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The Silvercore Podcast explores the mindset and skills that build capable people. Host Travis Bader speaks with hunters, adventurers, soldiers, athletes, craftsmen, and founders about competence, integrity, and the pursuit of mastery, in the wild and in daily life. Hit follow and step into conversations that sharpen your edge.
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Travis Bader: In today's episode,
I'm talking with Robin, who has led
an absolutely extraordinary life.
He has faced immense adversity.
And at any point, he could have easily
thrown his hands up in the air and
said, I give up, I've had a bad deal.
I just don't have the same
advantages that other people have.
So why should I even try?
But he didn't.
Instead, he looked inward.
He looked at what he could do, found that
fire inside himself and he persevered
and he turned that adversity into
the points that really allowed him
to succeed in life and allowed other
people around him to be able to thrive.
I find this to be a very common trait
in those who refuse to be a victim.
Those who will look at
adversity and say, bring it on.
It is absolutely mind boggling what we
are able to accomplish when we put our
mind to it and we truly understand the
level of personal agency that each and
every one of us has, if you follow me
on social media, I have a picture posted
there, this is a picture that Robin sent
me and he autographed It's a picture
of the 1980 Iranian embassy siege.
That really skyrocketed the
SAS into the public eye.
This is the first time on a global
scale that the SAS was known and
seen for what they're able to do.
For anyone who's been into the Silvercore
studio, they're going to see other
pictures and memorabilia and books
and knives and maps and all sorts of
different items that past podcast guests
have given me as mementos and Reminders
of the conversations that we've had.
Now I don't place a lot of value in
things, but I do place a lot of value
in relationships and every time I look
at these things that are up there, it
reminds me of the relationships and the
connections that we're able to form.
In a large part due to this podcast,
if you're looking to deepen your
connection with others, if you're
looking to deepen your connection with
your natural environment, interacting
with the Silvercore podcast is one
way for people in the community
to be able to meet each other.
And learn from each other.
Another way is the Silvercore
club, specifically designed to
help people deepen their connection
with a natural environment
club members receive insurance.
They receive free online training
and discounts on courses and deep
discounts on many of the industry
partners that are Silvercore club.
And if you wanted to learn more
about that, go to silvercore.
ca forward slash club.
Now, without further ado,
let's get on with this podcast.
I'm joined today by an extraordinary
guest whose life reads like a blockbuster
action movie, but with the depth and
grip that only real experience can bring.
Serving with the 22nd SAS, he was
involved in one of the most iconic and
daring military operations of the 20th
century, the Iranian embassy siege.
He's a martial arts expert,
author, motivational speaker, and
relentless advocate for veterans.
Welcome to the Silvercore
podcast, Robin Horsfall.
Thanks, Travis.
Great to be here.
You know, I picked up your book here,
Fighting Scared, came in last Friday and
I had a difficult time putting it down.
What a fantastic read.
Uh, I was blown away by your
ability to relay Difficult
experiences in an extremely
understandable and relatable way.
And you weave into that lessons
of morality and fortitude.
You really are a gifted teacher.
Thank you.
It's, um,
Robin Horsfall: one of the joys of
being able to have a, an audience is
to be able to impart knowledge that's
valuable to the listener or to the reader.
Um, Very often, a lot of us have got
a story, but we never have a forum to
share it with, and um, I've had that
privilege, so it's, uh, Yeah, I wrote,
uh, Fighting Scared in 2002, and it took
me six months, and, um, I didn't write it
for any other reason than I wanted to tell
the story about, uh, A young, bullied,
insecure, unpopular kid from a broken
home, classic sort of, um, scenario.
Who joins the army at 15, um,
to get away and to escape.
And, um, and moves on from there.
Um, I've had people get in touch with me
over the years who have read that book
and, um, have said, you know, I thought
there was something wrong with me until I
read your story and I realized there was
something wrong with every bugger else.
Travis Bader: Well, I like that.
And I, I honestly reading through
it, I found it very relatable.
The experiences that you're talking
about, the way that you convey it.
Just very human emotions, insecurities,
um, just self esteem, self worth,
uh, feeling afraid, being bullied.
And they seem to be, um, sort of a
constant thread throughout your life.
Robin Horsfall: Well, when I was born I
didn't know my father because my father
was in prison and he was, he was a thief.
So, um, I didn't know him,
uh, my mother and he divorced
when I was seven years old.
And she married a man called
Geoffrey Horsfall who adopted
me and gave me his name.
So for the first seven years of my life
I never had a male role model in my life.
And, um, a lot of people say that,
you know, that it's that first
seven years that's so important
in your personal development.
And, um, when Geoffrey Horsfall came
into my life, my stepfather, he'd never
had a child and I'd never had a father.
And, consequently, we clashed, neither
knowing how to deal with the situation.
And his, um, His method was
to beat me into silence.
And, um, when you beat somebody into,
into silence, you stunt their development.
You, uh, you take away
their ability to negotiate.
You take away their ability to
make friends because they're
fearful of all authority figures.
And, um, so you, you become sullen and
distant from people and of course that
becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because
you, um, you're distant and weird and, um,
you, you're, you're frightened of people.
And so They don't like you because
they think you don't like them.
And so the system carries on.
It took me many, many years to, um, to
understand that, um, I needed to change
myself if, um, I was ever going to have
any friends in the world, that's for sure.
Um, and you know, that's, um,
that's the reason you get isolated,
intimidated, picked on, bullied, um,
is because you struggle to make friends
and you struggle to communicate.
And, uh, the reason I think for my
particular case was, uh, because
I had my voice stolen from me
by being beaten into silence.
Travis Bader: You know, I, I see
some common threads of, uh, sort of
an oppositional defiance disorder.
I have no background in, uh,
uh, in any clinical diagnosis.
Well, I'll just lean on things that
I've had to deal with in the past, but,
uh, ADHD, Uh, oppositional defiance
disorder, maybe RSD, what do they call it?
Rejection sensitivity dysmorphia,
uh, where you figure out
they're going to dislike me.
So I'll just, I'll just
avoid them to begin with.
Robin Horsfall: Yes.
I agree with that one entirely.
I mean, I, I.
I sometimes I think, um, the way
I communicate is I try to simplify
everything I possibly can when people
put, um, long, uh, laborious, uh, labels
on something, it makes it sound like
a prescription, um, in reality, you
can get right back to the simple facts
and say, you know, um, I had my boy,
I, I, I had my voice beaten out of me.
Um, I did actually resent
all authority figures.
I was frightened of them.
And when you start putting
long labels on things, it makes
you sound as if you're real.
And you're not, you're just, you're
just, um, you're just dealing with
adversity in the only way you know how.
Travis Bader: I like that.
You know, there's a lot of people that
have these labels and they'll just marry
themselves to the label and they're like,
Oh, it's, you know, I'm like this because
of whatever the label label might be.
Well, no, the label is just
something there to help describe
what you're going through.
And you're like this right now.
It doesn't mean you have to
be like that in the future.
And if you discipline yourself, knowing
about that label, maybe you can comport
yourself differently in the future.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah.
The only, the only thing, the only
thing in the world that any of us
have the power to change is ourselves.
We can't change other people.
Um, we can set an example that
other people might try to follow,
but we can only change ourselves.
So there's something wrong in your life.
And you blame somebody else.
You can't change them.
You can't change your wife.
You can't change your kids.
You can't change your friends.
You can't change.
All you can do is change yourself
and make changes in yourself.
And that's it.
Um, uh, take a hypothetical
example, somebody who has a problem
with alcohol and decides, okay,
I'm not going to drink anymore.
That's a choice.
I'm not going to do that anymore.
I'm, I'm violent.
I've decided I'm not going to be anymore.
It's your decision.
And when you take responsibility for your
own actions and your own behavior, you
can achieve a great deal when you spend
your life blaming your childhood, blaming
your parents, blaming your friends,
blaming your wife, blaming somebody.
Um, you never really get to the.
The, um, core of the problem and
the core of the problems in, in
yourself, the greatest battle you
ever have is the war with yourself.
Travis Bader: Without a doubt.
Yes.
