Colin MacLachlan is a former SAS soldier who has seen combat in some of the toughest areas of the world.
Can’t listen right now?
Read this episodes transcript below.
[Music] Hello I’m Marcus Railton and this is the Scotscare podcast. Scotscare is the only charity dedicated to helping disadvantaged Scots in London through a range of support including mental health therapy, financial grants, advocacy, sheltered housing for older Scots, job coaching, social events, befriending and support for Children and Families. The Charity’s been running for 400 years to help break the cycle of poverty experienced by some Scots.
In this series of the scotscare podcast I’ll be chatting to celebrities and supporters of the charity that have also forged a life in the capital away from home and about the ups and downs that can bring.
Scotscare: supporting Scots away from home in London.
On the podcast today is a man for all seasons he’s Colin McLaughlin a former SAS soldier who has seen combat in some of the toughest parts of the world since leaving the middle tree he has become a worldwide motivational speaker star of channel 4’s SAS reality drama who dares wins and his autobiography has already sold over 10 000 copies on pre-order sales.
Hi Colin.
Good morning.
Thanks for joining us on the ScotsCare podcast, I really appreciate it.
No at all absolute pleasure yeah when I was doing research on you in a number of different places it says the granite faced Scot and you’re actually a very handsome man I’m not sure that does you a fair justice.
No, I I don’t I’d agree with the granite face I think a lot of people think I have that uh typical Scottish, you know, the eyebrows and the top the the sort of top of my head so no I prefer rough and rugged than than handsome. I’m definitely not a pretty boy! Or maybe it’s the weather we’ve all had to endure most of our lives because I’m sure I could I can look at people and go they’re Scottish I can tell they’re Scottish.
Yeah, it’s funny some people have like uh a Scottish people look about them um and you can almost tell there’s gonna be a a Scottish accent coming just from looking at the face.
Where did you grow up did you have an average childhood?
So I grew up uh you probably even know the area but it was around
Orkin gray Wolford star Brax and the nearest place would probably be Karma uh
the East Coast uh no it’s kind of it’s kind of just on the the borders of
of lanarkshire and right okay yeah bigger bigger would be would be the
local high school Let’s uh that’s where I went so yeah my childhood was
um it was kind of it was probably troubled would be the I sort of
roundabout way of putting out there was a lot of uh a lot of trauma going on there a lot a lot of bits and Bobs the
children’s panels social workers supervision orders and I’ve kind of come
full circle now where I sit on the children’s panel now which I think’s probably uh
I think it’s always good to sit on the panel having been on the other side and knowing what’s probably going through
the mind of some of the young people that are sitting on the other side and what is it did you go straight from
school into the military at quite a young age then yeah so I went through the kind of
children’s panel stuff from about 12 right through to about 15 just before I
left and I had to get special permission to join the Army at 15 I think you had to be 16 at the time to joined the the
Army but I had kind of um different circumstances going on so
my mum wrote a letter to say that and she was given permission for me to join the Army at 15 and and that was it I
joined the army and I hardly saw my parents after that and when you when you joined up was it
just are we out or did you at that point even at 15 did you have an end goal for
what status you wanted to reach or what rank you wanted to reach or was this just the first part of your life where
you weren’t thinking about that very much yeah I think well I never really wanted to join the Army um a lot of people did
at that time you know and most most little boys like running about the guns and stuff they’re a little uh a little
twig that was uh that was that was a rifle but no for me it was um it was just an out it was a way out
the house and uh you know I was gonna I was offered you know you can be a doctor a dentist
or lawyer that was my mom’s uh that was my mother’s choices for me at the time and none of those really appealed and
you don’t really know what you want to do as a 14 15 year old kid so I got dragged along in the career’s
office and that was the kind of the last option for me and I remember sitting The Tick test at those times that you did
and I equaled the highest that they’d ever got at Bathgate careers office and
so the guy said look you can you can join whatever you want what’s that Colin was there was a tick test I don’t know
what that is it’s like the little uh I don’t know what they do now but at the time they had a little screen and then you just uh you just tipped what you
thought was the right answer on all right on the screen and then you were given a mark at the end so it was a mixture of stuff so I probably wasn’t on
on the same level as any kind of um traditional uh test it was probably a
very broad standard of maths English puzzles grammar and you know you just
had there was multiple choice and it was more about speed how quick you could get through them give you the the higher
Mark and I’ve always been quite good at those you know looking at management consultancy tight stuff the sort of test
you would sit for going for the you know the big four and stuff like that
um so yeah I set this tick test and I I didn’t really know what I wanted to do but I remember looking around the
