Martin goes on military manoeuvres

I’m joining five other people in staking out a white brick house where we know a group of terrorists have been hiding. We’re armed to the teeth with pistols, a machine gun, grenades and flares.

 Lying on the floor with our guns trained on a clearing below us, we can see some of the bad guys gathered about 30 yards in front of us, standing around a Land Rover, talking and smoking. As far as we know, they are oblivious to our presence.

 Suddenly, slightly to our left and about four feet in front of us, there is a rustling in the trees, a loud noise and something comes bursting into view.

 Terrorist, escaping hostage or bird? We have a split-second to decide. 

  Startled by the noise and keen to prove ourselves in military combat, my partner and I let fly several rounds from our pistols.

 It’s a good job they were blanks and the whole thing was a teambuilding exercise, or the pheasant which we shot would have been on the main course of that evening’s menu at our hotel.

 Welcome to Blackdown UK Corporate Training. The house is not in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else where Her Majesty’s Forces have been doing business in the past 20 years. It’s in a forest in the East Midlands where Blackdown, a company formed by a group of ex-Army veterans and business professionals, has its’ base.

 Blackdown, as their training brochure puts it ‘provide quality training products and services by taking the military way of thinking and applying it to business scenarios.’

 In other words, they train people to expect the very unexpected and how to cope when it happens.

 I’m on a media day which is giving a group of journalists a taste of Blackdown’s itinerary. The really adventurous can take their survival expeditions to Sweden and France, but we will stay in this forest for a day which will prove unforgettable enough.

 The first thing to know is how to survive in the open. How long can you last without air, shelter, food or water? Our instructor Phil, the epitome of an Army man standing well over 6ft tall and with the archetypal military haircut, tells us the first thing we will need is shelter, so our two two-person teams are sent out into the forest with a tent sheet, bungee clips and pegs and told we have five minutes to construct our own shelter.

 I’m afraid to say your blogger’s team was still working out what was what when the whistle blew. As Phil pointed out, in a real scenario, it could have been snowing or raining sideways, we could have been caught in a sandstorm...we could have been dead.

 Having learnt how to use a short-wave radio (got that bit!), we moved on to orienteering, finding our way round what seemed a vast expanse of forest with nothing more than a map and compass. Given time, I’m sure I would have worked it out but as Phil’s colleague Ben (a pocket battleship of a man) pointed out, in real life time is the thing you may not have.

 After lunch came the bit we had secretly all been waiting for - pistol training and close-quarter battle. I quickly got the hang of handling and firing the pistols so, with paintball weapons taking the place of machine guns, it was on to close-quarter battle and into the ‘kill house.’

 This is a converted two-storey cattle shed with life-size pictures of the bad guys (and their hostages) scattered throughout. Can you tell the difference between terrorist and hostage in the dark, with a split-second’s notice, with guns and grenades going off all around you?

 I did surprisingly well, even managing to get off a couple of rounds while sprawled on the floor in the dark after stumbling over my own shoelaces. Unfortunately, when the lights went on and we debriefed, we discovered that in my adrenalin-fuelled enthusiasm to shoot at something, anything, I’d killed the hostage as well as the terrorist.

 Never again will I ask how something like that happens.

 Finally, on to what Blackdown call ‘Vehicle Contact Drills’; in other words, what to do when your car is ambushed. With Phil and Ben driving the cars and doing most of the firing, we learnt that priority No 1 for a VIP in this case (think Wills and Kate suddenly being collared by Al Qaeda) is to get the heck out of the car, roll away as fast as you can and let the security experts do their jobs.

 We had taken in an enormous amount of information in the last five hours but now came the finale - the bit we’d all been waiting for, the simulated battle.

 I won’t give away any secrets, in case this piece tempts you to get in touch with Blackdown and try it for yourself but highlights included running away from an ambushed car and heading straight into a bush full of thorns; gathering our group together following the ambush and realising the spot we had chosen was a bog two feet deep in mud; stumbling down a bank and falling over (again) after a tree branch broke off in my hand and, of course, the unfortunate incident with the pheasant.

