Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.

Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.

I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New
York Times bestselling author of

The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.

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So now let's jump in.

Welcome back to Live Free, ride Free.

I've got a very, very dear friend,
old friend Paul Illingworth here.

Paul is someone I've known for quite
a while and who has done many, many,

many interesting things in his life.

And one of the reasons I asked him to come
on was he really started from a place that

I wouldn't say disadvantaged.

I wouldn't say advantaged, but I'd
say without an, an awful lot of

support and made his way in the world.

And has actually helped quite a few
people along the way as well, and has

been a great supporter of our work with
Horse Boy Foundation and the work we've

done with autism and that sort of thing.

Big guy, big Heart big story.

What I'd quite like to frame this
story against though is, is we, I

think we all know that we're dealing
with a bit of an epidemic at the

moment of lost young men, lost boys.

And this is something that's kind
of crept up on us over the last

10 15, but it's become
more acute since COVID.

And in the work that I do, I get a lot
of moms who have say three kids daughters

doing great you know, one at one married
and off in the career, one at college and

getting her masters and a son age 21 to
25 who can't come out of the basement.

And this never used to be the case.

And it occurred to me, you know, while
we were doing this podcast, you know,

why is this, and friends of mine that
I've known who could have been lost boys.

But who went out into
world to find themselves?

Can we examine this question a little bit?

How do you, how do you find your way
to this kind of self-actualization?

It's a, it's a pressing
question at the moment.

So Paul, thanks for coming on the show.

Can you tell the listeners and
viewers a little bit about who

you are and what you do currently?

And then we'll start
with how you got there.

Paul Illingworth: Sure, yeah.

Well, my name is Paul Linworth.

I currently live in Texas.

I've been over here for 27 years now.

I moved over here back in 1998 when I
was working in the oil and gas business.

I'm now actually retired
and I moved from Aberdeen.

To Houston in 1998 to start a business
there for a very good friend of mine who

company was actually based in Singapore.

So I came over here.

I was supposed to, to initially come
to Texas for three months to get the

business started, then go back to
Aberdeen and carry on what I was doing

over there and things kind of snowballed.

I was very, very lucky and that having
made the decision that I did wanna

move to Texas, that I managed to to
get myself a green card pre nine 11,

which is which happened very quickly,
and now it takes about 10 years.

Wow.

Yeah, it's it's taken at least
10 years to get a green card.

And then I lived in Houston for 14
years and then moved out to the country.

I live about 30, 40 miles north northeast
of Austin, out in the countryside.

I've got a 20 acre ranch here.

I continued.

Houston for a while after we
did move out of the Houston area

because I was still working there.

And then I finally retired from
the oil and gas business in 2019.

Ran my own business in Austin
until about a couple of months

ago when we sold the business.

So no, I am officially retired.

Rupert Isaacson: So you, you make yourself
sound like a bloke who sort of just

kind of climbed the corporate ladder.

It's anything but the case.

And just so that listeners get a bit of
an idea, while I've known Paul 'cause

we, I used to live in Austin as well.

I've known him running a skydiving
business, which is keeping people alive

while you chuck 'em out of airplanes.

Not easy.

Yeah.

And I've also known you run a series
of escape rooms as well, even when

you didn't have to, even when you'd
retired from the oil and gas business.

Because one of the things about Paul,
ladies and gentlemen, he gets bored

very fast and he can't, you know,
he can't, he can't abide not having

something to do and he tends to be
very successful at, at what he does.

Before we start with how you got.

Up through the non-corporate ranks
of, of, of your, of your career.

Why do you think it is, Paul, that when
you pick up a business, you make it work?

I've only ever seen you make them work,
and I've often watched you kind of a bit

awestruck and go, what, what's he got?

What is this Midas touch that Paul's got?

What, what, what do you put it down to?

Paul Illingworth: I don't, I
don't actually think I do have a

Midas touch at all because I've.

Over the, over the years I've
been involved in four, maybe

five different businesses.

The skydiving business was very, very
much an opportunistic thing whereby my

wife Jen and myself were sky divers.

I started jumping when I was in
the military originally, but we

got into, into sports skydiving in
the early two thousands in Texas.

The weather's a lot better over here,
so obviously it's, it's a lot easier to

skydive than it was living in Scotland.

And an opportunity came up to buy
a drop zone that was very poorly

managed, not particularly well run.

And the guy that, the guy and the
girl that owned it were ready to

leave and go do something else.

So, we could, we, the, the wife
and I could just simply see the

potential there that we could really
turn it into something special.

And we did.

We invested a bit more money in.

We bought another couple of airplanes.

We both got ourselves
certified as part Love.

How?

Oh, and we

Rupert Isaacson: bought
another couple of airplanes.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah, well,
just as you do, just like, like,

Rupert Isaacson: you know, I'm actually
nipping out to get one now, Paul.

Do you want me to Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Put up for you as well.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

We're not, you know, we're not
talking about Cessna citations or,

you know, billion dollar airplanes,
skydiving airplanes tend to be at

the bottom end of the barrel as
far as airplanes are concerned.

So it wasn't really terribly
difficult and we didn't have

to put a lot of money in it.

But, so to start off with, we just
started very, very small and we built

things up slowly and, and, you know, over
the 13 years we owned the business, we

turned it into a very, very successful
business with a lot of hard work.

I mean, it was hard, Rupert, I
remember, I remember it stressing you.

Yeah, I was working, I was working
as the CEO of an oil and gas service

company, spending about 200 days a year.

Traveling overseas, working in
business development, and we were

also running the skydiving business
that was open seven days a week.

I would come, we would travel out to
the skydiving business at the weekends.

We had a manager out there that ran
it during the week, and we'd be,

my wife was a skydiving instructor.

And I would be flying the airplanes.

You know, we work seven days a week.

That's all there is to it.

Yeah.

You know, and then.

After.

It's just putting in the hours.

It's just putting the hours in.

It's as simple as that.

I mean, I'll be quite honest with you, I
didn't get where I was in this position in

the world today by sitting around reading
a newspaper and watching television.

You know, you've got, you've
gotta be prepared to work hard

and that's all there is to it.

But it's finding the thing to do.

And as, as you mentioned, you know,
the escape room business as well, that

Jen and I love doing escape rooms.

And it's the same thing.

We love skydiving.

We bought skydiving business,
we love escape rooms.

And escape room business came up
for sale that was 30 minutes drive

from our house here in Austin.

We went and had a look at it,
looked at the books, thought I

think we can make something outta
this and actually do better.

And that's what we did.

But you know, it's almost
like, you know, they say.

What, what?

What's the best thing about owning a boat?

Well, the best thing about owning
a boat is when you sell it, and

it's a bit like owning a business.

You've gotta have an exit
strategy if you own a business.

We had an exit strategy
for the skydiving business.

We had an exit strategy for
the escape prune business.

What, what those strategies?

Well, it was basically just simply
get to a certain point in terms of

income and, and own the business.

For so many years, the skydiving
business was supposed to be 10 years.

X number of dollars of, of profit.

We ended up owning the
business for 13 years.

It just took a little bit longer
to sell it than we expected.

The Escape Room business,
we had a five year plan.

We hit all the targets on the escape room
business despite the fact that we bought

it a year before COVID, where we bought it
six months before COVID actually happened.

But very quickly we recovered after
COVID expanded the business as well.

Took a punt that things would
come back strong, and they did.

We had a five year plan.

We sold the business.

If you look at COVID and when COVID
sort of started to ease off a little

bit, we sold the business five
years from then, three months ago.

Okay.

So, you know, I, I've been lucky, Rupert.

It's not just, it's not, but you've
gotta be prepared to work hard.

You've gotta seize an
opportunity when you see it.

And never be afraid.

Never be afraid to go and do something.

That's really what it comes down to.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, let,
let's talk about never be afraid.

So again, for listeners you will have
read the show notes so you actually

know the sort of slightly more
swashbuckling story that, that, that

than Paul is giving away right now.

But we're gonna go back and we're
gonna swash and buckle a bit.

You know, Paul, I also
know you as an aviator.

I also know you as Ex Special Forces.

I also know you as Ex Merchant Navy,
and I know you, you know, and all of

these tough envi environments to come up
through Rugby League, in which there's a

ton of fear and okay, you're a big guy.

You know, whenever I'm referring
to Paul to friends, I automatically

say, big Paul, you're a big guy.

But that's being big's.

Not, you know how it is.

It's not the dog in the fight,
it's the fight and the dog.

You've had to face an awful
lot of fear in your life.

So let's start back now.

Let's start with you as a boy.

Where are you born?

How'd you grow up?

And then how do you end up going
from there to the military?

And then let's take it from there.

Paul Illingworth: Okay.

I was actually born in Australia
but at a very, very early age

my parents moved back to London.

So let's talk about my father for a start.

My father joined the Scots guards
in 1936 when he was 16 years old.

So well before can tell us us what the

Rupert Isaacson: Scots guards are,
because not every listener's gonna know.

Paul Illingworth: Okay.

They, they, they.

So there are, there are, I think there's
five or six guards regiments in the uk.

They're basically the guys that
wear the red tunics and have the big

hats, the big black hats, and they
do the guard at Buckingham Palace.

So those are what the guards do,

Rupert Isaacson: but
they're also crack troops.

When it comes combat.

They're

Paul Illingworth: very, very
much crack, crack troops.

They're always at the front
of, of pretty much any battle.

My dad joined in 1936 but
he actually started work at

10 years old down the mines.

He was a Yorkshire born lad
in Castleford in Yorkshire,

which is in northern England.

And at 10 years old, he was
working down the coal mines,

Rupert Isaacson: which is amazing.

And I'm thinking about my son
Ian, who you know, little man.

He's 10 now.

Paul Illingworth: And

Rupert Isaacson: he was just on
the field helping me pull rag what?

And I'm feeling a bit guilty about, you
know, asking him to, you know, help me.

And now you say 10, your dad was
down the mines in York back then.

Wow.

He was, he was

Paul Illingworth: working, yeah, he
was working down the mines, which

was a hard thing to do because his
father was actually killed when he

was three years old in a mine crash.

Okay.

So he was raised by his aunt his mother.

I think my grandmother on my father's side
died when he was a very, very early age.

I'm not really too sure,
but he was basically brought

up on his own by my aunt.

He joined the Scots guards in 1936.

I said before the second
World War started.

I don't really know why, other than the
fact that he wanted to get out the mines.

And the earliest you could
join the Army, army was six.

Why not a

Rupert Isaacson: Yorkshire line regimen?

Yeah.

Why, why the s Scott scars.

He's not, wasn't Scottish.

And you know,

Paul Illingworth: that.

That I honestly don't know, Rupert.

I mean, I really don't.

Yeah, I think he, he probably just
headed down to London at 16 with

the idea of doing something and,
and the Scots guards took him on.

I And you have

Rupert Isaacson: to be tall Right?

To go in the guard.

So he was probably a tall, you gotta

Paul Illingworth: be, you
gotta be at least six foot.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: I think they've
dropped that requirement now.

But in those days you had to be
six foot and my dad was six two.

Pretty much the same as I was.

Yeah, so he was a pretty
big guy as, as well.

And you know, he was, he was in
the Scots guards, he went to North

Africa with the eight farming.

During the war is where my grandfather was

Rupert Isaacson: too.

Was he?

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: So he was, he was
part of the eighth Army and, and then

he ended up being recruited into the Lrd
gs, which is a long range desert group.

And those, those guys were the four, the
forerunners to the formation of the SAS.

So the lard, dgs, long Range Desert
Group, they basically used to go and

scout things out in North Africa,
which is where they were formed.

And then the SAS were
formed in North Africa.

I think it was in 1942.

I can't remember exactly
what the date was.

So he was a career soldier pretty much.

He stayed in the Scots guards, until,
I think it was 1948 or 1950, he got

injured pretty badly at Monte Casino
during the Second World War when they

were fighting coming up through Italy.

And he took some time off then
and he went back in again.

But eventually he was medically
discharged because he took some

shrapnel in his back and never
really recovered properly from it.

But very, very much an army man.

That's, that, you know,
that's what he was.

My mother also lied about her age
during the Second World War and ended

up being what they call an AKA girl.

So in London, she was firing the,
the guns at the German aircraft that

were coming over a bomb in London.

And they met in London
somewhere around about 1950.

I'm not too sure exactly when it was,
but that's when my parents got together

Rupert Isaacson: and okay.

So.

How did they end up going to Australia?

How did they end up having
you and then you come back?

My

Paul Illingworth: dad.

Okay.

My dad got into the building business with
my uncle, who was my mother's brother.

They got into rebuilding London.

That's really what it came down to.

And they, they had a pretty
successful building business

in London in the early fifties.

And there was an opportunity because on my
mother's side, there was my mother's side

of the family had Australian connections.

'cause my grandfather
went down to Australia.

He was a policeman.

He went down to Australia back in
the the, the twenties, I think it

was the twenties and the thirties.

So there was family
connections down there.

And they decided to go to Australia to,
to, because there was a lot of building

going on, on the west coast in Perth.

Mm-hmm.

So they went down, they went down there.

And that's how I ended up being
born down there, basically.

But there was a lot going on in London
and my dad felt that he really had to get

back to London, you know, which was where
the, the, the main thrust of business was.

So that's why we moved back there
when I was three months old.

Rupert Isaacson: Alright, so you are
then born and brought up in London

Paul Illingworth: pretty much?

Yep.

You can, you can say that
we lived in Bayswater.

The earliest recollections I have
of like three, four years old was

living in a, a townhouse in Bayswater.

And we pretty much stayed there
until my dad had had his first back

problem which was what caused him
to end up selling, having to sell

his business, et cetera, et cetera.

And that kind of like almost leads
to the story of how we ended up

living in a council house on social
security with no money because

he ended up losing the business.

You know, I think people took advantage
of him, or should I say, he was a bit

too generous with the way that he was
doing things and he went from having

a very successful building business to
nothing in a fairly short period of time.

Rupert Isaacson: And being somewhat
of an invalid from the Walgreens.

Yes.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

As well.

He ended up, he had a a spinal fusion.

I think the first one was in
1962 when I was six years old.

And he was laid up in bed for
three, four months with that.

And he never really fully recovered.

The spinal fusions, even nowadays,
are dodgy things back in the sixties.

It was just, it was horrendous,
the stuff that they were doing.

And he never really recovered and he never
really w work was able to work again.

He had a second spinal fusion a couple
of years later because the first one

didn't take, and that was even worse.

And it just got to the point
where he couldn't do anything.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

So he went from being kind of a
swashbuckling pirate, semi prior war

hero to a successful entrepreneur
to losing it and being an invalid

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: With a young family.

So it must have been that pretty
much a big knock to his self-esteem.

I would've thought

Paul Illingworth: it, it was, and it, and.

He was never the easiest
of people to get on with.

But obviously because he was in
a lot of pain he became very,

very difficult to live with.

Bitter perhaps, you know, to, to
the point where, you know, my,

I had a I have a younger sister
who's four years younger than me.

And, and you know, we pretty much both
realized as we were growing up that the

best thing to do was get out the house
and spend as much time out the house as

possible, which is literally what we did.

You know, just as my dad did
at 10 years old, I got myself a

paper round and started working.

So at 10 years old I was doing, getting
up at five o'clock in the morning.

Where was that?

Which part of was that was in?

I was in, that was in, we moved out to
the country to Hartfordshire so about

30 miles north of, of central London.

Mm.

And we moved into a
council house out there.

So I was delivering newspapers on a, on
a house estate in a place called Hoon.

I know Hoist.

Yeah.

Which is in Har Har, you know, Hoon?

Yeah, yeah.

Near hitching.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I, I helped with
a milk round at the weekends, but,

but seven days a week, no matter
what the weather was doing, I was up

delivering newspapers and, you know,
my mom and dad didn't have any money.

You know, so in order to, if you wanted
anything, I mean, I can remember I bought

my first pair of Levi's Levi Jeans myself.

'cause my mom and dad
couldn't afford anything.

We were living off social security.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: And that was all
done through paper round money.

Rupert Isaacson: So you
become, you know, yeah.

That boy who's out there making
a bit of money pre-adolescence,

take us now into your adolescence.

Where does it go from there?

Paul Illingworth: Hmm.

Well.

I did pretty well at school.

God knows why.

I actually do have a,
a, a relatively high iq.

Not that anybody realize
that at the time you did.

Well, I really, yeah, I, I struggled
with reading Rupert and I, I guess

that now I would be, what you would
call dis I was dyslexic basically.

Right.

I was very, very But you still got through

Rupert Isaacson: the school system though.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah, I was,
it was a bit of a struggle.

I was very, very good at
math, but I couldn't read and

writing was a struggle for me.

Right.

And, and at the age of 11, when when
you had to do what was called the

11 plus, 11 plus, that's it, the
11 plus, I had to do the 11 plus.

And I managed to pass the 11 plus
barely, which gave me access to

go into local grammar school.

Okay.

But my parents couldn't
afford the school uniform.

And there was a secondary
modern school only about half

a mile from where we lived.

So I went to the secondary model
school, secondary model school.

But I did manage to pass the 11 plus.

And then, but the first couple of years at
school, I really struggled with English.

And, and you know, even then, I think
moving forward a little bit, when

I, when I came to join the Navy, one
of the qualifications I needed to

become an officer in the Navy was
I had to have an English O level.

I failed it three times.

I had math, A level physics,
a level technical drawing,

chemistry, and one other.

I had four A levels, but I
couldn't pass English O level.

That's how bad I was.

I mean, really.

So, you know, I managed to take it
and, and get it eventually and that

then allowed me to, to join the Navy.

But I was gonna go in the forces.

It was either that or go to university.

But again, gonna university in
those days without any money

was very, very difficult.

I actually wanted to be an architect
because of my dad's connection

with the building business.

He, even though he was invalid, he did
teach me a lot of stuff growing up.

I, I got a lot of skills
that he taught me.

You know, I mean, he taught
me how to lay bricks.

He taught me how to sew the pipe, how
to do electric work which you're messing

around as a kid with two 20 volts
isn't a lot of fun if you get it wrong.

Yeah.

But he, he gave me all of the
basic skills that I think I

built on as I got older myself.

Right.

But, you know, I left school
when I was, when I was 16.

I could have stayed on, but I had the
qualifications that I needed to join

the Navy as a, as a cadet officer.

My dad wanted me to go in
the Army, as you can imagine.

He did not want me to
go in the, in the Navy.

My first choice was the Air Force, but
I would've had to have gone to college

to become a flight officer because they
didn't take you straight from school.

