White Fox Talking
E52: From Streets to Self-Discovery - Roy Morris' Journey of Healing and Resilience (Part 1)
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Discover the intense and often violent world of the approved school system through Roy's eyes, starting from his entry at age 13. He recounts the daily fights, the lack of structured education, and the solace he found in boxing. Through these experiences, Roy sheds light on the impact of environment and upbringing on behaviour, the trauma endured by young boys in such institutions, and his eventual realization of the need for change. His struggle to break free from a cycle of crime after the birth of his daughter marks a pivotal turning point in his life.
Explore Roy's transformative journey from a life of crime to entrepreneurship, and the inner battles he fought despite achieving material success. Grappling with deep-seated unhappiness and anxiety, Roy turned to spirituality, plant medicine, and meditation. His profound experiences with ayahuasca brought significant realizations about identity and healing. This episode is a compelling exploration of turning inward to understand oneself and the true path to happiness, free from the chains of societal expectations and past traumas.... to be continued in Part 2...
Send White Fox Talking a Message
Discover the intense and often violent world of the approved school system through Roy's eyes, starting from his entry at age 13. He recounts the daily fights, the lack of structured education, and the solace he found in boxing. Through these experiences, Roy sheds light on the impact of environment and upbringing on behaviour, the trauma endured by young boys in such institutions, and his eventual realization of the need for change. His struggle to break free from a cycle of crime after the birth of his daughter marks a pivotal turning point in his life.
Explore Roy's transformative journey from a life of crime to entrepreneurship, and the inner battles he fought despite achieving material success. Grappling with deep-seated unhappiness and anxiety, Roy turned to spirituality, plant medicine, and meditation. His profound experiences with ayahuasca brought significant realizations about identity and healing. This episode is a compelling exploration of turning inward to understand oneself and the true path to happiness, free from the chains of societal expectations and past traumas.... to be continued in Part 2...
Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Mark Charlie-Valentine, and at the controls is Sebastian. Hi Charlie. Oh, do you want Seb today? Depends what mood you're in, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Depends how the weekend went, and that's not a party weekend, is it? That's work. Call me Sebastian if you want. Oh, is it one of them days? Yeah, a tough weekend, was it? Yeah, I think we've spoke many times on the podcast Seb, about the workload you take on. Yeah, unfortunately it's Heavy, heavy. Yeah, it's slowing down a bit. Oh good, we can do more podcasts then.
Speaker 3:No, how's things all good yeah steady on excited to be back in the studio.
Speaker 1:It's been a while it feels like it's been a while, doesn't it? Yeah, it's like a safe space, isn't it it is? Who's with us today? Do you remember our very first podcast guest? Yes, mr John Proctor, the absolute character he is. Yeah, what a great story he had to tell us. He did have a great story. He's a good guy, and what he did was he messaged me and said I've got a really good character and a really good guy that would be good for your podcast. So we to Roy Morris.
Speaker 1:The White Fox Talking Podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact. Hello Roy, hi, how are you doing? I'm good. Thanks, good man. Thank you for joining us. Obviously, I'm a bit sceptical with the recommendation of John. If you're friendly, john, then it's. You know, do we have to vet this person? But no, it's great for you to come in, mate, and sorry about the mix up earlier. That's me with my what do we call it? Seb? It's like a form of dyslexia or disorganisation. If it's not written down in front of me, then everything gets confused. Hopefully it's getting sorted, which is brilliant after all, this time I've tried to find. So can you give the listeners a brief introduction about yourself, if you want to say where you are now and where you've come from, and then what we can do is go through it all.
Speaker 2:Yes, so from Leeds. I had quite a difficult upbringing and got to a point where I just felt I needed to do some kind of healing and then went on a journey of healing. So I suppose this will be just about that.
Speaker 1:Right cool, yeah, yeah, healing. So I suppose this will be just about that. Right cool, yeah, yeah. Can we talk about what went on before, like early life, before you got to this, that decision, because it was a big decision, isn't it? And a realization. So, if we talk about your childhood and stuff like that is that, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's best in the beginning, just like we said on the telephone call, because, you know, sometimes I don't think people realize that we do a. Yeah, just like we said on the telephone call, because sometimes I don't think people realise that we're doing a bit of background before we start on.
Speaker 2:So a 70s child, 60s 60s, yeah, 65, born in 65. Right. Very end, very end, of 65.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Jamaican father, Irish mother in Leeds, Armley, Leeds.
Speaker 1:In them times, so growing up. So you're growing up in the 70s, really, weren't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So what was that like as a person of mixed race?
Speaker 2:Obviously, when I look back I can see the benefits of it. But at the time it was difficult just because you just don't feel like you fit in anywhere. I didn't feel like I fitted in at school. I didn't feel like I fitted in at school. I didn't feel like I fitted in in the in the area that I was brought up in. So quite, quite difficult from that kind of perspective. So I lived there in armley until I was seven years old and then I moved to a place in burley called bellevue, bellevue road and then from there stayed there for maybe 12 months, we'll say, and then I moved to london okay, so can I just?
Speaker 1:if we just go back to my early days, up to like seven years old, seven, eight years old, I think most of britain, well, a lot of britain, was predominantly white. Yeah, so what was that like for you know? Like you said, you didn't feel you belonged, but was, would you say, there was any bullying and anything like that. I think society was very, very different then. Society was awful, if I think back. So what went on?
Speaker 2:Bullying, I think, from the most unexpected places. You'd get bullying from the teachers, you'd get bullying from the kids, you'd get bullying from the parents. So, yeah, a lot of bullying. And I can remember times walking in the street with my mother, my brother and my sister, and my mother being spat on because she had mixed race kids, oh wow. So at that point my father had left the home, so he left quite early, so I must have been about a year old when he left. So obviously we felt quite vulnerable as well, not having a father there as well do you know what?
