Mud, Sweat and Tears

by Bear Grylls

  I did, though – as the corporations started to pay me more – begin to doubt whether I was really worth the money. It all seemed kind of weird to me. I mean, was my talk a hundred times better now than the one I gave in the Drakensberg Mountains?

  No.

  But, on the other hand, if you can help people feel stronger and more capable because of what you tell them, then it becomes worthwhile for companies in ways that are impossible to quantify.

  If that wasn’t true, then I wouldn’t get asked to speak so often, still to this day.

  And the story of Everest – a mountain, like life, and like business – is always going to work as a metaphor. You have got to work together, work hard, and go the extra mile. Look after each other, be ambitious, and take calculated, well-timed risks.

  Give your heart to the goal, and it will repay you.

  Now, are we talking business or climbing?

  That’s what I mean.

  CHAPTER 103

  During the year before Shara and I got married, I managed to persuade the owners of a small island, situated in Poole Harbour, to let me winter house-sit the place in return for free lodging.

  It was a brilliant deal.

  Chopping logs, keeping an eye on the place, doing a bit of maintenance, and living like a king on a beautiful twenty-acre island off the south coast of England.

  Some months earlier, I had been walking along a riverbank outside of London, when I had spotted a little putt-putt fishing boat with an old 15 h.p. engine on the back. She was covered in mould and looked on her last legs, but I noticed her name, painted carefully on the side.

  She was called Shara. What were the chances of that?

  I bought her on the spot, with what was pretty well my last £800.

  Shara became my pride and joy. And I was the only person who could get the temperamental engine to start! I used the boat, though, primarily, as my way of going backwards and forwards to the small island.

  I had some properly dicey crossings in Shara during the middle of that winter. Often done late at night, after an evening out, the three-mile crossing back to the island could be treacherous in bad weather. Freezing waves would crash over the bows, threatening to swamp the boat, and the old engine would often start cutting in and out.

  I had no nav-lights, no waterproofs, no lifejacket and no radio. And that meant no back-up plan – which is bad.

  Totally irresponsible. But totally fun.

  I held my Stag weekend over there with my best buddies – Ed, Mick, Neil, Charlie, Nige (one of Shara’s uni friends who has become such a brilliant buddy), Trucker, Watty, Stan and Hugo – and it was a wild one.

  Charlie ended up naked on a post in the middle of the harbour, we got rescued twice having broken down trying to water ski behind the underpowered Shara, and we had a huge bonfire whilst playing touch-rugby by firelight.

  Perfect.

  At this stage, I was also living a pretty unhealthy lifestyle. I was eating too much, smoking and drinking (which is always daft), and not training at all.

  Predictably, I piled on the pounds and looked pretty rough.

  But I just wanted to get away from fitness and training and being focused and all of that.

  I wanted a life. Away from the military, away from the mountains, away from pressure.

  All through university, whilst my friends had played, I had worked my guts out on SAS Selection, and then on Everest.

  Now I just wanted a break.

  Eventually, I remember doing one of my earliest TV interviews and watching myself in horror afterwards. I looked bloated and pale. I realized that if I didn’t get a hold of this and rein it all back, I would be in danger of never doing anything else of value with my life.

  That wasn’t in my game plan.

  I didn’t want to live in the past – just talking about Everest and looking like a has-been.

  If I was to move on, and make something of all that I had risked and built over the past few years, then I needed to start walking the talk.

  It was time to get fit again.

  Going through this phase, though, did confirm in my mind that at least Shara wasn’t marrying me for either my looks or money.

  I was both broke and bloated.

  She, bless her, still loved me all the same.

  CHAPTER 104

  Our wedding took place on a blustery, midwinter day. The fifteenth of January 2000. Yet the sun shone through the clouds brightly.

  Shara’s father, Brian, who so sadly was suffering with multiple sclerosis, gave her away from his wheelchair in the church.

  Brian cried. Shara cried. Everyone cried.

  We left the church to our friends singing a cappella versions of ‘Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees’ and ‘I’m a Believer’.

  I was the happiest I had ever been.

  Right decisions make you feel like that.

  We then danced to a Peruvian street band that Trucker had come across, and ate bangers and mash at long tables. The day was above all, love-filled.

  We were both among the first, and youngest, of our group of friends to be married, which made it feel even more special. (A wedding was novel for all of us, in those days.) And Charlie and Trucker made everyone cry some more with their best-men speeches.

  Several months earlier Shara and I had bought a home together. Well, to be more accurate it was a barge, moored on the Thames in central London.

  Neil had spotted it for us, and we looked round it straight away. I instantly loved it.

  We had previously been quite close to putting in an offer on a tiny, poky studio flat in London – but deep down I was concerned.

  For a start, I couldn’t really afford it. Dad had offered to help me secure a mortgage if I could make the repayments, but I knew it would be a stretch to make those every month.

  The barge, on the other hand, was less than half the price – and way cooler.