So the Navy was the best way for me to
go into the armed forces as an officer

without having to go to university and
spend a whole hell of a lot of money.

That's why I ended up joining the Navy.

Rupert Isaacson: There's, let's,
just before we get to the Navy

you spent a little bit of time
playing professional rugby as well.

Mm-hmm.

And not rugby union, but rugby league.

And I think it, people need to
know what the difference is.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: So

Rupert Isaacson: what, how did that happen
and then how did that play into forces?

Paul Illingworth: Alright.

So my dad growing up in Yorkshire.

As a yorkshireman played rugby league.

There's a big divide between, well, there
was in those days, not so much now, but,

but Rugby Union was played down south
in the uk, which was a non-professional

sport that was just simply played for
fun Guys played it at the weekend.

They didn't get paid.

Rugby league was a professional
sport, just like soccer was in the uk.

Then where you actually got paid to play.

Rugby league was only played
in the north of England.

My dad played rugby league
when he was a kid growing up.

And also when he was a teen and,
and I think even a, not after

the war, but before the war.

He played rugby league and he
played for, for Castleford, which

was the the town he grew up in.

So I kind of grew up with a rugby ball.

In, in my hands all the time.

I always had a rugby ball, never
played, really played soccer.

So when I went into secondary
school, they didn't play rugby

because it was a secondary school.

Only the grammar schools played rugby.

The secondary schools played soccer.

I was very lucky because at 11 years old,
when I went into secondary school, which

is like the American high school we got
a new gym teacher, stroke coach who was

a welshman that was very much into rugby.

I had a desire to play rugby and
the school I went to, it wasn't

the best of school, shall we say.

There was a very, very high
proportion of Italian immigrants

lived in the area that I lived in.

And those guys, although they were all
soccer mad, they also liked to fight.

So rugby being a lot more physical
game than soccer, they saw it as an

opportunity to go on the pitch third ball
around and fight with different people.

And isn't that that, what
It's pretty much, yeah.

I I even today it's, it's
pretty much the same thing.

Yeah.

So I ended up with the gym teacher,
if you like it, 11, 12 years old.

Starting a rugby team at the school,
we didn't have any, we didn't have

any h posts or anything like that, so
we had to play on the soccer pitch.

And we managed to get a group
of guys together that were

interested in playing rugby.

So with what I knew about rugby and
obviously what the, our Welsh gym teacher

knew who played Rugby Foot virtually all
of his life, we managed to get things

together and get a rugby team going.

The first game that we played the
very first season we lost 50 N nil.

We got absolutely hammered, but
there was a lot of fighting,

which my guys really, really.

And then things sort
of moved on from there.

And as, as the years passed, we
got better and better and better.

It was always the same guys just
moving from one year up to the next.

I was captain of the rugby team pretty
well from, from day one because I was

the only person I actually knew anything
about the game to start off with.

And the last year that I was at school,
we actually did very, very well.

We we won the county cup.

I got capped for for Hartfordshire
for Southeast England and I

actually got a junior cap to
and played for England as well.

So as a result of that, I was scouted,
if you like, to go and play rugby league.

Rupert Isaacson: What
position did you play?

Number

Paul Illingworth: eight.

So number eight.

Number eight is the guy that's
at the very back of the pack.

So the, you've got your forwards
and which are in a pack.

And I was at the very back,
so I played number eight.

Now in rugby, rugby
union there's 15 players.

Rugby league, there's only 13 because
they have two less people in the pack.

And the position I played in Rugby
Union number eight was called

lock, lock Forward in Rugby League.

So I ended up getting scouted and
was offered an opportunity to go

and play for Featherston Rovers.

And as a result of that,
I went to Featherston.

And how old were you at this point?

I was 15.

Wow.

So it would've been, it would've
been an opportunity to play for

the, what they call the Cols team.

And basically, you know, you
learn to play rugby league.

It, it, it's.

It's rugby, but it's a
different type of rugby.

It's very, very different
from rugby union.

And I'd never played rugby league
before, so I went there for six.

What's the main

Rupert Isaacson: difference?

Paul Illingworth: Oh, the main difference
basically is when somebody is tackled

in, in rugby union and you end up
going down on the ground, the pack

form around you in order to be able
to protect the ball and keep the ball

on your side with rugby league when
you're tackled, you get up, you and

you just kick the ball back so there's
no rucking, what they call rucking.

So it's Rugby league is kind of a faster
game than rugby Union was at the time.

But it also was, it was,
it was a tough game.

It was played by by miners, basically.

Yeah.

It was Yorkshire, it was Lancashire.

It was tough and it, for a London boy
to go up to Yorkshire and try to play

rugby league, it just didn't work.

Okay.

It wasn't that it, I wasn't
used to the, to the environment

to live in for one thing.

I wasn't really happy about leaving
my family at the time as, as well.

My dad said I was nuts even considering
going to Featherston because he

hated Featherston as a place.

And he, you know, he said the only
team to play for is Castleford.

So it just, I went up
there, I gave it a go.

Could I become a
professional rugby player?

Yes.

There's no doubt about it.

I had the skills to be able to do it.

I would've had to have lived in
Yorkshire in order to be able to do

it, you know, and then looking back
on it now, it was a no brainer really.

At 30 years old, I'd be done.

I wouldn't have made
an awful lot of money.

It's not like soccer where you make
millions and millions of dollars.

Yeah.

It wasn't particularly well paid
and all I was getting when I was

up there was expenses anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

But it was a good, it was a good
experience because it gave me the

opportunity at that age to make the
first career decision of my life.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

And also because you had to start this
rugby team at school and get it going

and get it up to this point of excellence
from a, a pretty crappy beginning.

Mm-hmm.

That would've given you a kind of

mentor mentorship on the go in
leadership and your, your Welsh mentor

himself must have helped you with that.

But then by the time you find
yourself later going into the

forces, you already kind of know
how to take a group of standard

idiots and turn them into something.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: And if you, I think if
you've been doing that since adolescence,

it's probably something which you
don't even notice in yourself probably

by the time you're getting into your
twenties, but that you can command.

And by commanding I don't mean just
bossing people about to know about.

I mean, actually organizing
people and getting a job done.

That could be a difficult job.

That could be a scary job.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

I th I think that's very true.

I mean, the playing rugby at school,
it wasn't just a case of, oh, I'm

gonna go play rugby at school on a
Saturday afternoon, and that's it.

It was, it was every day of my life.

I mean, I lived and breathed for rugby
and at 13 years old, I started playing

for the local rugby club as well.

Because Dave James, who was the gym
teacher, played for the local rugby

club, and they had a, a junior team.

So 13 years old, I was, I was playing
rugby for the club on a Saturday

afternoon and playing rugby for
the school on Saturday morning,

and we had practice twice a week.

So, I mean, you know.

I think a lot of young people today, the
problem that, that they have is they, they

don't know what to do with themselves.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and I hate bringing up
computer games and things like that.

There was no computer games
when I was growing up.

I didn't, we didn't even have a television
in the house, so it's not like I

could watch television or do anything.

You had to go out and do something.

So rugby for me, rugby for me was, was
really the way, I guess, of ignoring

everything else that was going on and just
doing something that I really enjoyed.

You know?

I mean, we, you know, like
I said, we didn't have any

money when I was growing up.

Yeah.

We didn't have a car.

My dad had a motorbike,
which eventually I inherited.

But he couldn't ride the motorbike,
not after he had his accident.

My mum used to go and get a
groceries on a, on a bicycle, you

know, with a basket on the front.

So, you know, but I, but I think,
yes, the leadership skills, certainly

started with the rugby team.

There's absolutely no doubt about that.

Rupert Isaacson: I guess too,
the thing with leadership is

it's also responsibility, right?

If you are the one who says, okay,
I'm gonna organize this team.

I'm gonna be the captain, I'm
gonna take a group of boys who

are aggressive and chaotic.

It's a, it's a lot of responsibility.

You have to make it work or you
look like it, you know, an idiot.

Yeah.

And the pack will turn on you.

Yeah.

And, so in a way where it's
sort of do or die, isn't it?

That you have to Yes.

You, you have to take that risk and
that must have been quite intimidating,

you know, equally going up to, to
play rugby in the north like that.

And, and anyone who's never played rugby,
honestly, you know, it was compulsory

at school when I, when I was a kid.

It, when Ablo like Paul is running at
you, he's gonna hit you like a car, you

know, and you know it's gonna hurt, right?

Or if I, I am not a big guy.

If I have to tackle Paul, I've gotta
hope that three of my mates are gonna

jump on as well, or it's just not fair.

I'm just sort of hanging onto his leg,
just keeps running up the pitch, kicking

at my face, you know, as, as he does it,
there is quite a lot of fear involved.

And when you end up on the bottom of the
scrum, you know, when it collapses it

doesn't matter actually how big you are.

You can't breathe, you know, and I,
I, you know, that panic that you get

when you, you just have to sort of
wait until you can breathe again.

So.

I do wonder, you know, one of the things
which I think young men need is they do

need a certain amount of risk and they
do need a certain amount of danger.

We are supposed to go and hunt
wildebeest with a spear kind of thing.

And do you feel that that's
just less available these days?

Because I, I feel that young men
need it, like they need oxygen.

Paul Illingworth: I, yes, it
most definitely is unavailable.

But I think society has had an awful
lot to do with this, Rupert, because

we, we multi, we mollycoddle kids now.

There's no doubt about it.

I know I'm not, I'm not a firm believer.

I don't think we should be going
around beating our kids for no.

Every single thing that we do.

But the trouble is they're
getting wrapped in cotton wool.

They're being, they're,
they're being protected.

You know, you get a situation where if
anything happens at school, if somebody

even turns around and yells at somebody,
the parents can get called into the

school and the child gets disciplined.

Mm-hmm.

You know, there's is, you know, it's,
it's easy for me in my sixties to

turn around and say that, you know,
we produced a soft generation because

my father used to say exactly the same
thing, you know about me when I was

growing up, and everybody says that, but
I think it's just got to the point now.

Where there isn't enough things for,
particularly for young men to do that

really challenge them enough and,
and not only, not just challenge them

physically, but but challenge them
mentally and prepare them for the world.

I mean, the world's a scary place, right?

Yes, it is.

The world is a scary place.

Believe you're me.

I mean, you know, I'm still scared of
some of the things that I see happen.

I'm terrified when I go out and try
driving on the roads at the moment.

Yeah.

But you know, there, there's, there
isn't enough things for, but, and I don't

know, you know, I, I agree with you 100%.

There's a huge difference between young
men and young women, the way that they,

they interact, but young girls aren't
really brought up to be scared of things.

And, and, and, but young
men seem to have lost.

The whole sense of, of fear
and, and, and they don't want

anything to do with it anymore.

I think this is why they become insular
and they go to things like computer games

because they don't wanna actually face
what's going on outside in the real world.

And interestingly,

Rupert Isaacson: a lot of the
computer games are showing the

very things that Yeah, right.

In the old days they'd
have actually been doing

Paul Illingworth: Exactly,
that's exactly what they are.

Rupert Isaacson: So, alright,
then tell us, you enter the

forces, you go into the Navy.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: Do you do that just
because it's not what your dad wants you

to do or do you do that to a certain ex?

Paul Illingworth: No, to
a certain extent, yes.

And what's

Rupert Isaacson: his reaction?

Paul Illingworth: No, he hated it.

I don't think we talked
for the first two years.

I mean, I was, I was going away for
long periods of time, you know, I

mean, I'd be gone for nine months.

Yeah.

So, and, and.

But, you know, my mother and I
used to write letters every week.

I mean, I've still got a big box full
of letters that my mother wrote me

while I, in my early days in the Navy,
I was very, very close to my mum.

She was the one that used to
get me up at five o'clock in the

morning to do my paper round.

She'd gimme a cup of tea,
she'd gimme some toast.

Yeah.

I was very, very close to her.

I don't think, I never got a letter
from my father at any point in time.

I mean, he didn't really
believe in writing anyway.

There was no telephones or
anything like that in those days.

There's no way of communicating
other than through letters.

But he, he was angry with

Rupert Isaacson: you
for going in the Navy.

Paul Illingworth: He was, yeah.

He was, he, he was ang he was angry.

He was pretty well angry all the time.

I think the only thing he really liked
about me growing up was playing rugby.

Right.

And even then when I made the
decision not to go to Castleford and

play rugby, he was annoyed at that.

And then I decided I was gonna go
in the Navy and not in the Army.

And as I said, my first choice would've
been the Air Force anyway, but Right.

It was, it was the Navy.

I'll be, I'll be quite honest with you,
the Navy was a, an easy solution for me.

And that's probably why I took that route.

I know it's, it, it's not necessarily
the way that I have done things since

then, but at that time it was the easiest
way for me to get out the house, go

and see some of the world, which was
the big thing because I didn't have to

get posted in the UK or go to a train
in school or go to college for months.

I went to a ship, I went out to Singapore,
I went to a ship and I was gone.

Right.

I started seeing the world
from day one, literally.

And that was the big
appeal I wanted to travel.

Rupert Isaacson: What
did you do in the Navy?

What was the job?

Paul Illingworth: I was I started
off as a, as a weaponry officer.

And then when I moved from the
Royal Navy into the Merchant Navy

I had sufficient time in the Royal
Navy and the qualifications to

be able to go to Naval College.

And worked my way up through
the certification process.

So, so that I ended up with a
captain certificate, so it would've

taken a lot of years in the
Royal Navy to get to that point.

Right.

But in the Merchant Navy, it was quicker.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So that was gonna be a question A, why
did you choose the merchant Navy B?

Explain to, and again, not everyone knows
the British system, so if you can explain

what the Merchant Navy is and talk us
through what life was like with that.

So, so first, why the
change, then what is it?

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Paul Illingworth: Okay.

Well, the, the, the main reason
for the change was, money.

Okay?

You earn a lot more money in the Merchant
Navy than you did in the Royal Navy.

Also it was to do with the ranking
systems of the two different navies.

Now, the Merchant Navy is the same
as the, the US Merchant Marine.

You could join the Merchant Marine and
you can go to college as a, as a cadet

officer and work your way up through
the, through the different ranks in

the Merchant Navy to become a captain.

The Royal Navy pretty well,
works the same way, except the

process is, is a lot slower.

In order to be get to become a captain
in the Royal Navy, you'd probably have

to have 25 or 30 years of service.

You could get to captain in the
Merchant Navy with 10 years of service.

So it was a much, much quicker process.

Merchant Navy paid a a lot more
money than the Royal Navy, and I

was, I was quite lucky in that I
followed my and my older cousin.

Really was, he was kind of like my mentor.

He went into the Merchant Navy.

He was 12 years older than me,
and he was more like a big brother

than a, than a than a cousin.

He went straight into the Merchant Navy
fairly shortly probably six or seven

years after he went in the merchant Navy.

He went into the oil and gas business.

That's where the big money was.

So I was able, when I went in the
Merchant Navy to do a couple of

trips on, on big cargo ships, see
a bit of the world doing that.

And then I moved into the oil and gas
business and the oil and gas business,

which was basically working on supply
boats that ran supplies to the oil rigs.

That's where, where the money really was.

So, you know, it was a transition.

From really just one naval
service to another naval service

doing something different.

Not so much of the, the military regime.

You know, not so much
of the Yes sir, no sir.

Three bags full serve that
you had in the Royal Navy.

A a lot more relaxed and to be quite
honest with you, a lot more fun.

Why is it more fun?

It's, it, I I'm not really the type of
person that, that is a disciplinarian.

I never really enjoyed
the Yes, sir, no sir.

Stuff that came with the, with being in
the Royal Navy, there was, so, it was a

more relaxed atmosphere, which I think
just, just made it a little bit more fun.

Also, the other thing as well is, you
know, when you go ashore, when you're

in the Navy and you've been at sea a
long time, and you go ashore, you know,

you wanna really go and enjoy yourself.

In the Royal Navy, if you enjoyed yourself
a little bit too, too much, there would

be somebody there to put handcuffs
on you and take you back to the ship.

Right.

In the Merchant Navy, you just had to
avoid the local police, and that was a lot

easier than avoid avoiding the the sps.

So that's why it was more fun.

And I went, I went to some very, very
remote very uncivilized places when

I was in the, in the merchant Navy.

I worked in Nigeria, well, I worked
in Nigeria for a number of years.

I worked in Angola when
the war was going on.

Mm-hmm.

Were East Africa, went all around India
all around South America pretty well.

I don't think there's, there's
very many coasts in the world.

I haven't actually touched at some
point in time, but I spent a lot of time

working in Africa and you really see
some terrible, terrible things there.

Rupert Isaacson: What did you see?

Paul Illingworth: A lot of death.

A lot.

What sort of

Rupert Isaacson: death and why?

Paul Illingworth: Just dead bodies
lying on the side of the road.

Poverty, starvation, shooting robbery.

It was India, this was
Nigeria, specifically Nigeria.

Nigeria, Angola was the same.

Civil war was going on there.

Virtually the whole of West
Africa, and I was there in the,

in the eighties was just a mess.

But the ports that you

Rupert Isaacson: were landing in had
a certain amount of security to them?

Paul Illingworth: Not really, no.

They were pretty well open.

And, and that was half the problem as
well, you know, I mean, we were working

on, on the offshore supply boats.

Pirate wasn't really an issue then.

The pirate in thing didn't, I was
gonna ask you about piracy, you know,

compared to today off Yemen, for example.

Oh, it's, it's terrible Today.

I, I would, I would not want a to.

Be having to deal with that.

You know, when we, we carried guns
on board more for protection against

robbers and things like that.

Now they say, I mean, to deal with
pirates, now they've got AK 40

sevens, they've got automatic weapons.

You know, you don't really want to
get involved in things like that.

It was a, it was a lot simpler
when I was doing things in

West Africa apart from Angola.

And that, that is a different
story because I, yeah, I, I,

that was the, the war zone.

Yeah, it was the war zone.

Yeah.

We'll talk about, we can talk
about that a bit later on.

Okay.

But it was really just a
case of protecting yourself.

You know, you had to.

My, shall we say, some of the
training that I received when I

was in the military helped me a lot
in terms of personal protection.

That I had a few instances in West
Africa where I had to look after myself.

And that helped a lot.

But it was really just, if you went
ashore, you went ashore in a group and you

were armed you, you just had to be armed.

It's as simple as that.

Not necessarily with a gun, but
we used to take knives and clubs

and things like that with us.

And you know, to a certain extent
it, it was just a way of life.

Was I scared?

No.

You know, would it stop me going to shore?