Speaker 1:I'm sort of just thinking back to them times. It's even just, you know, just saying that for for a young person, because I work with young people now in the outdoors and you know, from disadvantaged backgrounds, but then to be a single parent at that time with children of colour, that must have been traumatic for your mum and for yourself, and then the bullying as well.
Speaker 2:I suppose it feels normal as well because, you don't know anything else, you just know you don't fit in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can I just ask you, without getting off track, what do you think to the way that sort of racial relations have gone now to these days? Because obviously that's stuff like that from society at that time is just can you imagine it now Like what is going on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so it's. It's evolved a lot from from what it was like years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's one thing. That's that's encouraging because you can see it evolving. In my lifetime I've seen it really evolving and it seems like things are getting better and more things are coming to light, and obviously social media makes it even more so.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, I think one fact I've mentioned on the podcast before is when I did a mental health first aid course and what they said on there, that society we did a mental health first aid course and what they said on there, but society we were regarding mental health, how it used to regard race and racism about 25 years ago, and I think that's one of the sort of inspirations for us being here and talking about and getting all this out. You know what I mean. So again, so London, how was that? So then you've got another thing of a northern accent.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, even more than that, because the school that we went to in London it was predominantly black.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then we got the other kind of racism, where you're not black, so yeah, so we got it both sides.
Speaker 1:So when you went to this school in London after having suffered a lot of racism and bullying from predominantly white, and then you go and it's predominantly black, did you think you were going somewhere that would be better?
Speaker 2:I suppose I imagined. When we got there and when I saw more dark-skinned people I imagined it'd be a lot easier, but in fact, because it were predominantly black. I can remember one incident just to kind of illustrate what I'm talking about. I can remember a teacher a white teacher, female being accused of being racist in the classroom. So one of the boys had accused her of being racist and so she said everybody that's black in this classroom stand up. And I stood up because, you know, I knew I wasn't white because of the racism we'd got in Leeds. And so I stood up and everybody told me to sit down because I wasn't black. So I think that's the first time I realised oh, I don't fit in there neither.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and how was that at that time? And then, how does it look now? I don't know.
Speaker 2:In all honesty, I can't remember how I took it, but all I know is that growing up I wouldn't accept racism from black people or white people. If I were among black people and they were talking about white people in a certain way, I'd stand up, because it was just racism itself that really composed me when I got older. But I had a lot of anger once I got to a certain age as well.
Speaker 1:And do you think the anger was from what you'd been through or just because it's unacceptable?
Speaker 2:Definitely what I'd been through. But that's not just the racism that we have problems in the home as well. My stepfather, you know, mother, we spent time in care homes and things like that. So by the time I got to about 13 then I just had a lot of anger, got into a lot of fights, eventually went to an approved school were they called approved schools. We'll call approved schools yeah right, okay, so it were like a young person's prison, right? Don't know if you've seen scum.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was thinking, that Was that. Yeah, when did they stop calling them Barstools?
Speaker 2:So Barstool, barstool were the next stage. Oh, okay. So by the time I got through approved school they had become young offenders, right? So I think that were in the 80s. It changed from Barstools to young offenders.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So were you in there because the anger, or because they kept getting you into fighting, or just because of the home Bit of?
Speaker 2:everything. I think, yeah, bit of all that.
Speaker 1:Because you know you sort of think of what and I do bang on about how much sort of reading we do and research for this and all the Gabon matters stuff and how them first influences growing up as a young person I mean even seven years old and you've already gone through racism and bullying. Seven-year-olds, or five, six, seven-year-olds this is my opinion. They don't form their opinions themselves, do they no? So they've come from parents or someone else and it's influenced it. I mean, I still get it, not personally, but working and listening to young people saying sort of racist words and you're like, well, where have you got that from? Because you've not just dreamt it up, you've heard it from somewhere.
Speaker 2:I think the Rosicrucians. They used to say give me a child up to the age of seven years old and I'll show you the man. So yeah, obviously environmental influences up to the age of seven years old determine the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. I've done quite a lot of listening and reading about that, so I mean just to go there. We've got racism, bullying, we've also got if you don't sort of belong, you feel you don't belong, did you have groups of friends? Because if you're getting picked on by a predominantly white school, then a predominantly black school or classmates, then where's this community that you and friendships Was there still some that you could make them bonds with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like my mother were Irish and at the time the Irish were Especially Southern Ireland, they were seeing like black people really.
Speaker 3:Right, I remember them signs it would have double whammy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But the good thing, the positive thing to that, well, we bonded with all the Irish families. So, yeah, no Irish, no blacks, no dogs exactly, do you know?
Speaker 1:I remember seeing them signs in Kilburn going to an England game once.
Speaker 3:Where were them signed In pubs. In pubs, yeah, no way, and that's in sort of 90s, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think Bed and Breakfast and stuff like that weren't it? Yeah, like I said, Shites.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you just think, you think back, or you say that now you look at it you're like what the fuck was going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought what's going on. So it was kind of a double whammy from both sides. But the positive thing to that war, we clicked with the Irish families and there were a lot of Irish families where we grew and stuff.
Speaker 3:So you kind of instantly had a community yeah.
Speaker 2:And even though the Irish families didn't necessarily see you as one of them, we had a lot of commonalities.
Speaker 1:So, I suppose, was it easy to make bonds with them quickly? Because obviously, definitely, would it be like, is the right word not segregated, but sort of segregated from society, I suppose at that time, yeah, it's no sort of environment for a young person, is it?
Speaker 2:There's pros and cons. Yeah, there's pros and cons. Yeah, because you know, obviously we'll talk about this later but sometimes it's the things that we attach ourselves to that later on cause suffering. All these ideas that we have of who we are growing up, they eventually they have to fall away, and that can be painful. But for somebody that's never attached themselves to any one thing, it's less painful.