 I couldn’t walk for two days afterwards but it was worth it for an unforgettable experience which I highly recommend. Blackdown is not cheap but for companies looking for teambuilding days with a difference, I can’t imagine anything better. 

BlackdownUK can be contacted via www.blackdown-uk.com.

Real ale, real football and some really friendly welcomes

So there we were, 16 real ale-drinking Tamworth FC fans sitting in a pub deep in the Leicestershire countryside at 11am on Saturday, just about to tackle our opening pints of Wychwood Dogs’ B******s, when a white horse appeared in the road outside.

 We should have known it was going to be that kind of day.

 We were on our way to the FA Cup first-round tie between Tamworth and Hinckley United at the Greene King Stadium. The name gives you a clue as to why we were also on a meticulously-planned pub crawl.

 We wanted proper local beer in proper local pubs, offering a friendly welcome, either side of what was always going to be a testing 90 minutes against our neighbours from the league below Tamworth in the football pyramid.

 I had just raised the first glass to my lips at our opening venue when the horse and its’ owner appeared. I put down my pint, wandered outside and found that horse and owner were deep in conversation with a large brown spaniel and his owner - right in the middle of the road. ‘You don’t see that too often on the A5,” I mused, while becoming engaged in fascinating conversation with everyone involved.

 Eventually, the mare wandered off to her stables, I returned to finish my pint and the party headed for one of the highlights of the day - the new pub which Church End Brewery owns in......oh, I’m not telling you; if you’re interested, it’s not too hard to find.

 We found a wonderful welcome, some of the best beer in the Midlands and food that clearly had not come out of the microwave. Church End deserve enormous credit for this - even as the nights draw in, I urge you to venture into the countryside and give it a go.

 Our final pre-match venue had been warned in advance that we were coming and, rather than banning us or ordering up a contingent of Leicestershire’s finest to monitor us, had got in an extra barrel of beer. Should Hinckley win promotion this season, we’ll remember that gesture when planning next year’s trip.

 Which brings us to the match - and if I told you everything, I’d still be writing this time next week. So, in brief - Hinckley’s goalkeeper is sent off in the first half for kicking a Tamworth forward (who kicked him back and wasn’t punished); the referee tried to award a penalty to Tamworth for the above incident, having already given the hosts a free-kick because the Tamworth player had originally fouled the goalkeeper; Hinckley’s replacement No 1 played a blinder; all four goals came in the last 12 minutes with Tamworth equalising twice, the first time via a highly questionable penalty given for a ‘foul’ in the area by a referee who lost control early on; there was a minor brawl in the stands involving some teenage idiots; a fight broke out in the dugouts when some water was ‘allegedly’ thrown - and the winners of the replay on November 22 have to haul it all the way up the A1 to Gateshead in the second round.

 Your blogger will be on holiday in South Africa on that day......

 Pub Crawl, part two - We recovered from the game in an Everards’ pub which seems to be the highlight of its’ native village in the Leicestershire countryside. After games such as that, it often takes an hour or more to get rid of all the adrenalin and we could have happily stayed all night - but the man with the satnav and the schedule had other plans.

And so we were off to another pub which I will only refer to here as ‘The D&H in D.’ It didn’t look the sort of place that would greet 16 scruffy and fairly well-oiled oiks in Tamworth scarves and shirts and big coats but once again, I’ll remember it for the warmth of the welcome. Mrs W and I will certainly be paying a return visit to sample the menu. 

 There aren’t many places, even the finest CAMRA-recommended pubs, where the landlord collects empty glasses from your table and asks you if the beer was acceptable.

 Our day ended in the finest possible fashion, in the gentle care of Church End Brewery. First it was back to the country pub, then to the brewery tap, which I am happy to reveal is in Ridge Lane, near Atherstone. 

