The potato chipper, p.1
The Potato Chipper, page 1
Imprint
All rights of distribution, also through movies, radio and television, photomechanical reproduction, sound carrier, electronic medium and reprinting in excerpts are reserved.
© 2023 novum publishing
ISBN print edition: 978-3-99130-234-6
ISBN e-book: 978-3-99130-235-3
Editor: Brenda van Rensburg|, Hugo Chandler
Cover images: Andreykuzmin, Ezthaiphoto | Dreamstime.com; Paul Irons
Cover design, layout & typesetting: novum publishing
Images: Paul Irons
www.novum-publishing.co.uk
The Potato Chipper
A meandering stroll through adventurous lands
‘Keep your abdomen low, arch your back and bend your legs, while always relaxing. If you lose your position and become unstable in free fall, just remember these principles and you will restore your stability and core balance, mid-flight, just as a shuttlecock does in Badminton. It’s all about the core, if you don’t centre yourself, you end up enduring a turbulent jump swaying backwards and forwards, like a potato chipper.’
Anonymous Freefall Parachute Jumpmaster to Author – Seville 2006
Copyright Notice
For Those Thinking of Misusing This Book
This book was copyright in 2022 with all rights reserved. It is illegal to copy, distribute, or create derivative works from this book in whole or in part or to contribute to the copying, distribution, or creating of derivative works of this book.
If you attempt to copy, steal, or distribute all or any part of this book without the authors permission, legal action may be pursued.
By purchasing this book, you agree to the following: You understand that the information contained in this book is an opinion and it should be used for personal advisory purposes only. You are responsible for your own behaviour, and none of this book is to be considered legal or personal advice.
You must abide by these rules.
Play Fair!
Paul Irons enjoys writing stories that make
the reader stop and think. He has a little hope that you’ll enjoy this story, and as you read it, that you will think. You may find a little of yourself in
this story. If you do, embrace it.
YOU’RE NOT AS BROKEN AS YOU THINK!
Foreword
Before I open this account up to scrutiny, I wish to clarify a few points.
This book is a truthful account of events in which I have been involved. It has not been embellished with the pre-cursor ‘based on true events,’ where a mixture of fact and fiction is the order of the day (usually with more of the latter) and the only non-truths are some name changes of colleagues, clients and friends. I have also, for the most part, as a general principle, not mentioned companies for whom I have worked, and this requires no explanation.
I have written this book, to provide inspiration to people, no matter the circumstances in which they find themselves, whether they be financially or spiritually rich or broke, perceive themselves as too tall or short, handsome or plain and just generally need motivational guidance in life. I firmly believe that when life is working fantastically well, one must enjoy such times in a tempered fashion with the knowing realisation that one step in the wrong direction can soon undo recent successes.
Equally important, it should be realised that in times of crisis and despair, one is only a small step away from a moment that can act as a catalyst for years of growth and experiences. One needs to remain calm in the eye of both positive and negative storms. You will see in this book, two separate occasions, one in 1995, and one in 2009 where fate dealt me a ‘lucky’ hand, which I exploited (and still exploit) to the maximum, after long periods of failure where I felt that everything was working against me.
Successful living evolves from following a principles-based existence, which in turn, creates a fun and spiritually rich personality. It is by behaving in such a manner that comfortable financial wealth is spawned that will enable one to re-generate future earnings as has been described in such books, as The Richest Man in Babylon by George Claason and Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.
The following story is presented in a chronological fashion, with what I consider to be a portfolio of experiences that I have learnt from, and moreover, continue to learn from as I push on, to continue my growth. It is my belief that it is in such experiences that we really learn, and I expect that what I have written will give guidance to readers. I will give my opinions as to how I negotiated my way through difficult circumstances; I would like you the reader, to decipher what I say, for your mind to be stimulated in such a manner that you deduce how you might overcome an equivalent set of obstacles in your world. The theme of stories oscillates between ‘insurance’ facilitation work in hazardous environments, martial competition, poetry, philosophical research, relationships, the modern workplace, extreme sports, traditional alternative medicines, assistance in reconstruction efforts in the Third World and the use of mentors to further one’s skillsets.
I must emphasise that I am still developing my abilities in all facets and this book is to be taken as a reflection of my continual development and not as a ‘coming of age’ conclusion; as I follow an ‘unrelenting pursuit of excellence’ creed, which is never completed.
Finally, I would like to stress that except for martial arts, I have never engaged in any offensive actions in the events that you are about to read about, except as a defensive measure. I have worked in a variety of roles in which the preservation of life was the principal aim. Do not allow the discussion of certain military principles and aggressive response tactics to cloud your judgement in interpreting my role as anything other than defensive.
I feel a hundred percent that I am not to be considered as a mercenary, which I have been accused of in the past by those of a certain political persuasion, in their manipulative attempts. For clarification, a mercenary is a person who can be defined as someone who is operating within an organisation that engages in offensive actions to overthrow a government.