No, but it stopped me doing all the
things I did know because I wasn't

really, I wasn't, I just wasn't scared.

It's as simple as that.

Rupert Isaacson: Why do you
think you weren't scared

given that it was scary?

Paul Illingworth: That's a good,
I think it all comes back to.

Just the way that I
prepared myself for life.

There's, there's nothing I can honestly
say that, that really scares me.

I mean, you, you know, you know my
background, Rupert, you know, and

I I'll happily toss myself out of
an airplane, you know, any point in

time and hope the parachutes work.

It's, I, I don't know.

You know, I, I think the fear is
something that you build up inside you.

And if you let it overtake you,
it can do you a lot of harm.

And the simplest thing
is push it to one side.

Just get on and deal with life.

And that's what I've always done.

I was bullied, believe it or
not, I was bullied as a kid.

One of the things we haven't touched on
is when I was 10 years old I was riding

my bicycle and I got hit by a car.

Very, very lucky to survive.

I have a scar that goes from
here all the way, my face,

and around the back of my ear.

I had 140 stitches there.

I had another scar down here.

My head hit the, the curb.

I wasn't wearing a helmet.

Smashed open the back of my head.

As a result of that, I got bullied
at school 'cause the kids called me

Scarface, the older kids, a lot of whom
were the, some of the immigrants I talked

about, I got bullied and I, I just,
I had to learn, stand up for myself.

My father's attitude was basically,
if you're gonna get into a fight,

have something to help you win it.

I got bullied.

It happened two or three times.

I ended up picking up a branch of a
tree, hitting a couple of kids with it.

They never touched me again.

Mm-hmm.

And I'd be one of these people that
if threatened, I just lash out.

You know, I am a fighter.

I always have been a fighter.

I've certainly quieted down a little
bit now, but you know, you know me

well enough to know that I won't
put up with any crap from anybody.

And No, but interestingly,

Rupert Isaacson: I do know that about
you, but I also know you as actually

a very tolerant man with actually
you've got a short fuse in that.

You, you can be a bit grumpy, but one
of the things I've always respected

about you, Paul, is actually you
don't throw your weight around.

You could, 'cause I think we're
gonna, let's go into some more of

your background in a minute, but
I, I've never seen you be a bully.

I've never seen you be cruel.

I've never seen you use that
power misuse, that power.

So yes.

I mean, I think if, if somebody
threatens you or something like sure.

I mean, you, I, I don't think I would want
to do that, but I've ne oddly enough, I've

never seen you misuse that aggression.

No,

Paul Illingworth: I don't, I
don't, I use it to defend myself.

Mm-hmm.

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's
just a defensive reaction.

Mm-hmm.

And, and I mean, you know,
anybody in the same situation,

you know, you can do two things.

You can run or you can stand and fight.

And I've run.

At times, and I can't run very well.

Sometimes it's very much the right
thing to do, but sometimes it's

definitely the right thing to do.

Other times, other times it's stand
up and fight and sometimes you

don't have a need to, to fight.

You just have to stand up for yourself.

It's as simple as that.

But, but again, you know, you, you asked
me why am I not afraid of anything?

I mean, I guess I'll, I may well
find something I'm afraid of.

Like I said, the one thing terrifies me
at the moment is driving on the roads

because it, it, they're just, there's so
many idiots out there and it just seems

to be getting worse and worse and worse.

And I think there's more chance of
dying in a car wreck than anything else.

I mean, I'm not, yeah.

You know, I don't have to
deal with wild animals.

I don't have to deal
with, with war anymore.

There's no, there's really no
fighting, no war or anything like

that, that I would get involved in.

So the most dangerous thing
I do is go out and drive.

I ride a motorbike.

I was on the motorbike yesterday.

That is dangerous.

I riding motorbike.

Dangerous.

I've rid, but I've ridden a bike
since I was 10, 11 years old.

Mm-hmm.

You know, only had a couple of spills.

Fortunately Touchwood, I've never
seriously hurt myself, but you've just

gotta be, you've gotta be def you, you
have to ride defensively yesterday and

it's just like everything else, isn't it?

You gotta be defensive.

Yeah.

You just gotta be prepared
to look after yourself.

That's really what it comes down to.

So

Rupert Isaacson: you were talking about
war there, so let's talk about that.

So, how do you end up going from
the Merchant Navy back into the

forces and end up in Special forces?

What's the trick to be there?

Okay.

Paul Illingworth: Well, when I was
in the, in the Royal Navy I was given

the opportunity to move sideways
into the Royal Marine Commandos.

Which is, which is just like
the, the American Marines.

The Marines are part of the US Navy.

So they're Royal Marine Commandos
are actually technically not

part of the British Army.

They're, they're more
part of the British Navy.

I was always interested in special
forces, special forces training

because of what my father went through.

And so when an opportunity came for
me to step sideways, if you like,

into the RMC, I took that opportunity.

And as a result of that ended up going
to going to Special Forces Selection,

which I failed miserably the first time.

And then going through it again a
second time, I managed, I didn't

know they gave you a second chance.

That's interesting.

Yeah, they do.

They do.

Yes, you can go back again.

And I ended up going back and, and
basically getting through that.

So, so that was how how I ended
up getting through and, and.

I just carried that, that training
and that responsibility through with

some of the other stuff that I got,
that I got involved in later on, so.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So what did you get involved in later on?

You, you ended up in the SASI know.

Tell us what you wanna tell us.

Paul Illingworth: I can't really
say too much about anything that,

that, that happened during that
period, to be quite honest with

you, and I'd really rather not.

Hmm.

However, one of the interesting
things that, that did happen later

on when I was in the oil and gas
business, I was I was working in

Angola when the war was actually
on the, the Civil War was going on.

And through some contacts that I had
that I met down there there was an

opportunity to, to actually do some work
for the night for the Angola government.

So basically what the, the situation
in, in Angola was that you had two

different political parties as quite
often happens with a civil war.

And you had one ruling party, which
was NPLA, and there was another ruling.

There was another party, which was you
to, and the, the Civil War was really

you to, was being funded by the Russians.

MPLA was being funded, if you
like, by the West, by non Russians.

The Russian funding got to the point where
they were starting to, to get tooled up

with some very, very serious equipment.

And the government needed some
help, if you like suppressing some

of the things that were going on,
particularly fairly close to Luanda,

which was a capital of Angola.

So as a result of some of the associations
that I had I was able to step to one

side of the oil and gas work that I was
actually doing because I was working down

there as a consultant for Sogo, which
is a national oil company of Angola.

So I got to meet some very high people
up in the government including the

president of the country at the time.

And, ended up, if you like, helping
them with some of the military

issues that, that, that they had.

It was really more protecting some of the,
some of the, as the oil and gas assets

that they had that were being threatened
by the, should we say, the Rebel forces.

And you know, there were, there
were South African mercenaries

that were actually working there.

Ex special forces guys from South Africa
that were working in Angola all the time.

I had some association with them.

Not working as a, I didn't work as
a mercenary per se, but I, but I was

associated with some, should we say some
of the strategic decisions that were made

in order to be able to help protect Luanda

And

Rupert Isaacson: what, what
years are we talking there and

how long did that go on for?

Paul Illingworth: Well, I
mean, my involvement was from

1992 to 1996, primarily 1994.

Okay.

I think the Civil War went on, I think
for almost 20 years, Rupert, to be called.

Yeah, it did.

It did.

I remember I was in Angola
a long, long, long time.

Yeah, 30 years.

There was a lot.

Yeah.

I think it was, there was a lot
of very, very heavy fights around

Orlando and Soya during the nineties.

And, and most, you know, most of the
rest of the, the problem was more in

land, but when it got to the coast and
it started to threaten the the oil and

gas business that, you know, that's
when the government realized that they

really needed to do something about it.

So it was during that period

Rupert Isaacson: and you had been deployed
within the British forces as well.

Mm-hmm.

I don't, I know you don't wanna
go too much into it, but you had

been, you, you had been deployed
in the Falklands, correct.

And then, yeah, that's

Paul Illingworth: correct.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

And that was Special
forces, so you'd taken that.

Experience over absolutely.

Yes.

You know, Angola's a scary place.

Or at least it certainly was.

I remember staring down a barrel
of a child soldiers automatic

that with a, with a comp compan.

I was, I had a traveling companion
who was a German girl who we didn't

realize at the time was bipolar.

And she later sent me, 10 years
later, sent me an apology letter.

She almost got me killed
like two, three times.

And it was just her and a friend.

And we, there was
nothing going on with us.

We were just travelers.

I was writing a guidebook actually
and being a journalist, and I

just wanted people from youth
hostels to split costs with.

And we ended up crossing the
border into Angola briefly.

And she got.

Verbally aggressive with the wrong people.

And I was like, what are you doing?

You're gonna get us killed.

You're gonna get us killed.

You know, like, you really
are gonna get us killed.

You've got to stop.

And you know how that thing is,
you, you're looking down the

barrel of, of somebody who's
15 pointing that gun at you.

And you know that whatever decision
they're making is not gonna be rational.

Paul Illingworth: That's,
that, that's, that's actually,

you know, a, a good point.

Something, something very,
very similar happened to me.

Funnily enough, not in Angola or
Nigeria, it was actually Mozambique,

but that was during the Civil War there.

Yeah.

That was also nice, you know, where,
where they were are, I mean, a lot of

the kids did have automatic weapons,
and those were the ones that you

really did have to be worried about.

Yeah.

There's no doubt about it.

It, it, the regular soldiers, to
a certain extent, weren't so bad

the kids, the kids just really
didn't know what they were doing.

They had no training and, you know,
they just saw, especially if you

were being aggressive with them,
you are lucky you didn't get shot.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, well, I was,
I did just a lot of apologizing, you

know, and you know, you talk about
having no fear, I had a lot of fear.

I was catching myself, you
know, because Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, as you say, the, the, the way
through is sometimes there, there are ways

to stand up for yourself and sometimes
it's actually to talk your way through.

Yeah.

And in that case it was to
sort of appeal to somebody's

sense of reason and humanity.

Okay.

So you're in the Merchant Navy.

You are not a mercenary in Angola.

At what point do you start aviating?

I presume with jumping out
of airplanes, that must have

started with special forces.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

I, you know, I did do some helicopter
flying when I was in in the military.

Didn't get into it too seriously, but
the aviating really just simply came

about as a result of buying a skydiving
business and inheriting an airplane.

It came with an airplane.

We had a pilot.

Okay.

And one of the things that I think.

Jen and I realized pretty
quickly, and we really knew

this just from our experiences.

Jen being your wife.

Yeah.

Jen being my wife.

Yeah.

Through our experience at other
drop zones is if the pilot gets

sick, you don't do any business.

Most drop zones can't afford
to hire more than one pilot.

So if you, you know, literally
if the pilot does get sick, if

he gets a cold, he can't fly and
then the business is shut down.

So when we bought the business,
we had a pilot that if you like,

that was working for the business.

He'd already, he told us fairly quickly
he was looking to move into the airlines.

'cause a lot of the times skydiving
pilots use it to build hours, right.

So they can then go and
fly for the airlines.

He told us that he was looking
to go to the airline, so we

needed to find another pilot.

We found another pilot, luckily
that stayed with us for almost 10

years, but it did make us realize
that while it's fairly easy to hire

skydiving instructors, binding pilots
is hard and keeping pilots is hard.

So Jen and I decided
to have flying lessons.

We took flying lessons.

We started in 2005.

We both got our private pilot's license
within about a year, nine months I

think it was, brought ourselves a
little sesor airplane because we were

living in Houston and the business we
owned was a two hour drive away, but

it was only a half an hour flight.

So we brought little airplane
and then we could fly out there

for the weekends with the kids.

My kids were growing up at the time.

I decided that rather than just stop
at private pilot's license, I'd get my

instrument rating, I'd get my multi-engine
rating, I'd get my commercial.

So basically I had all of the different
ratings that I'd need to fly any of

the airplanes we were ever likely
to use in the skydiving business.

And I went through all of those over the
next year or so, got all those ratings.

And then as soon as I is, it used be

Rupert Isaacson: so quick.

Doesn't it take longer normally to get

Paul Illingworth: No, I was, I was
flying almost every day having lessons.

Okay.

You know, because, because we
were running a business and it was

important that I got the ratings,
the cost of, I mean, it's, it's.

Cost prohibitive for most people
as well to do all of that because

of the cost of the instruction.

Mm-hmm.

But I was fortunate in that the
business was able to help with the cost.

Mm-hmm.

And I literally, I would go and have a fly
lesson at seven o'clock in the morning,

finish at nine o'clock, go to the office.

Right.

Work in the office till
seven, eight o'clock at night.

Come home, go repeat the
same, the same thing.

It's, and then, like I said, weekends,
we'd be going out to a skydiving business.

So it's really, it was, you know,
it was seven days a week working

and very, very long hours as well.

That's how we got into flying.

That's how both Jen and
I got, got into flying.

We still fly today.

You know, we still, we, we still
own a little airplane that we fly.

Even though we sold the skydiving
business a number of years ago.

We owned a small jet for a period of time.

I mean, you've flown with us.

Well, I have.

It's my only.

You know,

Rupert Isaacson: experience of flying a
private jet, I'm very, very, very great.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

We've done, you know, we've done a, a
lot of stuff and I mean, as I get older

now, we, you know, I'm almost 70 now,
we sold the jet because once you hit 70,

it's pretty difficult to get insurance
to fly small pri, you know, private jets.

So we, we are just scaling things
down, but that's how, that's how

we got into the aviation side.

And I must say I love it.

I, I always wanted to
join the Royal Air Force.

I think I said that very, very early
on because I had, I'd never flown

at the time, but I just thought
it looked like a lot of fun to do.

Yeah.

And it is a lot of fun and
I really, really enjoy it.

So it's, you know, it's one of the things
I think that probably motorcycling and,

and flying, I still get the most enjoyment
out of, of pretty much everything we do.

We still enjoy jumping as well.

Just don't jump as much
as, as, as we could do.

Rupert Isaacson: So.

Then you, you go from the Merchant Navy
into the oil and gas business and you

Paul Illingworth: Yeah,

Rupert Isaacson: you, you do Well.

Paul Illingworth: And so let,
let's just, let's talk about that.

Okay?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The same thing.

It's the same thing again.

I wanted, I wanted to, I wanted
basically to get to a point where

I was caption in my own ship.

That was my target.

And when I went in the Navy,
I can remember way, way

before I joined the Navy.

There was a guy that was
playing at my rugby club.

I was probably 14 years old, 14 or 15.

He was a captain in the Merchant
Navy, and he was earning, and I

remember this like it was yesterday.

He was earning 5,000 pounds a year.

That was a hundred pounds a week.

That was a huge amount of money.

I was earning 10.

What year was that?

Would that have been 70?

That, that, that would've
been in let me think.

60.

69 70.

Oh yeah.

That would've

Rupert Isaacson: been a lot of money.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah,
it was a lot of money.

Yeah.

I was earning 10 shillings
a week till in newspapers.

He was earning a hundred
pounds a week as a captain.

So ultimately my target
was to get to be captain.

'cause I thought, well, you know,
I've not had any money growing up, but

I'll be doing fairly well because he,
you know, he drove a nice sports car.

I think he had a knee type jag
and, you know, and he seemed

to live very comfortably.

So that was always really my
target was to become a captain.

Mm-hmm.

Once I transitioned into a
merchant Navy, 1984, I got, I went

to college for six months and I
passed my captain's license test.

So from 1984, I had a license
to captain any ship of any

size, anywhere in the world.

And at the time the company that
I was working for, which was an

American offshore company, were
desperately short of captains.

And I got an opportunity to move
from first officer to captain,

working on the old Vig supply boats.

So I took that opportunity and
then I ended up moving from

West Africa into the North Sea.

So I was captain of supply boats
working the North Sea and some of

the most horrendous weather you'll
ever I can imagine, possibly imagine.

And I did that until about 1990.

But in the interim period of time
with a couple of other guys in

Aberdeen I end and we started our own
company, a marine consultancy company.

And what we were doing was we
were providing tow masters to move

oil rigs around the North Sea.

So I moved from being captain of a.

I worked as captain on the oil rigs in
the Middle East for a couple of years.

Then I went back to the North Sea
working for my own company with

these, with these two other gentlemen.

And we set the company up and we,
we very, we've become very, very

successful at renting our services
out to move oil rigs around to the

point where we ended up having to
start hiring people to work for us.

So then the company started to grow.

I think the last, the last job I did
when I was actually working on, on the

oil rig, the big tugs, because I was
moving oil rigs around as a, as a tow

master at the time was probably 1990.

And then there was an opportunity
shortly thereafter to go and work

for a small Canadian oil company
as a marine superintendent.

So, and this was in Aberdeen, so I'm still
working, I'm managing director of my own.

Consultancy company, they
needed a marine superintendent.

So we literally contracted my
services to this small Canadian

company as a marine superintendent.

And that's how I ended up, I did some work
in the North Sea installing platforms in

the North Sea oil rig platforms for them.

And they also had a license in Angola.

And that's how I ended up in Angola,
working for them down in Angola, meeting

the, the government officials from Sonal
and doing and doing that sort of stuff.

So I ran that company as managing director
for 13 years until 1998 when I ended up.

As a result of meeting some guys, funnily
enough in Angola getting an opportunity

to come to Houston and I'd been in
Aberdeen for eight years at that time.

I wanted to take the
company International.

My two partners did not
want to go international.

They wanted to stay in the
uk So we started to come to a

point where we were gonna split.

The opportunity came up for me to go
to Houston, so I ended up going to

Houston as a consultant working for this
Singaporean based company to set up the

business development office for them.

And that was really an opportunity for me
to just simply say, okay, I like it here.

I'm gonna stay here.

They're gonna pay me, well, I'll
leave the UK consultancy company.

I'll just step back, keep my shares
in the company, but not have anything

to do with the day-to-day running.

That's how I ended up in the us

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

Paul Illingworth: So.

Rupert Isaacson: You're talking
about moving all platforms

around and as if that's an easy
thing to do in the North Sea.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: As you said, I've
seen, I've seen what the weather can be.

You talk about not being afraid.

You must have been afraid sometimes in
those storms that the ship might go down.

Not

Paul Illingworth: I was, I, there,
there's a, there was a couple of

opportunities where I never thought
I'd ever see weather worse than that.

And then there was
weather worse than that.

I was never bothered
about a ship going down.

And one of the things I should
probably point out is that, remember

I told you I had an older cousin
who was 12 years older than me.

I also had another cousin that was
four years older than me, Neil,

he was actually on an offshore
supply boat that did go down in the

Mediterranean and he was lost at sea.