Speaker 1:Okay, I see yeah.
Speaker 2:And you start to see things. You're more aware than somebody that's close-minded and only sees things from a certain perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess we'll talk about that because I think my experience with the mental health and the ptsd was sort of really opened my mind to a lot. Yeah, from where I was before you know. So cool, yeah, let's uh, let's get into that later. So approved schools how was that time for you? I don't want to take you back to anything that's too painful.
Speaker 2:Please tell us if there's nothing, nothing too painful, when I first got got to an approved school. So first I was put into an assessment centre. This is where you're assessed on, you know your level of violence or whatever, and that place is like a dispersal. So you've got kids coming and going, you've got older kids coming and going to borstal, you've got younger kids coming and getting care orders from there. So I was one of the younger ones, so I think I was one of the youngest um when I got to wingmore um assessment center. So I was 13 at the time.
Speaker 2:So when when I first went in there, obviously I knew I was going to be doing a lot of fighting. I'd been fighting all my life. But it felt like a different breed of lads I was going to be fighting with Because first of all they were all from different parts of Leeds, and not just Leeds, yorkshire actually, rather than Doncaster, sheffield. Lads from all over. And the worst of the worst, when I first got there, that that was a little bit, a little bit frightening. I wasn't overly scared and eventually, when I I were there about six, seven months, I kind of really found my feet and I suppose, found um, found my place of hierarchy within that group of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from there went on to an approved school. To describe a little bit, we're more the types, the kinds of things that we had to do. So we'd get up on a morning, we'd scrub the floors with a scrubbing brush, like long corridors, we'd just be scrubbing the floors and they had classes, education. So I'd had very little education up to that point. I think you had to do education once a week in Wynmore.
Speaker 1:What sort of education was that? Just like Baths, english or?
Speaker 2:It wasn't structured. Right, you know, you go in a class and you sit down and draw, or they might say, write something you know. So it wasn't structured, you know, like the curriculum in normal schools Lots of fights, got into lots of fights, and the good thing about windmills. Well, if you got into a fight, they'd put boxing gloves on you, okay, and so you'd have to go into a room and just scrap it out with the boxing gloves.
Speaker 2:So I used to enjoy getting into fights because I could put the gloves on, so I always loved boxing.
Speaker 1:I was going to say have you done any boxing before then?
Speaker 2:I did a little bit when I was about 12 because I was under social workers and they sent me to a place called Market District, that one in Leeds.
Speaker 2:And at that time they used to call it Scrubs, where if you'd brought the law they'd send you to this place and you had to do like exercise, run around and all that stuff. And they had a boxing gym upstairs and so eventually I ended up going there, spent a bit of time there, but I was always kind of in and out of trouble. So you know, I might have done a couple of months, but I loved boxing. I loved all kinds of fighting. I didn't like the aggressive side of it. To me it was an art. I loved the art of fighting from being young, yeah. So in Wynmore I used to kind of enjoy getting into fights and having to put the gloves on.
Speaker 3:How many years did you have to spend in the approved school?
Speaker 2:So in the assessment centre, I think I spent about a year in there. They kept me in there until I was 14, because I had to go to Eastmore when I was 14. Eastmore in Wakefield, no it was in Adam in Leeds. Okay, so it's closed down now. It's a long time ago, so yes, so they sent me there when I was 14. I spent two, around two and a half years in Eastmore, I think it was.
Speaker 3:So these were always. You were boarding there, and boarding is probably the wrong word, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it probably is like boarding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, boarding there, and boarding is probably the wrong word, isn't it? Yeah, it probably is like boarding. Yeah, yeah, so you were part of the whole routine going to bed, waking up and like a detention, school Detention school. Sorry, oh you don't go home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you stay there. I actually got a care order from Winmore, so a care order just means that you are in the care of the authority, so a lot like a boarding school, I suppose.
Speaker 1:But with more violence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more violence, because everybody there is a little bit violent, and the ones that aren't violent usually become victims.
Speaker 1:What we'd do without getting off the subject. I suppose it's like with prisons as well, isn't it? All these people that have got traumas and background problems put them all together and they express them there. Yeah, I think there was an experiment one day in America where they had a person stood in the middle and a big circle of prisoners about 200, and said right, if you've ever had child abuse, violent abuse, violence, you know, and put all these traumas to them and 99% all stepped forward.
Speaker 1:All of them. You know what I mean, and this is what we're doing. I'll be honest. I've no cure, but we look at people as though someone just turns into a violent offender for any old reason. It's not true, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, any kind of personality disorder. Actually, it's not really that person. It's the environment that they've been brought up in. And I know obviously there's some murderers and stuff like that that come from seemingly good families but there's things within that environment that affect them a certain way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely this, nurturing or not, isn't?
Speaker 2:it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So where are we now? We're about 16, 17, I was sure.
Speaker 2:So we're 16. So I've left Eastmoor. Maybe we should talk about in Eastmoor, maybe that journey as well, because again a lot of fighting. But I did start to then develop physically and I played a lot of football. I went for trials when I was 15, I think I was 15. I went for trials for Yorkshire for the football. So quite athletic, quite muscular for a young lad like 15, 16. So quite physical. And around the time before I left Eastmore I got introduced to solvents.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Which were. You'll remember the solvent abuse that were at that time. So I got introduced to solvents and so when I got out of Eastmore at the age of 16, I was on the solvents quite heavily, which was butane gas, and again it would just escape us.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say, yeah, was there reasoning for that? As a society, we look at people taking drugs and just condemn them for taking drugs, but don't ask them why. Yeah, so how long did that go on for, and did it have any lasting detrimental health effects?