  It was pretty sparse, cold and damp when we looked round it, and Shara and her family were definitely a little tentative at first.

  But I got to work on the PR front.

  ‘Hey, it will be fun. We can do it up together – it will be a challenge. We can then make it all cosy and a home.’

  Shara tilted her head at me in her way.

  ‘I’m a little nervous about the “challenge” bit. Can we focus on the homely and cosy part of the plan instead, sweetheart?’ she replied, still looking concerned.

  (Sure enough, she totally changed after we got to live on our barge for a while, and nowadays, wild horses couldn’t force her to sell the boat. I love that in her. Shara always takes such a lot of convincing, and then once she makes something ‘hers’, it is hers for ever. Me included.)

  We spent two months doing up the boat with our good friend Rob Cranham. He was amazing. He lived on board and worked tirelessly to help us make it a home. Rob converted it to just how we had envisaged. This included an old bathtub mounted on the deck and a captain’s cabinet bed in the ‘dungeon’!1

  We lowered Shara’s granny’s old sofa and chest of drawers in through the roof, and painted and varnished furiously. By the time of the wedding, all was done.

  The marital bed was neatly made, Shara’s nightie was carefully laid out on the pillow, and all was set for when we would return from honeymoon, ready to spend our first night together there.

  I couldn’t wait.

  The day after our wedding, we flew off on honeymoon. I had recklessly waited until two days before our wedding to book the holiday, in the hope that I would get some great last-minute deal somewhere.

  Always a dangerous tactic.

  I pretended to Shara that it was a surprise.

  But, predictably, those ‘great deals’ were a bit thin on the ground that week. The best I could find was a one-star package holiday, at a resort near Cancun in Mexico.

  It was bliss being together, but there was no hiding the fact that the hotel sucked. We got put in a room right next to the sewer outlet – which gave us a cra
cking smell to enjoy every evening as we sat looking out at the … maintenance shed opposite.

  As lunch wasn’t included in the one-star package, we started stockpiling the breakfasts. A couple of rolls down the jersey sleeve, and a yogurt and banana in Shara’s handbag. Then back to the hammock for books, kissing and another whiff of sewage.

  When we returned to the UK it was a freezing cold January day. Shara was tired, but we were both excited to get on to our nice warm, centrally-heated barge.

  It was to be our first night in our own home.

  I had asked Annabel, Shara’s sister, to put the heating on before we arrived, and some food in the fridge. She had done so perfectly.

  What she didn’t know, though, was that the boiler packed in soon after she left.

  By the time Shara and I made it to the quayside on the Thames, it was dark. Our breath was coming out as clouds of vapour in the freezing air. I picked Shara up and carried her up the steps on to the boat.

  We opened the door and looked at each other. Surprised.

  It was literally like stepping into a deep freeze. Old iron boats are like that in winter. The cold water around them means that, without heating, they are Baltically cold. We fumbled our way, still all wrapped up, into the bowels of the boat and the boiler room.

  Shara looked at me, then at the silent, cold boiler.

  No doubt she questioned how smart both choices had really been.

  So there we were.

  No money, and freezing cold – but happy and together.

  That night, all wrapped up in blankets, I made a simple promise to Shara: I would love her and look after her, every day of our life together – and along the way we would have one hell of an adventure.

  Little did either of us realize, but this was really just the beginning.

  1 Rob suffered from narcolepsy and sadly died in 2010 from a heart attack. Now safely settled in heaven, he was truly one of life’s heroes, and such a friend to us.

  PART 5

  THE BEGINNING

  When the ball rolls your way grab it. We so rarely get a second chance. (Although miraculously this does sometimes happen, too.) And remember that life is what you make of it – and that is what makes the possibilities so exciting.

  My granny, Patsie Fisher

  CHAPTER 105

  So Shara and I started our married life fairly hard up, but much in love.

  The latter has never changed.

  Shara was never the ambitious one for my work, and I am so grateful for that in many ways. I can think of few things as exhausting or disempowering as a pushy wife, desperate for her husband to better himself.

  Instead, I have always applied my own pressure, and have been just quietly grateful for such a cosy, fun, loyal, family-centred best friend in Shara.

  Within a year of being married, though, both Shara and I lost our fathers. It was the ultimate trial for us at such a young age, just starting out on our journey together.

  Brian had fought the bravest of fights against multiple sclerosis for over fifteen years – but finally, and quietly, he passed over to the other side.

  He was one of the most unique, self-motivated, and brave men I would ever meet.

  He had come to the UK from South Africa with only a small brown suitcase and a determination to succeed. He went on to build the most wonderful life and family.

  Above all, he and Vinnie, his wife, gave me Shara.

  Brian suffered the agony of this cruellest of diseases, which systematically began to reduce him.

  First it forced him into a wheelchair, then it robbed him of his power of speech, and eventually the ability to clothe, feed or look after himself. But he never, ever lost his sparkle, and he fought so hard not to let himself be totally bed bound – despite his severe disability.