Mm.

The ship, the ship just disappeared.

Wow.

And that was in the Mediterranean.

Rupert Isaacson: Wow.

You don't expect to see
that kind of weather.

Paul Illingworth: And, and
I'd been in the Navy, I think

two years when that happened.

And, you know, it, it was, it, it really
brought it home with the vulnerability.

Now, when I was on my own ship as
captain working in the North Sea, we

went out in some horrendous weather.

There was, I remember there
was one Christmas where the

storms were really, really bad.

And I was, I was flown out by helicopter
to a rig, which had broken a couple of his

moorings to try to be able to to get some,
some tugs attached to the rig so we could

actually pull it away from the platform
that it was gonna end up drifting towards.

That was some of the worst
weather that I ever saw when I

was captain on a ship myself.

We went out in Force 10 a
couple of times from Aberdeen.

I was never bothered
about the ship going down.

Could it have happened?

Yes.

But I think, I guess that I felt that
my superior seamanship skills were

able to deal with anything that the
weather threw out us at the time.

And again, I think I was,
I was very, very lucky.

We never got into a serious situation.

But I mean, I, that there was
a lot of really, really nasty

things happened out there.

I'll tell you what, you know, one
time I was a bit twitchy, I was, one

of the things that I had to do was
move jack up rigs alongside platforms.

And when you're moving a jack up
rig alongside a platform, and Jack

up rig basically is an oil rig.

They work in relatively shallow water
up to about 150, two a hundred feet.

They go deeper now, but
in those days, 152 feet.

And it's like, it's, it's a, it's a
triangular shaped rig that has three legs.

It floats with the legs jacked
up, and then you put it to

wherever you want it to go.

And there's normally three tugs attached.

One at one at each corner.

'cause it's a triangle and you move
it where you want to go with the tugs.

And then you lower the legs down.

The legs, hit the sea bed, and they
raise the rig up off, off the sea.

It literally comes up.

So you have a gap between the
sea and the bottom of the rig.

It's called the air gap.

Now, one of the things we had to do
in the southern part of the North

Sea was to actually move these jack
up rigs alongside a fixed platform.

So now you've got something that
is attached to the seabed that

has accommodation on top and
it's got wells going through it.

And the jack up rig has to
go right up close to that.

You jack it up.

It has a drilling deck that then
can levers over the top of the

platform so they can get the
drilling equipment down the well.

You have to move those rigs.

Four to six feet away from the
legs of the fixed platform.

So the accuracy, the way that we do
this is a combination of using anchors

and tugs, but you are literally
moving the rig six inches at a time.

So I'm giving instructions to one of the
tugs to pull six inches in on a toe line.

Another one, pull six inches in here.

That is the most, I won't say
it's scary, it's nerve wracking

because there's no room for error.

Absolutely no.

And the way that we used to tell if we
were in the right place is quite funny.

We have what we called surveyors
on board, and the surveyors

were technical guys, okay?

We didn't have sat nav
or anything like that.

So in order to tell whether or not we
were in the right place on the platform,

'cause you had to get in exactly the
right place, we'd get two aluminum

ladders, stick them out the back of
the rig with a scaffolding pole going

across and a couple of paint marks.

And when that scaffolding po and the paint
marks touched the legs of the platform,

we knew we were in the right place.

That's how technical,

Rupert Isaacson: that's that technical
and what would happen if you got it wrong.

Paul Illingworth: You'd end up
hitting the rig would hit the platform

and that was really, really bad.

Because, because, because if you
have make contact with a platform

or the rig, you can't do anything.

You have to pull away.

You then have to, to fly a surveyor
out to survey the rig to make

sure it doesn't have any damage.

You have to get divers to do NDT on the
platform to make sure you haven't damaged

the integrity of the, of the platform.

'cause even if you say, oh, we
just kissed it, we just touched it.

Doesn't matter.

Game is off.

Rig gets pulled away.

Oil company that you're working for
get really angry because you've now

got a rig that's costing them a hundred
thousand dollars a day and it's not

doing anything because you've screwed up.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

And you're doing this in rough weather.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Rough

Paul Illingworth: weather.

Rupert Isaacson: How, how'd you do it?

How'd you do it?

How'd you get that level of
accuracy in rough weather when the

waves are just tossing you about?

Paul Illingworth: Well, I mean.

In the Southern North Sea, the current
is a, is a major issue as well.

So you have to wait for what they call
slack water, which occurs every six hours.

And then there is a, there is a
point with the weather where you

just say, no, we can't do it.

Okay.

But, you know, so there's a maximum
wave height because obviously if you are

moving up and down and you're surging
back and forward, you gotta be really,

really careful with what you're doing.

So you do get to the point
where if the weather's really

bad, you just have to stop.

Okay.

And it's the same in the Northern
North Sea when you're moving

the semi-submersible rigs around
that float and have anchors.

You get to the point where when
the weather, the waves get beyond

a certain height, you just have to
stop, hold position and wait for

the weather to, to calm down a bit.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So yeah, went back to the subject of
fear and you said, you know, it's nerve

wracking that, that that's another whole.

Thing with fear is that, well,
there's fear for your own personal

safety, but then there's also fear.

Paul Illingworth: Fear of damage.

Rupert Isaacson: Well,
and fear of effing up.

Screwing up.

Yeah.

Screwing up.

Yeah.

When it comes down to is
responsibility, like these types

of job that you're talking about,
they're ver they're very difficult.

And you've got to manage
these natural conditions.

You've got to manage groups of
people who are, you know, doing

this stuff, and that there's gonna
naturally be human error in there,

not to mention the weather, you know?

So do you think that, you know,
that's a lot of pressure to handle.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: Do you think that it
really, if you, if you look at where were

the skills that you built to be able to
handle that sort of pressure that you

built them sort of in the paper rounds.

Age 10.

Yes.

Is that, is that where it all began?

Paul Illingworth:
Standing up for yourself.

And, and I mean, it's really just, if
you're gonna take on a job that has

that sort of level of responsibility,
you have got to have a huge

amount of confidence in yourself.

Mm-hmm.

And you know, a as I said, one of the
things that we were doing was we were

hiring people to work as tow masters.

Well, you don't just pull
these guys off the street.

No.

They have got to be trained.

So, every single one of the people that
we hired was a cer, a qualified captain.

They all had captains licenses.

They thought most of them had worked as
captain on supply boats or on big tugs.

They knew what moving all
rigs around was all about, but

you still had to train them.

So if you like, because I had
my own company, I became a

tow master instructor per se.

And.

In order to be able to do, to do that
type of job with a very, very high

level of responsibility, we're, you
know, we're talking about hundreds

and hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of equipment and potential

damage, not necessarily lives at stake.

Because, because it, it wasn't that type
of a job, but you've gotta have a lot of

confidence in yourself and you've gotta
not be afraid of what you're doing in

order to be able to do it successfully.

Right?

And in all, you've also gotta have
the patience and the communication

skills to be able to pass that onto
somebody when you're training them.

That the self-confidence
definitely came, it started.

With me having to go out at five o'clock
in the morning in the UK in the winter

when it was dark on my bicycle and go and
deliver newspapers, and I was delivering

newspapers in the snow and in the rain.

Mm-hmm.

And actually not having that was
probably the most fearful thing.

You know, as a, a 10-year-old actually
going out in the dark on a bicycle and

having to go onto a house in estate
and walk up people's drives with

dogs barking and deliver newspapers.

Hmm.

And it, it built up a certain amount
of self-confidence, almost to the

point where you think, screw this.

You know, I mean, I can do this,
I can do pretty much anything.

And one of the things I will
say to you is I've never been,

how can I put this?

There hasn't been a situation where
somebody's asked me if I could

do something where I've said, no.

I might have said, I
have to think about it.

And I've done that a lot.

But in most cases, if somebody's
asked me to do something, if I

haven't got the skills to do it,
I can figure out how to do it.

'cause I'm very good
at figuring things out.

But if it's just something that's
completely off, off the wall, then I

would simply say, I'll think about it.

Which just really means no, I probably
won't do it, but I'm gonna think about it.

'cause I like to be able to process
things and, and that really does, it does

come down, there's no doubt about it.

Having that paper round and having to
go out to work at such an early age

was, it was a great character builder.

There's no doubt about that.

And I did that.

I did that every day for six years.

I stopped my paper around the day
I left the UK to join the Navy.

Rupert Isaacson: As you may know,
if you've been following my work,

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Wow.

I'm also thinking about, the, you,
you talked about communication

skills, and that's important too,
because it's not enough to be

big and tough or even competent.

Paul Illingworth: No.

If you're

Rupert Isaacson: going to manage teams,
you can't be going around scaring

your team because then you, there's
no job getting rather the opposite.

They've got to feel that the
big scary guy has their back.

Do you feel, do you think that the do you
think that the communication skills came

with having to build that rugby team?

Paul Illingworth: Yes.

Absolutely, because I didn't, I didn't
get, learn any communication skills from

being at home with Doesn't sound like

Rupert Isaacson: it.

No, I mean, I, although
your mom sounds very warm.

My, my mom sounds, my mom was

Paul Illingworth: really, really great.

She was, she was a, a great help to
me, but we weren't the sort of family

that we sat around in the evening, if
you like, drinking tea and chatting

about what we did during the day.

Yeah.

That just, that didn't happen.

It was, it was being at school, playing
rugby with the team, with the lads.

They were, you know, they were
the closest group that we had

as any sports team really.

And then taking those
communication skills.

I mean, I was, I was assessed very,
very early on after I joined the

Navy as having natural leadership.

Qualities because I was able to,
to guide people and I, and I was

able to communicate with people.

So I was actually given the opportunity
to accelerate through the whole Navy

process very, very quickly because I
had that ability to be able to talk

to people, to be able to communicate
and be able to get over what I

was trying to communicate quickly.

Right.

Rupert Isaacson: So let's
dive back to where we began.

We have this epidemic of young men
who can't get out of the basement,

Paul Illingworth: who

Rupert Isaacson: are maybe doing
playing video games that simulate

some of the adventures that you might
have actually had in real life and

are lacking self-confidence
on a level that is disabling.

What do we do about this?

Paul Illingworth: That's a 10,
$10 million question, isn't it?

You know, 10-year-old kids nowadays
can't go out and deliver papers.

No, no.

They can't.

It's a different world, you know.

Yeah.

You know, you, you just can't do it.

I mean, you know, when my kids were
growing up, I was, I was, to be quite

honest with you, quite scared of them
even just going and riding their bicycles

in our sub subdivision in Houston.

Sure.

You know, in Houston, you
know, it's as simple as that.

But I think what you've gotta do is,

I think it really comes down to
you've got to take an interest in

something that community is doing.

Okay.

That's interesting.

And, and, you know, that
can be through a club.

Mm-hmm.

YMCA, you know, I, I, again,
it's a Christian association.

I think a lot of people, certainly
where I live, I mean, I live in, in

Texas in what they call the Bible Belt.

I'm not religious person
myself, but I know that.

The young lads I've met here that
do extremely well for themselves.

They are Christians and the
religious, the, the religious side

of things over here, they go to
church, which is a club in effect,

they communicate with other people.

And I'm talking about a lot of the young
guys around here that grow up on farms

or on ranches and do things like that.

They get themselves out.

They don't get the opportunity
to sit around watching television

or playing computer games
'cause they're out doing stuff.

They're,

Rupert Isaacson: exactly, and I mean,
look, the life that we leave Paul, it's

not, it's not representative anymore.

I mean, you know, no, my kids also are out
on the farm working with horses and doing

stuff and, you know, I don't force them
to do it, but there's just stuff to do,

so, and it's kind of interesting to do.

So why wouldn't you?

But if you are living in, as you
said, you know, you, you were

scared when your kids were going
out in a subdivision in in Houston.

And that's of course where
most people are is, is in those

types of suburban environments.

And you kids are not
allowed to work anymore.

It's also not terribly is is
less safe now than it used to be.

But I like what you said about
involvement in community.

Yeah.

'cause if, if you haven't got a
farm or a ranch to be part of, well

that just doesn't exist for you.

But if you're growing up in a,
let's say you're on a housing state

today, in, let, let, let's yeah.

Dial it back to where you were as a boy.

You're in a housing state,
outskirts of London.

What's around you?

There's gonna be

on the bad side, there's gonna
be drugs, there's gonna be.

Gang stuff, there's going to, but
that to some degree was always there.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: On the positive
side, there's going to be kids who

are doing creative things like music
perhaps sport other things like that.

But I think, I like that you put your
finger on something with community

involvement and, and service.

Most people are not gonna be in
a church environment, but it's,

that's a good place to start from.

I think you are now in this
housing estate today in 2025.

As a father of a bo of a 10-year-old boy.

What do you do?

Paul Illingworth: I think what
I would, what I would, what I'd

want to try to do is obviously,
you know, school is community.

Mm-hmm.

And, not only is school community, but
your neighbors are community as well.

Mm-hmm.

And certainly when my kids were growing
up and, and you know, this wasn't

that long ago, what was important was
actually finding out what the other

kids in the neighborhood are doing.

Where are they going,
where are they hanging out?

Are they the tennis court?

So that the swimming pool, you know,
there are places where they, that

they're gonna go and they're going
to, if you like, group together.

And I don't mean in gangs
or anything like that Yeah.

But just to do, you know, following
their interests, basically.

Interests, you know, do, do you know
any, you've get, I, I just think you've

gotta get the kids out the houses.

Yeah.

That's really what it comes down to.

If you can get, which
means you gotta do it

Rupert Isaacson: with them.

Paul Illingworth: You've
gotta go do it with 'em.

So, I mean, over here, when my kids
were growing up, when my son was growing

up, we did T-ball, we did baseball,
we'd all, I know it's sports again, but

it's very sport orientated over here.

And that's what you gotta remember.

But you know, friends that we have
now, they have girls that are in

gymnastics, that are in swim clubs.

Most of most of the things are
some form of sport orientated.

But I mean, is there anything wrong
with kids getting involved in sport?

I mean, I got involved in sport,
you can't work or you can work,

but you can't work till you're
13 or 14 or even older than that.

But working doesn't really
seem to be the important thing.

I think it's, it's community activities.

And community activities can be sports.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: It
could be stamp collecting.

They could be, well, I mean, I think

Rupert Isaacson: that's the thing.

I mean, so in my case, the kind of nerd
I was, obviously I was riding, right?

But I'm a huge nature nerd.

So for me it would've been birdwatching
plant identification, animal watching,

and then from there you get into hiking,
you get into mountaineering, you get into,

Paul Illingworth: exactly.

And that's one of the things I love now.

I mean, you know, I'd rather
be, I'd rather be outside than

sitting here at the moment.

I'd rather be riding my tractor
around riding my a TV, going and

mowing grass, walking with my dogs.

Yes.

You know, and, and that's another
thing that we, we used to do as well.

But you did this with your kids?

I did it with my kids, yeah.

We used to go to the park, we used
to walk the dogs on a regular basis,

teach them things to do with nature.

Mm-hmm.

The problem we have right now, Ruper, is
that you've got kids that are growing up

with parents that almost grew up exactly
the same way that they're growing up.

Mm-hmm.

Because you had computer
games started in the nineties.

Mm.

They grew up with computer games.

They're now having kids.

So if the, if the parents
don't know to go out.

Themselves and get things done.

Mm-hmm.

And want to stay in the house
and want to watch television.

The kids are gonna be grow
up exactly the same way.

So I, it's really, should our, should we
be dealing with this from the point of

view of what should the kids be doing?

Or should we try, try to educate the
parents in what they should be doing?

I guess

Rupert Isaacson: that's the
other, you know, too, as you

say, like when, when I was a kid.

When you were a kid even like when I was
in the country in England growing up,

that not everyone had a car by any means.

We didn't

Paul Illingworth: have one.

Rupert Isaacson: No.

And I'm talking about also people
that lived like out on farms,

didn't necessarily have cars.

They'd walked to the top of their
driveway, walk to the village, get

a bus or take a bicycle or whatever.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: A lot of places
didn't have electricity even growing

up, I remember on remote farms.

And then of course that will
change somewhere in the eighties.

But crucially, I think that
there was a lot of movement.

You had to move, right?

You, you, you, you didn't have
an option if you wanted to move

yourself from one place to another
to not do it with your body.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Now this is difficult.

If you grew up in a subdivision that
has no public transport and you are

the only option is cars you might be
able to ride your bicycle around, you

know, the cul-de-sacs or whatever.

But, but as you say, I guess then you
do have things like skateboarding.

You do have things like, but
it's very difficult not to

end up indoors on a computer.

Yeah.

And it's marketed at you and as you
say, with parents who are maybe,

you know, two job parents or single
parent, you know, more than one kid.

But I think you did put your finger
on it when you talked about community.

So the way I would think
about community as tribe.

And as you know, I spent a lot of
time in Africa living with tribes

and my own family's very tribal.

I grew up with a lot of cousins, you
know, southern Africans and there were

always just a procession of cousins
coming through the house from everywhere.

And it was considered normal that
we'd all end up at each other's

places at whenever, and you could
kind of stay as long as you wanted.

It was all right.

You had to muck in, but everyone
was always welcome everywhere.

That level of, so, you know,
and so to some degree we were

all in service to each other.

Right.

I think I, I wonder if we've lost
the habit of that, so that as you

say, yes, sometimes church, you know,
but, and, and then you moved, you,

you didn't have that growing up.

But when you got to say Houston with
your kids, you saw the value of it.

Why did you see the value of it
when you didn't have it growing

up, and why did you know that that
was something you had to give them?

Paul Illingworth: Well, you know,
I think, to be quite honest with

you, it was, it was a really a case
of what are the community doing.

So, you know, when we first moved over
here and, and started to make contact

with, with local people and, and they had
kids in the subdivision that we lived in,

it's like, well, what are the kids doing?

Oh, they're going down the road
and they're playing T-ball,

they're playing baseball there.

Right, right next to where the house was.

There was there was a
little sports field there.

And so, you know, we went down
there to see what was going on.

Knew nothing about
baseball T-Ball, you know.

Or any of the sports whatsoever.

Jack, my son was six at the
time when we moved to the us.

My daughter wasn't even born.

She was born a couple of
years after I moved over here.

So, you know, I had a 6-year-old
that would've ended up being

stuck in the house all the time
for didn't do something with him.

And I was, I was working, I
mean, I, you know, I had a very,

very high busy, high level job.

But I had to do something.

So yeah, we would talk to the
neighbors, the neighbors had kids,

find out what the kids were doing.