careers office and there’s always pictures of different people in the military and there was this picture of
um it was a guy he was in like a blue uh a short sleeve shirt and he was all
tanned and he was hanging off this radar dish in Hong Kong and I was like I’ll be
that guy and I remember that I remember the kiryoza of this guy going well that’s that’s the RAF and it’s uh and
Telecommunications systems analyst operator I still remember it now from a 15 year old kid and I thought that title
sounds so Grand and uh I I said I’ll do that and he said well it’s a Year’s
waiting list and then two years training and my mum said no he’s got to be out the house by the time he’s 16. so I got
sent up into the Royal Scots a week later and how did it fit for you when you were in because sometimes you know my my son
Noah he’s 13 he’s in the cadets and you know what I love him to death but
sometimes I think he likes playing twice I’ll just I don’t think that the reality of the situation really kicks in you
know he he takes pride in his boots and he takes pride in his Berry and he loves
the routine but I don’t think he gets the reality of what it’s about and I just wonder when you joined at 15 did it
fit for you or was there a culture shock thinking this is the real world yeah there’s definitely a culture shock
I was the youngest there I was quite small um I had to grow up quite quick and then
back in those days when you joined up in the in the 80s there was a lot of um you
know it was it was strict punishment you know you you guys and people they were
just their show the old slap and the odd Punch If you never got things right things have
obviously changed now and rightly so but back then it was quite it’s quite harsh
um some of the when you went through training but I think even even if you’re in the cadets and you’re growing up at
that age I think there’s things you take from it you don’t necessarily have to be the model Soldier or even have
aspirations to join the military I think some of the things that you learn whether you’re in the cadets or the
scouts or you’re part of an organization or you do the Duke of Edinburgh I think there’s other stuff that you get from it
so I always think there’s there’s always positives you know there’s always things that you’ll take away from that and
certainly well that was the savior of me if I hadn’t managed to join the Army or get
into the army I’m not sure where my path would have led because I think when she got a home
um your chances of success in life just statistically go down so it was the kind
of saving of me but it’s not for everybody now when you join the Army and you go and I presume you go into the Infantry
is that right yeah and so the goal between where you ended up you know at
the top as part of the SES so where where along that line do you realize
what you’re capable of that you can go the extra mile that you can you can be the best or the best version of you it’s
a good question I I think probably the end of training I think even though it was only a year I think when I first
walked in I knew nothing about soldiering I wasn’t interested in soldiering
um uh you know I wasn’t I didn’t even have a a junior rank you know people were like Junior Corpus and sergeants
and certain majors had a real aspiration I finished as a junior private I didn’t
even get a lance corporal but one of the one of the sort of light bulb moments I think was at the very end of that year
you have a you have a set of army tests and it goes towards being sort of uh
combat infantryman price so basically the best soldier the best infantier
now I I always found I was a kind of good all-rounder so I wasn’t the fittest that wasn’t the best shot I wasn’t the
biggest I wasn’t the best at tactics but I was probably top three in the mall
yeah and I found myself at the end of it and the finals of this combat
infantryman and then I got right down to the final two and it was a guy called uh I think his
name is Bannerman he was a Gordon Highlander and he was the kind of model Soldier you know Big Unit typical or
Highlander and uh he was um it was it was it was like me he was pretty good at
most things and I remember we were sort of neck and neck all the way through and
then we had um we had our final assessment and at this point we’re both neck and neck
and we get given their final task is to go along this um room and take out the
enemy and we get we just get told pick whatever route you want and off you go
and he went off and he went along the sort of Ridgeline so he ran along the top and um took out all the targets you
don’t know what your final score is until the end and I thought well that’s that you Skyline himself he’s up on The High
Ground and I’ll just go through the river and it’ll pop up every now and again and
take out the targets and whenever there’s water water is always the right answer as an infant tear you know get in
the Stream get in the puddle so it was you know so I just run up the stream popping up hitting the targets and at
the end they added up and we both hit the same amount so it was like 20 out of 20 targets
so they said well we’re gonna base it on ground and we’ll give it to Bannerman because he was in full view of the he
could see the targets the whole time there was times when you were in the water you couldn’t see the target
I remember at the time he’s even as a 15 year old kid thinking that’s not right
like if I if this was war I’d do exactly the same thing but I just let it go but
I think it was the turning point in me because I thought I can compete even though I’m smaller on whatever I can
compete with people and I can be a good soldier regardless of what other people think and that’s kind of followed me