Well, you would in your book anyways, talk
about going out into the woods and fishing
and camping and using the wilderness
as a means to be able to, I guess,
center yourself or maybe escape, uh,
is, is that something that you still do?
Robin Horsfall: Yeah, I think,
um, I think, um, two things.
I think, yes.
It was an escape.
I do.
When you, when you, um, you have to
learn to cope when you are unpopular.
And so being happy in your own company.
Is quite a good way of dealing with that.
So get away from everybody.
That's a problem in your life and sit
by a lake and go fishing or go walking
over the mountains and, um, you know,
enjoy that particular style of life.
Um, can be very, very, very,
very, very, um, rewarding.
Because you're, you're full,
you're filling yourself a
steam from another direction.
You're not relying on other people
to tell you how good you are.
You're proving it to yourself.
Um, so, and, um, and I
still live in the mountains.
I still love the wilds, but I've had some.
Health issues over the last few years.
And, um, so walking, um, walking along
beaches, which are nice and flat is,
uh, is, uh, is, is about the toughest
exercise I can cope with these days.
Um, but, uh, yeah, I
still love the outdoors.
I still love the.
I still love the lakes and
the fishing and the trees and,
um, and being out there alone.
Well, as I got older, I, I started
taking my kids with me and then
eventually my grandchildren with me.
And, um, on the last occasion,
I went up the mountains.
I went up with two of my grandchildren
and my oldest son Alex and me to a
place that I'd first gone to with
my youngest brother when he was 14.
And, uh, called Gawrwinyfawr Reservoir
in the Welsh Black Mountains.
And, um, and I went back there with
my son and two of my grandsons and
we camped in exactly the same place
and we built a stone urn and, um,
We, uh, we slept and we, we shared
a big cup of cocoa by the lake.
And, um, you know, and those, those
things, you know, they stay with you
forever because it's not the gifts
you buy your children that matter.
It's the things you do with your children.
Nobody remembers the Christmas
presents they got or rarely.
I remember the fact that daddy
played ball with me in the garden
on Christmas day or through or
through snowballs at me or something.
I remember that.
They don't remember the gifts.
The gifts don't mean as much as the,
um, the sharing of life and time.
Travis Bader: I, yeah,
I resonate with that.
You know, in our family, we're not big
gift givers with my wife and my kids.
It's experiences that we want to have.
If we have money that we can put aside
towards something, uh, it's what, what can
we experience as a family and as a group.
And I.
I truly believe as long as I got my
mind healthy and I got my memories
with me, then there's no other gift
that would be better than that.
And even if I lose that, at
least they can carry it forward.
Robin Horsfall: That's right.
I had a very good friend, um,
called Mick Lee, who was a
paratrooper with me, older than me.
And when I had my first son, Alex,
um, he was two years old and Mick
said, um, how's that boy of yours?
I said, it's great.
He's wonderful.
He's fantastic.
He said, you buy him a ball.
I said, yeah.
He said, you play ball with him.
I said, yeah.
He said, that's good.
You've got to play ball with him.
You know, that's, uh, that's the point.
Travis Bader: That's, that's
the whole point of the thing.
Yeah.
Now you've, we're talking
off air here a bit.
And was it five great
grandchildren that you have?
Seven.
Seven, I got that wrong, seven
great grandchildren, man, that's,
you, you've got a heck of an,
uh, an extended family now.
Yeah.
When you, you became a father, what
was that like, given the fact that your
experience of your example that you
had was, uh, non existent from your
biological father and, uh, quite difficult
and strained with your adoptive father.
Robin Horsfall: Well, I, I met the
most wonderful woman when I was 21
and she was 20 and she had two baby
girls at the time and she was going
through a divorce and, um, I was
the classic lone wolf at that time.
I was doing selection for
22nd special air service.
I was, uh, I'd been a soldier
from the age of 15 years.
And, um, bearing in mind my background,
I was the archetypal soldier.
I was hard.
I was, I hated the world.
I would have killed anybody for my
country, um, in defense of my country.
Um, I loved being a soldier.
That was where I got all my self esteem.
My mother had died after divorcing
my, after divorcing my stepfather.
So the army was my home.
And, um, I met this, uh, woman.
And she, she saw right through
me and I give her credit for
giving me back my humanity.
She got into the cage with the lone
wolf and tickled its ears and she would
say, I know we'll never get married.
I know you love the army and, uh, but
if we ever did, and, uh, three years
later, we, three years later, we did
get married and we've been together for.
Since 1978.
So what's that?
47 years, this
Travis Bader: November.
Yeah.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah.
Travis Bader: You know, you give her a
lot of credit as well in the book Fighting
Scared for it, not just being a retelling
of facts, but rather helping have the
emotional side and the depth to it.
Robin Horsfall: When I started
writing Fighting Scared, um, it was
a story I desperately wanted to tell.
And, um, I did the first couple of
chapters And I showed it to her and
she had a read and she came back
to me and she held it out to me and
she said, I said, what do you think?
She said, this is shit.
Awesome.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
She's just a report.
It's just a series of facts.
One after the other.
What happened when it happened?
It's like a military report.
She said, where's the color?
You know, what was the sun
shining through your mother's
window when you said goodbye?
And how did you feel?
And, and, And, um, she gradually
got me to sit down and, um,
and write the book properly.
And, uh, there were tears on the paper
sometimes because there was a catharsis
with it, you know, there was an emptying
of the soul into, into that story.
And, um, and I think that's why it's,
uh, the book is actually 20 or 22 years
old now and it still sells really well.
And I think because it resonates
with an awful lot of people, it's not
the hard man gas and bash them and
smash them story that is so popular.
It's a personal development story
and, um, it takes you from this place
of, uh, misfortune in many ways.
To a place of, um, relative success
and happiness and happiness being
a success more than anything else.
Travis Bader: Did you get heat from, um,
the army from, or from the UK government
for fear of spilling secrets or,
Robin Horsfall: Well, no, there are, there
are no secrets in there to start with.
Um, there are the, the, the SAS
part of my life is only six years.
Um, so it's a piece of the story
and, um, We did put the book through
the Ministry of Defence first and
they asked me to take, make two
minor changes, uh, from the book.
One because somebody would
have been too easily identified
Travis Bader: and
Robin Horsfall: the other because
I'd mentioned a tactic that had been
my suggestion in the Falklands War,
um, that could have been useful to
somebody who'd never thought of it.
So I removed those two small pieces and,
uh, but we didn't have to go to them,
but it was, it was the right thing to do.
And, uh, and so I removed those two small
exits, uh, from the book, but outside
of that, no, I didn't get any heat.
Um, uh, um, you know, if there's
anything that's secret, you don't go,
oh my God, I can't talk about that.
You just go, I don't know.
Travis Bader: Yeah, that's it.
It's just, yeah, exactly.
Just don't say anything.
Okay.
It's it, so you got in 15 years
old and, uh, you're, you're a para.
And what I thought was really interesting
was a lot of people will go for SAS
selection, because this is the pinnacle.
This is what they want to do.
They've got it built up in their mind.
This is some great feature.
thing, but you went and did it
sort of the, uh, uh, flip your
nose up at the authorities and
say, I'm not going back here.
I I'm, I got, I got to work around.
I think I'll just try out for the SAS.
Robin Horsfall: The first two years of
my service were called junior service.
Okay.
And, um, so that's your full time soldier,
but you're not allowed in operations.
And it's like a military college you're
there for two, two and a quarter years.
until you're old enough to join
your adult unit, which was then
at the age of 17 and a half.
And, um, I went to the Parachute
Regiment and my battalion was the second
battalion, the Parachute Regiment.
And, um, that was great.
Um, when my mother died,
She was 37 years old.
She died of cancer.
And as I said, the army became my life.
And I was transferred to stay
in the UK to a special anti tank
unit called the vigilant platoon.
And it was a guided
missile anti tank weapon.
And, um, a new anti tank weapon
came in, in 1977, uh, called Milan,
which was going to replace us.
So they were going to disband the unit.
And I said, look, I want to go
back to the second battalion.
It was my parent battalion.
And they said, well, you're going
to stay with the first battalion.
Um, and I didn't want to do that.
Travis Bader: And
Robin Horsfall: I said, well,
you'll do as you're damn well told.