 If you can’t find the former, you should certainly visit the latter, where every one of the Church End range is on tap and you can look from the bar through large glass windows into the brewery plant itself.

 The replay of the football is on November 22 at The Lamb - sadly, there won’t be a replay of the crawl as your blogger lives five minutes from the ground.

 And as for Gateshead? Some of us will be at Sun Eden Naturist Resort in South Africa on that day - and with a game reserve next door, I suspect I might be watching something even more remarkable than white horses in the middle of the road. 

A week in the life

Any blogger or columnist will tell you that there are times when the words just flow from the brain.

 Then, there are times when you sit for hours staring at the computer, trying to dredge up a new topic or put a new twist on something you wrote about three weeks previously.

 Then, there are weeks when so much is going on that trying to put a structure to it all seems pointless.... such as the week your blogger is having.

 Here then, are a few random thoughts from six days in the life of a hard-working, positive- (and negative-) thinking, freelance journalist full of hope for the future, looking for a break and realising that the world is either a bitch or full of good, caring, people - depending on the moment.

Sunday - Thank the Lord for James Dyson, inventor of the eponymous vacuum cleaner. Pre-Dyson, seeing a nine-inch piece of string disappear through the front of the machine and up into the mechanism meant taking the machine apart to extract the string and hoping it all fitted together again thereafter. Post-Dyson, even I can unscrew a couple of fasteners, unclip the front, remove the offending item and resume vacuuming within 15 minutes.

 Monday - a thought, please, for a previous subject of this blog. In September, I wrote about the talking book group I attend and, in particular, the indefatigable 85-year-old lady who is a crucial part of the social glue which holds it together. As I write, she is making a 40-mile round trip to hospital for daily radiography sessions and, from all accounts, feeling extremely fed up about it. Some people deserve the prayers of all of us. She is one.

Tuesday - with two weeks to get the remaining contents of the winter edition of British Naturism to the typesetter, I suddenly remember the Radcliffe and Maconie show. Once a crucial part of my evenings when on Radio 2, it has somehow escaped me since decamping to the afternoons on Radio 6. Seeking a lift during my journalistic labours, I turn  on the digital radio - and find Craig b****** Charles filling in while they are on holiday.

 Wednesday - meet up with three former colleagues for a (very expensive and not very good) pint at one of our local hostelries. There is more than 100 years of journalistic experience around the table and I am the youngest of the quartet by a few years. For two hours, we have a laugh, share memories, talk about the collapse of the regional newspaper business..and ponder on the irony of rumours that our former employer is considering moving back into the city centre from which it decamped, with nary a thought for its’ staff, not much more than three years ago.

 Leave there for a meeting with the Tamworth FC Heritage Project Committee and the vice-chairman of Tamworth FC. We’re discussing how the mass of detail about the club’s history which we gathered can be used for the benefit of the next generation of TFC supporters. 

 For a few days after the Hall of Fame evening (discussed here in September), we were all exhausted by our labours - now, it seems that our enthusiasm has been refuelled.

 Thursday - A meeting of the Tamworth and District Tourism Association, a body designed to promote the interests of Tamworth and its’ businesses and draw more visitors into the town. We’ve just finished building a website which, if I may say so, is probably one of the best tourism websites around (but which I can’t tell you more about just yet!)

 A two-hour meeting leaves me enthused about the many good things Tamworth has to offer, yet infuriated that too many local businesses and people don’t seem equally inspired. From now, I will spend one day a week touring the town and promoting this website.

And today? Work on the magazine this morning, then a meeting this afternoon with a fascinating lady I met at my business breakfast group. She’s one of those sparky people who lights up a room just by walking in (being Irish probably has something to do with it!).

 I’m hoping she’ll help me continue the positive vibe I’ve felt for much of this week. I’m sure my friend from the book group wouldn’t want it any other way.