We used the community, if you like, to
figure out what to do with the kids.

And, and that's what we did all the time.

So your tribe really,
it, it's almost like.

It was a small subdivision
that we lived in.

There was probably only about 20, 25
houses, but that was our community.

Yeah.

And that's plus the fact, you know, that I
would, when I would go to work, I, I, as I

built the business up in Houston and start
to hire people, I'd go to their houses,

talk to their families, what do you do?

You know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Where do you do things?

How I needed to learn how the American
system worked as well as you, you know

this because you came over here and
lived over here for a number of years.

Yeah.

It's very different.

Very different from
being living in Europe.

Yes, it is.

And we, but we've now got to the point 20
years later where you're absolutely right.

There is no public transport.

There is no way of getting around other
than being driven by your parents.

Yeah.

So as a kid, all you do get, you get
put in a car, you get taken somewhere.

Yeah.

You go and do that
activity, you go back home.

And how much of those activities are
related to the actual community that

you live in, and how much are related
to the school is difficult to say.

It's probably more school orientated.

In other words, whatever the school
kids do, that's what you do, but

the kids are being transported
from one place to another.

Yeah.

One of the things that I have noticed is
getting, and I dunno what it's like in

Europe, but is getting very, very bad over
here, is what I call self gratification.

People are growing up with an attitude
that the world owes them something,

community owes them something, and
they expect to get that out of the

community without really putting
an awful lot back into it again.

It, it's, it's almost like.

It's a bit of selfishness
to a certain extent.

You know, I've always looked at life as
you get out of it, whatever you put in.

So you've got to be prepared to
put something into life in order

to be able to get something out.

And unfortunately, I think kids today,
particularly in the, certainly where

I live in the US, expects everything
to be handed to them on a plate.

Rupert Isaacson: I mean, I think every
older generation has always said this

about every younger generation forever.

I'm sure

Paul Illingworth: they have.

Absolutely.

I mean, you remember

Rupert Isaacson: your dad
would've moaned at you about that.

Yes.

And my dad and granddad moaned at
me about that, you know, but I think

perhaps each generation is right
in that what they observe is young

people trying to figure it out and.

While they're in that figuring out
process, they get stuff wrong, you know?

Yeah.

And that noise, the older generation,
but I, I do think it's more acute now

in terms of like, so for example, here
in Germany where I am, my kids can

take a bicycle and ride to the store.

They can walk to the store, they
can go and figure out how to do

their own shopping, and they're at
their 10 and eight, and they can do

that, they can do that safely here.

They can walk to their
grandparents' house.

This is all very normal, right?

They can go down to the creek and play.

And you are not paranoid
about their safety in the way

that one would be in the USA.

Mm-hmm.

I wouldn't probably let them do it in
the USA unless we were in a very, very

rural area and kind of had control
of the land and the environment.

Mm-hmm.

And.

It is still safer here.

And then you have, you do have
a lot of what are called vet

irons here, which are clubs.

So, you know, we're part of a, a right
vet in a riding club, which means that

if we all put our money in, we all have
access to these facilities like arenas

and jumps and things like that, that
we wouldn't be able to put in ourselves

privately, but collectively we can.

Mm-hmm.

But we have to do a certain number of
work hours as well as putting in dues.

We've actually, so the kids have to
show up and, and, and, and there's

work hours for kids in the V Right.

It's not just for the, for the parents.

And then there's nabu, which is our
local nature conservation, and we have

to go out and into the orchards around
here and clean out the owl boxes.

Get up a ladder, do that,
deal, scoop out the ship.

But there's interesting stuff in there.

And then you find door mice and you
find, you know, and there is this.

Yeah, I think, I think you
nailed it with community.

It's there people say it's
not as good as it was.

You know, you talk to the old
generation here, they say it's, it's,

Paul Illingworth: oh no,
I'm, it's been eroded, but,

Rupert Isaacson: but it's
still much stronger, I think.

And there's a very good public transport.

So you, you know, we're out here, for
example, Rowan, my 23-year-old son who

you know very well, who's autistic.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

When

Rupert Isaacson: he's in Texas,
he has to drive everywhere

and thank God he can drive.

But here he takes the trains all over
and he stays in youth hostels and he

explores different cities in, in Europe.

And he can do that because there
is still kind of a, of a system.

But

you, you, when you were a kid, you
didn't have that community involvement.

You had to make it through
that rugby team, right.

You had to manufacture it.

What would've happened to
you if you hadn't done that?

Paul Illingworth: Oh.

I'll be quite honest with you, I
think I would've ended up being a

lot more insular and isolated Okay.

Than, than I was.

I mean, you know, the community I
went, you know, my, my high school

had 600 kids which is nothing
compared to what you have today.

And as you worked your way up through
the years in the school, you almost

got to know everybody in the school.

I wouldn't say you knew everybody,
but you know, you, you, you got it.

It really was being part of the community.

Now, it didn't matter whether you
played a sport, you could be part of

the community by supporting one of
the teams or just hanging out with

the guys that played in the teams.

If I did, if I hadn't have had
anything to do with rugby, this.

I was involved in a lot of stuff at
school as far as sports are concerned,

because I was a very sporty person.

Now, if I wasn't a sporty person or
for whatever reason I couldn't do

the sport, I think I would've been
a very, very insular type of person.

'Cause I think that's what
made me, you know, I'm quite

gregarious, I'm very outgoing.

I'll talk to anybody,
you know, that mm-hmm.

That has, that has, that's part
of my character that really

built up through those years.

Mm-hmm.

Because prior to going to,
at 10 years old, so, so I, I

wanna backtrack a little bit.

Okay.

So when my father got really, really
sick and the building business started

to collapse in London I was six,
seven years old and we couldn't afford

to live in the townhouse in London.

So, my mother who had some contacts,
shall we say with the theater people

in London, I'm not gonna mention any
names, but she she was good friends

with a couple of very famous actresses.

One of the actresses had an old
cottage out in the Hartford sheer

countryside that had no electricity.

It had no water, running water,
just as you were talking about.

And it needed work doing to it.

Well, my dad was able to do some work.

He couldn't do a lot of heavy work,
but he was able to do some work.

We moved into that cottage
and spent three years there.

But I went to a local school
that had 20 kids in it.

So my junior school year Village school,

Rupert Isaacson: right?

Yeah.

Village

Paul Illingworth: school.

Yeah.

20 kids, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And tribe.

So I tribe, yeah.

I spent this little cottage
was in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

With fields all round country.

All round.

I was surrounded by
nature, but it was tribes.

So when we then moved into the council
house in Hoon, which was a lot more urban,

shall we say, than than rural, that's when
I started to get bullied because I wasn't

used to, I didn't know anybody there.

There was no tribe I'd
lost it all completely.

And I was a bit of a loner.

I mean, I really, really was.

It was just me and my sister living there.

My mom and dad didn't know anybody.

They couldn't go out.

They couldn't do anything.

There was no community whatsoever.

So I became,

I definitely did become a loner.

'cause I can remember going
out, what do I wanna do?

Well, I'm gonna go buy some, get some
bicycle parts and build myself a bicycle.

'cause I couldn't afford to buy one.

So I ended up building a bicycle
and then I started to get round.

But then I went into the high school, the
secondary school, and all of a sudden.

I was able to build my own
community there, and that's when

I started to be more outgoing.

So it's very, very easy.

Not you, you've, you've
gotta work on those skills.

I think.

It doesn't come naturally
and it doesn't come natural.

Yeah.

I, I think, I

Rupert Isaacson: think you're right.

I'm sort of thinking back to some
of my own, because as you know,

I'm also very gregarious, but I
wasn't always, and everyone's had

the experience of being bullied and
everyone's had, everyone's had that and

Paul Illingworth: yeah, I

Rupert Isaacson: had to deal with it.

Right.

And there was also, I think, yeah, a
crucial period of learning how to build

community through my love of horses.

And then of course, you, you
find other people that have

that and you share that with us.

It was the local hunt.

Because you didn't need
money to be in the hunt.

You know, you, you, you just had
to be part of the pony club, right.

And the pony club let you hunt
for free and subsidized everything

to get people onto that track.

And it was good 'cause it ended up
being kind of a career track for me

alongside everything else I've done.

But it wasn't always like that and I
wasn't terribly well accepted 'cause

I was a London boy not for English.

Like in less coming up through that
and you had to kind of find your way.

Do you think that if the computer
games and that whole thing had been

around when you were a kid on there,
on that estate, would you have

fallen into that trap, do you think?

Paul Illingworth: Quite possibly.

I can't say no.

Yeah, because, you know, it's,
it's, it's one of these things.

I mean, I think I mentioned earlier on,
you know, I don't sit around watching

television or reading newspapers.

I gave up reading newspapers about 40
years ago when every time I opened the

newspaper, there was nothing good in them.

So I just stopped reading.

Was there anything good in that?

No, I don't think, I don't think
there ever was any, anyway.

You know, and I mean, I would, I would
watch the television really just to find

out what was happening with the news.

And even today, if I watch
television, it's B, B, C, I just

watch B, you know, the B, b, C
news, because I get worldwide news.

I don't get the, shall we say
the American stuff that get

shoved down your throat here.

Yeah.

But yeah, you know.

If there was computer games around.

I mean, I've tried computer games
when my kids were grown up and

they had computer games, but yeah.

But they're just not something that
really, they don't engage me enough.

You know?

It, it's, it's, it's too
tunnel vision for me.

I like to look at the broader
picture of what's going on around me.

But, you know, it definitely being
able to, to go out and get involved

with community activities Yeah.

Is, is, is, and it is, it
comes back to the tribe.

It doesn't matter what your tribe is.

It can be a subdivision, you know, it can
be a team at school, it can be anything.

But I think tribe is very, very important.

There, there was, there's, there's
somewhere that, that I want to go here

and it's like in, it's, it's in the
back of my mind and I'm just trying

to find the, the right words for it.

But.

One of my most recent experiences
is running the escape room business.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Now, for those of you that may
not know what an escape room

is, I'm sure most people do.

You actually, you don't get locked
into a room and have to escape.

It's a themed room where there are
puzzles that you have to solve to

work your way through the game.

So it's kind of a game,
it's an interactive game.

And the staff that I had running the,
this business, it, it know it was

a very, very successful business.

We had eight different games
all themed differently.

We had a pirate one, we had a Scooby-Doo
one we had a laboratory one, a haunted

mansion, so different types of things.

Almost all the staff that we
employed at that business, and

we had 12 to 15 people were.

Guys and girls that were anything
from high school age that's literally

17 years old through to 23, 24.

So mainly young people that were either
at school or were at college or had

decided not to go to college, but
needed, were looking for another career.

So I had five years of dealing
with people, both guys and

girls of that age group, right?

And so I've got quite a lot of
experience of actually what we are

talking about here to date through that.

Now, the people that we employed, there
were basically three different positions,

but everybody started off as a host.

And as a host, you're, you're
dealing with the customers when they

come in the store, you're talking
to them, you're engaging them.

You have to learn to basically
explain to them what.

The business is about what the game
is about, that they're gonna play.

And then you help them to go into the
room, brief them going in the room, and

then when they finish playing the game,
you take them out of the room, take a

photograph, say thank you very much.

So it's customer service.

You are teaching people to communicate?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

The other side of the business,
once they've learned all that side

of the business, is going into
the rooms and resetting the room.

So after you play a game,
you've gotta put all the props

and everything back in place.

Okay.

That's attention to detail,
totally different skillset, but

everybody has to learn it and.

Eventually when you're good,
you start to time yourself.

So now you, you're giving yourself
a challenge because you're seeing

how fast you can actually put all
that stuff back in place again.

And there was little competitions
we used to have, and you'd get a

$25 gift card for the fastest person
per, you know, at a certain time.

The next set of skills you learn, when
you learn how to reset the games, you

know, the games, you become a game master.

A game master is like playing a
computer game, but with real people.

You're looking at a TV screen
that has multiple cameras.

You are helping the people in the
rooms, you're sending them clues,

it, you're answering questions.

So it's very, very focused, but
looking like a computer going right.

And you don't run one game at a time.

The game Masters are running
three or four games at a time.

So you may have, you can have
eight people playing a game.

You can have four times eight people,
or 32 people that you're responsible

for making sure they have a good time.

That's what the business is all about.

So where am I going with this?

How do you pick people
that you're gonna hire?

Because you don't hire people
as a game master straight away.

They've gotta learn the business.

It's like starting off as a
deckhand and becoming the captain.

The captain is the game master.

Alright.

So we had to pick people and nine
times outta 10, nine times outta 10,

the people that we interviewed had
no communication skills whatsoever.

They could be 17, 18
years old, high schoolers.

They could be people that
have been to college.

We ha we would interview people
and we do zoom interviews.

We'd interview people that have very good
resumes, five years of customer service.

They couldn't talk to anybody.

I'd do a Zoom interview with people and
ask 'em questions, and they'd just stare

at me like a deer in the headlights.

They had no idea.

Did we hire those people?

Yes, we did, because it's a way
of actually teaching what what we

made them was part of our tribe.

This is where I'm coming with this, right?

Because it was a great opportunity for
us to actually take people from the

outside world, bring them into our tribe,
and teach them skills going forward.

And the ones that succeeded were
the ones that were able to embrace

the, the, the job responsibilities.

We, we hired high school girls that, that
wouldn't say boo to a mouse three months

after coming to work for us, if, you
know, they were literally throwing people

out the door that, you know, somebody
came in drunk on a Saturday night.

That's, that's how good they got because
they got confidence in themselves.

Now there's a point I'm
going here with this.

Okay.

The point is that a lot of the
boys, the boys struggled more with

the customer service side and the
interaction than the girls did.

The girls always seemed to have the
ability to be able to deal with customers.

What did the boys wanna do?

They wanted to become game masters
because they were all gamers and

they wanted Right, that's, yeah.

Yeah.

They wanted to sit in a room on
their own, not have to deal with,

not have to deal with the real
world, but they were very good at

controlling what people were doing.

And they were the best game
masters we had were gamers.

But because we made them go through
the whole customer service thing

and they, once they got to become
game masters, they didn't just sit

there and be a game master forever.

We used to make 'em go back up
front and do customer service.

Okay.

But.

They were also very, very good at
resetting the games 'cause they became

focused on what they were doing.

Rupert Isaacson: This is really
interesting because basically what

you're, you're saying is that Yeah,
something So community involvement,

that is an escape room business.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: With tribe run by
somebody like you who's taught people to

do much more complex and dangerous things
with much high levels of responsibility.

So you're not worried, you, you, you
like, you know, you can get these

people to where they need to go.

And yet at the same time, it's very real.

And that to my mind is a very interesting
place to end up in this conversation

because you are, you are in the gaming
world there in subdivision world.

This, these things are happening in
the suburbs, often in strip malls.

I mean they might be downtown,
but a lot of escape malls around,

you know, in, in strip mall land.

It's tapping into what
that generation knows.

And I'm thinking, you know, one of the
other things that we've often looked

at and and done stuff with with our
autism work is LARPing Live action.

Role play.

Yeah, yeah.

Because it's, it's also, you know, it it,
and that, that world is a brilliant world

for people that are sometimes neurodiverse
that, you know, the Ren fare world, the

SCA, those of you dunno, the SCA is Yeah.

Or do a whole episode on the SCA.

It's, it's, it's, that's
a great rabbit hole.

But gaming actually, because
what, what is gaming?

Gaming is.

When you do it live well then you're
back to your rugby team, aren't you?

You're back to community.

You're back to community and, and
having this challenge that you have

to fulfill when then you're back
to the hunting and gathering group.

You're back to the group of lads going
out there with the spear, you know,

and there's an older one trying to
keep them safe, but also enough risk

that they can actually get the kill.

There's the girls out there
gathering and it's very dangerous.

They've got to dodge
lines while they do it.

They've got a track, they've got to know
that this plant is poisonous and looks

exactly like that one that isn't and
beyond absolute high alert with that

while keeping all the kids safe and da da.

All of this takes a lot of communication.

Communication takes drive.

So it is just really interesting that you,
you ended up actually, I think answering

the question of what, what do we do?

Which is go reach out to an escape
room if, if, if you are that mom

whose son can't come out the basement.

Perhaps you could do worse than to
look up who's your local live action

role play group and who's your
It's, it's, I I mean, it, it is,

Paul Illingworth: there is, it's, it's
something that, that escape rooms can

be played by, by kids young as seven
years old and really, really enjoy it.

And we've seen a, over the five years
of running that business, we've seen

multiple families that every time we'd
have a new game, they'd play all our

games, the whole family would come, they
play all our games, we get a new one.

They would hassle us when you open in a
new game so we can come back and play.

You've convinced me, I'm gonna
take my kids to an escape route.

They were, they were treating
it as community, as a child.

Yeah, no,

Rupert Isaacson: you, you've, you've
totally hit the nail on the head here.

I think Paul, because I, I did
a, I did a podcast a few months

back with a, a really interesting
lady called Lainey Liberty, who.

Took a year off to travel with her
son and they just never went back.

And they now run a business together.

And what they do is get, they do
board games, they run gaming cafes.

Mm-hmm.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And it's

Rupert Isaacson: very similar.

It's, it's, it's, it's the same thing.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

It's exactly the same thing.

It's getting the kids, you know,
if, if you get kids that, that are

not sporty and there's a lot of kids
that aren't sure, the majority of

them I think are not sporty at all.

And you're not gonna get involved
with that type of community.

Well pick something else.

Yes.

Playing chess, you know,
checkers, board games.

What we do here with friends, you
know, we live in the countryside.

We are miles from anywhere.

Right.

But what do we do Every month?

There's six or eight of us
all get together, couples,

and we play board games.

Yeah.

We sit round, we drink wine,
we play board games, we talk.

It's community.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Lainey convinced me, she said play board
games with the kids if we game changer.

Yeah.

And.

I, I hadn't been, you know, I
thought, oh, I don't need to do that.

You know, we're out with the horses.

We do, and I thought, no, she's right.

And we started and it completely
changed the family dynamic.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: It does.

So, so that is, listen
to your Auntie Paul moms.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: There you go.

Rupert Isaacson: Start going to the
escape rooms together and maybe, maybe

your son can escape the room that
he's in and escape into somewhere.

It's gotta start somewhere.

I love that because, you know, you know
me, I'm such a proponent of nature.

Yeah.

But not everyone has access.

And you also know how it is in, in Texas
for example, you've gotta own that land.

There's not much public land out there.

Paul Illingworth: No.

Rupert Isaacson: And it's

Paul Illingworth: also
too hot a lot of the time.