Speaker 2:Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1:Don't spontaneously come up now, though, because we'd have to pay for the studio. No, I mean, we'd guess about it, but there was a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Dying. There were a lot of people dying from it Because it used to freeze back of the throat, didn't it? Yeah, a lot of young people got stuck in where they just didn't develop. I look back at some people that abused solvents and stuff and they they haven't really changed from from when they were 16 up to now do you think that's because of the solvent or just because they've not regressed themselves?
Speaker 2:I think. I think it's hard to develop when you're running away from life. No matter what you're doing whether it's alcohol, drugs, solvents I think what you're doing is you're hiding from reality, You're hiding from life, and I think there's just no possibility to develop when that's happening. You're just going around in circles 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how many times have I spoken, I don't know, with me drinking with PTSD, and it wasn't until I started going out walking. So that was 7 years. I'd better drink now every day. And then it was not get too far into it because we're going to do another podcast, but yeah, so I can totally sort of appreciate that and I think that's what a lot of people are. So how did you get yourself off that?
Speaker 2:I think I recognised it in the people around me. I think I started to look because during that time I was going to prisons as well, so I was going to young offenders. So my first sentence was a six-month sentence. I must have been out of the approved school no more than six months. I just started to look at people around me and for some reason I realised that a lot of people were stuck where they were and somewhere within me just said I don't want to be like that.
Speaker 1:Then I came off the solvents and then just started to change my life in different ways, started training, so were these solvents while you were going to prison as well, and I just asked how many times you've been to prison?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so four times, I think.
Speaker 1:Right. So here's a question slightly off Do you think that when you went to prison and obviously you've come through that approved care system if you hadn't have mixed with the people that you met in there, would you have gone to prison? Do you think who?
Speaker 2:can say yeah. What I will say is that when I went to prison it felt like home. And again you see it in that film, scum.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When he walks in and they're all banging on their things and it's like going home.
Speaker 1:Like a community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like a community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some people.
Speaker 2:We all know each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you know, we're the next generation coming through from all the approved schools and barstools. And do you know? And we're meeting in these places and you form some kind of community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've got a friend sort of incarcerated at the moment and you know you can email. Now you know it's brilliant, you can sort of email and ask how people are. So, rather than going just on getting VOs and it's like, oh yeah, so-and-so's here, so-and-so's here, and these are sort of lifetimes, not massive criminals, but in and out and I don't know it's hard when I've never been in and touch wood not going but to accept that system and it's possibly, I think, like I say, go back, because we are a mental health podcast. Then we're talking about what has happened to them to lead up to there that we can't just condemn someone because they've committed a crime. There may be something behind that or what society sees as a crime.
Speaker 2:What got you out of that cycle of in and out and then staying out? So when I was 19, my daughter were born, my first child, and that was a big thing. I looked around and I felt like I don't want to be like these people. Do you know? I'd talk to guys in the 50s, 60s and they'd tell me or they'd come through the same system that I'd come through and they've been going in and out all their lives. I saw that potentially, that that were going to be my life. Right got to the age of um 21 actually I've just I just got started, so it was my last. So my daughter was born when I was 19, then I got imprisoned when I was 20 and I came out when I was 21 and during that time in prison I just felt like I didn't want that to be my life in and out you know, you've sort of said that you've looked around and thought I don't want this to be my life.
Speaker 1:We've got a 19 year old. You're a 19 year old and you've just you've got a new baby. That of just having you. I remember when my daughters were born. You're like, oh, year old and you've just you've got a new baby. That of just having your. I remember when my daughters were born you're like, oh, my god, it's a baby. You know what I mean? This is life changing. How was that feeling of going into prison, yeah, with a young baby on the outside and without, again, not going to too much sort of pain, but you've missed that sort of section of the lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, painful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Painful. The thing that really was difficult for me at that time was I always imagined, if I had children, that they would never have the life that I had. That was a difficult thing, I think being in prison and realising that. You know in the same way, I didn't have a father in my formative years.
Speaker 1:You're right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my daughter was going to suffer the same fate if I didn't, you know, sort myself out. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I suppose that must be a massive awakening that out. Yeah, yeah, so I suppose that must be a massive awakening that really, yeah yeah. I suppose you know, on the other side of that, I don't understand with the sort of people that I sometimes work with now and some people that I've known that have been inside and they've got maybe not, it might be just because they might have sons or something and they've just well, I've turned out all right, so they'll turn out all right and you're like you need to come on If you're not there as part of the life it's.
Speaker 2:To me it was common sense, I'd say more common sense than an awakening. It was just. It just felt like it just went right the way that things were going, and so I knew I needed to make changes.
Speaker 1:We're on a new path now. We've put prison behind us, yeah, and you've got a daughter, so where are we going now? Sometimes I wonder, I think about this transition where people have you've been in a care system in and out, in and out and then prison four times, so what have you got to look?
Speaker 2:forward to no three times up to that point. Okay, sorry, so there's a prison sentence much later on.
Speaker 1:Okay, so these aren't long sentences, they're short sentences.
Speaker 2:Short sentences, yeah, the last one was 18 months, right, but at that time you used to do two-thirds of the sentence. Now I think it's half in it. Yeah, they, I think it's half in it, yeah.
Speaker 1:They do half now. Yeah, so it used to be two sentences. Depends on how long the sentence is, doesn't?
Speaker 2:it? I think, yeah. So that was an 18-month sentence and I did 12 months out of that. Came out and tried to go on the straight and narrow found work, worked doors. Actually, before I'd gone in, a few people had offered me to work on the door. Yeah, and when I came out I would approach it again and I just went straight on doors.
Speaker 1:Which doors in Leeds?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so oh.
Speaker 1:I might know you might have thrown me out.
