The Last Word

27 January 2020

Dearest H

Well this is my last letter. Purely via this blog. It is aimed at summarising all the posts so far and bringing you up to date. It is a miserable January day here in Dorset. The house is quiet, the dogs sleeping peacefully and C is out at work. What better time to reflect and summarise on the last 15 years.

You are still in my thoughts every day. From the few snippets I can glean I am guessing you are still in Manchester. I often ask myself why? My only experiences of the city are of a grey, dark, miserable and wet place with an underlying sense of threat. I do worry every time I hear of another violent crime on the news, that there will be a knock on the door. That is if I am even on the radar as a NOK/ ICE.

I think we are born country mice or town mice and I probably always feel stressed in any urban setting. Maybe you are different and like your mother loving the vibe and edge a city has, its musical culture, its immediacy. Maybe you have a great set of friends who you love and trust. Maybe, you are more like your Dad and exist to escape at the weekends to somewhere quiet away from the pustulant masses. The Peak district, Jodrell Bank, Lyme Park, Bramhall Park, Alderley Edge all places I remember fondly from my very early years living in Bramhall before moving to a Yorkshire village. Places of beauty and peace that your Grandma Jean loved and your grand dad too. She lived out her days in and around Goostrey, Holmes Chapel and Congleton all of which have their own charm.

Some news this end.

I have retired. No that is not quite true I have had retirement thrust upon me I guess. The business has struggled for many years and existed in different forms but after twenty years it just did not give me either the financial or emotional returns to be worth holding on to it. I found it harder and harder to motivate myself to run a business and to keep on top of the mounting pressures and diminishing returns so bit the bullet and sold up. I have let go of my other baby in a sense and whilst it is not half as sad as losing you it still feels like a loss. It was definitely time to let this one go and hand it over to someone else to love and nurture.

Deliberate or no alternative?

It has been both frightening and a relief to let go of the last 20 years of my life. But, it has fulfilled a promise I made to myself some years ago. That was to retire at 55. I did not think this was going to be possible following the financial impact f divorce and having to start again but by June 2019, I was at the point where I was so unhappy with both the business (thanks Brexit) and my performance or lack there of, that letting go and walking away was the sensible option. The second time this has occurred in my adult life. On this occasion it was without doubt the right thing to do and whilst what pension provision I have will not last long it probably does not have to. What it has enabled me to do though is take time out to recharge, recuperate and reassess and make space for opportunity as it arises.

The rationale

By way of explanation: Your Great Grandfather (CL) died on his 65th birthday, on his retirement day! This was from lung cancer and was mercifully pretty quick. I was very close to him and it had a profound effect on me as a 7 year old. My father was devastated. He found a bucket list of all the things Grandad was going to do when he retired. Things that my father had so wanted in his relationship with his dad and which sadly never came to pass.

My own father (your Grandfather P) died at 66 of bowel cancer after a five year battle. He never retired either but worked right through until he was too sick. You may or may not remember your Grandfather. You were only 2 when he died and did not see much of him. i remember you did not like the way he smelled. Sadly that had more to do with chemo than personal hygiene. They say dogs can smell cancer. maybe children can too? He also died with a long wish list that he never started despite having taken about it many times. He was in the end just too ill to do them.

Between them, they left a legacy for me that was two fold.

i) a morbid fear I would die young and

ii) a promise to myself to live life to the full and retire young enough to do all the things that I could to experience this beautiful world and all it has to offer.

I swore I would retire at 55. This would give me at least 10 years (based on family history), to enjoy the fruits of my labour and hopefully with good health , advances in medicine and the fact I have never smoked perhaps much longer.

A crossroads

I now find myself at that critical juncture - able at last to do all the things I never had time for. The things I have always wanted to do. New things I have put off or never dreamed of doing in reality and perhaps most importantly some real time for reflection as to what is important to me. This website is a case in point. Finally, I have put in one place all the stuff you might not want or like to hear, but need to know in order that you can make sense of what happened to you and what has shaped you as a person. I am not sure what you will make of it but it has allowed me to reflect with the benefit of hindsight and some cognitive distance. It has enabled me to process some stuff finally and to come to terms with some of my stupidity, selfishness and ignorance. To realise life is not black and white, good or evil but shades of both. It enables me to close out a chapter of my life and accept I will probably never see you again and be at peace with that knowing you now have all the information you need to answer the questions you have and to better understand just how loved and important you are. Maybe enough info to ensure the sins of both your father and mother are not visited on your children.