It is too hot Wanna go out, you know, in
Texas, but other places not necessarily.

There you go.

Go find the and only get all Well, you

Rupert Isaacson: answered the question.

I I thought we were just gonna
go round philosophical circle.

But that's so Paul, isn't it?

It's like, well actually
Rupert, here's a solution.

I'm like, well Paul, actually

Paul Illingworth: you have Well the thing
is that if I'd have mentioned that right

at the beginning, you know, they, we'd
have had nothing to talk about for that.

That is true.

For the next two hours.

So there we go.

We got there in the end.

Got an escape room.

Rupert Isaacson: We, alright, well,
I think, let, let's end on that note.

I've, I've got to go get horses
off the hill before it gets dark.

Paul Illingworth: I've gotta
go mo mo mow another 20 acres.

So here we go.

Rupert Isaacson: All right.

In the hot sun.

All right.

The

Paul Illingworth: hot sun.

Rupert Isaacson: Alright.

Paul Illingworth: You take care.

Rupert Isaacson: Alright.

I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm off to
an escape room with my kids.

Paul Illingworth: Alright, good luck.

Alright,

Rupert Isaacson: Cheers.

Bye.

Bye.

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In the meantime, remember, live free.

Ride free.

Welcome back to Live Free, ride Free.

I've got a very, very dear friend,
old friend, um, Paul Illingworth here.

Um, Paul is someone I've known for quite
a while and who has done many, many,

many interesting things in his life.

Um, and one of the reasons I
asked him to come on was he

really started from a place that

I wouldn't say disadvantaged.

I wouldn't say advantaged, but I'd
say without an, an awful lot of

support and made his way in the world.

Um, and has actually helped quite a few
people along the way as well, and has

been a great supporter of our work with
Horse Boy Foundation and the work we've

done with autism and that sort of thing.

Um, big guy, big Heart, um, big story.

What I'd quite like to frame this
story against though is, is we, I

think we all know that we're dealing
with a bit of an epidemic at the

moment of lost young men, lost boys.

And this is something that's kind
of crept up on us, um, over the last

10 15, but it's become
more acute since COVID.

And in the work that I do, I get a
lot of moms who have say three kids,

um, daughters doing great, um, you
know, one at one married and off in

the career, one at college and getting
her masters and a son age 21 to 25

who can't come out of the basement.

And this never used to be the case.

And it occurred to me, you know, while
we were doing this uh, podcast, you know,

why is this, and friends of mine that
I've known who could have been lost boys.

Um, but who went out into
world to find themselves?

Can we examine this question a little bit?

How do you, how do you find your way
to this kind of self-actualization?

Um, it's a, it's a pressing
question at the moment.

So Paul, thanks for coming on the show.

Can you tell the listeners and
viewers a little bit about who

you are and what you do currently?

And then we'll start
with how you got there.

Paul Illingworth: Sure, yeah.

Well, my name is Paul Linworth.

Um, I currently live in Texas.

I've been over here for 27 years now.

Um, I moved over here back in 1998 when I
was working in the oil and gas business.

I'm now actually retired, um,
and I moved from Aberdeen.

To Houston in 1998, uh, to start
a business there, um, for a very

good friend of mine who company
was actually based in Singapore.

Um, so I came over here.

I was supposed to, to initially come
to Texas for three months to get the

business started, then go back to
Aberdeen and carry on what I was doing

over there and things kind of snowballed.

Um, I was very, very lucky and that
having made the decision that I did

wanna move to Texas, that I managed to,
um, to get myself a green card pre nine

11, which is, uh, which happened very
quickly, and now it takes about 10 years.

Wow.

Um, yeah, it's, uh, it's taken at
least 10 years to get a green card.

Um, and then I lived in
Houston, um, for 14 years and

then moved out to the country.

I live, uh, about 30, 40
miles north, uh, northeast of

Austin, out in the countryside.

I've got a 20 acre ranch here.

Uh, I continued.

Houston for a while after we
did move out of the Houston area

because I was still working there.

Um, and then I finally retired from
the oil and gas business in 2019.

Uh, ran my own business in Austin
until about a couple of months

ago when we sold the business.

So no, I am officially retired.

Rupert Isaacson: So you, you make yourself
sound like a bloke who sort of just

kind of climbed the corporate ladder.

It's anything but the case.

Um, and just so that listeners
get a bit of an idea, while I've

known Paul, um, 'cause we, I
used to live in Austin as well.

Um, I've known him running a,
uh, skydiving business, which

is keeping people alive while
you chuck 'em out of airplanes.

Not easy.

Yeah.

And I've also known you run, um, a series
of escape rooms, um, as well, even when

you didn't have to, even when you'd
retired from the oil and gas business.

Because one of the things about Paul,
ladies and gentlemen, he gets bored

very fast and he can't, you know,
he can't, he can't abide not having

something to do and he tends to be
very successful at, at what he does.

Before we start with how you got.

Up through the non-corporate ranks
of, of, of your, of your career.

Why do you think it is, Paul, that when
you pick up a business, you make it work?

I've only ever seen you make them work,
and I've often watched you kind of a bit

awestruck and go, what, what's he got?

What is this Midas touch that Paul's got?

What, what, what do you put it down to?

Paul Illingworth: I don't, I
don't actually think I do have a

Midas touch at all because I've.

Over the, over the years I've
been involved in four, maybe

five different businesses.

Um, the skydiving business was very, very
much an opportunistic thing whereby my

wife Jen, uh, and myself were sky divers.

I started jumping when I was in
the military originally, but we got

into, into sports skydiving, uh, in
the early two thousands in Texas.

The weather's a lot better over here,
so obviously it's, it's a lot easier to

skydive than it was living in Scotland.

And an opportunity came up to buy
a drop zone that was very poorly

managed, not particularly well run.

And the guy that, the guy and the
girl that owned it, um, were ready

to leave and go do something else.

So, um, we could, we, the, the wife
and I could just simply see the

potential there that we could really
turn it into something special.

Uh, and we did.

We invested a bit more money in.

We bought another couple of airplanes.

We both got ourselves
certified as part Love.

How?

Oh, and we

Rupert Isaacson: bought
another couple of airplanes.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah, well,
just as you do, just like, like,

Rupert Isaacson: you know, I'm actually
nipping out to get one now, Paul.

Do you want me to Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Put up for you as well.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

We're not, you know, we're not
talking about Cessna citations or,

you know, billion dollar airplanes,
skydiving airplanes tend to be at

the bottom end of the barrel as
far as airplanes are concerned.

So it wasn't really terribly
difficult and we didn't have

to put a lot of money in it.

But, so to start off with, we just
started very, very small and we built

things up slowly and, and, you know, over
the 13 years we owned the business, we

turned it into a very, very successful
business with a lot of hard work.

I mean, it was hard, Rupert, I
remember, I remember it stressing you.

Yeah, I was working, I was working
as the CEO of an oil and gas service

company, spending about 200 days a year.

Traveling overseas, working in
business development, and we were

also running the skydiving business
that was open seven days a week.

Um, I would come, we would travel out to
the skydiving business at the weekends.

We had a manager out there that ran
it during the week, and we'd be,

my wife was a skydiving instructor.

Uh, and I would be flying the airplanes.

You know, we work seven days a week.

That's all there is to it.

Yeah.

You know, and then.

After.

It's just putting in the hours.

It's just putting the hours in.

It's as simple as that.

I mean, I'll be quite honest with you, I
didn't get where I was in this position in

the world today by sitting around reading
a newspaper and watching television.

Um, you know, you've got, you've
gotta be prepared to work hard

and that's all there is to it.

But it's finding the thing to do.

And as, as you mentioned, you know,
the escape room business as well, that

Jen and I love doing escape rooms.

And it's the same thing.

We love skydiving.

We bought skydiving business,
we love escape rooms.

And escape room business came up
for sale that was 30 minutes drive

from our house here in Austin.

We went and had a look at it,
looked at the books, thought I

think we can make something outta
this and actually do better.

And that's what we did.

But uh, you know, it's almost
like, you know, they say.

What, what?

What's the best thing about owning a boat?

Well, the best thing about owning
a boat is when you sell it, and

it's a bit like owning a business.

You've gotta have an exit
strategy if you own a business.

We had an exit strategy
for the skydiving business.

We had an exit strategy for
the escape prune business.

What, what those strategies?

Well, it was basically just simply
get to a certain point in terms of

income and, and own the business.

For so many years, the skydiving
business was supposed to be 10 years.

Uh, X number of dollars of, of profit.

Uh, we ended up owning
the business for 13 years.

It just took a little bit longer
to sell it than we expected.

The Escape Room business,
we had a five year plan.

Uh, we hit all the targets on the
escape room business despite the

fact that we bought it a year before
COVID, where we bought it six months

before COVID actually happened.

Um, but very quickly we recovered after
COVID expanded the business as well.

Took a punt that things would
come back strong, and they did.

We had a five year plan.

We sold the business.

If you look at COVID and when COVID
sort of started to ease off a little

bit, we sold the business five
years from then, three months ago.

Okay.

So, you know, I, I've been lucky, Rupert.

It's not just, it's not, but you've
gotta be prepared to work hard.

You've gotta seize an
opportunity when you see it.

And never be afraid.

Never be afraid to go and do something.

That's really what it comes down to.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, let,
let's talk about never be afraid.

So again, for listeners, um, you
will have read the show notes so you

actually know the sort of slightly more
swashbuckling story that, that, that

than Paul is giving away right now.

But we're gonna go back and we're
gonna swash and buckle a bit.

Um, you know, Paul, I also
know you as an aviator.

I also know you as Ex Special Forces.

I also know you as Ex Merchant Navy, and
I know you, you know, and all of these

tough, uh, envi environments to come up
through Rugby League, in which there's a

ton of fear and okay, you're a big guy.

You know, whenever I'm referring
to Paul to friends, I automatically

say, big Paul, you're a big guy.

But that's being big's.

Not, you know how it is.

It's not the dog in the fight,
it's the fight and the dog.

Um, you've had to face an
awful lot of fear in your life.

So let's start back now.

Let's start with you as a boy.

Where are you born?

How'd you grow up?

And then how do you end up going
from there to the military?

And then let's take it from there.

Paul Illingworth: Okay.

Um, I was actually born in Australia,
um, but at a very, very early age

my parents moved back to London.

Um, so let's talk about
my father for a start.

My father joined the Scots guards,
um, in 1936 when he was 16 years old.

So well before can tell us us what the

Rupert Isaacson: Scots guards are,
because not every listener's gonna know.

Paul Illingworth: Okay.

They, they, they.

So there are, there are, I
think there's five or six

guards regiments, um, in the uk.

They're basically the guys that
wear the red tunics and have the big

hats, the big black hats, and they
do the guard at Buckingham Palace.

So those are what the guards do,

Rupert Isaacson: but
they're also crack troops.

When it comes combat.

They're

Paul Illingworth: very, very
much crack, crack troops.

They're always at the front
of, of pretty much any battle.

Uh, my dad joined in 1936, um,
but he actually started work

at 10 years old down the mines.

He was a Yorkshire born lad
in Castleford in Yorkshire,

which is in northern England.

And at 10 years old, he was
working down the coal mines,

Rupert Isaacson: which is amazing.

And I'm thinking about my son
Ian, who you know, little man.

He's 10 now.

Paul Illingworth: And

Rupert Isaacson: he was just on
the field helping me pull rag what?

And I'm feeling a bit guilty about, you
know, asking him to, you know, help me.

And now you say 10, your dad was
down the mines in York back then.

Wow.

He was, he was

Paul Illingworth: working, yeah, he
was working down the mines, which

was a hard thing to do because his
father was actually killed when he

was three years old in a mine crash.

Okay.

So he was raised by his
aunt, um, his mother.

I think my grandmother on my father's side
died when he was a very, very early age.

I'm not really too sure, but
he was basically brought up

on his own, um, by my aunt.

He joined the Scots guards in 1936.

I said before the second
World War started.

I don't really know why, other than the
fact that he wanted to get out the mines.

And the earliest you could
join the Army, army was six.

Why not a

Rupert Isaacson: Yorkshire line regimen?

Yeah.

Why, why the s Scott scars.

He's not, wasn't Scottish.

And you know,

Paul Illingworth: that.

That I honestly don't know, Rupert.

I mean, I really don't.

Yeah, I think he, he probably just
headed down to London, um, at 16

with the idea of doing something and,
and the Scots guards took him on.

I And you have

Rupert Isaacson: to be tall Right?

To go in the guard.

So he was probably a tall, you gotta

Paul Illingworth: be, you
gotta be at least six foot.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: I think they've
dropped that requirement now.

But in those days you had to be
six foot and my dad was six two.

Pretty much the same as I was.

Um, yeah, so he was a
pretty big guy as, as well.

Um, and you know, he was, he was in
the Scots guards, he went to North

Africa, um, with the eight farming.

During the war is where my grandfather was

Rupert Isaacson: too.

Was he?

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: So he was, he was part
of the eighth Army and, and then he ended

up, um, being recruited into the Lrd
gs, which is a long range desert group.

And those, those guys were the four, the
forerunners to the formation of the SAS.

Um, so the lard, dgs, long Range Desert
Group, they basically used to go and

scout things out in North Africa,
which is where they were formed.

And then the SAS were
formed in North Africa.

I think it was in 1942.

I can't remember exactly
what the date was.

Um, so he was a career
soldier pretty much.

Um, he stayed in the Scots guards, uh.

Until, I think it was 1948 or 1950, he
got injured pretty badly at Monte Casino

during the Second World War when they
were fighting coming up through Italy.

Um, and he took some time off
then and he went back in again.

But eventually he was medically
discharged because he took some

shrapnel in his back and never
really recovered properly from it.

Um, but very, very much, um, an army man.

That's, that, you know,
that's what he was.

Um, my mother also lied about her age
during the Second World War and ended

up being what they call an AKA girl.

So in London, she was, uh, firing the,
the guns at the German aircraft that

were coming over a bomb in London.

Um, and they met in London
somewhere around about 1950.

I'm not too sure exactly when it was,
but that's when my parents got together

Rupert Isaacson: and, uh, okay.

So.

How did they end up going to Australia?

How did they end up having
you and then you come back?

My

Paul Illingworth: dad.

Okay.

My dad got into the building
business, um, with my uncle,

who was my mother's brother.

Um, they got into rebuilding London.

That's really what it came down to.

And they, they had a pretty
successful building business

in London in the early fifties.

Uh, and there was an opportunity
because on my mother's side, there

was my mother's side of the family,
um, had Australian connections.

'cause my grandfather
went down to Australia.

He was a policeman.

He went down to Australia back in
the, uh, the, the twenties, I think

it was the twenties and the thirties.

So there was family
connections down there.

And they decided to go to Australia to,
to, because there was a lot of building

going on, on the west coast in Perth.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so they went down,
they went down there.

And that's how I ended up being
born down there, basically.

But there was a lot going on in London
and my dad felt that he really had to get

back to London, you know, which was where
the, the, the main thrust of business was.

So that's why we moved back there
when I was three months old.

Rupert Isaacson: Alright, so you are
then born and brought up in London

Paul Illingworth: pretty much?

Yep.

You can, you can say that
we lived in Bayswater.

The earliest recollections I have,
uh, of like three, four years old was

living in a, a townhouse in Bayswater.

Um, and we pretty much stayed there
until my dad had had his first back

problem, uh, which was what caused
him to end up selling, having to sell

his business, et cetera, et cetera.

And that kind of like almost leads
to the story of how we ended up

living in a council house on social
security with no money, uh, because

he ended up losing the business.

You know, I think people took advantage
of him, or should I say, he was a bit

too generous with the way that he was
doing things and he went from having

a very successful building business to
nothing in a fairly short period of time.

Rupert Isaacson: And being somewhat
of an invalid from the Walgreens.

Yes.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

As well.

He ended up, he had a,
um, a spinal fusion.

Uh, I think the first one was in
1962 when I was six years old.

Uh, and he was laid up in bed
for three, four months with that.

And he never really fully recovered.

The spinal fusions, even nowadays,
are dodgy things back in the sixties.

It was just, it was horrendous,
the stuff that they were doing.

And he never really recovered and he never
really w work was able to work again.

Um, he had a second spinal fusion a
couple of years later because the first

one didn't take, and that was even worse.

Um, and it just got to the point
where he couldn't do anything.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

So he went from being kind of a
swashbuckling pirate, semi prior war

hero to a successful entrepreneur
to losing it and being an invalid

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: With a young family.

So it must have been that pretty
much a big knock to his self-esteem.

I would've thought

Paul Illingworth: it, it was, and it, and.

He was never the easiest
of people to get on with.

But obviously because he was in a
lot of pain, um, he became very,

very difficult to live with.

Um, bitter perhaps, you know, to,
to the point where, you know, my, I

had a, uh, I have a younger sister
who's four years younger than me.

And, and you know, we pretty much both
realized as we were growing up that the

best thing to do was get out the house
and spend as much time out the house as

possible, which is literally what we did.

Um, you know, just as my dad did
at 10 years old, I got myself a

paper round and started working.

So at 10 years old I was doing, getting
up at five o'clock in the morning.

Where was that?

Which part of was that was in?

I was in, that was in, we moved out to
the country to Hartfordshire, um, so about

30 miles north of, of central London.

Mm.

And we moved into a
council house out there.

Um, so I was delivering newspapers on a,
on a house estate in a place called Hoon.

I know Hoist.

Yeah.

Which is in Har Har, you know, Hoon?

Yeah, yeah.

Near hitching.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and I, you know, I, I helped
with a milk round at the weekends,

but, but seven days a week, no matter
what the weather was doing, I was up

delivering newspapers and, you know,
my mom and dad didn't have any money.

Um, you know, so in order to, if
you wanted anything, I mean, I

can remember I bought my first
pair of Levi's Levi Jeans myself.

'cause my mom and dad
couldn't afford anything.

We were living off social security.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: Um, and that was
all done through paper round money.

Rupert Isaacson: So you
become, you know, yeah.

That boy who's out there making
a bit of money pre-adolescence,

take us now into your adolescence.

Where does it go from there?

Paul Illingworth: Hmm.

Well.

I did pretty well at school.

Uh, God knows why.

Um, I actually do have a,
a, a relatively high iq.

Not that anybody realize
that at the time you did.

Well, I really, yeah, I, I struggled
with reading Rupert and I, I guess

that now I would be, what you would
call dis I was dyslexic basically.

Right.

Um, I was very, very But
you still got through

Rupert Isaacson: the school system though.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah, I was,
it was a bit of a struggle.