And so, as you say, just to cock a
snoot at authority, I said, well, I know
there's something you can't stop me doing.
So I went to the battalion clerk's office
and, um, and asked to, uh, for the papers
to volunteer for the special air service.
Well, you had to have three years
of adult service and I just had
three years of adult service,
Travis Bader: plus
Robin Horsfall: the two years.
And, um, there was a Yorkshireman
in the, in the, um, at the
back of the clerk's office.
And he said, I don't know why
you're going to do that to us.
Well, he said.
You're far too young.
You'll be back with your
tail between your legs.
And, um, and he was wrong.
I'm glad to say, and, uh, I had
to have two goes at it, but, um, I
got through on the second attempt.
Travis Bader: Well, you voluntarily
took yourself out on the first go.
Robin Horsfall: Well, yeah, I, um, SAF
selection lasts a whole year and the
first month is in the mountains with
the last five days called test week.
And test week is 5 days marching
alone with increasing weights
on your back, which begin at 35
pounds and extend up every day by
5, until you're carrying 55 day.
And the distance begins at 18
miles, and on the 5th day, it
gets up, the last day is 40 miles.
And you do this alone
with no help, no guidance.
You go checkpoint to checkpoint,
check in, move on to the next place.
And the first time I did it, I got
to day four and it was raining.
I was alone.
Um, I'd, um, the weight was, uh, dug two
ulcers into my kidney areas of my back
Travis Bader: and
Robin Horsfall: they
were bleeding painful.
And, um, psychologically it just got to
me and I started thinking about the 40
miler on the next day and returned to the.
Previous checkpoint and called it a day
and, uh, thought I would be returned
to unit the next morning, but the
major called me in and said, look,
we think you've got potential, you do
well, do you want to stay another four
months and try again in January, 1979?
I was, it's no 79.
And I said, yeah, absolutely.
And they kept me on and there's two
pictures of me in two photographs.
One is me of the slightly chubby
faced, uh, young 21 year old on
the first Um, selection who fails.
And, uh, one of me is four months later
when I've been getting up at six o'clock
in the morning, going to the swimming
pool, swimming, a thousand meters, going
and having breakfast, going out and doing
an eight mile run with boots on over the
Hills, coming back, working all day and,
um, and, and doing that as a routine.
And when I had time being up
the mountains and the pick, the
difference between the two looks like
a young chubby kid and an athlete.
Um, I look older.
I look stronger.
My neck's thicker.
You can see the difference.
I was ready for it the second time.
And on the second occasion,
only eight of us passed.
But the idea that people have from
some TV shows is that you're cajoled
and chased and bullied and pushed.
That's not the case at all.
You're already a trained soldier.
You're just given a task to do.
And there's the time.
Off you go.
And if you don't succeed.
Then you get on, you go back the next
morning, nobody shouts, nobody bullies,
nobody pushes, um, it's just a task.
Can you achieve alone without any help?
And the selection process, as I say,
last year, you finish that mountain
phase and then you go on to continuation
training, most of which is in the jungle.
And you work as five man patrols
in the jungle, uh, for a month.
And then you come back from that, you do
a combat survival instructor's course.
And in the last week of that you're chased
across the countryside by two battalions
of soldiers and you have to escape
for a week and then you get captured.
And, um, then if you're not already a
paratrooper you do parachute training.
And then you join your squadron and get
your cap badge but you're on probation.
And you have to join, you have to
pass a personal skill and a troop
skill in the next six months.
And my personal skill was as a
paramedic, and my troop skill
was as a mountain climber.
And at the end of that 12 month period,
first 12 month period, if they like
you, you can stay for another two years.
So, um, there's a constant,
uh, pressure to succeed, but
to succeed as an individual.
Travis Bader: I think, well, do you
think that the fact that you had
difficulty relating with people as
you're growing up, difficulty making
friends puts you in a prime position
to be, uh, effective as an SAS soldier,
but also possibly a double edged sword.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah, it gave
me, it gave me the advantages of
being able to function alone and
not need the support of others.
Um, but it still made it difficult for
me to succeed because what I discovered
later in my career was that people very
often don't get promoted on their merits.
They get promoted on their, they
get promoted on their popularity,
especially in an institution.
Which is probably why I've been
self employed for the last 25 years.
Um, you know, I'm a lousy employee,
but I'm a damn good boss, especially
when I'm the only employee, but,
um, yeah, I like working alone.
The other place that it really,
really helped was when I became a,
when I became a raw Marine sniper.
Now I say a raw Marine sniper.
It means I was trained by the
raw Marines to be a sniper.
And, um, that kind of
job suited me perfectly.
Working alone, having a task to do,
being completely self reliant, using
the absolute pitch of your skills in
fieldcraft in order to stay alive and
to carry out a very difficult task.
So there are places where it's an
advantage and there are places where
it can be a big disadvantage too.
Do
Travis Bader: you enjoy being alone or is
it something that you've learned to enjoy?
Robin Horsfall: I, um, I used to
like being alone because it was
an escape from being unpopular.
Travis Bader: Um,
Robin Horsfall: I have times now I'm 67.
Now I have times where I want to
get away for a while and just be
alone, just walk, just be in the
Hills, um, just sit by a Lake.
Um, but I take all my comfort from.
Well, nearly all my
comfort from my family.
So I'm not waiting for very long
because I miss them as soon as I am.
Travis Bader: I could relate to that.
The growing up, you weren't a typical,
um, A typically aggressive individual
from what I've been reading here,
aggression, wasn't something that seemed
to come normal to you, but you taught
yourself to be incredibly aggressive.
Robin Horsfall: Scotsman taught
me to be incredibly aggressive.
When, um, when I joined the second
battalion, um, nearly, nearly half the
battalion were jocks, they were Scotsman
and, um, they, they taught me a level
of aggression that, um, is unsurpassed.
Absolutely unsurpassed
anywhere in the world.
And the point about being a paratrooper
is it doesn't matter what your skills are.
If you're not prepared to fight,
then you shouldn't be there.
And they taught me how to fight, um, and
how to fight in a manner that kept you
alive and how a manner that allowed you to
survive among men in very, very, with very
tough men in very difficult circumstances.
And sometimes I felt that I
was pretending to be like them.
And then later I realized, um, I think
later, when I say later, I'm talking
about by the time I was about 20,
21, I realized that they'd made me
like them without any doubt at all.
Um, yeah, yeah.
Keen and mean, that's for sure.
Do you find
Travis Bader: that difficult to turn off?
Robin Horsfall: Um, as I say,
my wife was a big part of that.
But it was part of my, uh,
job as a soldier and it made
me a better soldier as well.
Um, now, um, I would regard myself
as quite a, a softy in a sense,
in the fact that as we get older,
we, we have, we struggled to.
Uh, shield ourselves as well as we, you
know, uh, the love that we have for other
people is more obvious, uh, and we're more
confident showing it, but that person,
that nasty person is still in there and
he's still capable of coming out when the
time is appropriate and when it's needed,
not for anger, but for protection of
others, for survival, things like that.
Yeah, it's
Travis Bader: still
Robin Horsfall: there.
Travis Bader: What was it like when
you first had your kids and we're
figuring out how to be a father?
What did that aggression come out?
Did the, uh, did you repeat any of
the, uh, the mistakes of others?
Robin Horsfall: No, I, I
absolutely the opposite.
My bad experiences, uh, with my own
stepfather, um, and he wasn't all bad.
Don't get me wrong.
You know, there were a lot of good things
about him you'll get from the book.
Travis Bader: That's
Robin Horsfall: right.
But, um, you know, he, um, those,
um, Those bad experiences that
I had, I used them to make sure
they didn't happen to my kids.
And I also used them to help develop
children when I started my martial arts
schools later on, you know, because I
think a person who is genuinely strong and
disciplined, self disciplined, um, will
eventually become I'm much kinder person.
It's it's insecure, unhappy,
ill disciplined, frightened
people that are vicious.
Travis Bader: And I
Robin Horsfall: think a certain element
of my viciousness as a young man came from
the fact that I was frightened, which is
why the book's called Fighting Scared.
And Heather said to me once, you
know, why were you fighting so much?
I said, I was scared of getting hurt.
