan actually had a partner, you know, Julie, bless her.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: And at Alan's funeral, you know, she was inconsolable and
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: I was there for her, you know, holding her up.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: My relationship with Alan was very, very different. As I say,
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: I'm not the bereaved widow. He was a very dear
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: friend of mine, always was, always has been, always will be,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: you know. He caused me a great deal of pain.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: not just in his passing but through life with his actions,
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: you know, which was the fine line between love and
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: hate at periods of time because of how much that
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: affected and impacted me and probably still does today to
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: a degree as well, if I'm honest. But you kind of,
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: death and destruction is everywhere, as is beauty and life.
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: It's kind of a perfect balance of all of it.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: And it depends also as well what your beliefs in
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: death are about death, whether that is a transference of energy,
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: so to speak, and your belief system surrounding death and passing. And,
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: you know, I have a very different look on death.
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, I think you have quite a spiritual
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: view of life.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but it pains me to know that anyone's in
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: that much pain, of course, even animals as well. I
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: can't bear anyone being in, you know, and sometimes as well,
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: it's a fabric of their own creation. And it's a
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: lesson and a process that they need to go through
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: and reach that point if they're lucky to expand on
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: that journey and come out the other side. You know,
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: it very much depends on what your thought processes and
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: your beliefs are around all of that, you know.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: I know I've been in a crisis, worryingly, you know.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: So, Claire, let's talk about force of protocol. I mean,
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: it's a stupid question. Why did you come up with it?
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: That's pretty obvious. But was it difficult to present to
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: the police?
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: No. In some instances, I mean, I think you alluded
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: to earlier about even the sheer mention of suicide, right?
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: Particularly anything that might be substantially service attributable, let's say,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: and giving veterans a bad rep in terms of they're
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: not all bad, mad, angry and sad, right? And a
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: lot of people have a wonderful career within the military,
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: do amazing things. It's the making, it's the growth of them. But,
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, something I always say is, you know, according
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: to the ONS statistics of 2021, you know, we had
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: 253 veteran suicides, not military suicides, because they're separate and
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: they're separate for the Army, for the RAF, for the
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: Navy as well. A large proportion of those were male.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: We know that suicides in general affect males, but you
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: wouldn't also want to dismiss the female cohort. 17 of
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: those were female, the rest were male. We also know
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: from that report and the narrative that I was receiving
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: before that was that, you know, it's no different to
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: the civilian cohort. And I was like, what are you
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: trying to protect here? Are you trying to protect joining
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: the army? Or are you going to look at this realistically?
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: And what can we do with all these resources? What
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: can we do? Because we have a significant cohort present
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: here within society. Those stats, 253 for 2021 equate to
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: five veterans a week. That's a lot, right?
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: For that cohort. And also, if they're aged between 25
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: and 44, they're four times more likely, if they're male,
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: to take their own life. So equipped with that knowledge
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: and understanding, particularly the police or anyone that engages with
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: a veteran, it goes a long way in terms of
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: understanding the person that's in front of you, right? and
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: all the other factors that we discussed earlier, female, LGBT community, children,
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: literally all of it. And that's not saying that that
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: environment's bad because it's, it's, you know, in part, it's
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: a beautiful environment that, you know, sorry, I've gone off
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: on a little tangent there. Where was I going with that?
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: Tell me. No.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, You're all making clear points, Claire. I was just
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: going to say that I had a reunion at my
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: mate's farm. It was about five years ago now, and
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: there was a few of us ex-Marines there. Well, we
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: were only ex-Marines there, and we'd all served in training together.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: And one of the chaps, who I just call him Chunks,
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: he'd gone on to serve in the Met. And the
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: one thing that I could see that affected him was
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: nothing to do with a military. It was the fact
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: that he'd gone for what? You know, when someone's at
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: danger and people raise the alarm and the police have
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: to go around, they call it like a welfare check,
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: don't they?