I was very, very good at
math, but I couldn't read and

writing was a struggle for me.

Right.

And, and at the age of 11, when, uh,
when you had to do what was called

the 11 plus, 11 plus, that's it, the
11 plus, I had to do the 11 plus.

Um, and I managed to pass the 11
plus barely, which gave me access

to go into local grammar school.

Okay.

But my parents couldn't
afford the school uniform.

And there was a secondary modern
school, uh, only about half

a mile from where we lived.

So I went to the secondary model
school, secondary model school.

Um, but I did manage to pass the 11 plus.

And then, but the first couple of years at
school, I really struggled with English.

And, and you know, even then, I think
moving forward a little bit, when

I, when I came to join the Navy, one
of the qualifications I needed to

become an officer in the Navy was
I had to have an English O level.

I failed it three times.

I had math, A level physics,
a level technical drawing,

chemistry, and one other.

I had four A levels, but I
couldn't pass English O level.

That's how bad I was.

I mean, really.

So, um, you know, I managed to take
it and, and get it eventually and that

then allowed me to, to join the Navy.

But um.

I was gonna go in the forces.

It was either that or go to university.

But again, gonna university in
those days without any money

was very, very difficult.

Um, I actually wanted to be, um,
an architect because of my dad's

connection with the building business.

He, even though he was invalid, he did
teach me a lot of stuff growing up.

I, I got a lot of skills
that he taught me.

You know, I mean, he taught
me how to lay bricks.

He taught me how to sew the pipe, how
to do electric work, um, which you're

messing around as a kid with two 20 volts
isn't a lot of fun if you get it wrong.

Yeah.

Um, but he, he gave me all of
the basic skills that I think I

built on as I got older myself.

Right.

But, you know, I left school
when I was, when I was 16.

I could have stayed on, but I had the
qualifications that I needed to join

the Navy as a, as a cadet officer.

Um, my dad wanted me to go in
the Army, as you can imagine.

He did not want me to
go in the, in the Navy.

My first choice was the Air Force, but I
would've had to have gone to college to

become a flight officer, um, because they
didn't take you straight from school.

So the Navy was the best way for me to
go into the armed forces as an officer

without having to go to university and
spend a whole hell of a lot of money.

That's why I ended up joining the Navy.

Rupert Isaacson: There's, let's,
just before we get to the Navy,

um, you spent a little bit of time
playing professional rugby as well.

Mm-hmm.

And not rugby union, but rugby league.

And I think it, people need to
know what the difference is.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: So

Rupert Isaacson: what, how did that happen
and then how did that play into forces?

Paul Illingworth: Alright.

So my dad, um, growing up in Yorkshire.

As a yorkshireman played rugby league.

Uh, there's a big divide between, well,
there was in those days, not so much now,

but, but Rugby Union was played down south
in the uk, which was a non-professional

sport that was just simply played for
fun Guys played it at the weekend.

They didn't get paid.

Rugby league was a professional
sport, just like soccer was in the uk.

Then where you actually got paid to play.

Rugby league was only played
in the north of England.

My dad played rugby league
when he was a kid growing up.

Uh, and also when he was a teen
and, and I think even a, not

after the war, but before the war.

He played rugby league and he played
for, for Castleford, which was

the, um, the town he grew up in.

So I kind of grew up with a rugby ball.

In, in my hands all the time.

I always had a rugby ball, never
played, really played soccer.

So when I went into secondary
school, they didn't play rugby

because it was a secondary school.

Only the grammar schools played rugby.

The secondary schools played soccer.

I was very lucky because at 11 years
old, when I went into secondary

school, which is like the American
high school, uh, we got a new gym

teacher, stroke coach who was a
welshman that was very much into rugby.

I had a desire to play rugby and
the school I went to, it wasn't

the best of school, shall we say.

There was a very, very high
proportion of Italian immigrants

lived in the area that I lived in.

Um, and those guys, although they were
all soccer mad, they also liked to fight.

So rugby being a lot more physical
game than soccer, they saw it as an

opportunity to go on the pitch third ball
around and fight with different people.

And isn't that that, what
It's pretty much, yeah.

I I even today it's, it's
pretty much the same thing.

Yeah.

So I ended up, um, with the gym teacher,
if you like it, 11, 12 years old.

Um, starting a rugby team at the school,
we didn't have any, we didn't have

any h posts or anything like that, so
we had to play on the soccer pitch.

Um, and we managed to get a
group of guys together that were

interested in playing rugby.

So with what I knew about rugby and
obviously what the, our Welsh gym teacher

knew who played Rugby Foot virtually all
of his life, we managed to get things

together and get a rugby team going.

The first game that we played the very
first season, uh, we lost 50 N nil.

We got absolutely hammered, but
um, there was a lot of fighting,

which my guys really, really.

Um, and then things sort
of moved on from there.

And as, as the years passed, we
got better and better and better.

It was always the same guys just
moving from one year up to the next.

Um, I was captain of the rugby team
pretty well from, from day one because

I was the only person I actually knew
anything about the game to start off with.

Um, and the last year that I was at
school, we actually did very, very well.

Um, we, um, we won the county cup.

Um, I got capped for, uh, for
Hartfordshire for Southeast England

and I actually got a junior cap
to and played for England as well.

So as a result of that, I was scouted,
if you like, to go and play rugby league.

Rupert Isaacson: What
position did you play?

Number

Paul Illingworth: eight.

So number eight.

Number eight is the guy that's
at the very back of the pack.

So the, you've got your forwards
and which are in a pack.

And I was at the very back,
so I played number eight.

Now in rugby, rugby
union there's 15 players.

Rugby league, there's only 13 because
they have two less people in the pack.

And the position I played in Rugby
Union number eight was called, uh,

lock, lock Forward in Rugby League.

So I ended up getting scouted and
was offered an opportunity to go

and play for Featherston Rovers.

Um, and as a result of
that, I went to Featherston.

And how old were you at this point?

I was 15.

Wow.

So it would've been, it would've
been an opportunity to play for

the, what they call the Cols team.

Um, and basically, you know,
you learn to play rugby league.

It, it, it's.

It's rugby, but it's a
different type of rugby.

It's very, very different
from rugby union.

And I'd never played rugby league
before, so um, I went there for six.

What's the main

Rupert Isaacson: difference?

Paul Illingworth: Oh, the main difference
basically is um, when somebody is

tackled in, in rugby union and you end
up going down on the ground, the pack

form around you, um, in order to be
able to protect the ball and keep the

ball on your side with rugby league
when you're tackled, you get up, you and

you just kick the ball back so there's
no rucking, what they call rucking.

Um, so it's Rugby league is
kind of a faster game than

rugby Union was at the time.

Um, but it also was, it
was, it was a tough game.

It was played by by miners, basically.

Yeah.

It was Yorkshire, it was Lancashire.

It was tough and it, for a London boy
to go up to Yorkshire and try to play

rugby league, it just didn't work.

Okay.

It wasn't that it, I wasn't
used to the, to the environment

to live in for one thing.

Um, I wasn't really happy about leaving
my family at the time as, as well.

My dad said I was nuts even considering
going to Featherston because he

hated Featherston as a place.

Um, and he, you know, he said the
only team to play for is Castleford.

So it just, I went up
there, I gave it a go.

Could I become a
professional rugby player?

Yes.

There's no doubt about it.

I had the skills to be able to do it.

Um, I would've had to have lived in
Yorkshire in order to be able to do

it, you know, and then looking back
on it now, it was a no brainer really.

At 30 years old, I'd be done.

I wouldn't have made
an awful lot of money.

It's not like soccer where you make
millions and millions of dollars.

Yeah.

Um, it wasn't particularly well
paid and all I was getting when I

was up there was expenses anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but it was a good, it was a good
experience because it gave me the

opportunity at that age to make the
first career decision of my life.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

And also because you had to start this
rugby team at school and get it going

and get it up to this point of excellence
from a, a pretty crappy beginning.

Mm-hmm.

Um, that would've given you a kind of

mentor mentorship on the go in
leadership and your, your Welsh mentor

himself must have helped you with that.

But then by the time you find
yourself later going into the

forces, you already kind of know
how to take a group of standard

idiots and turn them into something.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: And, um, if you, I
think if you've been doing that since

adolescence, it's probably something
which you don't even notice in yourself

probably by the time you're getting into
your twenties, but that you can command.

And by commanding I don't mean, um,
just bossing people about to know about.

I mean, actually organizing
people and getting a job done.

That could be a difficult job.

That could be a scary job.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

I th I think that's very true.

I mean, the playing rugby at school,
it wasn't just a case of, oh, I'm

gonna go play rugby at school on a
Saturday afternoon, and that's it.

It was, it was every day of my life.

I mean, I lived and breathed for rugby
and at 13 years old, I started playing

for the local rugby club as well.

Um, because Dave James, who was the
gym teacher, played for the local rugby

club, and they had a, a junior team.

So 13 years old, I was, I was playing
rugby for the club on a Saturday

afternoon and playing rugby for
the school on Saturday morning,

and we had practice twice a week.

So, I mean, you know.

I think a lot of young people today, the
problem that, that they have is they, they

don't know what to do with themselves.

Mm-hmm.

You know, uh, uh, and I hate bringing
up computer games and things like that.

There was no computer games
when I was growing up.

I didn't, we didn't even have a television
in the house, so it's not like I

could watch television or do anything.

You had to go out and do something.

Um, so rugby for me, rugby for me was,
was really the way, I guess, of ignoring

everything else that was going on and just
doing something that I really enjoyed.

You know?

I mean, we, you know, like
I said, we didn't have any

money when I was growing up.

Yeah.

We didn't have a car.

My dad had a motorbike,
which eventually I inherited.

Um, but he couldn't ride the motorbike,
not after he had his accident.

My mum used to go and get a
groceries on a, on a bicycle, you

know, with a basket on the front.

So, um, you know, but I, but I think,
yes, the leadership skills, um.

Certainly started with the rugby team.

There's absolutely no doubt about that.

Rupert Isaacson: I guess too,
the thing with leadership is

it's also responsibility, right?

If you are the one who says, okay,
I'm gonna organize this team.

I'm gonna be the captain, I'm
gonna take a group of boys who

are aggressive and chaotic.

It's a, it's a lot of responsibility.

You have to make it work or you
look like it, you know, an idiot.

Yeah.

And the pack will turn on you.

Yeah.

And, um.

So in a way where it's sort
of do or die, isn't it?

That you have to Yes.

You, you have to take that risk and
that must have been quite intimidating,

you know, equally going up to, to
play rugby in the north like that.

And, and anyone who's never played rugby,
honestly, you know, it was compulsory

at school when I, when I was a kid.

It, when Ablo like Paul is running at
you, he's gonna hit you like a car, you

know, and you know it's gonna hurt, right?

Or if I, I am not a big guy.

If I have to tackle Paul, I've gotta
hope that three of my mates are gonna

jump on as well, or it's just not fair.

I'm just sort of hanging onto his leg,
just keeps running up the pitch, kicking

at my face, you know, as, as he does it,
there is quite a lot of fear involved.

And when you end up on the bottom of the
scrum, you know, when it collapses, um, it

doesn't matter actually how big you are.

You can't breathe, you know, and I,
I, you know, that panic that you get

when you, you just have to sort of
wait until you can breathe again.

Um, so.

I do wonder, you know, one of the things
which I think young men need is they do

need a certain amount of risk and they
do need a certain amount of danger.

We are supposed to go and hunt
wildebeest with a spear kind of thing.

Um, and do you feel that that's
just less available these days?

Because I, I feel that young men
need it, like they need oxygen.

Paul Illingworth: I, yes, it
most definitely is unavailable.

Um, but I think society has had an awful
lot to do with this, Rupert, because

we, we multi, we mollycoddle kids now.

There's no doubt about it.

I know I'm not, I'm not a firm believer.

I don't think we should be going
around beating our kids for no.

Every single thing that we do.

But the trouble is they're
getting wrapped in cotton wool.

They're being, they're,
they're being protected.

You know, you get a situation where if
anything happens at school, if somebody

even turns around and yells at somebody,
the parents can get called into the

school and the child gets disciplined.

Mm-hmm.

You know, there's is, you know, it's,
it's easy for me in my sixties to

turn around and say that, you know,
we produced a soft generation because

my father used to say exactly the same
thing, you know about me when I was

growing up, and everybody says that, but
I think it's just got to the point now.

Where there isn't enough things for,
particularly for young men to do that

really challenge them enough and,
and not only, not just challenge them

physically, but but challenge them
mentally and prepare them for the world.

I mean, the world's a scary place, right?

Yes, it is.

The world is a scary place.

Believe you're me.

I mean, you know, I'm still scared of
some of the things that I see happen.

I'm terrified when I go out and try
driving on the roads at the moment.

Yeah.

Um, but you know, there, there's, there
isn't enough things for, but, and I don't

know, you know, I, I agree with you 100%.

There's a huge difference between young
men and young women, the way that they,

they interact, but young girls aren't
really brought up to be scared of things.

And, and, and, but young
men seem to have lost.

The whole sense of, of fear
and, and, and they don't want

anything to do with it anymore.

I think this is why they become insular
and they go to things like computer games

because they don't wanna actually face
what's going on outside in the real world.

And interestingly,

Rupert Isaacson: a lot of the
computer games are showing the

very things that Yeah, right.

In the old days they'd
have actually been doing

Paul Illingworth: Exactly,
that's exactly what they are.

Rupert Isaacson: So, alright,
then tell us, you enter the

forces, you go into the Navy.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: Do you do that just
because it's not what your dad wants you

to do or do you do that to a certain ex?

Paul Illingworth: No, to
a certain extent, yes.

And what's

Rupert Isaacson: his reaction?

Paul Illingworth: No, he hated it.

I don't think we talked
for the first two years.

I mean, I was, I was going away for
long periods of time, you know, I

mean, I'd be gone for nine months.

Yeah.

Um, so, and, and.

But, you know, my mother and I
used to write letters every week.

I mean, I've still got a big box full
of letters that my mother wrote me

while I, in my early days in the Navy,
I was very, very close to my mum.

She was the one that used to
get me up at five o'clock in the

morning to do my paper round.

She'd gimme a cup of tea,
she'd gimme some toast.

Yeah.

Um, I was very, very close to her.

Um, I don't think, I never got a letter
from my father at any point in time.

I mean, he didn't really
believe in writing anyway.

There was no telephones or
anything like that in those days.

There's no way of communicating
other than through letters.

But he, he was angry with

Rupert Isaacson: you
for going in the Navy.

Paul Illingworth: He was, yeah.

He was, he, he was ang he was angry.

He was pretty well angry all the time.

I think the only thing he really liked
about me growing up was playing rugby.

Right.

Um, and even then when I made the
decision not to go to Castleford and

play rugby, he was annoyed at that.

And then I decided I was gonna go
in the Navy and not in the Army.

And as I said, my first choice would've
been the Air Force anyway, but Right.

Um.

It was, it was the Navy.

I'll be, I'll be quite honest with you,
the Navy was a, an easy solution for me.

Um, and that's probably
why I took that route.

I know it's, it, it's not necessarily
the way that I have done things since

then, but at that time it was the easiest
way for me to get out the house, go

and see some of the world, which was
the big thing because I didn't have to

get posted in the UK or go to a train
in school or go to college for months.

I went to a ship, I went out to Singapore,
I went to a ship and I was gone.

Right.

I started seeing the world
from day one, literally.

And that was the big
appeal I wanted to travel.

Rupert Isaacson: What
did you do in the Navy?

What was the job?

Paul Illingworth: I was, uh, I started
off as a, as a weaponry officer.

Um, and then, uh, when I moved from
the Royal Navy into the Merchant

Navy, um, I had sufficient time in the
Royal Navy and the qualifications to

be able to go to, uh, Naval College.

Uh, and worked my way up through
the certification process.

So, so that, um, I ended up with
a captain certificate, so it

would've taken a lot of years in
the Royal Navy to get to that point.

Right.

But in the Merchant Navy, it was quicker.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So that was gonna be a question A, why
did you choose the merchant Navy B?

Um, explain to, and again, not
everyone knows the British system,

so if you can explain what the
Merchant Navy is, um, and talk us

through what life was like with that.

So, so first, why the
change, then what is it?

And then talk us through life.

Paul Illingworth: Okay.

Well, the, the, the main
reason for the change was, uh.

Uh, money.

Okay?

You earn a lot more money in the Merchant
Navy than you did in the Royal Navy.

Uh, also it was to do with the ranking
systems of the two different navies.

Now, the Merchant Navy is the same
as the, the US Merchant Marine.

Um, you could join the Merchant Marine
and you can go to college as a, as a

cadet officer, um, and work your way up
through the, through the different ranks

in the Merchant Navy to become a captain.

The Royal Navy pretty well,
works the same way, except the

process is, is a lot slower.

Um, in order to be get to become a
captain in the Royal Navy, you'd probably

have to have 25 or 30 years of service.

You could get to captain in the
Merchant Navy with 10 years of service.

So it was a much, much quicker process.

Um, merchant Navy paid a a lot more
money than the Royal Navy, and I

was, I was quite lucky in that I
followed, uh, my and my older cousin.

Really was, he was kind of like my mentor.

He went into the Merchant Navy.

He was 12 years older than me,
and he was more like a big brother

than a, than a than a cousin.

He went straight into the Merchant Navy
fairly shortly, uh, probably six or seven

years after he went in the merchant Navy.

He went into the oil and gas business.

That's where the big money was.

Um, so I was able, when I went in
the Merchant Navy to do a couple

of trips on, on big cargo ships,
see a bit of the world doing that.

And then I moved into the oil and gas
business and the oil and gas business,

which was basically working on supply
boats that ran supplies to the oil rigs.

That's where, where the money really was.

So, you know, it was a transition.

Um.

From really just one naval
service to another naval service

doing something different.

Not so much of the, the military regime.

Um, you know, not so much
of the Yes sir, no sir.

Three bags full serve that
you had in the Royal Navy.

A a lot more relaxed, um, and to be
quite honest with you, a lot more fun.

Why is it more fun?

Um,

it's, it, I I'm not really the type of
person that, that is a disciplinarian.

Uh, I never really enjoyed
the Yes, sir, no sir.

Stuff that came with the, with being in
the Royal Navy, there was, so, it was a

more relaxed atmosphere, which I think
just, just made it a little bit more fun.

Also, the other thing as well is, you
know, when you go ashore, when you're

in the Navy and you've been at sea a
long time, and you go ashore, you know,

you wanna really go and enjoy yourself.