Speaker 2:So Studio One oh right, yeah. One of the first ones yeah. I used to do a lot of the securities as well. You know when the festivals. Okay yeah, so at that time I used to work for Marco. Oh right, yeah, marco Morocco, yeah, and Joelle Richardson at the time. So it was Joelle actually that approached me and asked me to work on the doors.
Speaker 1:What sort of timeline are we on here? Years.
Speaker 2:So I've just come out of prison. So I'm 21 at the time, 86.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mid-80s prison, so I'm 21 at the time, 86, so mid 80s. Look at that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, start a rave scene that you had an easy time what I no before depends what clubs you were working on before that, yeah, yeah, just working clubs started to make decent money as well. I ended up being head doorman at Japanese Whispers which were in Barnsley, yeah, at the time.
Speaker 1:Takes me back listening to all these news, because I didn't start until I was. I'm just trying to. You know, there are similarities, aren't there? I suppose that I got ripped when I started working doors by people Absolutely ripped. But the reason I started working doors is that I'd had 18 months off work with PTSD and nobody wanted to employ me. Where have you been for the last two years? I've been in prison. Oh yeah, it's alright. No, we don't want you. I've had PTSD. We don't want you. What am I going to do? No CV, yeah, and I got offered a job outdoors. So and that's how you know what I mean it's like well, I did take a CV, so and doors were different then as well, because it was really about your fighting ability.
Speaker 2:It didn't, you know, you didn't have to have a badge or anything at that time and obviously, even though I was quite small, you know, because I'd been brought up always fighting it was second nature just without boxing gloves say that again, just without boxing gloves.
Speaker 1:Boxing gloves, yeah obviously this was all in a home office approved manner. I first started when there were no, no SIA badges and stuff like that. It's a funny one, isn't it? Because, without taking anything away from door stuff at work. Now, that threat of or just that thought that the guy on the door could really deal with anyone in there is a deterrent in itself, whereas now there's not that so much. It's people that are possibly just struggling for work and got a badge, which is a bit sad, but there again, obviously, uh, it did get out of some sort of element.
Speaker 2:Pros and cons? Yeah, definitely definitely so.
Speaker 1:How long were you on the doors?
Speaker 2:up to the age of 26. In that time I I did building college so I became a bricklayer as well, did a PT instructor's course, so I really started to develop myself because it wasn't easy, coming from where I'd come from, just knowing crime, having that mindset. You know, it took a little bit of time to change it completely but by the time I'd got to like me 25, 26 I'd kind of pulled myself together it's up to that time.
Speaker 1:What were your social circles like? Because generally, if you're messing about with criminality, your social circles are criminals as well. So stepping out of that or moving away from that, how was that?
Speaker 2:that one, that one difficult for me. Really. Most of my pals at that time were going to prison for like serious crimes and I didn't want to be part of it because, like I say, do you know, I had my daughter. I think my mind just worked different as well from some of the people that I would around at that time so building college brick lane, which is all positive.
Speaker 1:When we spoke on the phone, you started some businesses of yourself, of your own.
Speaker 2:So I first started experimenting with businesses when I was around 26, 27. I started looking at businesses within boxing and gyms and stuff. So I got involved with some people with gyms and things like that. But it didn't really work out too well in the beginning. And then I set up my own gym. I think I was around 28, 29 at the time. I set up my own gym below a pub in Bramley.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 2:Then I ended up, I took over the pub and then it just went from there. Really, like in terms of business, I started kind of recognising my own skills being an entrepreneur. I realised that I had the ability to kind of have a vision of something, be able to direct people, to kind of show them that vision, and that kind of works for me in that position of being a an entrepreneur was this just natural skills or something that you'd ever trained in?
Speaker 2:natural skills, never trained in it, but at the same time it were probably developed from. When I was in. Like eastmore right, I became an influential person within that environment where people looked up to me and I kind of found my leadership role in Eastmore early on and then I think it develops more as I got older.
Speaker 1:So where's this leading after pubs, or did you keep the pub?
Speaker 2:Yes, I kept that for a couple of years, I think. Then I invested in Demolition, a demolition company from there, invested in another club in Spain, and then eventually invested in a club in Leeds called Silks oh yeah, a lap dancing club.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that were quite successful. We opened that one and then we opened one in manchester and they were both quite successful and, um, doing quite well yeah but we've skipped over a part, sorry so when when I was had the gym and the pub, then I started getting back involved with some old friends okay some old criminal friends friends if you want to call them that, but just people I'd grown up with, you know, still doing the things that we used to do when we were younger, Because I was back in the area.
Speaker 2:So I was back in Bramley Armley.
Speaker 1:I suppose having a pub in that area, where you've grown up, that has its issues as well. I mean, it's just for acquaintances, isn't it? But I can't knock it because it's an industry that I've been in, or I was in, for 20 years, and obviously a good 15 years I was frequenting them before that. But it's got its ups and downs, hasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where you start mixing with. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it would be for that to be honest, I got back involved and my daughter had grown up more or less at that time you know she was a good age, but then I'd had more kids. From that. I'd kind of gone back down the road of being around these people and doing things. And that's when I went back to prison, got involved in a fight. You know you'd go out on a night and there'd just be, before you knew it, there'd be 30 lads around you and some of them just wanting to carry on because you know they had the backup behind them. And it kicked off one night and I ended up, went back to prison, got four years.
Speaker 1:I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you know you've gone through all that stuff of your childhood and then you've gone in and out of the prison system, made this conscious effort to leave that behind because of your daughter, got businesses and then through. You know it's unplanned, isn't it, but it's an unplanned thing. And then it costs you for another four years, yeah.
Speaker 2:How, and then it cost you another four years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how did that feel.
