Royal Ordnance plc; Reliance Security Limited; Territorial Army, 1989–94
Becoming a Civilian
It seemed it was finally time to stop being a soldier. After leaving the SSF I returned to New Zealand, where my family had remained, and set about finding a new job. I had completed a number of correspondence courses while abroad but soon discovered there were very few job opportunities in New Zealand itself.
After a number of weeks of fruitless searching, I decided that I needed to look elsewhere for work, and so I travelled to the United Kingdom and stayed for some time at the Special Forces Club in the centre of London. I had been a member of this club since 1976 when I had first joined 22 SAS. I lived in the smallest room in the building; it was not cheap to live in London, but it gave me the opportunity to look for work in either military or security-based industries. I was eventually offered a job as a small arms sales manager with the Ammunition Division of Royal Ordnance, the British small arms manufacturer based at Royal Ordnance Factories (ROF) in Chorley, Lancashire. My salary interestingly was the same as I had been getting when I was with KMS in 1981, and this was now 1989! I moved to Chorley by myself initially, and then, six months later, my family, somewhat disheartened to have to leave behind friends and family in New Zealand, eventually joined me.
The Royal Ordnance Factories could trace their history right back to 1560 with the founding of the Royal Gunpowder Factory; now they were trying to find their way in an increasingly competitive marketplace under the ownership of British Aerospace (BAe). My initial role was selling small arms and support weapons ammunition; it was then expanded to include selling demolition explosives. One of the products I was involved in developing was ‘frangible’ ammunition. This small arms ammunition was designed to be used by counterterrorism forces in order to minimise the collateral damage that could be caused by a high-velocity round being fired into a street, in a building, on a vessel or in an aircraft. The project took me to a number of agencies including the SBS in Poole and the Irish Army in Dublin. Unfortunately, the ballistic characteristics of the round were inconsistent and so it was not a success.
I also travelled to potential clients to demonstrate an explosive called ECT or ‘explosive cutting tape’. This is a very cleverly designed strip of adhesive explosive that is extremely useful for cutting through metal and small, specific areas. One interesting trip I made was a long arduous journey into Finland to a demolition range deep in the forests. I was tasked to demonstrate the use of ECT on German World War II aerial bombs so that they could be split open and the explosives inside safely be removed and destroyed. I believe they still had large stock piles of them left over from World War II. The bombs, less fuzes, were hung in a sling under a wooden frame; ECT was wrapped around them and detonated using a detonator and an electrical exploder. It was a very successful demonstration.
The main marketplaces for RO munitions were countries, frequently former British colonies, which still had UK military hardware such as 155mm and 105mm artillery as well as 30mm ammunition for the Aden cannon used in armoured vehicles and some aircraft.
I was able to expand my job and through promotion become an Ammunition Division international sales manager. This involved more travel, and I think I visited almost every country in Africa, Asia, North America and Europe, with the obvious exception of the Soviet Union. Working for Royal Ordnance could certainly be quite testing and those of us working in sales often had an expression that Royal Ordnance could be almost guaranteed to ‘snatch defeat from the jaws of victory’. I would often win an order, but the factory concerned was unable to fulfil the order in time or to the right specification; or to manufacture the quantity required; or to complete the order for any number of other reasons. The order was then lost to a competitor. It was a regular and frustrating experience.
During 1993 it was becoming obvious that RO was having difficulties in maintaining its sales world-wide against increasing competition from France, the United States, India and Pakistan. It was more and more difficult to get items produced on time to meet customers’ requirements. In December 1995 I was called into an interview with the Director of Marketing, a corpulent former military brigadier, and advised that I was being made redundant. I was to be escorted to my desk and was required to leave the RO site within 20 minutes. This was not a total surprise to me as there had been redundancies announced in other departments over previous weeks and I was certainly an expensive commodity. What I did find totally unacceptable was the manner in which my redundancy was managed.