Leaving a legacy

I am again sitting at a cross roads in my life as I am sure many have and will in the future. I look back on my life with much regret and also some real pride. I have made huge mistakes, I have hurt people not least you. I have done things I am ashamed of and I have not always done good by others or myself. At the same time I have helped many hundreds and even thousands find answers, a better life, peace, wealth, happiness through my work and personally. I believe I have on balance done much more good than bad in this world, given more than I have taken, and have helped many more than I have hurt. I have always sought to pay it forward and do good by others. So why am I at a cross-roads? Why the questions? Why the uncertainty? It is simply the age old dilemma of ordinariness. I have lived most of my life seeking to be extraordinary and helping others to be extraordinary. Pushing myself and others( including you) to achieve more. Yet, I feel I am having to make do with being ordinary in most part. This has left me unhappy for much of my life. I find an elastic string where at one end I look at my life and regret the lack of a legacy: be it fame, fortune or celebrity. A sign that this is a life that mattered, made a difference that counted. At the other end I am looking at contentment, peace, tranquility, ordinariness. Seeking extraordinary in myself and others and not doing enough to ever feel satisfied yet finding happiness in ordinariness and contentment in just being. Bizarre!

What is happiness?

I believe that happiness is actually best defined as the absence of unhappiness. We only know we were truly happy when we are no longer. It is a relative thing we can only judge looking back. Like Whale watching with you in Vancouver, holding you the first time, hearing you sing Scarlet ribbons or Castles on a cloud. Those moments of joy are what take ones breath away and make life and all its trials worth living.

"Happiness is the absence of unhappiness"

Meaning

I also think that happiness is only present when we have meaning in our life and in the things we do. A life without purpose is empty. You only have to look around the streets of Manchester and any other city to see those without a purpose washed up like flotsam against shop doorways. When you arrived, you gave my life purpose. When I lost you it ceased for many years to have any meaning. So if you have not already done so find your purpose your raison d'être. it will literally save your life.

Control

We also need control over our destiny to be happy. When someone else; a boss, a partner; a parent, a customer is in control, we feel vulnerable, threatened and powerless. Without meaning and control we become stressed, distressed, ill at ease; 'dis-eased ' if you will. We end up mentally and physically impacted. You, like me were severely stressed as a child through a situation outside of your control that you could not at the time connect meaningfully with. I was controlled by your mum in who we met, what we did and where we went my only means of regaining control was to live and work away. Sadly all it did was focus all the controlling tendencies on you. Ask yourself why you were not allowed to see me, Lucy Clair and many others. What I have learned over my 56 years on this earth is that you cannot let someone else control you You have to be in control of your own destiny and that requires some tough choices and some difficult decisions. Ultimately you have to to find peace. The longer you leave it, the more you push this dis-ease to one side the more it become a ticking time bomb. So do please seek the answers you need to be happy or at least content. Sometimes that means standing up to a bully, taking a beating once if necessary ; it means telling truth to power; standing up for those weaker than yourself and not following the herd.

What happens if you don't address your demons?

My own childhood trauma came back to bite me at every turn. It impacted my development, my maturity, my decision making, my sense of self worth, my understanding of relationships, of love, and of what home is to name but a few. I am certain that you can relate to some of those at least. There is an excellent book called "Parents they fuck you up" which I read and sent to your mum during our drawn out fight over you. It explains the mental models and maps of the world we create based on our experiences. Your map and my map of the world are not accurate. They are not reality but a version of it. All of our maps are skewed based on our experience of threat. Our fight / flight response is triggered by different things and at different times leaving us in a high state of anxiety. For example; What others might consider normal happy experiences like a family Christmas might leave you drained due to an overactive stress response filling your brain with stress hormones based on a childhood experience. Dropping a plate may take you right back to 8 years old watching your mother throwing and smashing plates at your father.