throughout my life not just for the military but for other things I faced quite a lot of rejection and maybe come
on to it later in terms of finding jobs getting into education and stuff like that going for uh TV jobs and stuff and
I think you get used to it and it doesn’t affect you as much I still get affected by things like
being disappointed in people sometimes or things that aren’t right I’ve got this thing about trying to fix them but
I think that set me up nicely for a military career in terms of having the self-confidence that I could compete
regardless of what other people’s opinions were of me it could be Sunday football or Monday
piano lessons whatever a child wants to learn after school hours Scott’s care
has grants to help cover costs parents can’t always find the funds for those extracurricular Pursuits but there’s a
good chance Scott’s care can [Music] that’s interesting I get that when I
think more and more I get disappointed in maybe not other people but just the world it’s a difficult place at the moment but do you feel you’re in your
40s now do you feel comfortable in your own skin are you happy who you are these days
yeah I’m always guarded to have that sort of um being happy I’m I’m always I’m always
pushing a little bit to try and improve myself and try and I’ve got a horrible habit of saying yes to maybe too many
things yeah sometimes that gets you in bother sometimes you get there’s always something got to give you know and I
think I could be probably smarter about some of that stuff but I do think that if I never said yes there would be that
thing not gonna wait at the end like you could have done that but some some wise person once told me everything and again
even if you can do something just say no there’s something behind that there’s something that gives you that autonomy
and control back and you know it’s good for you to say no but um I do find it difficult
even with all the training is is fear still healthy is that more likely to keep you alive rather than just smashing
through yeah absolutely and I always sometimes I have to kind of put it in so
when I do my talks and I talk about stuff sometimes I deliberately put in a slide that talks about fear
and I say no matter how many times you’ve been in combat I mean no matter how many times you stand up and speak
publicly no matter how many times you jump on an airplane there’s always an
element of fear and I would never want that to go away I would never want to be Fearless because we don’t want Fearless
people and fearless people can be quite rash I think but sometimes that’s kind of how I measure braver in a way it’s
not how Fearless you are it’s actually how scared you are but how willing you
are to keep going forward and one of the things that all would help me go forward rather than backwards even though I
wanted to I’m a human being was the consequences because there’s consequences to going this way and
there’s consequences to going this way and the consequences to go in this way are quite sure you’ll normally find out
in the next few seconds or minutes how that’s going to go but if you go that way you can take those consequences with
you for a life so that sometimes helped me when I I’ve needed to be brave or you know I’ve needed to you know try and
overcome fear but I’ve always had that and I think it’s quite healthy and I think when you’ve got that element of might not even be fear it might just be
apprehension about things it makes you do your due diligence so if I’m going to
speak publicly I’ll make sure that you know I’ve rehearsed them all the time I’ve done the slides I’ve aimed off for
questions you know I’ll rehearse it even no matter how many times I’ve done it so that you know I’m more confident myself
I’m more Brave when I step out there because I’ve done everything I can everything else is out your control well
I suppose yes you’re right you prep what you can prep but in a military situation you were taking hostage in Basra I mean
that must have been terrifying just from a human point of view yeah I I think I think always the most
terrifying thing about stuff is when you there’s no control I think when there’s
an element of control about things there’s an order I think that’s it that
actually is is better I think once Things become mob mentality or there’s
this sense of um no one’s in control anything can happen you can just be sort of torn limb
from limb I think that’s scarier I think there’s something not doesn’t give you that warm fuzzy feeling but I think
there’s something better when there’s an order and there’s a process and I think
that I always felt safer in those situations than when things just broke down because then you thought all bets
are off anything can happen yes I get I do I understand that when when I knew I
was speaking to you I spoke to three guys I know all ex-military and I said oh I’m speaking to Colin McLaughlin
there and they want oh yeah I know we know who you are the SES guy and I think in my ignorance what should what would
you ask Colin and I thought they’d say oh ask him about the SAS this or ask him being in Sierra Leone or asking about
certain combat situation and all three guys came back separately and said ask him about PTSD
is that is that can we talk about that because that’s something you talk about quite a lot and and I think that’s quite
refreshing and it tells you a story about what the conversation needs to be
nowadays I think there’s yeah there’s a lot of there’s a lot of people that have been in the Seas we know more about it
there’s more TV and books and stuff like that and I think it’s less about
you know unpicking the individual that was in the SAS or some of the stories from the SES and more about the sort of