I stated quite firmly to this ex-brigadier that nobody was escorting me anywhere and that I would return to my desk, on my own, collect my personal items and then leave. On returning to my department I advised my colleagues and my assistants that I was leaving and wished them well. I had ridden to work on my Harley Davidson Sportster that morning and as I walked towards it in the carpark I thought, ‘Do I turn right into ignominy or turn left and make my feelings about the manner of my departure apparent to all?’ Right was towards the exit from the RO complex – left was towards the rather grand glass front doors of the RO headquarters. I fired up the Harley and turned left, riding through the two sets of glass sliding doors, then made a noisy, very noisy, victory lap around the lobby and vestibule of the headquarters complex. Then I turned right and finally departed from the clutches of RO and BAe.
I made a personal vow that, as soon as humanly possible, I would run my own company so that I could never be treated like that again. In hindsight, being made redundant was the best thing that could have happened to me!
However, at the time, it was a difficult financial situation to be in. I would need to find a job soon to make ends meet. I think I wrote some 500 or so letters applying for various vacancies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Replying to a letter is not a form of courtesy that is practised by many companies these days. The number of replies was small – so much so, that Cecilia and I called them GTFs – ‘Get to Fuck’ letters. We had to maintain a sense of humour and replies were grouped into good GTFs and bad GTFs. The difference being that some respondees actually said thank you for replying to their particular job vacancy!
Just after I arrived back in the United Kingdom to join RO in 1989 I had also applied to join the local Territorial Army (TA) unit which happened to be the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry. This was a UK-based Land Rover-borne reconnaissance unit specifically with an anti-Spetznaz (Russian Special Forces) role in the event of conflict with the Soviet Union. I thought my previous airborne and Special Forces experience would be useful in hunting down Spetznaz troops who might land in the United Kingdom. The Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry had squadrons located throughout the Lancashire area and I worked with A Squadron, the Wigan-based squadron. I had had a little prior experience with the Territorial Army when I was a squadron commander with 21 SAS in London in 1981. This time I was to spend over ten years with the Territorial Army in various capacities before eventually retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2000. The Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry had its origins in the various troops of light horse raised in the eighteenth century in the county of Lancaster. The sovereign holds the dukedom and has traditionally been the regiment’s colonel-in-chief. At the loyal toast during a formal dinner officers of the regiment would say, ‘Her Majesty, The Queen – The Duke of Lancaster’.
The regiment had a long and proud history. It had sent mounted infantry for service in the Anglo-Boer War as the Imperial Yeomanry, between 1900 and 1902. The Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry also had a fascinating history as cavalry in World War I and was one of the last units to carry out a cavalry charge against an enemy. The unit continued to wear chain mail on the shoulders of formal dress in recognition of this fact. During World War II the regiment was mobilised as horsed cavalry but, in 1940, it converted into artillery and formed the 77th Medium and 78th Medium Regiments of Royal Artillery. The 78th went on to serve in Palestine, Syria and Italy as part of 6th Army Group, Royal Artillery.
The 77th remained in Northern Ireland until early 1944 when it prepared for the invasion of Europe. Landing in Normandy on D-Day plus 6, it was attached to 8th Army Group Royal Artillery and fought for the Odon Bridgehead and in the battle of the Falaise Gap. It also provided support for Operation Market Garden at Arnhem in September 1944.
In 1947 the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry was re-formed as an armoured regiment. Its role changed to reconnaissance in 1956, when it was equipped with armoured cars, but on 1 April 1967 it combined with the 40th/41st Royal Tank Regiment. Two years later, this combined regiment was reduced to a cadre until 1971 when it was re-formed as an infantry unit. On 1 April 1983, it re-joined the Royal Armoured Corps as a home defence reconnaissance unit equipped with Land Rovers. In other words, it changed from pumpkins to carrots to swedes to radishes then back to pumpkins again. On 1 November 1992 the regiment was eventually disbanded as a result of the Options for Change and its units amalgamated with The Queen’s Own Mercian Yeomanry to form The Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry with a ‘D’ (Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry) Squadron.
But in 1989 it was still most definitely the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry, a regiment in its own right, and one I was proud to join as a major.
I could not have been more impressed by the hard graft that the Territorial Army soldiers whom I commanded put in week after week. As I’ve already mentioned, TA soldiers would work all week in various types of jobs – and at this point in time in the north-west of England the majority of these jobs would be extremely physically demanding – then on a Friday evening they would come into the drill hall and be fully prepared to spend an arduous weekend on exercise somewhere in the United Kingdom, before being back at their normal work first thing on a Monday morning.