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: And he'd gone for this welfare check, realized something was wrong.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: So they entered the property and this poor chap, he'd
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: hung himself. And Chunk said he had simply read, like,
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: I don't know, holding back the years or one of them, like,
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: really sad. He said it was on repeat.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, music is, that's really, really interesting. You should bring
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: that up. And I mean, horrific, obviously, but that is
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: another indicator, like, lyrical content and... and that emotional connection
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: to that and the feelings that evokes. We know how
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: powerful music is, right? You know, I mean, you've seen
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: kinds of in dementia patients, like a former ballerina, you know,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: no recollection from her past, but you played, the piece
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: of music that she used to dance to was played
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: to her and she was there kind of back.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Yes. Very powerful.
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: Very, very powerful on emotional, psychological level.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, music has been around since the beginning of time.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: Drumsticks in a cut, literally chicken legs were the first drumsticks,
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: you know, on the beat of the drum and seeing
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: all of that kind of stuff is very much in
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: our primordial, you know.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: But I could see this had affected my big, tough
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Marine mate. You know, just the fact that the way
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: he was telling us, you could see he was traumatised. Not,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't know to what extent, but I
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: do wonder what support he got after having to deal,
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: you know, to deal with that.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: And in some cases, I do think a lot of
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: these organisations really don't know what to do with you.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: To be perfectly honest. I mean, Alan was doing everything
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: one was required to do in terms of talk. He
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: was shouting from the rooftops. He was fucking exhausted with talk.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: I'm not saying talking is not a good thing, right?
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: But exhausted round and round and round trying to make
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: this person, that person understands, you know, housing. pension payments,
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: you know, his GP, his employment, his probation, his drug work.
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: How many times did he have to recount and articulate?
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: You know, he's there, clear as day. Like, you know.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when you're struggling, just filling in like a form
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: for the unemployment office, it's beyond you. You're just like,
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: especially if you're ADHD and you struggled at school.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: Very divergent, yeah. I mean, that's another important component of
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: the online, because I've got a hard copy form and
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: an online form, is I wanted the consent option on
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: that form, because Alan, or anyone struggling, if you like,
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: or could potentially be struggling later on down the line,
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: filling out yet another piece of admin, it's not going
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: to happen, right? So the consent option's there for partner, friend, colleague, Worker, advocate,
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: service provider, the consent option is there to just get
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: that information on the system and it's accessible. And I mean,
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: I appreciate that a lot of veterans don't have a
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: great relationship with the police, so to speak. And there'll
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: be like distrust and paranoia and all of those kind
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: of things. But it's really important that I explain that
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: the host, if you like, of the online form SAFO,
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: It's audited, we know exactly what officer went in, what time,
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: how long they were in there, what information was extracted.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: And only, it's not the whole police department that have
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: access to that information, only a couple of licenses are
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: actually given to within the call handler risk assessment team,
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: say 10, 15, 20, depending on how big the force is,
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: licenses for them to kind of access that information. that's
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: really and then the hard copy of the form I
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: also want you because there's going to be people out
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: that have been out on a series of operational tours
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: that have been classified you know or a partner that's
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: got concerns about a loved one in the military starting
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: to exhibit symptoms of but that person hasn't quite acknowledged
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: that within themselves and you know and don't want to
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: talk about it within the military because they fear medical
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: or you know a discharge So I also wanted to
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: keep that hard copy to capture that cohort as well.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: And at least that way, whoever is reporting that person missing,
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: like I could have said, I mean, I don't know
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: really what else more that I could say, but I
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: didn't know Alan's registration plate and I didn't know his
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: IEMI number and I didn't know his NHS number, you know,
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: but I knew other people. But to have it in
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: front of you on a piece of paper or on
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: the online form, it's just there instantly and speeds up
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: that search because there was a lot of door knock-ins
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: over a period of days and searching here and searching there.
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: So like known spots, you know.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: So Claire, you've been very kind to tell us your backstory.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: Obviously we need to promote the Forza protocol. Let me
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: just show you your website picture. You know, in a
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: sort of nutshell, how, how, how does it work?
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: It exists as a protective mechanism, if you like. It
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: works through, it's a formula. It's kind of been misrepresented
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: as just an online form when it's actually more than that.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: It's about education within policing and the wider community on
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: the unique mental health attributes of serving personnel, former serving personnel.