Travis Bader: If you don't mind,
I'll read a quick section out of the
book, just so the audience gets a bit
of a flavor for what this is about.
And, uh, maybe we can talk about it.
I grip my MP5 in both hands and
thumb the safety catch, assuring
myself once again that it was off.
The only sounds I could hear were the
static hissing in my earpiece and the
sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
My greatest fear now was of
making a mistake that might
endanger a life, especially mine.
My mind raced.
Watch the windows, Robin.
What do I do if someone looks out now?
Don't rush.
Is my pistol still in my holster?
Where's my partner?
The police dogs, which were being held
back just inside the doors of the college,
began to feel the tension in their
handlers and started barking and howling.
Why don't you shut the
bastard dogs up, I thought.
The fear that had for so long been my
greatest enemy welled up inside me like a
balloon, waiting to escape from my throat.
Hello, I thought.
I'm glad you're here.
Without you, I wouldn't
be functioning at my best.
I need to be scared to be alert.
The smallest sounds were magnified
and time seemed to slow down.
Around me, my team members moved into
position calmly and without undue haste.
Only seven years earlier, I had been
a frightened young man on the brink
of adventure, bullied and scared.
Now I was walking forward into a
firefight, the fear under control.
My commitment to the task complete
in the knowledge that I was ready,
that I was the best man for the job.
Robin Horsfall: Sounds great.
Travis Bader: When you read it,
well, that's, uh, those are your words.
Those are your words.
Robin Horsfall: It's surprising
when somebody reads something
to you and you think, Oh, Wow.
I wrote that
.
Travis Bader: Yeah, you did.
It was, uh, uh, anybody who wants to read
the rest is welcome to go get fighting.
Scared.
But that was, um, uh, 1980, was it?
May 5th.
May the fifth,
Robin Horsfall: 1980 in
London at the Iranian embassy.
Yeah.
Um, we were approaching our entry points.
There were, um, 48 of us
that entered the building.
There were five floors, 55 rooms.
So we had an eight man team for
each floor, including the basement.
And, um, one of the guys who was abseiling
down the back of the building, his foot
went through a window and he got his
gloves stuck in his abseil harness and he
got jammed there just above the window.
And I was beneath him and,
um, the approach was obviously
compromised by the broken window.
So the commander gave the go early
and we didn't have time to lay
the explosives on the back door.
So, um, my partner went in with a,
with an eight pound sledgehammer
and took the back doors out.
And, uh, the guys on the front window with
the famous footage, um, they, uh, planted
a frame charge on the window and initiated
it when they were only, you know, Only
a couple of feet away from it and took
the windows out and the guys went in from
all the eight different entry points.
And, um, I remember above me, uh, Tom was
burning on his rope, uh, because the guys
who had gone past him had gone in with
their, with their flashbangs, their stun
grenades and set fire to the curtains.
And so the curtains were burning up
Tom's hanging above the window and
turning into the best barbecue in town.
And, um, he's trying to, he's kicking
himself out away from the flames, but his.
Glove has got caught on the
press or switch of his radio.
So he's cut out all the
communications because he's on send.
And all you can hear is him screaming
as he's burning and there's bullets
coming through the window outwards
from the inside above my head.
And I'm watching him burn and thinking,
well, there's nothing I can do.
Get on with your job on the roof.
The guys are trying to cut the
rope under tension, but they've
got to get it on the inswing.
So he lands on the balcony and
doesn't drop 30 feet onto the
concrete, which they succeed in doing.
Meanwhile, beneath him.
Tommy Palmer has gone in the window,
his head's caught fire, he's gone back
out, taken off his gas mask, thrown it
away, gone back into the gas, without
a gas mask to carry on his mission,
and killed two of the terrorists.
Tom's down, his legs are burnt, he
goes in and carries on his mission.
On the ground floor, I go in, and um, you
know, there's um, a chain of, um, Troops
already from the ground floor upwards
and, uh, one of the hostages come down
the policeman Trevor Locke and he's passed
out and then the other hostages start to
follow and then, um, there's a scuffle
on the stairs and somebody gets butt
swiped and, um, staggers on the stairs
and somebody shouts he's a terrorist.
A terrorist comes clear at the bottom
of the stairs holding a hand grenade.
And, uh, one of my colleagues who was
just in front of him shot him 24 times.
And at the same time I fired three
rounds from five meters away.
And, uh, he died and the pin
was still in the grenade.
And, uh, we took everybody out.
One of the terrorists got out hidden
amongst hostages in seven minutes.
We rescued 19 people alive.
One was killed by the
terrorist during the entry.
We killed five terrorists and
we captured one seven minutes.
Um, so it was a very famous
piece of British history.
Travis Bader: No kidding.
How did your life change after that?
Robin Horsfall: Things changed
because nobody had heard of
the SAS up to that point.
You know, they were Fred Karno's army
in darkest Herefordshire and nobody
had, nobody knew very much about us.
Our main role at that time was
counter terrorism and working
undercover in Northern Ireland.
So, um, we were not, not a secret
service, a regular part of the British
army, but, um, The secrecy came from
the fact that we were targets for,
uh, um, provisional IRA terrorists.
And so we had to, we had to remain
anonymous during that period of threat.
Um, so for a while, I think, um, you
know, the world, everybody wanted to know
us, everybody wanted to talk about us.
Um, we had to remain anonymous
and, um, some people started
to believe their own press
Travis Bader: and because
Robin Horsfall: you're special
at one thing, it doesn't mean
you're special at everything.
So we were special soldiers.
We were special soldiers.
And all of a sudden, everybody
thought that we were Mr.
Miyagi and we could, we
knew the secrets of life.
Um, and it took a while for that
to settle down and, um, and to
move on and get on with life again.
Travis Bader: I think you just got the,
uh, the YouTube thumbnail right there.
Ex SAS soldier speaks
about secrets of life.
Done.
Not a lie.
Speaks about
Robin Horsfall: not being Mr.
Travis Bader: Miyagi.
Not being Mr.
Miyagi.
So you were talking to the book
about getting kind of paraded around
afterwards, kind of like a bit of a
circus show and everyone was interested.
And I think, uh, Princess Diana, you guys
may have been responsible for her, um,
her sleek new short swept back haircut.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah.
I get it.
One of the things that happened
afterwards, of course, is every VIP in
the country Wanted, um, the special day
out to visit the special air service
and see how they trained and functioned.
And so, um, King Charles now Prince
Charles then and, and lady Diana, uh,
Spencer, his wife, princess Diana,
they, uh, they came to visit one day
and, uh, we said, okay, look, you
know, um, would you like to drive?
The rain drove us up to the building.
We'll throw the ladders up and do our
pretend assault on the, on the building.
Um, you know, we've gotten some
black overalls and, um, you know,
they, they, and off they did.
But unbeknownst to us, before she
drove the vehicle up, Princess
Diana undid the window slightly
to let some air into the window.
So when the flashbangs went
off, the pyrotechnics set light
to the lacquer on her hair.
So one of our, one of my friends.
Saw that, you know, her hair was
burning, so he opened the door,
pulled her out, slapped her around
the head, put the flames out.
I thought, I'll have a little
bit of that, you know, join in.
You don't get a chance to
slap a princess every day.
And, um, we put the, we put the flames
out, you know, her hair was singed,
but she wasn't burned on the skin.
But it was a, you know,
a bit scary for her.
And, um, during the lunch break, we
got a, A hairdresser from Hereford
to come and tidy up her hair.
And she'd had this round
shaped cut up to that time.
And the next day, um, Vogue
magazine, um, had the next week
Vogue magazine had photographs of
princess Diana's amazing new page boy
haircut with the trimmed back sides.
Travis Bader: Yep.
Robin Horsfall: And, um,
everybody went wild and women
all over the world copied it
Travis Bader: and
Robin Horsfall: they never
realized that haircut was courtesy
of the special air service.
Yeah,
Travis Bader: I thought that
was a pretty funny anecdote.
Yeah, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't
aware of a number of things.
One of them, I wasn't aware that the
operation had, um, on the embassy.
Had a, um, it was compromised
and had to start sooner than,
than it was supposed to.
So that was something that
was new information for me.
