Ant Middleton - First Man In

The problem was that Neil threw the numbers out. We were supposed to be arranged in rows of three, but now we had an odd number of bodies, so there was a gap at the front of our formation. I knew that in this eventuality you were supposed to arrange yourself in such a way that you still looked orderly from the front. The corporal was probably seconds away from rocking up and Neil was in the wrong place. He had to sort himself out, otherwise we’d all be in the shit. I flashed him a friendly smile.

‘Mate,’ I said to him. ‘Why don’t you jump up here, because the instructor’s going to come any second?’

‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said, taking a step towards me.

Seeing what was about to happen, Ivan spoke up. ‘All right, mate, he’s only trying to help you out.’

‘And what’s your fucking problem?’ said Neil.

‘You’re the one with the fucking problem.’

‘Do you want to sort this out then?’

‘All right.’

‘Once we’ve knocked off tonight, I’ll see you behind building 2D.’

I couldn’t understand it. Why was Neil being such a dick? Did he feel, coming into a new troop, that he had to dominate people to get respect? Maybe it was that he’d clocked up a few weeks’ more experience than us prior to his injury, and so when I told him where to stand he felt insulted. What was the point of reacting like that? I’d been polite and respectful to him. If I’d have said the same thing in France, I’d have been thanked. But the UK was a completely different culture and these kinds of situations would probably be solved with aggression or outright violence.

‘It’s dog-eat-dog over here’, I thought to myself. ‘It really is every man for himself.’ The cheeky and helpful manner that people found so charming at my mixed-sex French school were getting me nowhere quickly in this hardcore male-only environment. Rather than it winning me friends and allies, as it had over there, I was being met with an attitude of ‘Who the fuck does this prick think he is?’ I sensed there was something else going on too. People were defining me by my appearance and my polite cheerfulness. Neil, for one, had seen I wasn’t a big lad and was reacting to that, judging me as beneath him. ‘You little gobshite,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘I’m not taking orders from you.’

There was only one thing I could do. Everyone thought I was a soft lad, so I had to prove them wrong. I knew there was going to be a confrontation that night, and given the size differential between Neil and Ivan, my new pal was going to get pasted. As the dark silhouette of the corporal marched towards us, I silently decided I’d join him in the fight. I’d defend him as he’d defended me.

That day passed slowly. When the time came and I saw Ivan slip out of the accommodation block, I trotted after him down the dark path.

‘What you doing?’ he said.

‘You were sticking up for me,’ I explained. ‘I’m part of this.’

‘This is nothing to do with you,’ said Ivan.

‘I’ve got to stand up to this guy,’ I said. ‘I’m going to help you out, aren’t I? Otherwise, who am I?’

I liked the way that sounded. Loyal. Tough. But Ivan just laughed in my face.

‘It’s just not you, Ant, is it?’ he said. ‘I’m not being funny, mate, but go on. Get back there and get your tea down you before it gets cold.’

I was furious. All my anxieties about what the others thought of me had been summed up in that one dismissive comment. Maybe it was Ivan I should be fronting up to, not Neil.

‘How do you fucking know it’s not me?’ I said.

‘Because you’re better than that.’

Now that really did hit me, harder than any punch I might be about to take behind the kitchen block. The thing was, I could tell he meant it too. And he was right. What was I doing? Trying to prove I was one of them by turning myself into someone I wasn’t? If they thought I was a soft lad, that was their problem. By trying to prove myself to them, I realised, I was actually submitting to them. I was letting them control me. But what was I going to do now? I could hardly leave Ivan to take a beating. I had to ask myself who I was. I was someone, I hoped, who was a bit smarter than the average green army recruit. I was someone who wasn’t going to let ego and temper ruin my career. I realised that the only way to deal with this while remaining true to myself was to try to prevent the fight from happening at all.

‘Why do you need to fight this guy anyway?’ I said.

‘You don’t get it, Ant,’ he said. ‘It’s not like it is where you come from. It’s alpha male. It’s who’s got the biggest dick. You’ve got to step up to the plate.’

‘We’ve just joined the army a few weeks ago,’ I said. ‘If word of this gets out or you tip up to parade with a black eye or a broken nose, they’re going to know what’s gone on.’

Ivan said nothing.

‘You’re risking your entire career to prove something to this idiot,’ I continued. ‘That’s not very smart. Do you really care about what he thinks of you that much that you’ll put everything on the line?’

He still said nothing.

‘You’re going to lose your career. You’re sacrificing everything you’ve worked for, for Neil Porlock. You’re letting him win, just by turning up.’

After that, it didn’t take long to grind him down. He stopped, turned around, and instead of a fight, we went and had a cup of tea and a biscuit.

I can’t help but look back on that incident with a bit of pride. Even at that young age, and in that tough environment, I was able to keep a grip on who I really was and sense that the alpha-male bully-boy culture was trying to mould me into someone else. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that I managed to maintain that strength of character. As you’ll soon discover, I eventually let the worst of the army get the better of me. I became someone who couldn’t have been further removed from that polite and gentle young lad.

It never ends, though. People always want to define you. Because these days I’m best known for the Channel 4 show SAS: Who Dares Wins , strangers try to define me all the time. They assume I’m this chippy rogue who deals with everything through violence. When they meet me, they expect me to have some hard, judgemental persona. I get people approaching me in the street and talking about my size. They imagine that I’m six foot eight, not five foot eight, and I always get, ‘You look bigger on TV.’ Or they say, ‘I don’t know what everyone’s so worried about, I reckon I could have it with you.’

They’re joking around when they come out with stuff like that … but also they’re not. Otherwise, why would they say it? I just laugh it off. I’ve got nothing to prove. I’m in competition with no one, especially now I’m in the TV world. I mean, it’s not as if I feel the need to compete with someone like Bear Grylls, is it? So I banter back with them. ‘Yeah, mate, you probably could have me. Don’t listen to all that TV stuff. They’ve got special lenses on their cameras that make me look bigger.’ I’m happy to do that. I don’t feel threatened at all. I know who I am.

But being an approachable guy doesn’t mean I’m a pushover. When I work, I work. I think it’s important not to mix business with pleasure. When there’s a job to get done, I want to get it done and to the best of my ability. And I want to do it my way. This might sound arrogant, but in my field I genuinely believe that I’m the best at what I do. So while I think it’s important to listen to others and not surround myself with Yes men, at the end of the day I’m the leader. I’ll make sure the job’s done properly, the way I want it done and to my standards. And I expect everyone else to be in that mindset. People know, when they work with me, that they need to snap into a different mode. There’s no messing about.