wider and bigger conversation about PTSD and I have to admit myself I’m I’m not
I’m not an expert on it and I’ve had a lot of years working with various Charities and
experienced friends and come through stuff myself whether that um I see that it’s quite a
big complex thing that it’s not I think before when we thought it was black and white you know these days of shell shock
and you either had it or you didn’t and it was you know it was the same symptoms you got at the same time and it lasted
for this long and this was how you fixed it I think we’ve come a long way since then and we’re probably not there yet
but I think we understand it better and I think we we can we can probably do
more to prevent it now and I think that’s the biggest thing for me I think the biggest the biggest travesty is that
we have all these combat stress helper Heroes and who there’s cares I think it
would be better if the military took ownership of that and said well look we’re responsible for that so we’ll take
ownership for it and know that when you sign this bit of paper up to and including your life when you leave
whenever that is we’ll make sure you’re okay not we’re not going to give you a big flashy house and a big sports car
and loads of money we’re just going to make sure you’re okay and I think that’s not too much to ask for somebody who in
my opinion and I’m probably biased gives more to society than any other sector in
in the world in our Workforce you know he goes away for that long he puts that much on the line who sacrifices their
family and everything else so I think it’s the least we deserve when when we come out is just to make sure that we’re
all right and do you think the military currently still falls short for a duty occur
yeah massively and I can see why it’s a it’s a it’s a big burden for them you
know it’s it’s a lot of people that at any time could have any amount of issues that is is quite complex and quite hard
to get under the weeds of and make sure they’re okay and people can you know symptoms for PTSD can Surface anything
from immediately after the trauma at all 12 years after depending on your
circumstances what you’re going through triggers all the rest of it and so it’s very hard to aim off or as and when it
comes it’s also very hard to get the person the support they want if they’re
not willing to to to to to to put themselves forward for that and that’s one of the struggles we find with the
with the Charities that we work with for all the best intentions in the world if that person doesn’t want to help if
they’re either in denial or they’re like I’ll deal with it but um I can see why
the easy answer is to pass on to somebody else do you think as a society and especially
in the military are we moving in the right direction is there less of a stigma attached to it because I suspect 20 or 30 years ago it was probably seen
as a bit of a sign of weakness and you wouldn’t as a soldier probably admit to it yeah I think we’ve definitely moved
on I think we’re not quite there yet I think there’s um I think if you if you have if you had
an employer and you had two people then one came up and you know he’s kind of run in the mail another one was military
he might have to be slightly better qualified you might have more qualifications you might have more experience but there was issues with
PTSD I wonder how many would take that on and obviously without
the Armed Forces Covenant and stuff and we can argue about how effective that is but we’re slowly getting there we’re not
quite there yet and I think I think had the Army been there I had the military said we’ve got this One-Stop shop where
anytime you can dip in and out there’ll be a local to you support network and when you leave the military you don’t
just hand in your ID card and fall off the face of the Earth but actually you’re still have ties with you know
your veteran Community because they’re the best people to help you know you have to speak to someone that speaks the same language and has walked a mile on
your shows we find that’s what helps best with not just veterans but we’re NHS fire service prison Service Blue
Light Services you know those people know what a bad day looks like you know and so that that’s one of the things
that helps best and their best place to do it you know they have that Network they they you know they have access to
all those veterans right across the UK so the best the best place people to
help it’s just ironic that they they don’t when you came back from the the
combat zones you’re in how important was your partner to you like is it Amanda I
mean she must have been a shoulder to lean on and I just wonder how much how much better people with service people
with families do rather than a service person who’s going home and then going into an empty flat I just wonder if
would there have been darker days for you if you didn’t have your support network around you in the shape of Amanda yeah I
think for a lot of people their Partners family friends will be the most important support network to them I met
Amanda after I’d left the services I’m divorced and um you know it’s probably
got a big you know part to play in that and I would imagine there’s a lot of broken relationships divorces due to the
way military life is is structured and the demands that are that are on it but
yeah Amanda’s Amanda’s always been um very very supportive and recognizing
sometimes when I’m at my lowest because we all kind of go through frequencies
where we’re our highest and lowest we can’t always operate 100 every day and I
think she’s good at doing those things if picking you up when when you’re a bit down so but whether whether it’s a
