JASON FOX | INTERVIEW
You might know him from Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, but the ex-Special Boat Service man’s second and latest book isn’t all gung-ho, teaching readers how to harness fear. Carl Marsh got some background info.
First appearing on screens in 2015, presenting and directing Channel 4 show SAS: Who Dares Wins – it’s remained popular, and even been topped up with a celebrity spin-off version – Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox has a new book out. The title of Life Under Fire: How To Build Inner Strength And Thrive Under Pressure says it all – save that it’s intended to apply to any situation. Fox might be a former member of the Special Boat Service, but the book is full of examples aimed at non-military people. Being ex-military myself, though, I was keen to chat.
In Life Under Fire, you mention that your momentum to get through Royal Marines basic training came from the negativity of what your dad had said to you beforehand. Why do you think he did that?
Do you know what, I’ve never actually asked him whether it was what he believed in or whether it was his old school way of motivating me – giving me the kick up the arse! I hope and think he’s proud of me now, having eventually got in, but looking back, maybe I wouldn’t have put money on it because I was quite a bit skinny and a bit dweebish.
But I think he was probably my main motivation – I had a couple of motivations. One was to get out of where I was living, and the other was him. I don’t think that, as a 16-year old, you’re able to think deep enough to have any actual proper motivation, even though it might seem so at the time – but looking back, you’ll be like, “I was motivated by my dad, what’s all that about!” [laughs]
You talk a lot about resilience in this book. And I can entirely relate to that, but for most, resilience is a skill that people can’t grasp, if you know what I mean.
Yeah – I didn’t know what it was, to be honest, but what made me think back to what drove this book was my first one (Battle Scars: A Story Of War And All That Follows). I, as you know, documented my journey and emotional journey as a soldier, and then my journey with PTSD, depression and that mental health thing. It was after writing that book, and having the fallout of writing it, that I was like, “hang on a minute, where did it all come from?”, you know? I’ve written it all down and got through some stuff. I’ve survived some bits. I’ve gone and had a wobble, and I’ve managed to hit reset and got through that. And I’m now where I am – but how did I do it? What were the lessons?
So the first book made me think about what they were. And then I sat with Matt Allen – who’s the co-writer, and a good friend of mine now – and between us, we thought if we could try and make those lessons that I was taught or learned along the way resonate with people, then maybe it’s a good thing.
Sounds like you’ve had fun getting all of this into print with Matt.
We had a good laugh writing this and laying out the way it’s been done. I did enjoy it, and I hope that it resonates and is understood by people. Because the way I learned resilience was, initially, instilled in me by the military, really. My dad might have had a little bit of an impact on me – you know, teach me to be a bit tougher when I was growing up. But I think a lot of it’s from that moment in time as a 16-year-old learning the culture of the military, I guess.
How did you end up meeting Matt in the first place?
There was a book written off the back end of the series, called SAS: Who Dares Wins: Leadership Secrets From The Special Forces. There are no leadership secrets, you know what it’s like! [laughter] – he goes through that with the four of us [from SAS: Who Dares Wins series one]. We got on with each other and stayed in touch, and then he was saying, “mate, you should write a book”. I said, “no, I’m not interested, that’s as far as I’m gonna go with it” – then decided, well if we are going to do it, I want it to be a more realistic view of my emotional journey. Not “here we are jumping out of helicopters being hard as fuck” – OK, we have those conversations when we’re with our mates, but ultimately, it isn’t like that. We’re all humans, and we’re all doing a job. So that’s why the second book became what it is now.
I think it’s very noble of you to bring forth Matt’s name as I know a lot of books have ghostwriters… mentioning no names. It feels like a comradeship that stems from your time in the SBS and Marines, because they’re family units.
Without Matt, it wouldn’t be a possibility – he’s there encouraging me, and at first, I thought he was pestering me, but actually, it was a good thing. He’s a very trustworthy bloke – as far as I’m aware! He really is a trustworthy bloke, an honest guy, and we sit down and spend a lot of time talking.
I feel it would be very disloyal and dishonest of me to say that it was just me, because it wasn’t. He does what he does: we’d sit down and talk for ages, he’d send me through a few drafts, I’d move the bits about or say “I wouldn’t put it like that”. But he’s there tapping away – checking up on stuff, hounding me to fact-check certain things I might have said. I’ve just got the content in my head, and that’s all fucking well and good, but if I wrote it people won’t know what the hell’s going on because it’s all over the place!
I’ll tell you what, I take my hat off to anyone like yourself that can write a paragraph of something and make it sound legible. I can write a caption for Instagram, haha! That’s about as good as it gets! [laughter]
Jason Fox’s Life Under Fire: How To Build Inner Strength And Thrive Under Pressure is out now, published by Bantam. Price: £20. Info: here
words CARL MARSH