Speaker 2:So it was two years, so it was half remission at that time Difficult. Difficult because I think I'd very much become my own person as well, like I said. So prior to that I was part of the system and since the time of coming out at the age of 21, I'd become more of me on person and found it really difficult to like have people telling me what to do and, you know, barking orders at me and stuff yeah, do you think that's because of the system and what?
Speaker 1:because you know the young people I work with. Sometimes we really cannot do with being told, so what we do is we have to phrase things carefully.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's because I think from my perspective it's because if you come from that kind of background, you've been treated with aggression a lot of the time. When you're quite young and you can't do anything about it. You get older and even a slight little tint of you know hearing that aggression or feeling that aggression, then your aggression comes out. That's what it was like for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it just takes you back, straight back there.
Speaker 2:Whether it's subconscious, anyway, it's like that anger's always there, but it's like it's laying dormant and it's just waiting for somebody to spark it off. It's like I used to be the calmest person and still I'm very, very calm and I don't feel that anger. Now that anger's gone completely, but at that time I used to be so quiet, but then something would just spark it off and then I used to completely change.
Speaker 2:So I imagine it's like that for a lot of young people that have been brought up with aggression and stuff yeah, I think I don't know whether it's, I suppose whether it's a similar thing.
Speaker 1:I spoke earlier about the amdr and it's it's this thing of me not being able to cope with lots of words, and it takes me to a place of anger and sadness as well, because I had to write about the incident that happened with the PTSD and there were times where I thought about taking me online through writing that and it just when I get these systems, I had to speak about it. I had to write it every morning to get a full account and it did work, although because after the six months there was a half a page of writing at start and then new pages of writing. But every time I wrote it it took me back to a place I didn't want to go, and now when I get like letters, I seem to scan words and miss half of it. It's cost me thousands. But DVLN, which is, but in one way, what I'm trying to do is from the end I take. A positive side of it is that I'm trying to get sorted now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, rather than I'm trying to face it. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, it's like you say. So you feel, and I used to. I feel the same thing. I experienced the same thing a lack of um, not, you know, it won't even that you had a lack of vocabulary, but you had a lack of confidence in expressing it yeah and so anger would just come up instead yeah, and I suppose you see that with a lot of young people, yeah, definitely just like flicking a switch, like whoa and whoa and it's you know, even if someone does, yeah, it's just these subconscious triggers.
Speaker 1:Again, I go back to these books Body Keeps the Score and Working the Tiger, where you know it's all there in your subconscious what's happened to you and you might not even know it. Yeah, you know. And then something happens and it's such a. So they are recommended reading if you are in the right frame of mind to do them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, during the time actually when I was working on doors and I was at building college, I read a book called Primal Scream by Dr Janov, and that were very similar. We're talking about your subconscious scars that are always there. It's like a bubbling pot just waiting to boil over.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean? I think some people, or some, yeah some would say that they're all right and they've no problems because they haven't discovered them yet. Right? So you're in business now with the lap dancing clubs. You've got two lap dancing clubs. You're doing quite well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is this leading to your?
Speaker 2:The second part of my life.
Speaker 1:The journey cool yeah so I really want to get into that, because this is we've set up. There's an awful lot yeah, there's a lot we've not brought you in, for no reason.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. John said this would be a really good guy to get in and you were happy to talk, but I'll be honest. Honest, there's tons there, didn't there? Yeah, you need to be writing a book. There is, yeah. So let's get into the recovery, because this is where we start inspiring people yeah, I think this is the most important part, yeah it was a particularly but sorry to to bump in there and was I got your ear seven.
Speaker 3:Was there a particular point now that we're getting to the recovery, or that you just thought I just need to do something now and change something?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, they were. I'm not. I'm not really. I'm not fully sure what the catalyst was. I don't know if it was one thing, two things. What I do know is that I was wealthier than I'd ever been in terms of material things.
Speaker 2:I didn't feel I was happy. In fact, I felt like I was more unhappy, even though I had the freedom, you know, to do whatever I wanted. You know, travel the world, and I did. I went all over the world and, you know, did all the things that I imagined I wanted to do and the things that I imagined would make me happy. I had a beautiful family, I was married at that time and yeah, so on the surface, everything seemed to be going really well compared to where I'd come from. So you can imagine from where I'd come from to where I'd got to.
Speaker 2:You know, it was a really big thing, but I was unhappy within myself. I didn't really know why. All I knew was I had enormous amounts of anxiety. I'd have to sometimes call meetings at the clubs, sit the staff down and talk about how we were going to move forward. I always had the foresight for how we were going to grow the business, so it was my job, to sit everybody down and explain that to them and go through the stages of getting there.
Speaker 2:I was finding that really difficult, Like I said, just full of anxiety. A lot of the time I just felt unhappy and I just felt like I need to do something about it because I would never somebody. Once I got to a certain age and once I'd gone through that with the solvents and and things, I wasn't somebody that would fall back on drink or drugs or anything like that, because I'd realised from a young age that that wasn't the way to go and actually that was just going to take you into a deeper, darker place, and so I want somebody that we're going to do that. I used to train like a demon. At this stage I'm in my forties and I'm doing muscle ups and just training like a demon, and that felt like it was something that I had to do. It wasn't even really that I were enjoying it anymore.
Speaker 1:Would you say that was an escapism? It was, yeah. Similar to the self, yeah.
Speaker 2:Also because of the self-image as well that I was trying to maintain, and obviously I think that's when you feel it, when you're in your 40s and you know you're at the wrong side of you know being able to maintain the level of respect that maybe once you had, you know among the people around you.
Speaker 1:Except you're still in 40. I'm sat here crying now.
Speaker 2:So, but it's different for different people. But for me it was about reputation. So in in Leeds at that time I I had a reputation and I know reputations are stupid and stuff like that, but people put a lot of attachment, if you like put into being able to take care of yourself. Especially if you've had to do it from being young, from being very young, you know that's something that you don't want to let go of, because what's the alternative? Are people going to come and start to try and take advantage?