partner or a friend I always think that buddy buddy system that we kind of we recognize in the military I think you
need that throughout life and not just in the military I think you need it in any any sector anywhere you work like I
say you have to speak to somebody that speaks the same language and kind of knows what you’re going through but yeah
I think Amanda and I think I think my kids as well I think when I was at a real low point I think
Amanda and I think recognizing that your your children are there and that that helps bring you back on to the um back
onto the park yeah I get that you know not the same for me obviously I just you know run in
the middle life but sometimes when I am at a lower you know I’ve I’ve got a four-year-old daughter she actually she’ll just come and she’ll give you a
cuddle and you think oh that’s okay that’s that’s what you need you know you just need a bit of that yeah and you
bring up a good point and uh we find that a lot of other things help as well so you’ll probably know about Brave
homes with the dogs dogs are very good for that you know recognizing symptoms and emotions and being there at the
right times horseback UK you know getting people with horses and horses
can tell emotions and sometimes just from you sitting on their back which is
um mad when you think about it so there’s lots of different things that the community’s tapping into to help
support servicemen and women and um for the same reasons those hell where where
there isn’t children you know of us will experience a form of mental
health illness in our lifetime [Music] offers mental health supports with quick
access to qualified therapists for both children and adults bypassing NHS
waiting lists if you’re a low-income Scot in London and could use the help get in touch with
us can we talk about your autobiography because I like the title the pilgrim
what made you choose that word I think there’s a number of things I think we’re always associated with being the
pilgrims the SES we have the famous we are the pilgrims Master poem by James Elroy flecker on her Clock Tower in
Hereford there’s always you know things about pilgrims you know the rugby team that were or the pilgrims were
associated with Charities like Pilgrim Bandits so and I think from my own life as well the journey I kind of went on
where I went from you know being in real native support as a young kid and and
not having a lot of strength in a lot of areas to have have that life of I wouldn’t say
suffering but I’ve been faced with rejection and all the different challenges that come on life
to be then and almost the best position to be able to offer support in different areas you know sit in the children’s
panel or do charity stuff I try and do what I can that’s almost the path less
trodden it’s almost the path a pilgrim takes and so it seemed quite befitting that if
I was going to write an autobiography that would be that would be the title it’s interesting is that what’s
suffering because I think what comes across really strongly is that your path in life during the time in the four
seasons was was never easy you show so much resilience because so many times I
think it would have been fine to say that’s enough that’s I’m done but you don’t you you keep going and I wonder
what drives that resilience is it more than a sense of Duty yeah I think uh
it’s funny when kovit came along I kind of reset all my my goals I had and I I
wrote a book on resilience and um it’s just kind of waiting there for after the
autobiography the autobiography isn’t actually released you you’ll see an Amazon it’s a bestseller but that’s only
because if it goes through so many pre-sales in a month it becomes a
bestseller so I think it sold 10 000 copies before it was released and so Amazon called our best seller but it
literally just got the green light and that was variable EPO from the mod last
week and it’s still subject to the written official EPO once I give them
the front cover of it so it’s been a long painful process part of the
Pilgrim’s Voyage but it’s uh it’s probably taking the best part of uh 10
years to get it officially signed off and I think it could have been easier had I been willing to leave out lots of
it but I was prepared to stay in the fight I was prepared to suffer and so I
was prepared to go back and forth as long as that War went on with that to the point where
the very last sign off before last week was one word it needed one word taken
out and I thought that for as long as I thought was appropriate and
um and and then um yeah when when for went for the EPO so you go through quite a difficult
process now where because of things that have happened in the past there’s always more and more ADI Dawn so before the
days of Andy McNabb you could write whatever you liked but because of Andy McNabb and Chris Ryan they’ve brought an
EPO so you need to get written permission before you before you what does that stand for and express prior Authority and writing
so it basically means that it doesn’t mean that you won’t be excluded because you still might be
excluded from you might be sort of frowned upon within the regiment but it does mean that they’re not going to chase you legally if you write the book
because they’ve had to say of it they’ve managed to edit the things that they think are
put in loose terms you know security issues and you know National Security but some of it is ridiculous so you
can’t put a wind dagger on because that’s copyright now there’s nothing going to breach National Security or wrestlers if I put a wing dagger on my
boot but because it’s copyright you can so that’s one example another example would be places that you’ve operated in