One thing that I thought was really
interesting was following it up.
You're back with the boys, everyone's
having a beer and the camaraderie
that you were hoping for, you were
seeing, you're writing about that.
There is a lack of, um, some
camaraderie that you were kind
of hoping to see at that time.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah, I think when, when
you select people to be individuals,
uh, at the very peak of their abilities,
highly, highly skilled, highly
motivated with an air of paranoia that
you're not allowed to fail, everybody
thinks they should be in charge.
Everybody thinks they know best.
Um, so.
With people like that, you have to keep
them incredibly busy to stop them, to
stop them turning inwards upon each other
when you get standard troops or even
special troops like paratroopers and
Marines, um, you know, they're, they're
trained in the buddy buddy system, you
know, always support the weakest man.
Um, but.
In special forces really isn't
allowed to be anybody weak.
Um, and so we got back and, um, people
started to criticize each other.
And some of that I think was led by the
fact that what we'd, I think we hoped
for when we got back was some kind of
unit citation, maybe a little flash.
You could wear to say, you are the, you
are one of the 60 guys that were in that
squadron on that day and did that job.
Nothing, nothing too big deal.
Just that special flash to you.
But what the government did, they
turned around and said, okay, here's a
handful of medals given to six people.
And so they had to select six people from
a team that had functioned as a team, as
a unit, and decide who to give them to.
And of course, that created certain
resentments and bad feelings.
And, um, it didn't help anybody
in any shape or form in any way.
And, um, it opened up a bit of a can of
worms and, and, and create a few enemies
that, um, in some, some people never
really got over, um, they're, uh, they're
a special kind that they're thoroughbreds.
You know, you, you, you get a load of,
you get a load of ponies and stick them
in a field together, they'll run around.
You get a couple of thoroughbreds and
stick a stallion in there as well,
they're gonna kick shit out of each other.
So, um, you've got to keep them busy,
you've got to keep them running,
you've got to keep them tired and fed.
And, um, and, um, most of my six years,
looking backwards, Awesomely busy.
It never really stopped.
Travis Bader: You mentioned
something there about failure.
And I've read in other places, your
ideas on failure or not being allowed
to fail, which I think resonates
with today's generation as well.
Can I hear your thoughts on that?
Robin Horsfall: Yeah.
I mean, I've been in environments where
I was inspired by people who understood.
They can help your development
and help you to grow.
And you learn more from failure
than you ever do from success.
Um, and then I had that six years
where I lived in an environment where
especially being a person who, um,
lacked, uh, the charisma and popularity
that helped, um, where, you know, it was
even more important for me not to fail,
Travis Bader: because
Robin Horsfall: if I did fail, it would
be used against me straight away to be
no element of And so, um, What that,
what that taught me was to, to make sure
that I didn't put anybody else in the
same position that I'd been in myself.
And I understood that failure is a
necessary part of the learning process.
You have to get it wrong
before you get it right.
And we all have to do that.
And.
Confusion is a natural part of
the learning process as well.
A lot of young people and adults, um,
get to a certain point in learning
where they get confused and then they
convince themselves that they can't do it.
Travis Bader: And
Robin Horsfall: convincing them as a
teacher that this is absolutely normal
and just to keep plodding forward and
eventually that confusion will disappear
and the process will begin and you will
start to absorb the language, the skill,
the ability that you're searching for.
Um, so.
A lot of, I mean, adversity
can create character, it can
create good and bad character.
Um, and we're very much creatures
that love to follow a leader.
And we'll imitate our leaders,
we'll imitate people we admire.
So if we admire a bully, we'll
start to behave like a bully.
And if we admire somebody who inspires
us because they're the absolute opposite,
what we might refer to as a hero, um, then
we'll, we'll imitate that person as well.
And that's what we should all aspire to.
Travis Bader: It's interesting.
You bring up the word hero.
Cause when we were talking before,
uh, that was one word that you
don't feel comfortable with.
And I guess there would be two questions.
Like one, I, I, I get, I
do get the sense of why.
You would not feel comfortable with that.
You're very humble.
Modest individual, but in your sense
of the word hero, what would be a hero?
Robin Horsfall: A hero is somebody that
willingly puts themselves into danger, um,
life threatening danger, or even career
threatening danger for the benefit of
somebody else with no possible reward.
That I think is how I regard the
classical form of hero and the
classical form of courage as well.
The reason I shy away from the
word a lot is because it's misused.
It's used about footballers.
It's used about politicians.
It's used about everybody that
somebody wants to put on a
pedestal and say, Oh, great.
Wasn't this person wonderful?
Um, and it may be for something
as good as making a nice cake.
Um, and so it dilutes
the power of the word.
And, um, when I have been very kindly
referred to in that way, what flashes
through my head is a soccer player
Travis Bader: who
Robin Horsfall: scored a goal.
Travis Bader: You spoke about Pat
the cook as a bit of a revenge story.
Is that something that
you'd want to talk about?
Robin Horsfall: Well, yeah, I think it's,
um, it was an important part of my life.
Um, I was, how old would I have been?
Uh, 1977.
So yeah, 20.
Um, I'd never been a drinker.
I found very early in my life that
there's two things that I couldn't
do very well if I was drunk.
The first one was fight and the
second one starts with F as well.
And, um, so, uh, I, um, and
I got drunk very quickly.
He used to call me two pint Bob.
So, um, I, um, I discovered cars and
girls, um, which were, which far more
fun and, um, and, uh, and kept myself
away from, uh, the drinking parties.
Um, but I was in the Kelia in Cyprus.
in 1977 and, um, I went back from the bar
early, went to bed alone in a large room
with about 24 beds in, and two guys came
in drunk and, um, attacked me in my bed
for fun, um, beat me with brim handles,
attacked me with a razor, uh, broke my
jaw, dislocated my jaw on the other side,
broke my ribs, broke my fingers, um, broke
my, um, upper bones on my cheeks, um, and,
um, and then dragged me in the showers
to try and get me to recover, beat me,
beat me, beat my head against the tiles
in the showers, threw me back in the bed
bleeding and covered me with a sheet.
And when the other guys came back
later that night, one of the corporals
came and pulled the sheet off me
because he thought I was snoring too
loudly and saw the blood and the mess.
And, um, I was struggling to breathe
and, uh, I was taken to hospital,
intubated on the way to hospital.
And, um, I could pull the bruises
apart on my eyes after about a
week so that I could see my face,
which was an oval of bruising.
And, um, uh, after six weeks, I
returned back to the United Kingdom.
And, um, one of the things that
went through me at that time was,
This will never happen to me again.
Nobody will ever do this to me again.
I will never give anybody the
opportunity to do this to me again.
And I became that archetypal vicious
hit first, ask questions later person.
I never ever picked on anybody,
um, for, without a good reason.
I always, but there was always somebody
in the military looking for trouble.
And if they were looking for
it, boy, boy, oh boy, I was
prepared to give it to them first.
Um, the two people that attacked me, one
was, as you mentioned, Paddy, the cook.
And, um, he had bragged about it
over the following year and I'd
seen him a couple of times in town,
but never an appropriate time.
And after a couple of years, I caught
up with him at a party and he stepped
out the fire door to go to urinate and
I followed him and, um, you know, he,
he followed my example into hospital.
The other guy, Bill King.
Bill, um, went to a mental institution,
and was held there for quite a long time,
and then returned to the unit, and the
first thing he did was he found me, and
profusely and humbly apologized to me.
I wasn't quite sure what to do
about that, so I sort of nodded,
shook his head, and walked away,
rather confused, a bit bewildered.
And life went on and we
didn't see each other.
And then 30 years later, I was going
to a reunion in a bar in Brecon
to a place called the blue bore.
And a guy jumped out in
the street and grabbed me.
And he said, Rob, Rob, it's me, Bill.
And he looked wild in the eyes.
And he said, mate, mate, he
said, I'm still sorry about what
happened all those years ago.
I'm still sorry.
I'm still sorry.
I kissed him on both cheeks
and said, it's all right, Bill.
And I just walked down the road.
And, uh, so that was, uh, I
feel very good about that.
I
Travis Bader: feel very good about
Robin Horsfall: that.
Travis Bader: So how do you feel
from one person to the other?
