But Mark, who will bring his An Audience With Billy tour to Scotland next month, admits being centre stage goes against every bone in his body. As well as the boxing I joined the cadets, so the cadets taught me kind of a military regime and way of life really and the discipline. The first time I actually appeared in a movie, it got cut, which I’m glad it did. The fearsome instructor on the hit Channel 4 show swooped into the historic Fife town under cover of darkness.
To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. So you start off going through their life, finding what makes them uncomfortable, get them out of their comfort zones. We’re in the age of the internet, it’s so hard, people go on about the millennials, but, they are a different breed. BB: Massively, because you say bodyguard and everyone thinks six foot six, v-shape, big muscles, shades and you know that’s the thing, you look like a bodyguard. This is influence and the promotion of UK military ethos, first hand, highlighting the kind of ideologies most of us would like to see our children adopt, from four humble guys who have seen more than most in the duty of defending our nation. BB: Absolutely. He says: “It was very intimidating at first going from a world where you always had to deny being in the SAS to now advertising it.”. Because I convinced myself it’s easy and I’ve done it all before, but it was relentless, there was no criticism or encouragement, so you never really knew how you were doing, but, everything you did was scrutinised, they were watching all the time. Oh, and did we mention he received an MBE from The Queen for his involvement in numerous top-secret missions?
I asked Billy, why he joined the armed forces in the first instance.
Here we go again! “I am busy doing work for two charities close to my heart. Look forward into the future and it could be that that changes all over the armed forces and, if that's the case, then women will be on the show.'. ‘This phase is all psychological. BB: Yeah well, I was constantly in trouble, the police were coming over every week. I was then posted to HAC (Honourable Artillery Company) as their regular Sergeant Major to oversee the PSI’s there, but I personally hated it and didn’t see eye to eye with some young officer there. In the SAS they’ll just ask you to do it. He’s a young boy who needs to grow up into a man’s world. I’ve been to Belize nine times, I’ve been to Brunei as an instructor, the jungle in Kenya if you want to call that jungle, some people do, and Guyana. It’s only in the cold light of day when you wonder, ‘How the hell did I walk out of that?’.”.
When the first SAS: Who Dares Wins began, I thought it sounded too cheesy and I said no to any involvement. There are no rehearsals; no script and we pick ideas based on ops experience we’ve encountered. It was a spur of the moment thing, he just threw me in. MARK has vowed to cut down on the swearing after the last series of SAS: Who Dares Wins notched up 57 curse words — in the FIRST episode.
The three former servicemen were training ahead of the second series of SAS: Who Dares Wins, which begins on Monday October 17, at 9pm on Channel 4. After being in the Marine Cadets you would have thought I would have gone on to join the Marines, however I decided on Para Reg. Mark “Billy” Billingham was talking to Mal Robinson. ‘Billy’ at his Paras passing out parade, where he was awarded ‘Champion Recruit’ for 497 platoon. He laughs: “Everyone comes up to me and says, ‘You are the nastiest, grumpiest person on the box — but you’re actually really nice in person’.”.
It’s a different world but it was an absolute honour to have been there with people like Ray Winstone, Idris Elba, Sean himself, Javier Bardem and Mark Rylance. After his military career, Billy became a bodyguard to the stars with Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise among a who’s who of A-list clients.
That’s just the way I am. I hadn’t told my Mum and Dad any of this and luckily they were still alive, so I said to them I’ve been invited to this thing at W. indsor Castle do you want to come along.
BB: I remember going there, I was about 17 at the time and weighed about eight stone because I was boxing at that level so I kept the weight off and because I wanted to join the paratroop regiment, the medical team said you have to be ten stone. We tend to know, the amount of time you hear someone say, ‘I thought something wasn’t right’ or ‘I felt something’ and I would say to anybody if you feel something ain’t right, then take a second to have a look around.
And so if I was about to attack your client, then I know where the bodyguard is for a start… most of them are just big lumps, it’s really not about that. Going into the security world paid dividends for me. Prince William was WRONG to keep his Covid diagnosis secret, suggests Royal expert who says move may have... Stillbirths DOUBLED during first wave of Covid-19 pandemic amid fears that mothers were delayed from seeking... How Vallance's secret blood-curdling press briefing on looming lockdown - an hour BEFORE Boris agreed to it... Is Christmas doomed? So I’m looking forward to taking it easier this time.”. With Billy already chuckling as I ask the question, I presume it wasn’t your average route through resettlement and I was certain not many ELC funded courses covered these avenues.
