Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [30]
I think it goes back to the English Scarlet Pimpernel mentality: the nobility of aspiring to be the hidden hero. (In fact, I am sure it is no coincidence, that over the years, so many senior SAS officers have been also Old Etonians. Now explain that one, when the SAS really is the ultimate meritocracy? No school tie can earn you a place there. That comes only with sweat and hard work. But the SAS also attracts a certain personality and attitude. It favours the individual, the maverick and the quietly talented. That was Eton for you, too.)
This is essentially a very English ethos: work hard, play hard; be modest; do your job to your utmost, laugh at yourself and sometimes, if you have to, cuff it.
I found that these qualities were ones that I loved in others, and they were qualities that subconsciously I was aspiring to in myself – whether I knew it or not.
One truth never changed for me at Eton: however much I threw myself into life there, the bare fact was that I still really lived for the holidays – to be back at home with my mum and dad, and Lara, in the Isle of Wight.
It was always where my heart really was.
As I got older, the scope of my world increased.
My mum helped me buy a second-hand moped (in fact it was more like eighth-hand, thinking about it), and was also an ‘elderly person’s’ model – and in purple. But it was a set of wheels, despite only being 50 c.c.
I rode it everywhere: around our little village to see friends, and into town to go to the gym. (I had found a gritty, weightlifters’ gym that I loved going to as often as I could.) I rode the moped on the beach at night, and I ragged it up the dirt tracks (as much as one can rag an ‘elderly person’s’ purple moped).
I felt free.
Mum was always so generous to Lara and me growing up, and it helped me develop a very healthy attitude to money. You could never accuse my mum of being tight: she was free, fun, mad and endlessly giving everything away – always. Sometimes that last part became a bit annoying (such as if it was some belonging of ours that Mum had decided someone else would benefit more from), but more often than not we were on the receiving end of her generosity, and that was a great spirit to grow up around.
Mum’s generosity ensured that as adults we never became too attached to, or attracted by money.
I learnt from her that before you can get, you have to give, and that money is like a river – if you try to block it up and dam it (i.e. cling on to it), then, like a dammed river, the water will go stagnant and stale, and your life will fester. If you keep the stream moving, and keep giving stuff and money away, wherever you can, then the river and the rewards will keep flowing in.
I love the quote she once gave me: ‘When supply seems to have dried up, look around you quickly for something to give away.’ It is a law of the universe: to get good things you must first give away good things. (And of course this applies to love and friendship, as well.)
Mum was also very tolerant of my unusual aspirations. When I found a ninjutsu school, through a magazine, I was determined to go and seek it out and train there. The problem was that it was at the far end of the island in some pretty rough council estate hall. This was before the moped, so poor Mum drove me every week … and would wait for me. I probably never even really thanked her.
So, thank you, Mum … for all those times and so much more.
By the way, the ninjutsu has come in real handy, at times.
CHAPTER 27
One of the many great things about growing up on the Isle of Wight was that during the wintertime the community was quiet: the weather was blowy and the sea was wild.
I loved that – it gave me time to climb, train, and do all the outdoorsy stuff I had started to need so badly.
Then in summertime, it would go crazy, with families from London and beyond coming down and renting cottages for the holidays. Suddenly the place would be teeming with kids my age with whom to mess about, sail, and hang out. I loved it then, even