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: So it starts essentially with asking the question. Do you
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: have an armed forces service history? And generally the person
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: that would ask that in a policing environment would be
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: the call handler. Then there's a risk assessment done in
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: terms of allocation of resources and what type of resources
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: are used, whether that would be a medium risk, low risk,
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: high risk, because not all those who wander are lost, right?
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: We also factoring in, as I mentioned earlier, the golden
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: hour principle. So the risk assessment sort of happens, but
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: also I wanted like a professional referral there and then
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: from whoever was dealing with the situation that was playing
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: out in terms of the extensive amount of resources that's,
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: you know, available in terms of immediate sort of help
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: and assistance outside of a section 136, 135 and so on.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: or whatever they are. Yeah, so, and it's about accumulating
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: information that A, makes that police officer aware of, you know,
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: and that can be used in all areas of policing, negotiation, hostage,
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: crisis situation, an anger regulation issue happening, I don't know,
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: a bar fight or something playing out where there are
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: signs that something more underlying is going on. You know,
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: have they even been diagnosed with complex PTSD, PTSD, TBI,
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: and you know have they also got neurodivergence there's you
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: know there's a whole spectrum of information and obviously educating
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: them earlier as i explained on the unique sort of
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: uh categories subcategories within that category you know of what
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: that entails so basically it is a suicide prevention strategy
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: and formula to get that person the help that they need.
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: And that, as you also mentioned earlier, that could be
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: like a welfare check from home because, you know, essentially
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: it's missing from home, but it's going into all areas
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: of policing. And I've started to include kind of like
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: BTP British transport to make that connectivity, the RMPs capturing
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: those transitioning out of the military. So, you know, particularly
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: with a medical or dishonorable discharge, it's bound to be
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: slightly more vulnerable and, I've opened Pandora's box and I mean,
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: I'm pulled in all kinds of directions, but my ultimate
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: aim initially was to get into all 43 police forces.
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: I'm now in over 50% of police forces, but 27 today,
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: I think. I've got another four or five coming on
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: Armed Forces Week, which we're in now. And as I say,
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: I'm about to launch MET out of New Scotland Yard
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: on Thursday and That is actually 12 police forces in one.
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: We're going to start in three of the BCUs across
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: the Met to filter that across and monitor that as
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: it goes. But we've started in the most densely populated
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: veteran settlement areas or where there's barracks and things. So
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: we've kind of cherry picked that for this first part
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: of the pilot within the Yeah. So I launched it
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: in Parliament in 2023, did a six month pilot in
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: Greater Manchester Police. And as I say, it's expanded across.
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: So in just shy of two years and since its implementation,
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: over several hundred veterans and serving personnel and reservists have
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: been safely located and referred into veterans specific care.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: Wow. So it's you can actually see the fruits of
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: your labour.
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: Your love really, isn't it? Labour is not the right word.
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, it is very much woven into my fabric.
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: I mean, I spoke earlier about, you know, 16 whole
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: years working in that environment. My uncle was an officer
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: in the Marines, actually. Bad luck. Yeah, you know, and
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: so there is a, you know, it's very much woven
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: into my fabric. Yeah. And not only that as well.
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'll probably touch on, you know, my boss,
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: my boss in the lifeguards. I mean, he took his
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: own life in the office. Another colleague of ours took
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: his own life in the forge. I also saw kind
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: of that this is kind of pre Alan doing what
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: he did. And, you know, I also saw my boys
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: and I say boys because it was predominantly males in
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: that environment then. And, you know, going off to Iraq,
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: Afghanistan and coming back, even not at all, or limb
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: loss or the psychological sort of stuff that was playing
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: out in the, post. So I kind of inadvertently gauged.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: what needed to be done. And then obviously my journey
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: from Alan's Inquest in terms of bereavement resources for, you know,
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: for Josh and for the kids, you know, in terms
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: of Scotty's Little Soldiers, you know, that bereavement support and
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: help for the children, going back to sort of the
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: ACES staff and the endless amount of resources that they've
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: got in the bereavement space for the family as well.