I did warn the producers beforehand that these people are going to die in the jungle if there was no preparation or allow them to climatise to the jungle. I actually loved, I found it very tranquil, listening to all the noises of the different animals, creatures running about your feet, it didn’t bother me at all. At the age of 11, I’d already been to juvenile court and got two years of conditional discharge, so I was already on a sticky wicket. He also previously provided protection for a-list actors including Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe and director Clint Eastwood. But, as the weeks went by, there was 50 of us left, and it started to give me encouragement and hope, confidence if you like. Because someone who comes across like a hard-faced f**ker, you find out they’ve been through a really dark time to get where they are.
You’ll know him as one of the stars of Channel Four’s hit series SAS: Who Dares Wins. “Even my kids say, ‘You’re so angry and grumpy on TV’, and my wife says exactly the same. View our online Press Pack. He says: “I spent a lot of time in the mountains of Scotland, where the weather was always unpredictable. Do you have a story or video for The Scottish Sun? But the dad-of-six, who lives with his American wife, maintains it is not an act he switches on for the telly cameras. I’m not the biggest guy in the world, I can handle myself, but, I’ve never had to roll around on the floor with anybody because I can smell danger. Maths or Geography, it didn’t compute in my head as something I’ll need.
So I stopped boxing, and I started taking all this weight gain stuff. My mother would say, “you got in with the wrong crowd.” Even at the age of nine, I knew it wasn’t the wrong crowd, I was the one leading some of this gang stuff. The thing that caught me out most of all about it was when you’re an army recruit, you get shouted and screamed at and you have to keep going, keep pushing to your absolute limits.
Anyway, I’m glad I did it because it changed the course of my life. Yes, it is really hard, but in selection, it’s over a six month period, not two weeks. NE8 3AH, Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, (Billy’s fundraising page for Rebuild Globally), https://rebuildglobally.networkforgood.com/projects/53537-billy-s-rebuild-globally-fundraiser. Look for the unusual, be more aware. TM: Tell us about that initial training for the paras, it was pretty intense for your age? “The reason for that is they only do nine days of the selection process, whereas we had to do six months.”. It’s about knowledge and experience and being able to think outside of the box and be able to react to crisis type management, and a lot of them can’t do that. The idea was they would get the 8 fittest people in the UK and it would be up to us as instructors to look to break them down. Gruelling: Janakan and Alex, two of the 25 men who will go through SAS training on screen. The F-bomb is dropped all the time within the military. BB: To be honest all the celebs I’ve worked with have been pretty realistic, down to earth people. TM: Can people, in general, be more vigilant do you think, what would you recommend? They put me in as an extra in, The Tree of Life. Your email address will not be published. If you imagine this nowadays, I was nine years old, it was February, so it was dark at 5 o’clock, walking around the back of a pub, to meet a man that was about to beat me up, imagine that today, it just wouldn’t happen. It will be followed over the next two and a half years by the infantry, the Royal Marines and the RAF Regiment. But I was wrong, it’s not how it works, you don’t even get looked at, that’s just a filter to cut down the numbers before you go to the jungle.
“There is always someone that surprises you every year and Lou was definitely the big surprise for us. There he was responsible for planning and executing strategic operations and training at the highest level in numerous locations such as Iraq, Afghanistan and South America, not to mention leading countless hostage rescues. From a tearaway kid on the streets of Walsall, he turned his life around when he joined the Parachute Regiment in 1983, before completing the gruelling selection process to join the SAS in 1991 as a Mountain Troop specialist. Every Sunday evening at 2100 hours a minor miracle occurs in my household. Universities 'should EXPEL students who break coronavirus rules': Nottingham Police chief calls for... Takeaway pints are BANNED under second lockdown - as landlords blast 'soul-destroying' decision that will... Battle of the Covid Christmas clips! “Being a personal bodyguard is really hard work and you are talking about 20 hours a day and a lot of behind the scenes stuff people don’t realise what goes into it. So we never really knew exactly where we were, just what we had to do.”. When I went to do SAS selection, I was ready for it, fitness I had no problem at all, it was the mental side that really got to me. TM: In the book, you mention how Tom Cruise and Sean Penn were pretty dialled in? It’s about how I’m feeling, I can’t tolerate somebody with that cocky attitude. Mr Fox said: 'It's just tradition. I literally left school at the age of 13 more or less, you know thinking I was clever I glued the bloody maths teacher to the chair and when I got put in detention, I climbed out the window and was gone. It gives you an amazing sixth sense. That must have been a proud moment?