How did it feel when you were
able to exact that revenge on the
individual compared to kissing the
guy on the cheek and walking away?
Robin Horsfall: Well, there's
a huge difference in age.
But they were both very, they
were both very satisfying.
Travis Bader: Excellent.
So you had an interesting story of, uh,
some time in the Falklands there and, uh,
on Ascension Island and, uh, gearing up
for a, for essentially a suicide mission.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah, we, um, up Ricardo.
Our job in the Falklands was to fly into
Argentina, land on a runway in two C 130
Hercules aircraft, 60 of us dismount,
and then take out the Super Etendard jets
that were carrying the Exocet missiles
that were sinking our capital ships,
destroy them, and be killed or captured.
There was no way home, there was no
fuel, there was no return journey.
My wife Heather was eight months
pregnant with our first son, Alex,
and we got as far as Ascension Islands
ready to go, we got on the aircraft.
And, um, Ronald Reagan put pressure on
Margaret Thatcher not to extend the war
onto the mainland because the main bulk
of the British armed forces were doing so
well and were advancing on Port Stanley.
So eventually the mission was cancelled
and, um, so that we could get involved
in the war before it was over.
Uh, we set off to fly down and
instead of going into Argentina.
Uh, one of the, one of the aircraft
turned around and went back 'cause
a refueling nozzle bloke, uh, broke.
And, um, we got there, 32 of us,
and we, um, jumped out the back
of the C one 30 into the sea.
And, um, the RAF had put parachutes onto
containers, which were, which carried all
our equipment and the parachutes came off
and all our equipment went into the sea.
And nearly sank our own ships.
And so we got picked up from
the sea, um, on board the ship.
Um, all our equipment had gone
to the bottom of the ocean.
We were trying to, uh, bodge together
enough equipment to carry out a
raiding mission on port Stanley
while the paras and Marines were
approaching from the other side.
And, um, and the enemy surrendered.
So they clearly heard that 30
members of the famous B squadron
arrived in the Falklands and decided
to kill it before it was too late
with no kit and equipment.
Um, very scary.
The fact that we were prepared to
go ahead and do that mission, um,
without question was, um, important,
but, um, I'm glad it never happened.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
I mean, there, there were times when
you had voiced your, uh, Not objections,
maybe concerns, maybe suggestions for
other ways that things could be done.
How'd that go over?
Robin Horsfall: Well, when
we got to Ascension islands,
then the mission was delayed.
We'd had time to gather more information.
And we knew that we discovered that the
Argentinians had surface to air missiles.
On Rio Grande and Ushuaia airports.
So we were asking questions like, well,
how the hell are we going to fly these
two aircraft onto these runways if
they've got surface to air missiles?
Okay.
We've got a mission to do.
We're going to get off and do that
mission and accept the consequences.
But what's the point of even trying
to, I'm going to get blown out of
the sky before we even get there.
Um, and, uh, Brigadier Peter de la
Billia insisted that we do it his way.
And we made other sensible suggestions
like, look, okay, we've got to fly there.
Let's parachute in maybe a few kilometers
off the target, walk onto target and
hit them with, um, guided missiles
from a couple of kilometers out and
take out the jets that way when they're
taxing, but they didn't want to hear it.
So that frustrated us
a great deal because.
Well, we, there we were trying to improve
our chances of staying alive and still
carry out a successful mission, um, with
no way home, but, uh, the people that were
at the very top didn't want to hear it.
So we were, you know, that was forever.
That was frustrating, but we were still
prepared to go and do it regardless.
Travis Bader: Well, I think the most
frustrating part would be, uh, Those who
would turn around and say that you weren't
prepared or that you was cowardice,
that you're voicing these concerns.
Robin Horsfall: No.
Well, um, the Billy who was, um,
leaving the regiment just after the
Falklands, he was no, he was going
to be promoted to a major general.
And so he would no longer
be part of special forces.
Now, don't get me wrong.
I mean, as a soldier, he was the
archetypal leader and officer.
Brave, stubborn, brutal, and,
um, had a lot of respect.
But, uh, in this particular case,
you know, again, you know, but
he wasn't, he, he wasn't popular.
And, uh, in this particular case, he
gave us damn good reason for it, mate.
I mean, a big part of that, as you say,
was when we returned and we had a debrief.
When you have a debrief when you get
back from a mission, the purpose of
that debrief is to find out how you
can do it better next time, how you
can improve on it, and instead of that,
they just said, Oh, you guys were great.
You guys are wonderful.
And then the Billy and his valedictory
speech when he was leaving, he,
um, he stood up and, and virtually
accused us of being cowards for
not wanting to do it his way.
And then he told a story about
a second world war major.
Who had been stopped by the French
resistance and told not to go down a
particular road because the enemy were
laying in ambush and, uh, he went anyway.
And we were expecting a punchline to this
story where it was going to be, and he
saved the day, but then he said, well, and
he drove into the ambush and got killed.
Well, we just started laughing.
We just think of this ridiculous,
you know, what a dumb ass.
And, um, and he didn't get it,
you know, he didn't get when we,
and we wouldn't stop laughing.
until he got off the stage and the new
his replacement stepped up at which
second We went absolutely silent in
respect for the new officer taking over.
So it was our way of poking our
finger in his face and saying,
get your ass out of here.
Travis Bader: Message
sent message received.
You were then later put on a, uh,
the Royal Marine sniper course.
And we're pretty happy to be put on
that from what I understand was, yeah,
Robin Horsfall: yeah.
I mean, the, um, the Royal Marine sniper
course, the Royal Marines, um, were the
only unit in the British armed forces that
maintained the sniper skill qualification
from the first world war onwards.
Now, a lot of journalists
misuse the word sniper.
Um, they think anybody with a, with some
kind of small arm shooting from a distance
is, uh, is, uh, they call them a sniper.
They're not, uh, initially they're
a gunman and if they're good at
shooting, they're a marksman,
but they're not a sniper.
A sniper is an expert in field craft, an
expert in camouflage, judging distance,
map reading, air photography, recognizing
the relief of the ground, being able
to move invisibly, being able to shoot.
from an invisible position and
then disappear and get away without
being seen, be able to stalk an
opponent without being seen, get
close to an enemy and get away again.
So the elements of fieldcraft are at its
absolute peak with, um, with a sniper.
So a sniper is all of those things.
He's the absolute peak of an
infantry soldier's fieldcraft skills.
And so it's misused.
The word's misused a lot of the time.
I.
wanted to go on that course.
So, um, and, um, I'd only been home
from the Falklands a few weeks and
thought, great, I've got a new baby boy.
I'll get a rest.
Nope.
Straight down to Royal Marines,
Limpston and on this course.
And, um, yeah, it was, it
was absolutely incredible.
And, um, it was, uh, uh, one of the things
that I'm, I'm as proud of passing that
with their two grades, the top grade was
marksman and the second grade was sniper.
Four of the 12 on the course passed it.
And I was one of the two
that got sniper marksman.
And, um, you know, and I thought,
right, I'm coming back with this.
I'm coming back to this qualification.
You can't take it away from me.
The rural Marines gave it to me.
I'll get my promotion.
Didn't happen.
Um, because, um, somebody turned
around, you didn't like me and said,
oh, well, that's just coursemanship.
Whatever that means.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Whatever that means.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah,
Travis Bader: well, didn't it turn
out that you were sent on that course,
maybe not as a prize, but as a, uh,
in the hopes that you would fail and
that'd be a excuse to RT, RTU you?
Robin Horsfall: Yeah.
Well, the, um, I had a, I
had a disagreement with a
Sergeant when I was a trooper.
And, um, he'd taken me off, uh, uh, an air
air fire control, of course, that I wanted
to do on the grounds that I wouldn't be
there and I was doing something else.
And the fact was that I
thought he'd made a mistake.
And so, um, I complained and
said, look, the course starts on
Monday and I'm back on Friday.
And, um, he said, well,
the job is done now.
And so it's not going to change.
So when I arrived back on the Friday, I
bumped into the two I see in my company
and he said, what's wrong with you?
You've got a face like thunder.
And I told him.
And, uh, he said, you
want me to do something?
I said, no, no.