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: you know, they've been incredible. I mean, they've gone into such,
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: even like down to cards for teachers in their schools about,
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: you know, when they're talking about subjects like World War I,
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: World War II, various different wars or like Remembrance Week. And,
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: you know, they offer time away in their, you know,
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: in their homes, like respite homes on holiday, you know,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: these information packs for teachers and, You've got the Veterans
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: Female Transitional Toolkits, you know, to deal specifically with females.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: And it's just this whole host of resources through this
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: extensive network that I found myself in to kind of utilise.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: And obviously I've had to be, you know, proactive on
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: who is actually doing what they say on the tin,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: you know, in terms of impact and evaluation afterwards because
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: of the amount of resources. And I'm quite snobby about
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: who that involves.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: You know, absolutely. When Louie and I rode the Atlantic
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: last year, we picked Scotty's Little Soldiers as our one
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: of our charity, one of our two charities. And we
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: did it because, you know, they were quite honest. They
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: were saying, look, at that point, it was 40 percent
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: of the of the kids they supported as parent had
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: committed suicide. Yeah. The reason I say that is obviously
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: the further you get away from conflict, the more likely
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: it is that the people they support is not from
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: the deaths in conflict. It's from, you know, deaths in.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: Well, that child that's encountered that trauma with one of
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: their parents, right? If it's not addressed and dealt with...
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: best capacity ie in the form of scottish little soldiers
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: that very child has the ability to go on and
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: be the future generations you know issue in terms of
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: yeah and all of that so for me and i
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: i use like you know for the welfare office obviously
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: we're going to have suicides right So there is a
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: team obviously that goes out to deliver that news to families, right?
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: You know, in those instances where we've identified that they
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: are from that family, that they implement that there and
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: then as well to help that child and that family
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: the best they can through that, because you can have
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: all the help in the world, but you know, a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: lot of it is a very personal journey as well,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: but having access to know about things like, I don't know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: help for, payment with the practical support, you know, me
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: in that month's mortgage payment and the financial implications that
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: that has on, you know, I mean, Josh and I
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: weren't really entitled to anything in terms of finance, really.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, I mean, I can tell you a really
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: awful story, Alan's pension. And it quite frankly, it pissed
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: me off. I mean, I wasn't signing for it for me,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: but for the three children, only Josh was allowed to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: have a proportion of it because his other two children
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: were mother wasn't married to him while he was in
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: the military. As far as I'm concerned, Alan's pension should
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: have been Alan's children's pension. End of conversation. I shouldn't
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: have to sit there filling out endless forms and battling
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: results and, you know, all of that kind of stuff.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: You know, what did Josh do with that money? Okay.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: It didn't take away the grief from his dad, but
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: you know, it helped buy him his first car. It
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: helped get him through his, you know, driving lessons that
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: all the things that would kind of give that child
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: quality of life, you know, and money, talking about societally,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: money can be a beautiful thing, but it is also
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: a freedom ticket to a degree. You know, going on
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: a nice holiday, paying for the roof over your head,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: the food in your fridge, just the very, very basics, right? So, yeah,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of help and resources about, you know,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: what you're entitled to and those kind of things under
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: Scottish as well. They've got, yeah, they've got, it's less
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: sort of spoken about. Granted, because the main focus is
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: obviously predominantly on the children, but the family support and
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: resources and connectivity that they've made is second to none.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. So, Claire, just to finish off then, if there's
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: people watching this podcast that are struggling, certainly contemplating taking
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: their own life, what do we say to them?