1. Blessed Beginnings
I was born close to the south coast of England in 1976. My father, an Ulster/Irishman Master Mariner and my mother, an accountant, with her roots in Northumberland Farming. My formative years’ when I lived in Sussex in England, Hong Kong and Ireland were generally happy, although my father’s long periods of absence overseas created a bit of distance between he and my mother, which I believe played a part in my future desire for the love of a women to be balanced with equal spells of solitude that allow me to have that yin and yang balance, thus permitting a battery re-charge.
You see, I am an extroverted introvert in that I like to dance to trance music in club environments, in the presence of good company, be it three or three hundred people in a pub or stadium, speak in different languages anywhere in the world and just generally network. However, at my core, I am a reflective personality who works best alone and who becomes frustrated if this is denied to me. I feel blessed that I have picked up the balance of a father who was essentially a reclusive, ‘in the cave’ character who has been professionally very accomplished and who qualified as a Merchant Navy Captain at the age of twenty-six. Equally, my mother is a protective healer, a great socialite with an ability to network and mix in all settings and by consequence, a natural in obtaining information, which has served to develop not only herself, but also others.
My mother’s attributes have become a part of my DNA which has been of great use in my life. However, it wasn’t always like that and I must confess for long periods, I was very shy as a boy, and spent many years’ trying to compensate for this on the sports field which I did with great aplomb.
2. Military Service
This chapter will be relatively short; and I wondered whether to include it, owing to a respect for the privacy of comrades, the relatively short active service component contained herein and finally, the fact that I had to leave one of the best military units in the world due to chronic short-sightedness in my left eye. However, I believe that this period of my working life served as the catalyst for my significant development in life and my ability to mentally endure, in times of personal suffering, my later years working in crisis hotspots.
I completed basic military training in the relatively flat lands of Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire. Movie aficionados will be keen to know that this was the camp that featured in the initial training scenes for Full Metal Jacket. I remember doing many speed marches wearing full combat dress, webbing with progressively increasing weights, boots and a helmet around the ‘lanes’ where Private Pyle was tormented by his Gunnery Sergeant in that movie.
Every morning, at 07.00 hours, I stood rigidly to attention with my neck crooked up at an angle of what felt like fifteen degrees, by our open white locker doors, eight feet high, three feet front to back and four feet across, comparatively new, and well looked after with one rail and five drawers. Hospital corners on the bed were required, which I didn’t quite get spot on during my first inspection, resulting in a “pity that, not bad effort” from one section Corporal before everything was lifted and launched on to the floor. T-Shirts would be folded with A4 sized cardboard, starched shirts would be hung facing the same way, not only with your other shirts, but also to be consistent with your section/roommates and let’s not forget the use of a ruler to make sure that the shirts were an equal distance from each other. We would normally do ten centimetres.
I was an unremarkable recruit and one of the only positives that I can take from that time is that in the face of daily levels of shit flung at me from the instructors, and occasionally, one or two other recruits, was the fact that I finished the training on a high when my Section of Eight finished the March and Shoot competition with a respectable score, coming third out of ten teams. Our competitors included highly fit Royal Engineers so our achievement there was no mean feat. I was to learn about the ferocious nature of inter-regimental competition in the British Army. On one particularly speed march that we carried out with an engineer unit, we outdid them, by getting all our guys and one girl in before they were all complete. It was not totally surprising to see their instructors putting their charges onto a crash mat to do one hundred knees to chest repetitions while sinking into the foam, making it three times as difficult to launch themselves up and into the air.
The Test was completed with full combat kit, webbing weighing approximately thirty lbs, rifle, boots and in full combat clothing for three miles. This subsequently led to the whole team immediately thereafter negotiating an assault obstacle course, prior to picking up a heavy stretcher with extra weight loaded on it, that needed to be carried by four men at any one time and charging around the airfield for about one and a half miles, prior to finishing the competition with an immediate requirement to fire twenty shots down a target range of a hundred metres. This final test was to ascertain whether you had retained sufficient composure to effectively continue in battle. I seem to remember that I scored fourteen hits on that which was satisfactory, although I was to increase my standards significantly over the years.
I felt humbled and extremely happy when the Troop Sergeant commended me for taking up the strain of two of our section stragglers who had ‘shot their bolt’ and were unable to take their turn on the stretcher. I more than fulfilled my part of the bargain and would only add that the pain in holding an upright posture with a steel bar digging into my neck was excruciating. Just putting one foot in front of the other (and knowing that I had inched, percentage wise, just that bit closer) kept me going, knowing that we were nearly there. At the age of eighteen, the knowledge that I had sight of the finishing line just kept me going. I say just because tests such as these are a revelation where the normally strong can become weak and the weak can become strong.