I said, just make things
worse, but he ignored that.
And he went and, uh, he went and, uh,
looked into it and discovered that this
guy had lied to the sergeant major to
check, get, get his own guy on the course.
And, um, two years later, he was
the squadron sergeant major and
he made it his purpose in life.
To get me thrown out and uh,
they sent me on the Arabic course
to a lot of people failed it.
I passed it.
They put me on the Royal
Marine Sniper course.
I passed it.
They put me on the Mountain Guides course
to Chamonix, which two year course.
And when they told me, I thought,
great, I'd love to do that.
And they took me off it.
So, um, you know, um, what can you do?
Um, I actually believe at that time that
all I had to do was keep doing my job.
Better and better and better.
And eventually it would be noticed,
Travis Bader: but,
Robin Horsfall: um, in an institution,
it just takes one person, one
rank higher than you, and they
can screw your whole future up.
And, and he succeeded in doing that.
Travis Bader: Looking back now, knowing
what you know now, uh, are there different
ways that you would have approached that?
Robin Horsfall: Um, I got
into the SAS when I was 21.
And one thing Bosley, the
clerk in the office was right
about was that I was too young.
Um, by the time I was 27, I had
a little bit more wisdom about
keeping my mouth shut in the right
circumstances and not voicing an opinion
no matter how true I knew it to be.
I still struggle with that today.
I'm still a great fan of the truth, but
I like to be able to support it from
a position of verifiable authority.
But, um, you know, the age and wisdom.
Uh, there are times when it's, it's not
going to hurt you to be diplomatically
silent for a while and find an alternative
route to get to the same place.
Um, so, but I was, I was very
young and, um, that naivety,
uh, played against me as well.
Um, but, um, I purchased my discharge
from the army when I was 27, thinking
that I was going to be in for 22
years, I'd done 12 years and, um,
it turned out to be one of the best.
Best things that could have ever
happened to me looking back.
So something bad happens in your life that
can end up being a very positive thing.
Later on, um, leaving the military
after 12 years freed me up to explore
my true potential to do other things,
to have different experiences.
And go in different directions.
And I don't think if I'd stayed in
the military for 22, 24 years, um,
that I would have achieved as much.
Travis Bader: I agree.
I agree.
I think you would have been stifled.
Hmm.
Um, so from there you went on
and did some bodyguard work
and a bit of mercenary work.
And that's, uh, um, an interesting
thing to read about is, um, there was,
One thing that I read and I thought
was really interesting and it says, I
was never quite the same again after
Mozambique, I felt that I'd been tested
and I wished hardly that I hadn't.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah.
Um, Mozambique was a infantry war.
We had no support arms, no air
cover, no insurance, no backup.
Uh, we were taking men into combat.
We're supposed to be in there as
instructors, but you're in the war zone.
I ended up being company commanders
and I saw and experienced some pretty
terrible things and when I came home,
I was home within 24 hours, 48 hours.
So you're going from a place where
children are starving, where people
can be killed for a bunch of bananas.
Where a truck rolls over and 40 of
your men are dead in one moment simply
because the driver made a mistake.
Where you've got yourself into very very
dangerous situations out of bravado and
stupidity and um, wished you hadn't.
And then 24 hours later you're home
and you're looking at a video and your
wife's got a string outside the window
with welcome home daddy on it and she's
playing a video showing you Christmas.
The Christmas you missed with the kids.
Eating and wasting loads of food
and toys lying all over the place.
And you're not laughing and smiling.
Um, you have this contrast of experiences
of going from this place to this place, to
a place where people are unhappy because.
Their nanny took the day
off and they're traumatized.
Um, and the milkman didn't deliver
the milk, so they're extremely upset.
Um, and, um, you haven't had time to make
that transition and it came out as anger.
and disinterest and it was she recognized
it straight away and I didn't but um our
life led to a crisis situation and um
fortunately I'd got counseling and I must
have been the counselor's uh favorite
um subject because he would start the
clock and he got 45 minutes and I would
talk like a runaway gun for 45 minutes
and it's time up Robin you know let's
have a quick chat and off you go And
after 12 weeks, I realized, yeah, okay.
The world shit, the bad things
happen and, um, you can't change the
world, but you can change yourself.
And so I set about changing myself and
rebuilding my, uh, family life and, um,
and with Heather's help, um, succeeded
and, um, as there's a lot of lessons,
uh, to learn from that for lots of people
who haven't necessarily been to war.
But they've had some very upsetting
experiences in their life, and they
want somebody to blame, and sometimes
there just isn't anybody to blame.
I love that old American, um, t
shirt that sold billions, uh, which
was, uh, shit happens, and it does.
And, um, and sometime in your lives,
there will be some kind of tragedy,
unfortunately, uh, even if it's the
natural death of your parents and you,
you have to accept that and acceptance
is a word we don't use enough of.
Sometimes you just, it just happens.
Travis Bader: Did you come to that
conclusion on your own, or was
that something that the counselor
was able to elicit out of you?
Robin Horsfall: No, I think the
counselor just let me burn it out.
He let me talk it out.
He let me figure it out on my own.
All he was was a sounding
board to let me go.
He, I'm sure he got subjects where
he needed to prompt something.
He needed to light a fuse.
With me, the fuse was burning
when I walked through the door.
Um, all he had to do was just let it
burn and give it a place to go, you know?
And, um, and, um, yeah, sometimes
you've just got to unload.
You just got to let it all go, uh, talk
it all out with somebody who's not going
to offer an opinion back, who's not got a
vested interest in your, uh, opinion and,
um, and, uh, and let it, and, and allow,
allow you to, to release everything.
And when it's all out there, you
spilled your guts all over the floor.
You can see what you've been eating.
Travis Bader: I like that analogy.
You know, I just made that
Robin Horsfall: one
Travis Bader: up.
Oh, that's a good one.
That's a good one.
Um, you know, a lot of people get stuck
in this, uh, process of, uh, basically
wearing or identifying with whatever
the issue is, that's affecting them.
They're being afflicted
with in the moment.
And there's a lot of counselors and
psychologists who, uh, aren't brave
enough to, uh, help break that cycle.
Rather, they will just have them
go over and over and over again
through it, because there's sort of
a cathartic process in the, uh, in
these meetings and, you know, there's
money that comes from each one of these
meetings and, yeah, um, I don't agree
Robin Horsfall: with some of
that because I think sometimes
it's like picking a scab.
Yeah.
You just keep making it bleed
you just keep making it bleed
Travis Bader: right
Robin Horsfall: yeah um which is
different from what i'm talking about
i just let me just let me um heal
myself um because again it's back to
that thing i said at the beginning
you know only you can change yourself
Travis Bader: it's
Robin Horsfall: a bit like you know a
guy who's an alcoholic or a drug addict.
Um, you know, first of all, you have
to accept that you are the problem and
then you can deal with it, whether it's
PTSD, whether it's alcohol, whether it's
drugs, whether it's violence, whatever
it is, you have to start with you.
I mean, I do counsel some individuals
privately, uh, without payment who are
usually military veterans, but not always.
Sometimes they're cancer
victims because I've had cancer.
And, um, and the first thing I
say to them often is, well, what
are you going to do about it?
So you place the owner strictly on them
straight away because people tend to
wear a badge of victimhood and say,
uh, you know, it's your job to help me.
Okay.
Well, yeah, maybe, uh, maybe
it's my job to help you.
Um, but providing you
start by helping yourself.
You start by taking responsibility.
You start by getting a job, by getting
out of bed in the morning, by doing what
you need to do, and I'll help you then,
but I'm not going to get you out of bed.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
There's nothing you can
actually do to help somebody.
You can lead them by example,
but they have to help themselves.
And once they, um, so what
do you do now to deal with.
When the demons come up, when
things are getting difficult, what
do you do now to deal with it?
Robin Horsfall: Uh, uh, sometimes
I, sometimes I, I, I have moments
where I'm just watching TV or doing
something innocuous and I'll have a cry.
Um, not a sob, but just, you
know, just a moment of welling up.
It'll pass away.
Um, but, uh, I don't have many demons.
I think I've exercised most of them.
Um, I have a great wife.
Um, I have an amazing family.