"Stress is the direct result of a lack of control and an absence of meaning"

Leaving home

For me leaving 'home' was an escape. An escape from a toxic battle ground where I observed or was drawn into the daily warfare between two individuals who should not have been married. ( imho) For someone so sick of conflict and afflicted by the fallout of a my parents divorce and my step-mothers insanity, it might seem strange that I chose to join the Marines. Yet it was a safe place. It was full of like minded, extroverted, sporty similar souls who enjoyed their freedom and the challenge of success as I did. Perhaps University fulfilled the same role for you. I was happy amongst high achieving individuals driven by targets and willing to do what was necessary to prove their worth.

Achievement Drive

With the wisdom of years of hindsight, research and reflection, I now see that high achievers are destined to be unhappy. They seek recognition, always looking for the next promotion, award, or pay raise. Something they can hang their hat on and say to themselves I am worthy. They rarely pause to celebrate a win or a milestone always focussing on the next hurdle. Psychologists suggest that achievement drive comes from the loss of a parent or the desperate seeking of approval from a parent or more critically a search for love by the child from the absent or unresponsive parent. Does that ring true for you ? Whilst I have spent 15 years trying to let you know that. That knowledge was denied you and I understand your belief was to quote a report in this blog 'I liked you butdidn't love you" That is so far removed from reality it hurts just thinking about the damage to you that might have caused. I may not have been there but it was not for want of trying and you were and will always be loved unconditionally by me.

Growing up in the 60/70's parents did not demonstrate public displays of affection. I cannot ever recall my father telling me he loved me or was proud of me. He even went as far as telling the teachers in my school reports how amazing they were for the results I achieved. WTF! 45 years on it still grates. i hate to think what mental scars our behaviour towards you and in your presence have left.

The impact of high achievement drive longterm

The longer term problem with achievement drive comes later in ones career or life. When you are the CEO there is no parental figure (boss) above you telling you how awesome you are or what a great job you have done. There is no one left to give you praise and prop up that fragile ego your parents have inflicted on you. This is compounded by the team below you who only bring problems, bad news or blame you for what is going wrong and undermining what little self esteem you have left. I have spent much of my career helping leaders deal with this pychosis of leadership and learn to be. I would love it if you tackled any problems you have much earlier so you can be happier and more content in yourself. You are the only person you cannot avoid so it is critical you like who you see in the mirror and don't seek someone else to give you praise or complete you.

As I start 'retirement' I have to do my own audit and health check. Luckily I have managed to reduce my achievement drive or at least suppress it for periods but it does appear hard wired. Hense the elastic string between doing and being or between extraordinary and ordinary. Between leaving legacy and contentment. This blog is my legacy to you. I hope in it I can make up in a minuscule way for those years I was not there.

Lessons from the battlefield

War brings many challenges. I share this with you to perhaps help explain some stuff you were too young to understand the effect war or any conflict has on the human psyche. War is not something to glorify and does not just occur on foreign fields. You were the victim of a war and I believe suffered permanent injury as a result of what you were exposed to. I tried my hardest to stop that but instead only made your war longer and more damaging. I am truly sorry.

Personal experience

I returned from war a very different person from the 'happy go lucky' individual who deployed 3 months earlier. I suffered physical and mental changes that made me unrecognisable to my wife, your mother and to myself. Again with years of help, self help and reflection, I am not sure I did change that much. I think combat just removed the layers of armour and protection, the facade I had build up to protect the vulnerable child at the core.