  One can only admire such courage.

  I just wish I could have known him when he was fit and healthy. We would have had a blast together, I know.

  His death, though, totally broke Shara’s heart. And all I could do was hold her as she grieved, night after night.

  Then, out of the blue, and totally unexpectedly, my own father died – only ten weeks after Brian. Like some sick joke.

  He was due to have a pacemaker fitted, and had asked if I could be with him during the operation. I used my old SAS medic card to blag my way in to watch the surgeons at work.

  Something, though, didn’t feel quite right as Dad squeezed my hand and fell asleep.

  Several days after the op, he died – just like that. He had been sat up in bed at home. Alive one minute. Dead the next.

  My dad.

  Nobody ever knew what had happened. It was kind of academic at that point. He was gone.

  The world felt like it had been pulled out from beneath Shara and me.

  But we found solace and strength in each other.

  I am sure both Brian and my father would have wanted it that way.

  Since then, though, we have been blessed to have had three gorgeous children of our own. Together.

  Funny that, isn’t it?

  New life from old.

  CHAPTER 106

  Unsurprisingly – maybe – all three of our children are boys.

  Jesse is now seven, Marmaduke is four, and little Huckleberry is just two. They are truly a taste of heaven, and nothing, and I mean nothing, beats being all snuggled up in our bed, or having a picnic together in the grass on our little Welsh island that we now own.

  I really hunger for nothing else.

  All three boys are showing a worrying tendency towards adventure: endlessly climbing trees, making camps, and trying to catch worms and bugs. Along with possessing a magnetic pull towards mud, they make me the proudest father on the planet.

  Daily, they remind me that everything of true value in life can’t be bought.

  And how both our dads would have adored them!

  So much happened, though, in our early, pre-children days, that served to turn our life around irretrievably.

  Much of it came from small, serendipitous, unlikely turns of events – like driving for many hours to do a small Everest talk for a charity, and finding out afterwards that the head of Channel 4’s young son was there.

  He then told his dad that I should do a TV show for the network.

  Kids, eh?

  Or getting spotted by the Discovery Channel, after having been chosen out of many climbers to be the subject of a big worldwide ‘Sure for Men’ deodorant TV campaign. (Ironically, this one came just days after Dad died – which always felt like his little spark of a parting gift to me. And, wow, there were so many little gifts from him throughout his life.)

  But would I ever have done the bigger TV shows without minibreaks like those?

  I doubt it.

  But from small acorns grow big oaks.

  Along the way, though, I was always careful not to get greedy or to go for the ‘quick buck’ – despite the temptations in the early days.

  Financially, it was hard saying no to big appearance fees from TV shows like I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here or Survivor – but I always had the long goal in mind, and tried to keep the main thing the main thing.

  And not get distracted by fluff.

  Instead, know your strengths.

  I also tended instinctively to shy away from both TV and the whole concept of fame – partly, I am sure, because I didn’t have the self-belief to feel I deserved either fame or money. (Time and experience have since taught me that fame and money very rarely go to the worthy, by the way – hence we shouldn’t ever be too impressed by either of those impostors. Value folk for who they are, how they live, and what they give – that’s a much better benchmark.)

  So I resisted TV quite heavily – even ironically spurning the offers of the original Man vs. Wild/Born Survivor: Bear Grylls’s producer, Rob MacIver, some three times, before finally agreeing to do a pilot show.

  But what a dope I was.

  Bear, didn’t you listen to your grandma
when she wrote: ‘When the ball rolls your way grab it. We so rarely get a second chance. (Although miraculously, this does sometimes happen, too.)’?

  But I just didn’t want to be pushed into TV, I wanted to keep focused on my strengths, and trust those skills.

  My father always used to say that if you focus on doing your job well, then money will often follow. But chase the money and it has a habit of slipping through your fingers.

  I always liked that.

  But learning that I could do both things – TV, as well as my core skills – was a big lesson.

  Maybe it would be possible to do programmes without having to be a smiley media person.

  I wondered.

  Grandma?

  ‘Indeed – when the ball rolls your way – grab it.’

  CHAPTER 107

  Sometimes, in the quiet moments, it is quite surreal to look back on all the madness and think: how on earth did all this happen?

  I mean, the TV shows, Man vs. Wild/Born Survivor: Bear Grylls, have now become among the most-watched shows on the planet – reaching a global audience of almost 1.2 billion people in a hundred and eighty different countries. (I’ve read that BBC’s Top Gear reaches some three hundred and fifty million, to give you a perspective on this.)

  The programme was nominated for an Emmy, has done three seasons for Channel 4 in the UK, and six seasons in the USA and around the world.

  It has also become the number one cable show in all of North America.

  The success of the show in the US has been reflected internationally, with some of the highest TV ratings in Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, Spain and beyond.

  It messes with your head a little.

  I do, though, like the fact that the country I am least well-known in is the UK – it gives me breathing space, and a degree of normality where it matters.