Speaker 2:So yeah, I used to train like a demon, all that stuff that I've just said. That wasn't really conscious at the time, it was just I was doing it and it was at an unhealthy level. From that point I started to look at things that were a little bit esoteric. I didn't know why I was looking in that direction, but I just started looking at esoteric things in regards to religion Not really religion, but maybe you know the esoteric side of religion, where it came from and stuff like that. I just started looking and then I came across a plant medicine in Peru called ayahuasca.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've had an episode about ayahuasca.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Massive, yeah, massive effects it had on his life. And was that similar ayahuasca? Okay, we've had a episode about ayahuasca. Yeah, massive, yeah, it would win. Yeah, massive effects it had on his life. And was that similar for yourself, or?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I come across it and immediately I felt like that's what I need to do. That's going to be my medicine, I felt. Went to peru, drank ayahuasca with the Shipibo Indians in the rainforest, came back, weren't fully happy with the experience that I had. But the shaman. Do we need to explain about ayahuasca? And what it is.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a combination of two plants.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, it's the shakruna leaf and the capybine and it's mixed together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when they've looked at it I think this might have been something I listened to with Gabor Mate, actually and they've said that the odds of these two plants that are making it, doing it by accident, is absolutely ridiculous. It's stupid, but it's come from somewhere, because one won't work without the other and it won't work with one's an inhibitor you can't take, is it the shakruna?
Speaker 2:the shakruna leaf is the inhibitor, the capybine is the uh dmt down my full trip to me. Yeah, one's an inhibitor. So, to allow the body to absorb it, so did the ayahuasca came back. I was told by the shaman at that time that there was a lot of healing going on, and this is why, um, I didn't really have the effects that I expected or that I'd researched and heard about. He just said to me look, you know the plant's working on you, do you know you you know, just be patient, give it. And then, when I got back to the UK, I heard about another shaman in Spain. So I went and spent some time with him up in the mountains in Montefrio in Spain and had an experience that I can only describe as life-changing, can only describe as life-changing. I realised from that experience that all this idea of who I, of what I thought I was at that time, I realised no, that's not who I am actually. What I am is far more than that. So from there I went on a journey of self-discovery.
Speaker 1:You've realised that you're more than what you thought you were, but what you thought you were might have just been an image based on reputation. Is that what you're sort?
Speaker 2:of saying All of that and more.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I realised that I really knew nothing. I knew nothing and I realised that anything that I'd ever been taught didn't mean anything. So, yeah, it was just completely life-changing.
Speaker 1:And where did that take you then? So you've realised it's life-changing, but how did it change? Did you leave stuff behind or just take a new path?
Speaker 2:What happened was for a few days, maybe a week, I was just walking about like just just feeling at one with with everything, just felt love. During the time, actually, when I had the, the pub years ago and the and the gym underneath the pub, I took ecstasy. I only ever really took half pills, but it was the same feeling without the tablet. It was just natural, it was just happening natural. I just felt this overwhelming love for everything and I just felt, you know, at one with everything. And it lasted for about a week and then the mind came back with a vengeance Right, and then I started to feel anxious again.
Speaker 2:So that's when I went on a journey, then, of looking to see. I just felt strongly within myself that no, there's some kind of teaching out there that can show me how to just do this naturally, because surely I don't need to keep on doing this medicine to experience it. It's an experience that I had, so it must be here within me, so I must be able to find it. It's an experience that I had, so it must be here within me, so I must be able to find it within myself. And so I went on that journey to find it within myself where did that take you?
Speaker 1:what's so, what sort of? Was that sort of different methods of diet and intermittent fasting? Is this all included in that, or?
Speaker 2:that that all came after Right. So from that point I was travelling around the world trying to find answers, trying to find people that had answers. And then I started talking to spiritual people. And that's a landmine, because there's so many different varieties of spirituality and none of it to me at that time were making sense. And then I'd started listening to a guy called Eckhart Tolle. For some reason, the things that Eckhart Tolle was saying it was resonating, but it didn't feel like it was kind of it was fully instructing me how to get to that place that he'd got to that place of peace and he was just describing what I'd experienced in Ayahuasca, you know, that place of just complete peace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything he said resonated with that experience, but I didn't feel like the instructions were there how to get to it. And then I came across a guy called Muji. Immediately when I listened to Muji, Moji immediately. When I listened to Moji, it just immediately I realised no, that's it, that's it and that's how you get to it.
Speaker 1:So when we say get to it, it's just getting into that state that you felt after taking something, but it's with us, within us.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but I learnt that it's not a state. Sorry, yeah, you'd think it's not a state, sorry, yeah, yeah, you'd think it's a state. Yeah, think of a way to describe it. Yeah, but you'd think it's a state that comes and goes. But it's not a state, it's your natural.
Speaker 1:It's a being. I suppose it's your natural self.
Speaker 2:It's not something that's induced by something else else, it's. It's actually a process of letting go, just letting go. This is why I said earlier, I said well, we'll touch on it, because you were asking me about my life and how I was affected by that, and I was saying, well, pros and cons, because I never attached myself to anything, so the part of letting go for me was quite easy.
Speaker 2:Right, I see, yeah, yeah because I'd never said I'm this person, this is my community, you know, this is who I am. It was as if I'd gone through life and life had never allowed me to attach myself to anything. It was like life were always saying to me no, you don't belong there, you don't belong here, you know, in all kinds of different situations. So when I learned it were a process of letting go and it's just letting go of the idea of who you think you are.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I knew immediately yeah, that's what I need to do, and so that's when I started on that path of just letting everything go.