Drugs

Some changes in me were definitely the result of a unique combination of factors. We were guinea pigs. Most troops in theatre in the first Gulf War were given a cocktail of drugs that did their fair share of damage. We received Bubonic Plague, Anthrax and Rubella vaccines at a single sitting, that left us physically incapable for 48 hours or more. These were unlicensed and untested. Worse still was 3 months of daily Nerve Agent Pre-treatment Sets (NAPS) tablets, which many including myself, blame for something known as Gulf War Syndrome. A syndrome not recognised by the UK Govt or MOD despite all the evidence. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/757580/04014.pdf

The tablets basically suppressed the synapse connections in the brain impacting mood , motor function and nerve responses Many including me, came back suffering from depression, muscle pain, lethergy and anger issues. I was far from the worst. My boss was incapacitated for almost 10 years after the event. Most notably I suffered mood swings and muscular-skeletal pain, weight gain and chronic fatigue. Despite many attempts to get at the truth the government never admitted liability. Perhaps the fact that Lord Soames (Churchill's nephew) was both Minister Armed Forces and a Non Exec Director of Pfizer, the makers of NAPS, at the time might explain that.

Hypothesis

I said I am not sure I did change that much. I need to perhaps explain what I mean. I have wanted for some years to write a thesis on PTSD and maybe do a PhD. I doubt I will now. I am not sure I have much to contribute anymore, but I do have a hypothesis which no-one I have spoken to over the years has yet disagreed with. It is that the people most affected by PTSD and other stress related illnesses have most likely already experienced trauma previously and are therefore less resilient and more prone to early onset. I think that their experience of war pushes them over the threshold or as with PTSD puts them into the red where it can manifest itself often years later. Perhaps we can only take so much and when we are full it has to come out , spill over, leak out in some way in our behaviour or through our sub conscious taking over to protect us. Perhaps if we experience trauma in childhood when we have less cognitive ability and experience to cope with it it leaves us less able to find coping mechanisms but instead instantly takes us back to that vulnerable minor without the cognitive skills to handle it.

Evidence

It was always interesting to me that most reported cases of PTSD come from the Marines or Paras or Special Forces or their foreign equivalent. It has been readily assumed that this is because they are exposed to more kinetic action, more often and for longer. This is broadly true. However it does not necessarily explain the phenomena. Surely this toughest group of troops who have trained harder than any others are more resilient?

Training

When I was running a recruit troop at CTCRM in 1988/9 I had 90 recruits pass through my hands. The vast majority (80%) were from broken homes. What we put those kids through in 30 weeks, no sane individual would put up with. Unless perhaps they had no choice, nowhere else to go. Those who came from loving, normal families appeared much less likely to complete training. Perhaps they had more options? What came out the other end of recruit training was a close knit 'band of brothers' a family of loyal and trusting 'siblings', who finally had a safe 'home'- they belonged to a special elite and they were so proud they had made it. These kids from broken homes had found sanctuary! As had I.

Love and loss

Fast forward to wartime, when someone is threatening that safety and everything they hold dear. A group of hard men on the exterior but with a brittle shell. A casualty in a close knit unit is not some random colleague, not a number but a brother, a comrade in arms, someone you know better than your wife or lover or parent or own family. That wound cuts much deeper. Compare it with losing a colleague in the workplace or a large organisation where the bonds are less strong. Also, if someone has grown up without trauma in childhood, they have experienced normal development and are therefore more likely be able to process what is happening in an adult and rational way therefore mitigating some of the perceived horror.

Retirement

Consider for a second the end of service. When someone leaves this close knit team and steps out into Civvie Street, they are not just leaving or changing jobs. It is letting go of your whole institutionalised life, your purpose or raison d'être. It is not just removing a uniform but stripping the man or woman of their identity. They are leaving behind their family and might grief that loss like a death of a loved one. No wonder the average time the full service Royal Marine draws his pension is 7 years! That means life expectancy for some of the fittest people by age group on the planet is 57. Smilar patterns and statistics are evident in other institutions (Emergency Services, Civil Service Large Corporations) .

Getting my act together

Perhaps all this explains in a round about way, my sense of forboding and at the same time excitement about this next chapter in my life. It is the reason I have sorted some basics, which in any normal circumstances would not be on a public forum for anyone to see. However our unique situation where I have no idea how to contact you or where to write leave me no choice:

1. I have updated my Will. You need to read on to be fully aware of what is in it and how to access it.

2. I have composed this blog / website so you have all the facts and my thoughts are in one place for you to find your own truth. A truth some have sort to hide from you or mislead you about.