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: It would be talk. And if that person is having
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: that conversation with you, whether that's a family member, colleague, friend,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: or whatever, be aware of the force of protocols existence
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: because things happen off watch, right? We all get involved
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: in our own lives. Take the time to sit down,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: pull up the form or fill out the hard copy
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: form and give it to someone or keep it so
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: that you've got that information. Just get it on there.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: Get it is all I would say. And it doesn't cost,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: it doesn't cost the police anything. It doesn't cost, the
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: community anything it's cost me a shitload of money if
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: anything you know I've done this on no money I
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: wouldn't say no money because I've invested my savings to
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: keep me in the role right And my inheritance as well,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: if I'm completely honest. There is an option to donate.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: So if anyone does want to contribute to kind of
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: core costs and those kind of things, then I'm all
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: up for that kind of support. But yeah, anyone that's
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: listening to this, if you know anyone in this environment
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: as that extra protective mechanism, get that into place. And
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: on my website, forceofprotocol.org, There is, in the support section,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: there is a hub of information of where you can
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: go for various different things if you just want to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: scout around and you feel that that might be suited
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: to you in the interim, but do fill out that form.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: And then the police, if they need to be called,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: let's face it, they're the first on the scene, right?
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: You know, they need to be equipped with the information
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: to deal with that situation properly. you know, and it's
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: not just veterans that go missing. There's children, there's elderly people,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: there's a whole host of people that they need to safeguard, right?
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: So let's equip them with the, rather than blaming them.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: And for me, that was a big thing. When I
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: went into Alan's Inquest, it wasn't about blame. It was
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: about change. It's like, right, how can we change that, that, that,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: and that? And how do we engage the wider community?
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: So I wanted it dropped in every single sector, whether
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: you're in New York Courage, PTSD Resolution, guys that were
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: soldiers whoever you are an employer know about it a
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: friend a family member just know about it and it's
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: very poignant that we're talking about it on Armed Forces
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: Week I know it's about celebrating our serving personnel and
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: all the incredible things that they do but this is
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: our protective mechanism for them as they vow to protect us.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: Yes and that's the subject for another day it's.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: The subject for another.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: Day Claire, listen, you're an amazing person. It's been so,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: I'm just honoured to know you. I cannot wait for
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: us to meet in person so I can give you
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: a big hug and thank you, you know, for everything
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: that you've been through and that you've done.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: Do you know, I'm just going to cut you short again.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: I met this woman the other day and she fled,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: her family fled Kosovo. went went in during the heart
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: of conflicts and she got me she when she come
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: over and said thank you not like for for you
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: know for what your family sacrificed but my family you
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: know yeah that was a that was a killer that one.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah well you well deserved you know what what you've
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: you've turned something which is so tragic which for the
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: let's be honest most people could never really get get
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: to grips with the utter travesty of it all and
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: and you've come out of it and you've done something
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: really good for veterans so on behalf of the veteran
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: community thank you so much friends at home we'll put
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: um claire's links below i've been showing you there we
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: go look there's the website for forcerprotocol.org you can get
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: in touch through through the website find out more more
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: information Um, I'll put all Claire's links below that just
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: leads me to say thank you again, Claire. Just amazing.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: And I, you know, special conversation for me because this is,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm obviously, I don't know if I'm passionate
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: about it. It's more like I'm just a bit pissed
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: off that no one's telling the truth in this, this arena,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: you know, and the.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: solely being heard right.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah the military never going to tell the truth for
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: they the military industrial complex with their bombs and their
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: bullets they they they don't want people to you know
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: and and.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: I think they're changing i think they're more open to
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: certainly in the past i would agree with you but
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: i've seen a significant change in their approach to this
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: sector which is commendable and i welcome more of that
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: to be honest.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah absolutely and um and that's because of people like
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: you Claire so thank you friends at home if you
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: can like and subscribe if indeed you did like if
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: you didn't like then that won't apply to you and
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: much love go steady and just remember if you're struggling
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: out there my advice would be Leave the past behind
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: because that don't exist no more. Be grateful that we
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: have this beautiful life because many of our buddies, especially
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: our military buddies, they're not here anymore.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: Monitor what you're telling yourself. Is it true?
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: And take action. My action was I did the washing
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: up and it changed my life. So go steady, folks.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Friends, thank you for listening to the Bought the T-shirt podcast.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: Please like, subscribe and share. Don't forget to follow me
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: on social media. Username, Chris Thrall. Instagram, Chris.Thrall.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: Thank you.