I later learnt that an ability to be prepared to face last minute extensions to marches called sickeners as well as extra assignments to test my sense of humour and character would precipitate in me an inherent duty to train myself harder. This need to be physically stronger arose when I challenged myself to much more physically and mentally strenuous training in my early to mid-twenties. That took me up into the Welsh mountains, running alone where the wind, rain and hail could drive so hard that they would be vertical and where I would use ski goggles on occasion to protect not only my view, but also my life, as the alternative was to shield your eyes, impair your vision and run the risk of taking a life ending tumble down a sharp descent, after tripping over rocks.
This kind of brawn like training was interspersed with that of a more cerebral nature which included the use of engineering tools, advanced mathematics, electronics and latterly, I did Administrative Clerk training, Physical Security and Security Investigation Training, along with the highly demanding Combat Intelligence Phase. This latter phase amounted to five weeks of continual study of how military forces, trained to fight under the Soviet doctrine would operate.
This combat intelligence training was one of the most intense courses that I ever completed and involved learning about the mindset of the Soviet soldier, what their modus operandi for battle was, and the special conditions that were not natural for them, in which they had to fight. These effectively included urban warfare (fighting the British Army in built up areas was to be avoided for the Warsaw Pact soldier, as the UK had gained notable operating experience in Northern Ireland), fighting in the northern regions i.e., Arctic Warfare; in this case, Scandinavia and a whole host of other points. One of the final tests we did involve running through a major battlefield scenario with maps amended with each movement of an enemy battle group being interpreted for its strategic and tactical level meaning.
We as a team took it in turns to answer a battery of tough questions about what this meant, or what that meant.
‘What is the Independent Soviet Tank Battalion doing there? asked an assessing Officer.
‘To exploit success and protect the vulnerable flank Sir,’ I replied.
That was the clincher and I had passed, and it was hard to believe that only forty-eight hours earlier, I had been in hospital having an ECG after suffering mild chest pains, due to the intensity of the learning. Food was regularly bolted down to enable us to move on to the next revision period, and then there was physical training that while not such an important factor, was for my good self.
I had managed to get a great night’s sleep after receiving the all clear, after the exercise had been delayed due to the ongoing success of the England football team during Euro 96; and on that night, Holland were defeated 4-1 in what was probably the best performance that an England national team has made ever in my lifetime.
That gave me an opportunity to get myself sorted out and showed just how things can turn very quickly as I’ll admit. I was consciously feeling low and lacking in confidence in my ability to negotiate the exercise currently in progress. You never know what your sub-conscious can pull out of the bag when you throw yourself into something and it doesn’t work. You haven’t failed, you’ve just had some feedback and can then you return for a second crack at it.
I also visited Shrivenham in England where a collection of armoured vehicles and tanks from all theatres and eras were kept. This gave us the chance to go inside some of the Cold War era Soviet Armoured Vehicles BMP 1s, 2s, BTR sixties, seventies and eighties and see how basic the interior was for those soldiers. We were always told that the Soviet Soldier was advised that the armour could have withstood pretty much everything and that they were safe’.
These were not jolly outings, and one striking fact I learnt during that visit was a comparison of a fearsome German WW2 Tiger Tank when it was standing next to a comparatively diminutive Soviet T-34; so, that I initially wondered how the Soviets won the Battle on the Eastern Front; but once you learnt that the Russians produced roughly five hundred for each ninety tanks that the Nazi Germans put out of their Tiger equivalent, you could see the force of numbers advantage they had. Additionally, when you learnt how quickly the US Army mechanics were able to turn damaged or faulty American machinery around and get it back to the line, in comparison with their German opponents and you could then see the value of the ‘unsung heroes’. It’s a shame that Hollywood can’t romance the stone and make a movie about efficient vehicle mechanics that can turn tanks around in record time.
The American equipment, like the Russian, wasn’t the best and it related to a life lesson in a book by an author called Peter McAleese, a hard as nails ex-British, Rhodesian and South African Special Forces operative. He talked once about the merits of the C grade infantry soldier that gave a solid if unspectacular performance in his work. He would be around for twenty years pushing his services as long as he could. By contrast, an ‘A’ grade student will probably be a star student but would look to move on to better things, and possibly agitate and disturb the scene if he’s not careful and will generally become a hindrance (and therefore has the military value of an ‘E’ grade student before you know it). Even if he maintains his focus, he will go onwards and upwards to attain better things and his slot will need to be refilled.
While not directly linked to the WW2 tank example described previously, I think you understand my point.
I unfortunately switched between being an A grade student to an E grade student, depending on my frame of mind, my conduct with my seniors had ultimately come down to my general ability on the course in question. This was to be a feature of my character in my twenties that I didn’t really clear out until I reached my thirties.
One course that I completed towards the end of my service time in the late nineties to early two thousand was the Close Protection course for diplomats. I was well versed in surveillance principles and had honed the use of a pistol from a variety of positions, including shooting from inside a moving car through the windscreen at hostile targets, so it was merely a question of adapting such skillsets.