3. I have produced a family tree with the help of Ancestry.com. This was a labour of love and took months and was a fascinating exercise. It is on the off chance you might one day be interested in knowing about my side of your family. Or your children can understand their heritage. (It is in the filing cabinet in my office with the Will) C will give it to you.

4. I have collated family photographs into Albums and these are yours whenever I am gone or whenever you want them.

5. There are some things of yours; presents and the like from years past, that are yours and are in safe keeping. Again you will be given them on my passing or when passing.

6. On the subject of passing. the details are in the Will but: I would like to be cremated -as long as it is still the cheapest method of disposal. I would like a simple black slate tablet or Purbeck Stone memorial the details are in my Will. I would like the stone to be placed in my garden. I am sure my ashes will make good compost so a tree should mark the spot. You and C can chose something appropriate. If you cannot agree then plant two. - better for CO2 capture!

My Will

When your Mum and I were divorcing, I had some great counselling from my friend and former business partner N. He asked me

"What happens to your estate when you die?"

I said "It goes to H of course!" "

OK he said "What happens to L's portion of the estate when she dies?"

I said "I assume the same"

"If you had to start again, could you? "

"Yes"

"So why are you both giving it all to the Lawyers?" Says he. (We were in for about £70 k each by this stage I am guessing! Enough to put you through private school university and throw in a round the world trip ffs!)

It was after that meeting I settled with your Mum giving you and her everything as a full and final settlement. Your Mum was in possession of it all anyway and was never going to let it go without a fight. I hoped that this action would make conversations about 'access' easier. I was wrong.

So what am I am saying? simply this. Everything I owned and worked for together with your mum, you will get when she passes. Given the equity in the family home and the monies from my family inheritance I hope you have already benefitted significantly. You certainly should be a wealthy woman in your own right when and if it becomes yours.

Any wealth I have accrued since 2006 is small in comparison and will need to be managed to enable me to survive until either it runs out. What is left will be yours. I have made provisions for C who is the only other beneficiary. Like you and I, she did not have the best start in life and is someone I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to. More than she or you will ever know. I ask only two thing of you.

• Treat C with respect and kindness. She is the most wonderful and gentle person I have had the honour of knowing and has not a single bad bone in her body. She had nothing to do with my life prior to 2014 and therefore should not be the butt of anyones anger or hurt. Do respect and follow my wishes in theWill regarding her or i will vcome back and bloody haunt ya ;)

• Secondly, under no circumstances whatsoever is your mother to attend my funeral or be within 100 miles of my property, family or friends. This should remain in force until the terms of the Will are carried out in full. She is not and will never be welcome in my home. Please do not force C or my executors to police this.
  

Last words

Age and a little acquired wisdom now tell me to SUMO ' To Shut Up and Move On' and so with that my not so little Nut Brown Hare I will say farewell. I love you unconditionally as I always have and wish you well on your journey through life.

If you read this but don't come a knocking or it is too late. Just remember:

• None of this was your fault. You just had shit luck with the parents you got. At the same time it could have been worse. You could have been born in Aleppo.

• Love yourself before finding someone else to love. Don't look for someone to complete you complete yourself and then find someone else who is also complete.

• Be happy that madness and depression are not totally hereditary. It is obligatory and transitory though and you just have to find your way out the other side the best way you can. It is life's way of saying you are up to a new challenge on your way to Nirvana. The stronger you are the more shit life throws at you.

• Never let anyone control you or diminish you. Find someone who does not complete you and makes you whole but someone who complements you. Seek a life partner based on compatibility not chemistry.

• Don't get married before you are 30! - You change so much in that decade after leaving home and don't really know who you are or what is important to you. Good advice from your Grandfather I never listened to and wish I had.

• Always check out the parents before you marry their child. They are a reflection of who you will end up with down the line. More good advice from your Grandfather I never listened to and wish I had.

• Find a partner who loves and is kind to animals. The way people treat animals is a solid predictor of their attitude to others.

• Lastly, and most importantly be honest with yourself and others. Always speak truth to those in power. Never be afraid of showing and sharing your feelings and thoughts. Don't bottle shit up. it leaks and festers and leaves a really bad smell.

" Those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind"

Dr Suess

Dad out!