Speaker 1:So in your, obviously, opinion, would you think that some you know people try a lot of different things, a lot of. They keep chasing all these but they never seem to be settled. They never find it is that because they're trying to improve themselves when they're. You don't have to really improve yourself, you just need to find yourself are you talking about how people chase material things?
Speaker 1:no, I think with spirituality, and then mushrooms and lsd or whatever you know, and uh, sort of the ayahuasca. I mean I've just spoke about that. There's three sort of medicines there. Um, where are even going into lots of meditation and things like all these different ways of trying to find something? But, yeah, would it be better just letting something go?
Speaker 2:yeah, obviously there's a place for plant medicine. Yeah, yeah, because, yeah, because that's what brought me to where I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think it's individual, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It suits yeah individual, because not everybody needs plant medicine to get there, but people, I'd say, I'd suggest maybe people with deep trauma, would definitely benefit from plant medicine. We try to find happiness in these things, all these things, do you know? Even plant medicine, even spirituality, where people say, well, when I do this, I'll be happy. What they don't realize that they're doing is the, the saying that some future moment is going to make me happy. Now, do you see? So if you're wanting something in the future, you're never in the present moment. It's just a constant thing of chasing. It's not just that, it's that your attention is going externally for things and nothing out there can make you happy. The only way to make yourself happy is to go within. So turn the attention around and go in. And it's scary for some people. This is what I try to do now. I try to encourage people to just turn around and come back to themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, we've spoke to a few people concerning alcohol on my own, my own history with relationship with alcohol and I think back in the I still have a beer now and again. Well, yeah, quite a few sometimes. Just refer to it Stag Dooser. Sometimes I think people use alcohol to escape from themselves and I think Martin spoke about it. He stopped drinking and was like what do I do with all this time and how do I live with myself, how do I cope with all this time? Sat in myself and he found himself. So you're accepting yourself accepting yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not just accepting yourself, it's learning to let go of the concepts as well, that you've, that you've gathered throughout your life, because that's, that's baggage, believe it or not yeah that's baggage, and so you have to you have to be able to let go of that you know.
Speaker 1:Then we spoke earlier about, you know, having this and it might be quite cathartic. I think this is quite cathartic for me is this? Because I'm, you know, I'm facing this thing at the minute where I'm just absolutely shit with words and this reading and writing thing. But I've now accepted it and I can't and I'm sort of sorting it, but I can't hide it anymore. So, spending 20 years outdoors and 15 years an outdoor instructor together, not all after each other, not that old, but I've actively avoided doing all the admin and stuff like that. You know what I mean and I couldn't let it go. But now I've accepted that it's not. I can't, I struggle with it, I really struggle with it. But if I do it sort of sit down and what I do is I'll do a little bit and then stop for 20 minutes and do a little bit, I've got to accept that. That's me, that's my brain.
Speaker 2:New ones from the PTSD. It's like you're a round peg trying to fit into a square. Yeah, that's what that sounds like.
Speaker 1:Society doesn't. It goes mainstream, doesn't it? We look at the mainstream and then on the edge is tough, yeah, so yeah. I've got. So, yeah, less angry, that's what that's what that sounded like.
Speaker 2:Also, we all have that fear of failure as well, and that's where that's where maybe your suffering's coming from yeah, because things like this, because I'm talking about feeling good enough yeah, yeah, it used to be computer admin can of Stella, but now sort of working around it.
Speaker 1:So where are we now then? Where are we? Where are we at now with what you're doing? Where are you in life?
Speaker 2:So during the process of finding myself, if you like something naturally just gave up meat Right. Gave up acidic foods A lot of research into that isn't there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I started just on a pure alkaline diet, and that's once a day, and I think it's when you clear a lot of this clutter away, you become more aware of what the body needs, and that's what it was for me anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that just happened, naturally yeah, I think there's a lot about diet. We had to dave on, dave stacker on really early about diet and mental, mental. But you know, for myself, I don't know if this is for you, for you, for you, I have to set boundaries now and I I do a fast where it's like one o'clock in the afternoon until like eight o'clock, so I can do seven hours. I do seven hours where I can eat, but I never get a chance to do that and I eat a pretty whole food, plant-based diet anyway. But it suits me, yeah, and they're my values, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you'll feel so much different. If you picked up a chocolate bar now and ate a chocolate bar, you'd feel that straight away. But it's only when you do that, you know, when you purge your body of all that stuff them sugars and stuff that you realise, then if you go back and try to do it, that's when you realise oh no, that's not, that, don't feel right at all that don't feel good. But then it's like you said, barriers having the discipline.
Speaker 1:We do have to be careful sometimes when we talk about food and diet on the podcast, because I don't want to be banging on about not eating meat. I stopped eating meat because exactly what you said. It just didn't agree for me, got rid of it and then went a bit further, which we'll talk about at the minute. But, yeah, went a bit further, which we'll talk about at the minute. But yeah, it's then boundaries and personal boundaries, and it's what suits the individual, isn't it? Yeah, do you know what? We've covered an awful lot there, an awful lot of what's led you up to a certain point in your life, and thank you for talking to us about that. But what I'm thinking is we want to move on to this healing stage, your personal healing and anything anyone can gain from that. What do you think about coming and doing a second part?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely I'm up for that. Is that alright with you, Seb?
Speaker 1:What do you think to that? I think that's a great idea. Yeah means you can edit two parts now.
Speaker 3:Well, you know how much I love it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I just don't think it'd be. You know, after going through what we've spoke, we've covered an awful lot and I think it's been brilliant. We don't want to be rushing a second part, which is the message that we're wanting to get out to people. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sounds good, cool.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot, roy. We'll get you back in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, speak soon, take care.
Speaker 2:Thanks lads.
Speaker 1:And if you'd like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to buy us a coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalkingcom, and look for the little cup. Thank you.