so it’s kind of well documented I’ve been on television before saying I’ve operated in Iraq and Sierra Leone and
all the rest of the places but you can’t say that in a book so things like that can be frustrating but um there are
there are there are necessary evil so you either do it you see get get what you need to
do to get a book done and you know leave most of it out maybe just have two lines in there seeing a joined the SES at this
point and left at this point which I think it’s a big part of your life and if it’s had a big impact on what you do
I think it deserves to stay in there so I’ve not taken the easy route I’ve kind of fought to to keep a few chapters in
there about about the regiment and um I feel better now that I did because
there’s something in there that was a big part of my life albeit some of the obvious stuff I’ve had to take out but
so literally uh last week and then now you you don’t get used to get EPO just
for the manuscript so when you sent in your manuscript they said that manuscript has EPO you can’t change it
you can add to it you can’t now put ad things on but that manuscript has got permission anything else will chase you
legally now you’ve got to send in all your photographs and you’ve got to send in what the the front and back cover
will look like because in the past people have said oh I won’t put a wing dagger on and then
they put the front and back cover on to put a wing dagger on it or whatever and then you know it’s too late because
um they’ve put it out so it’s quite a hard process now yeah but I’m glad I went through it because sometime in the
coming months um the pilgrim will all be out and I’ll be glad I fought that war can we go back
to before the SES and your time in Northern Ireland because I was thinking
about this and you know being deployed in almost your own back Garden there isn’t more difficult I’m trying to think
how to phrase this is it more difficult when people are at the center of the conflict when it’s not a faceless
conflict when it’s people that you could be living next door to when they just look and talk and sound the same as you
I always think um I was I was glad for Ireland for what was to come after in
terms of other conflicts because I think when she put people at the center of conflict you’ve got the most important
part part of it right and with all the greatest you know military tactics and
weapon systems in the world if you can’t shift that mindset it’s very hard to win a war and you see that with Ukraine
you’ve seen it in the past with Afghanistan so I think Ireland was was useful for for me is starting out as a
you know as a sort of raw green green army soldier and I think if you get that
part right the people and the tactics and your basic infantry stuff the rest of the stuff you can build around it
um and that hearts and Minds things have always been really important because if you can get the hearts and Minds part
then it’s a big part of the war whereas the alternatives
almost you know impossible to try and reach a a solution if you’ve not got
that part it’s interesting you talk about mindset and because I had wanted to ask you about change because this is something
you do talk about and I’ve watched you talk about change because so many of us fear change and you know especially as
we get older and I see it myself questioning whether I can do something you know fear creeping in but then I
look at the variety of what you’ve done since leaving the military right in public speaking TV and what is it keeps
you jumping off that cliff into into the unknown yeah and and I think I think
changes um normal and I think we have a we have a kind of built-in inherent fear of
change and that’s a safety thing it’s a normal thing if we didn’t have that we should be worried you know if we’re just
gonna jump from one thing to the next without any sort of consideration would be quite
you know it would be it would be quite a dangerous place to be but I think
I’ve gained confidence through doing different things and
um I think that that ability to at least try it and then say I can park that and
at least the no one’s better at least in knowing that that’s for me or it’s not is better than the alternative of not
knowing regardless of how it turns out and sometimes that’s advice I give to friends I gave I give a bit of advice to
a friend just about a month ago who’s faced with quite a big decision about to make a big move within the industry that
they were in and it it was involved I mean it was a whole it wasn’t a total career shift but it was a total
different change of Direction up up and moving totally different and at different things on the line it was less
safe but there was more at play and I said well you know what I said if you don’t make this decision
and you just think I’ll just I’m too the the making the decision is the risky bit
and I don’t want to do that so I’ll just leave it I said that little thing’s always going to be on your shoulder going hmm when do we be right now if
you’ve done this and what and I said sometimes the making the decision is the best is is the best part because at
least then you know you know they’re holding off on the decision and always I’ll make it tomorrow make it next week I’ll make it next month is worse than
they’re just making the decision so whatever you do make the decision with it and make peace with it give yourself
permission to spend time on it and then you have peace with it and I think I’ve
always tried to do that and not all the decisions I’ve made even though I’ve said yes to a lot of things have been the right ones but I’ve been glad that
I’ve tried them you know and some of the things have been fantastic whether it was I’ll give selection I’ll go I’ll