I'm the oldest surviving
member of my family now.
And, um, and consequently, um,
there's always somebody that's
got a problem that they want.
They either want advice or they
want money and I'm supposed
to provide one of the two.
Um, so that keeps me busy and it
keeps me feeling useful as well.
Um, I've got four generations
in the house at the moment.
Um, my daughter, my granddaughter
and my granddaughter's son.
Um, and they're going back next week
and it's been fun having him here
while she had the baby, but, um, uh,
the house will seem empty, um, next
Tuesday when they've gone, um, until.
Until the next, um, until the next
member of the family decides it's
time to, to turn up at the house.
And, um, I hope it's not too
long in between because, you
know, family is everything.
When you get to a certain point in
your life, uh, family is everything.
And if you are not fortunate enough to
have family, then compensate with friends.
Travis Bader: At what point in your
life did you truly realize that?
I
Robin Horsfall: don't
think I realized it fully.
I'm still learning and discovering, uh,
new things about myself and about life.
Um, so it's a process.
Um, the Japanese used to say
that you're not really a man
until you get past the age of 40.
Um, and you've got to get past the age of
40 before you understand what that means.
Well, I'm 67 now.
Travis Bader: Yes.
Is there anything that we haven't
talked about that we should talk about?
Robin Horsfall: Well, I spent,
um, I spent 30 years of my life
teaching children, martial arts.
I mentioned that earlier and
the, the karate was just the
catalyst that allowed me to teach.
It was the teaching that was the joy.
It was the imparting knowledge to others.
That's the joy.
And, um, I was taught to teach
when I was a boy soldier, six
months of teaching quotas.
And, um, and I, it was vocational to me
to stand in front of people, to impart
knowledge, to help them, to benefit
them, to train them with the kids.
It was about, uh, teaching them to be
strong and confident and, uh, and kind.
And capable of defending themselves,
which made them, um, able to
stand up for their opinions in a
much better way as they grew up.
Um, we taught the children to teach.
So rather than just teach them a skill,
we taught them to teach the skill.
Because if you teach, you understand
the subject, you might know how to
shoot a rifle, but can you teach
somebody else how to shoot a rifle?
If you can and take that responsibility,
now you really understand the rifle.
Um, it's the same in everything in life.
And we would take four year olds, and
when they'd been around six weeks or
so, and a new kid arrived, we'd let
the four year and six week kid show
the new kid how to do certain things.
So they'd pair off.
Because you learn a hell of a lot
more from your big brother than you
ever did from your school teacher.
Uh huh.
And, um, so teaching is, uh,
is, is, is a wonderful, is, is
the best form of learning ever.
I, I broke my neck when I was 54.
I couldn't carry on teaching martial arts.
And so I went to university as
an undergraduate at the age of 56
and did, uh, uh, And, um, English
literature and graduated when I was 59.
Um, I got cancer when I was 60,
bladder cancer, and I had to have a
major operation and they took away my
bladder and prostate and lymph nodes.
And, um, And there's even a sunny
side to that because I've got
this bag now and I never have
to get up for a pee in the night
Travis Bader: and
Robin Horsfall: men of a certain age
will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Well, I've got this two liter bag
that goes down the side of the bed and
I, I never have to get up for a pee.
I can stay in bed and
watch TV in the morning.
So there's even a good side to that.
So, um.
A lot of fighting scared the book you
showed there is one of six and it goes
up to about the age of forty five.
But i'm sometimes thinking if i can find
the time that i should write a sequel um
for the forty five to sixty seven period
which has a whole new range of stories
but i've got so many things i want to do.
Travis Bader: How did you break your neck.
Robin Horsfall: I was training with my
oldest son, Alex, um, karate training
with my oldest son, Alex, and he was
holding a big, heavy impact pad for me.
And he's a big man.
And, um, and I, I was showing him
this, uh, very powerful punch.
And, um, he, uh, I was looking at the
class and what I should have done.
I should have looked.
At the target and then hit it so my
neck was in the correct position,
but the head was still here talking
to the class when I hit this thing.
And, uh, when you've developed, like, like
professional boxing, when you've developed
the punch to a degree and your body and
all your applied physics of your, of your
physique are in exactly the right place.
You're developing about one and
a half tons of impact into two
square inches of two knuckles.
And, um, everything's set right, all
that impact, all that, um, kinetic
energy is, is trans, is transmitted
in, all that potential energy
is transmitted into the target.
Well, my neck was in the wrong position,
and so some of it came out up here
on C5 and broke one of the, broke one
of the, um, Processes on my, on my
vertebra, and I wasn't paralyzed, but,
um, my neck beat is very, very weak.
It's still very weak, and I, I
lost some of the feeling in my left
hand and, um, and, uh, so I had
to take a new direction in life.
There's no good sitting around going, oh,
I was a great martial artist once upon
a time and I had a thousand students.
And, oh, poor me.
I just, okay, what can I do?
Well, I can't jump around and I can't
leap out of buildings and I can't, you
know, stand on one leg anymore because
my balance goes so, but I can write
Travis Bader: and I can
Robin Horsfall: speak and so I'm,
um, I do corporate talks and talks
for colleges and talks for kids.
About my personal experiences, about
leadership, about overcoming adversity.
Um, if anybody ever wants me
in Canada, you know where I am
Travis Bader: and,
Robin Horsfall: uh, and, um, and, um, so
I just, I, I still like being up there
in front of everybody because teaching
is essentially singing and dancing, you
know, and, uh, your, your best teachers
were the ones that entertained you and
the subjects you loved best at school were
the ones that came from the best teachers,
not because they were the best subjects.
Travis Bader: Through teaching, you've
enabled the children to have a voice
and you've basically become the mentor
that you were looking for as a child.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
That's, I think, I think you put the
finger right on the button there.
Um, that's, and I've never ever
thought of that to be honest, but
yeah, I think that's exactly what I
am, the person that I didn't have.
Travis Bader: Well, there's a, there's a
lot more that I'd love to chat with you
about, and I'm sure we'll chat more in
the future, but, um, maybe that's a good
place for us to, to wrap this podcast up.
Um, unless there's any last
words you'd like to say.
Robin Horsfall: Yeah.
Anybody wants to find me?
RobinHorsfall.
com.
Let's do the advertising every little
Travis Bader: counts.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to
put links in the bio and I'm going
to put links in the description
and, um, you know, like I say,
I've got, I'll hold them up here.
So I've got fighting scared.
Couldn't put that one down.
Uh, read that one in, in no time flat.
We've got, uh, the words of the
wise old paratrooper, more words
of the wise old paratrooper, last
words of the wise old paratrooper.
And I've, uh, started going through them.
They're easy reads that are full of very,
some, a lot of humor, some great wisdom.
And it's something that, uh,
will take more than one read
to actually properly absorb.
And I guess there's a couple
more books that, uh, uh, that I,
Robin Horsfall: There's warrior
poet soldier songs, which is an
illustrated book of my poetry.
Travis Bader: Okay.
Robin Horsfall: Um, which is very
academic and, um, illustrated
and I'm very proud of that.
But people don't buy poetry.
It's a, so it's a labor of love.
They quote it, but
they, they don't buy it.
And, um, my most recent one is
Slava Ukraini, who no shares.
Uh, which is about the first two
years of the Russian Ukraine war.
And yeah, and that's my,
that's my most recent one.
Yeah.
Travis Bader: And you're pretty, you're
pretty vocal and on a lot of world issues.
When are you going to
start your own podcast?
Robin Horsfall: Yeah, I've,
um, I've got all the gear.
Um, I've had builders in my house
since we moved in two years ago.
Um, and, um, I've got my, Daughter
in the, in the attic room at
the moment, which is going to be
the podcast broadcasting studio.
Travis Bader: There it is.
And,
Robin Horsfall: um, it's, uh, it's
another one of those things on the list.
Travis Bader: You know, that was
the one thing when I went through
all of this stuff, I thought Robin's
going to start his own podcast and
it's going to be hugely successful.
And I'm glad, I'm glad you're doing that.
Robin, thank you so much for
being on the Silvercore podcast.
I really enjoyed this.
Robin Horsfall: Thanks, Travis.
You're a great interviewer.