Before the regiment was amalgamated I was promoted and posted as commanding officer of the 42 North West Brigade Specialist Training Team (BSTT). I was rebadged to SAS. The BSTT was based with the 42 Brigade Headquarters in Fulwood Barracks, Preston. These barracks were a fine example of a solid, grey, Victorian military fort. The BSTT was responsible for running all arms promotion and skills courses and my staff were all trained instructors from the various TA organisations located in the north-west of England. We were also responsible for organising and running shooting training for the brigade units as well as annual training exercises. This would result in a number of interesting exercises and courses, some in unusual places such as Russia and Hungary. Unfortunately, and somewhat remarkably, I was also injured more often than I ever was in the regular army, including sustaining a severed Achilles tendon on a United Nations military observers course in Russia and a badly fractured humerus after crashing my hang-glider on a military adventure training expedition in Spain.
Meanwhile back in the commercial world after several months job-hunting I was approached by Ken Holmes, a former Grenadier Guardsman and member of the Guards Independent Parachute Squadron, to apply for the role of sales and marketing director with Reliance Aviation Security (RAS). I had first met Ken in Bahrain where he was the aviation security consultant with Gulf Air. Back then, of course, the SSF and I would frequently travel to Bahrain and train on Gulf Air aircraft. Ken was my point of contact there and we had always worked well together.
The company offices were near London Heathrow, with another smaller office in Crawley, near London Gatwick. During the week I stayed in a flat in Woking. The company provided security services to the airlines at both airports and so I got to know the M25 very well indeed, not to mention the M3 and M4 as I would make the lengthy journey home on a Friday night.
My role primarily involved growing the client base for RAS. It was a cut-throat business and competition was fierce. RAS was one of only four aviation security companies licensed by the British Aviation Authorities to work in London Heathrow and one of three licensed to work in Gatwick. Aviation companies were experts at playing one security company off against another. It was long, stressful hours and a real learning curve but with excellent employers from whom I learned a great deal. There were also some unexpected upsides.
One particular day in 1993, I was required to personally supervise the security at the British Midland hangar at London Heathrow. Richard Branson was naming his new Airbus A340-300 aircraft and he was going to call the aircraft ‘Lady in Red’. He had contacted Buckingham Palace and requested that Diana, Princess of Wales, personally name and christen the new aircraft. She duly arrived in the hangar and, as she was about to name the aircraft with the traditional bottle of champagne, a scissor-hoist at the side of the aircraft which had been concealed by an awning started rising and on it, seated behind his grand piano, was Chris De Burgh, singing his hit song ‘Lady in Red’, much to the great delight of Her Royal Highness.
On 9 March 1994 I had more than my fair share of my 15 minutes of fame. The IRA fired four mortar bombs from a car parked in the Excelsior Hotel car park beside Heathrow Airport. This car park was right beside the airport perimeter. The bombs, which did not explode, landed near the northern runway. I was interviewed by a BBC camera crew at the time and mentioned that I had carried out a recent security survey of the hotel and had identified the Excelsior Hotel car park as a potential mortar attack site. So started a fascinating circus of interviews, both radio and television, and I was passed from one media provider to the next with interviews all around London. The furore only lasted for about two or three days and it was a whirlwind while it happened. I even had a call from relations in New Zealand who had seen me being interviewed on CNN.
In 1995 RAS was sold to ICTS, an Israeli security company, and I took over Reliance Security’s manned guarding operation based in Crawley. Man-guarding is even more cut-throat than aviation security. It did not take me long to decide that this wasn’t for me and I put in a request to Reliance Security to work three days a week while I established my own security consultancy business. They kindly agreed and while they were looking for a full-time replacement for me they were happy for us to continue together, while I would tried to obtain new clients for my own consultancy in the two days that I wasn’t working for Reliance.
Overall, I had learned how to successfully operate a business on tight profit margins for demanding clients while also trying to both train and retain the best people for the job. On the side I had also begun studying for my Master’s in Security Management. Now it was clearly time for me to strike out fully on my own.