I’ll write a book I’ll I’ll try this motion capture for video games I’ll see what that’s about I think trying new
things um will always and it’s natural you if you don’t you’re gonna get left behind you’re
that’s definitely not the right answer is just to go well this is what I’m safe with so I’ll just stay here because the
world moves and it’s it’s moving ever quicker and so we’ve just got to jump on and off when when it suits us you
mentioned motion capture there because I did read that you had done that and for people who don’t know motion capture is
about it’s about video games it’s about how characters are tracked through the video games how did you get into that that seems a real left field opportunity
yeah and again it’s that pathless trodden you know I don’t know many others that are um are in that field but
it was um I was quite fortunate that when I think when I first left
um the Circa I was doing the bodyguarding and I’d applied to
um get into universities and that was the kind of start of that failure rejection part that
um I got a call from uh Francesca Howard who worked at um at Rockstar Games and
and she said look are you interested in motion capture and I was like yeah absolutely and sure we’ll come in on
Wednesday for an addition and then I went and Googled what motion capture was and um I never got in for the edition of
my very first edition this will tell you how far back it was was it was in the
the not long move from sort of Dundee that this small place in um in Leith and
the motion capture Studio I mean the area you could move was about the size of a small coffee table uh then
it was on the same floor as where you know all all the nerdy guys were working
away on character animation and designing sets and you know doing the codes and stuff like that so there
wasn’t it wasn’t a separate area and they said right column we’ve got this um scene where we’re going to give you this
baseball bat and you’ve got to interrogate this person on a chair they had like this life-sized dummy strap in
our chair interrogate it for exactly three minutes and increase the you know
anger levels until at the end of it you just go you know mental and start like
bashing up and um a sort of Royal I’ll sort of set the emotion up until the end of it I was
smashing this chair and bits of the chair were flying about different corners of the room and I was like just
this paper like sweaty even mess and I thought I’ve just messed this up but I
tell you what that was three minutes of good anger management and fun and um we got a call back and they were like
that’s brilliant we’re gonna do that in the video game and so that was about 12 years ago I think and so I’ve been doing
it ever since so games like Grand Theft Auto four and five Red Dead Redemption
Max Payne Illinois Hitman Robin Hood I’ve I’ve done a lot of them and it’s it’s one of the most
worldwide games yeah yeah and I think GTA 5 if if my memory serves me right
was the highest selling entertainment product of all time so all movies all
toys all video games everything um it was it was manic so I think to be
part of of that and have your credits on there and or you know remembering some of the scenes I think that’s uh yeah
it’s just another thing I’m proud of but it just started with a sort of can-do attitude you know I’ll give it a go and
um yeah it’s led to it’s led to bigger things do you have a faith are you a spiritual
person and the reason I ask is I wonder what a person like yourself is you’ve seen so much of the world you’ve seen so
much conflict and unfairness and deprivation and you know I wonder how you make sense
personally of the bigger picture yeah it’s a good question I’ve been out
I’ve been asked it before and no I’ve never I’ve never been religious
and I think I probably could be forgiven for even if I was religious to have lost
a bit of confidence and you know a higher being and
um I I think I’ve kind of I’ve went a bit both ways I’ve seen the best in people and I’ve seen the worst I’ve seen
I’ve I’ve seen evil where I thought if there was a higher being there’s no way
they would allow that it’s not you know and I know there’s that argument against evil but I
for me no I’ve never I’ve never been I’ve never been religious and I know my the title of your biography is the
pilgrim and I don’t think it’s religious and it’s spiritual but I think when you have a a sense of what’s the right thing
to do and you’re prepared to suffer I think there’s something in that and I’ve
not really needed a person a faith or a book to adhere to I’ve just tried to put myself
in the position of what would I want to happen if I was in those shoes you know
what how would I want to be treated and I think if that’s if that’s even if that’s your only mantra
you probably don’t need religion or faith to be able to tell you what’s the right thing to do you know
um You probably gotta you probably got a fair idea so I’ve always used I’ve always used that without having any
religion or or spiritual sort of addictions Colin it’s been a joy speaking to you
today thank you very much thanks for joining the scotscare podcast thanks for having me Marcus
Scott’s care for Scots in London in need of support Financial practical or
[Music] Hello I’m Marcus Railton and this is the Scotscare podcast. Scotscare is the only charity dedicated to helping disadvantaged Scots in London through a range of support including mental health therapy, financial grants, advocacy, sheltered housing for older Scots, job coaching, social events, befriending and support for Children and Families. The Charity’s been running for 400 years to help break the cycle of poverty experienced by some Scots.