In the Royal Navy, if you enjoyed yourself
a little bit too, too much, there would

be somebody there to put handcuffs
on you and take you back to the ship.

Right.

In the Merchant Navy, you just
had to avoid the local police,

and that was a lot easier than
avoid avoiding the, uh, the sps.

Um, so that's why it was more fun.

And I went, I went to some very, very,
uh, remote, um, very uncivilized places

when I was in the, in the merchant Navy.

I worked in Nigeria, well, I worked
in Nigeria for a number of years.

I worked in Angola when
the war was going on.

Mm-hmm.

Were East Africa, went all around India,
uh, all around South America pretty well.

I don't think there's, there's
very many coasts in the world.

I haven't actually touched at some
point in time, but I spent a lot of time

working in Africa and you really see
some terrible, terrible things there.

Rupert Isaacson: What did you see?

Paul Illingworth: A lot of death.

Uh, a lot.

What sort of

Rupert Isaacson: death and why?

Paul Illingworth: Uh, just dead
bodies lying on the side of the road.

Poverty, starvation, shooting robbery.

It was India, this was
Nigeria, specifically Nigeria.

Nigeria, Angola was the same.

Civil war was going on there.

Virtually the whole of West
Africa, and I was there in the,

in the eighties was just a mess.

But the ports that you

Rupert Isaacson: were landing in had
a certain amount of security to them?

Paul Illingworth: Not really, no.

They were pretty well open.

Um, and, and that was half the problem
as well, you know, I mean, we were

working on, on the offshore supply boats.

Pirate wasn't really an issue then.

The pirate in thing didn't, I was
gonna ask you about piracy, you know,

compared to today off Yemen, for example.

Oh, it's, it's terrible Today.

I, I would, I would not want a to.

Be having to deal with that.

You know, when we, we carried guns
on board, um, more for protection

against robbers and things like that.

Um, now they say, I mean, to deal
with pirates, now they've got AK 40

sevens, they've got automatic weapons.

You know, you don't really want to
get involved in things like that.

It was a, it was a lot simpler,
uh, when I was doing things, uh,

in West Africa apart from Angola.

And that, that is a different
story because I, yeah, I, I,

that was the, the war zone.

Yeah, it was the war zone.

Yeah.

We'll talk about, we can talk
about that a bit later on.

Okay.

Um, but it was really just a
case of protecting yourself.

You know, you had to.

My, shall we say, some of the
training that I received when I

was in the military helped me a lot
in terms of personal protection.

Um, that I had a few, uh,
instances in West Africa where

I had to look after myself.

Uh, and that helped a lot.

But it was really just, if you
went ashore, you went ashore in

a group and you were armed, uh,
you, you just had to be armed.

It's as simple as that.

Not necessarily with a gun, but
we used to take knives and clubs

and things like that with us.

Um, and you know, to a certain
extent it, it was just a way of life.

Was I scared?

No.

You know, would it stop me going to shore?

No, but it stopped me doing all the
things I did know because I wasn't

really, I wasn't, I just wasn't scared.

It's as simple as that.

Rupert Isaacson: Why do you
think you weren't scared

given that it was scary?

Paul Illingworth: That's a good,
I think it all comes back to.

Just the way that I
prepared myself for life.

There's, there's nothing I can honestly
say that, that really scares me.

I mean, you, you know, you know my
background, Rupert, you know, and I,

um, I'll happily toss myself out of
an airplane, you know, uh, any point

in time and hope the parachutes work.

It's, I, I don't know.

You know, I, I think the fear is
something that you build up inside you.

And if you let it overtake you,
it can do you a lot of harm.

And the simplest thing
is push it to one side.

Just get on and deal with life.

And that's what I've always done.

I was bullied, believe it or
not, I was bullied as a kid.

One of the things we haven't touched on
is when I was 10 years old, um, I was

riding my bicycle and I got hit by a car.

Very, very lucky to survive.

I have a scar that goes from
here all the way, my face,

and around the back of my ear.

I had 140 stitches there.

I had another scar down here.

Uh, my head hit the, the curb.

I wasn't wearing a helmet.

Smashed open the back of my head.

As a result of that, I got bullied
at school 'cause the kids called me

Scarface, the older kids, a lot of whom
were the, some of the immigrants I talked

about, I got bullied and I, I just,
I had to learn, stand up for myself.

My father's attitude was basically,
if you're gonna get into a fight,

have something to help you win it.

I got bullied.

It happened two or three times.

Um, I ended up picking up a branch of a
tree, hitting a couple of kids with it.

They never touched me again.

Mm-hmm.

And I'd be one of these people that
if threatened, I just lash out.

You know, I am a fighter.

I always have been a fighter.

Um, I've certainly quieted down a
little bit now, but you know, you know

me well enough to know that I won't
put up with any crap from anybody.

And No, but interestingly,

Rupert Isaacson: I do know that about
you, but I also know you as actually

a very tolerant man, um, with actually
you've got a short fuse in that.

You, you can be a bit grumpy, but one
of the things I've always respected

about you, Paul, is actually, um,
you don't throw your weight around.

Um, you could, 'cause I think we're
gonna, let's go into some more of

your background in a minute, but
I, I've never seen you be a bully.

Um, I've never seen you be cruel.

I've never seen you use that
power misuse, that power.

Um, so yes.

I mean, I think if, if somebody
threatens you or something like sure.

I mean, you, I, I don't think I
would want to do that, but I've

ne oddly enough, I've never seen
you, um, misuse that aggression.

Um, no,

Paul Illingworth: I don't, I
don't, I use it to defend myself.

Mm-hmm.

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's
just a defensive reaction.

Mm-hmm.

And, and I mean, you know,
anybody in the same situation,

you know, you can do two things.

You can run or you can stand and fight.

And I've run.

At times, and I can't run very well.

Sometimes it's very much the right
thing to do, but sometimes it's

definitely the right thing to do.

Other times, other times it's stand
up and fight and sometimes you

don't have a need to, to fight.

You just have to stand up for yourself.

It's as simple as that.

Um, but, but again, you know, you, you
asked me why am I not afraid of anything?

I mean, I guess I'll, I may well
find something I'm afraid of.

Like I said, the one thing terrifies me
at the moment is driving on the roads

because it, it, they're just, there's so
many idiots out there and it just seems

to be getting worse and worse and worse.

And I think there's more chance of
dying in a car wreck than anything else.

I mean, I'm not, yeah.

You know, I don't have to
deal with wild animals.

Um, I don't have to deal
with, with war anymore.

There's no, there's really no
fighting, no war or anything like

that, that I would get involved in.

So the most dangerous thing
I do is go out and drive.

I ride a motorbike.

I was on the motorbike yesterday.

That is dangerous.

I riding motorbike.

Dangerous.

I've rid, but I've ridden a bike
since I was 10, 11 years old.

Mm-hmm.

You know, only had a couple of spills.

Fortunately Touchwood, I've never
seriously hurt myself, but you've just

gotta be, you've gotta be def you, you
have to ride defensively yesterday and

it's just like everything else, isn't it?

You gotta be defensive.

Yeah.

You just gotta be prepared
to look after yourself.

That's really what it comes down to.

So

Rupert Isaacson: you were talking about
war there, so let's talk about that.

So, um, how do you end up going
from the Merchant Navy back into the

forces and end up in Special forces?

What's the trick to be there?

Okay.

Paul Illingworth: Well, when I was
in the, in the Royal Navy, um, I was

given the opportunity to move sideways
into the Royal Marine Commandos.

Um, which is, which is just
like the, the American Marines.

The Marines are part of the US Navy.

So they're Royal Marine Commandos
are actually technically not

part of the British Army.

They're, they're more
part of the British Navy.

Um, I was always interested in special
forces, special forces training

because of what my father went through.

Um, and so when an opportunity came
for me to step sideways, if you like,

into the RMC, I took that opportunity.

Um, and as a result of that, uh,
ended up going to, um, going to

Special Forces Selection, which I
failed miserably the first time.

Um, and then going through it again
a second time, I managed, I didn't

know they gave you a second chance.

That's interesting.

Yeah, they do.

They do.

Yes, you can go back again.

Um, and I ended up going back and,
and basically getting through that.

So, so that was how, uh, how I
ended up getting through and, and.

I just carried that, that training
and that responsibility through with

some of the other stuff that I got,
that I got involved in later on, so.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So what did you get involved in later on?

You, you ended up in the SASI know.

Um, tell us what you wanna tell us.

Paul Illingworth: Um, I can't really
say too much about anything that,

that, that happened during that
period, to be quite honest with

you, and I'd really rather not.

Hmm.

Um, however, one of the interesting things
that, that did happen, um, later on when

I was in the oil and gas business, um.

I was, uh, I was working in Angola
when the war was actually on

the, the Civil War was going on.

Um, and through some contacts that I had
that I met down there, um, there was an

opportunity to, to actually do some work
for the night for the Angola government.

Um, so basically what the, the
situation in, in Angola was that you

had two different political parties as
quite often happens with a civil war.

Um, and you had one ruling party, which
was NPLA, and there was another ruling.

There was another party, which was, uh,
you to, and the, the Civil War was really

you to, was being funded by the Russians.

MPLA was being funded, if you
like, by the West, by non Russians.

Um.

The Russian funding got to the point where
they were starting to, to get tooled up

with some very, very serious equipment.

Um, and the government needed some
help, if you like, uh, suppressing

some of the things that were going
on, particularly fairly close to

Luanda, which was a capital of Angola.

Um, so as a result of some of the
associations that I had, um, I was

able to step to one side of the oil
and gas work that I was actually

doing because I was working down
there as a consultant for Sogo, which

is a national oil company of Angola.

So I got to meet some very high people
up in the government, um, including the

president of the country at the time.

Um, and, um.

Ended up, if you like, helping
them with some of the military, uh,

issues that, that, that they had.

It was really more, uh, protecting
some of the, some of the, as the

oil and gas assets that they had
that were being threatened by the,

should we say, the Rebel forces.

Um, and you know, there were, there
were South African mercenaries

that were actually working there.

Ex special forces guys from South Africa
that were working in Angola all the time.

I had some association with them.

Uh, not working as a, I didn't work as
a mercenary per se, but I, but I was

associated with some, should we say some
of the strategic decisions that were made

in order to be able to help protect Luanda

And

Rupert Isaacson: what, what
years are we talking there and

how long did that go on for?

Paul Illingworth: Well, I mean,
my involvement was, uh, from

1992 to 1996, primarily 1994.

Okay.

Uh, I think the Civil War went on, I think
for almost 20 years, Rupert, to be called.

Yeah, it did.

It did.

I remember I was in Angola
a long, long, long time.

Um, yeah, 30 years.

There was a lot.

Yeah.

I think it was, there was a lot of
very, very heavy fights around Orlando

and Soya, uh, during the nineties.

And, and most, you know, most of the
rest of the, the problem was more in

land, but when it got to the coast and
it started to threaten the, uh, the oil

and gas business that, you know, that's
when the government realized that they

really needed to do something about it.

Um, so it was during that period

Rupert Isaacson: and you had been deployed
within the British forces as well.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I don't, I know you don't
wanna go too much into it, but

you had been, you, you had been
deployed in the Falklands, correct.

And then, yeah, that's

Paul Illingworth: correct.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Um, and that was Special
forces, so you'd taken that.

Uh, experience over, um, absolutely.

Yes.

You know, Angola's a scary place.

Um, or at least it certainly was.

I remember staring down a barrel of
a child soldiers, uh, uh, automatic

that, um, with a, with a comp compan.

I was, I had a traveling companion
who was a German girl who we didn't

realize at the time was bipolar.

And she later sent me, 10 years
later, sent me an apology letter.

She almost got me killed
like two, three times.

And it was just her and a friend.

And we, there was
nothing going on with us.

We were just travelers.

I was writing a guidebook actually
and being a journalist, and I

just wanted people from youth
hostels to split costs with.

And, um, we ended up crossing the
border into Angola, um, briefly.

And, um, she got.

Verbally aggressive with the wrong people.

And I was like, what are you doing?

You're gonna get us killed.

You're gonna get us killed.

You know, like, you really
are gonna get us killed.

You've got to stop.

And, um, you know how that thing
is, you, you're looking down

the barrel of, of somebody who's
15 pointing that gun at you.

And you know that whatever decision
they're making is not gonna be rational.

Um.

Paul Illingworth: That's,
that, that's, that's actually,

you know, a, a good point.

Something, something very,
very similar happened to me.

Funnily enough, not in Angola or
Nigeria, it was actually Mozambique,

but that was during the Civil War there.

Yeah.

That was also nice, you know, where,
where they were are, I mean, a lot of

the kids did have automatic weapons,
and those were the ones that you

really did have to be worried about.

Yeah.

There's no doubt about it.

It, it, the regular soldiers, to
a certain extent, weren't so bad

the kids, the kids just really
didn't know what they were doing.

They had no training and, you know,
they just saw, especially if you

were being aggressive with them,
you are lucky you didn't get shot.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, well, I was, I
did just a lot of apologizing, you know,

and, uh, you know, um, you talk about
having no fear, I had a lot of fear.

I was catching myself, you
know, because Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, but yeah, as you say, um.

The, the, the way through is sometimes
there, there are ways to stand up

for yourself and sometimes it's
actually to talk your way through.

Um, yeah.

And in that case it was to
sort of appeal to somebody's

sense of reason and humanity.

Um, okay.

So you're in the Merchant Navy.

You are not a mercenary in Angola.

Um, at what point do you start aviating?

Uh, I presume with jumping out
of airplanes, that must have

started with special forces.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Uh, I, you know, I did do some
helicopter flying, um, when I

was in, uh, in the military.

Um, didn't get into it too seriously, but,
um, the aviating really just simply came

about as a result of buying a skydiving
business and inheriting an airplane.

It came with an airplane.

We had a pilot.

Okay.

And one of the things that I think.

Jen and I realized pretty
quickly, and we really knew

this just from our experiences.

Jen being your wife.

Yeah.

Jen being my wife.

Yeah.

Through our experience at other
drop zones is if the pilot gets

sick, you don't do any business.

Most drop zones can't afford
to hire more than one pilot.

So if you, you know, literally
if the pilot does get sick, if

he gets a cold, he can't fly and
then the business is shut down.

So when we bought the business, we
had a pilot, uh, that if you like,

that was working for the business.

He'd already, he told us fairly quickly
he was looking to move into the airlines.

'cause a lot of the times skydiving
pilots use it to build hours, right.

So they can then go and
fly for the airlines.

He told us that he was looking
to go to the airline, so we

needed to find another pilot.

We found another pilot, luckily
that stayed with us for almost 10

years, but it did make us realize
that while it's fairly easy to hire

skydiving instructors, binding pilots
is hard and keeping pilots is hard.

So Jen and I decided
to have flying lessons.

We took flying lessons.

We started in 2005.

We both got our private pilot's license
within about a year, nine months I

think it was, brought ourselves a
little sesor airplane because we were

living in Houston and the business we
owned was a two hour drive away, but

it was only a half an hour flight.

So we brought little airplane and
then we could fly out there, uh,

for the weekends with the kids.

My kids were growing up at the time.

I decided that rather than just stop
at private pilot's license, I'd get my

instrument rating, I'd get my multi-engine
rating, I'd get my commercial.

Uh, so basically I had all of the
different ratings that I'd need to

fly any of the airplanes we were ever
likely to use in the skydiving business.

And I went through all of those over the
next year or so, got all those ratings.

Um, and then as soon as I is, it used be

Rupert Isaacson: so quick.

Doesn't it take longer normally to get

Paul Illingworth: No, I was, I was
flying almost every day having lessons.

Okay.

You know, because, because we
were running a business and it was

important that I got the ratings,
the cost of, I mean, it's, it's.

Cost prohibitive for most people
as well to do all of that because

of the cost of the instruction.

Mm-hmm.

But I was fortunate in that the
business was able to help with the cost.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and I literally, I would go
and have a fly lesson at seven

o'clock in the morning, finish at
nine o'clock, go to the office.

Right.

Work in the office till
seven, eight o'clock at night.

Come home, go repeat the
same, the same thing.

It's, and then, like I said, weekends,
we'd be going out to a skydiving business.

So it's really, it was, you know,
it was seven days a week working

and very, very long hours as well.

That's how we got into flying.

That's how both Jen and
I got, got into flying.

We still fly today.

You know, we still, we, we still own
a little airplane, uh, that we fly.

Even though we sold the skydiving
business a number of years ago.

We owned a small jet for a period of time.

I mean, you've flown with us.

Well, I have.

It's my only.

You know, uh,

Rupert Isaacson: experience of flying a
private jet, I'm very, very, very great.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

We've done, you know, we've done a, a lot
of stuff and, um, I mean, as I get older

now, we, you know, I'm almost 70 now, we
sold the jet because once you hit 70, it's

pretty difficult to get insurance, um,
to fly small pri, you know, private jets.

So we, we are just scaling things
down, but that's how, that's how

we got into the aviation side.

And I must say I love it.

I, I always wanted to
join the Royal Air Force.

I think I said that very, very early
on, um, because I had, I'd never

flown at the time, but I just thought
it looked like a lot of fun to do.

Yeah.

And it is a lot of fun and
I really, really enjoy it.

So it's, you know, it's one of the things
I think that probably motorcycling and,

and flying, I still get the most enjoyment
out of, of pretty much everything we do.

We still enjoy jumping as well.

Just don't jump as much
as, as, as we could do.

Rupert Isaacson: So.

Then you, you go from the Merchant Navy
into the oil and gas business and you

Paul Illingworth: Yeah,

Rupert Isaacson: you, you do Well.

Paul Illingworth: Um, and so let,
let's just, let's talk about that.

Okay?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The same thing.

It's the same thing again.

Um, I wanted, I wanted to, I wanted
basically to get to a point where

I was caption in my own ship.

That was my target.

And when I went in the Navy,
I can remember way, way

before I joined the Navy.

There was a guy that was
playing at my rugby club.

I was probably 14 years old, 14 or 15.

He was a captain in the Merchant
Navy, and he was earning, and I

remember this like it was yesterday.

He was earning 5,000 pounds a year.

That was a hundred pounds a week.

That was a huge amount of money.

I was earning 10.

What year was that?

Would that have been 70?

That, that, that would've
been in, uh, let me think.

60.

69 70.

Oh yeah.

That would've

Rupert Isaacson: been a lot of money.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah,
it was a lot of money.

Yeah.

I was earning 10 shillings
a week till in newspapers.

He was earning a hundred
pounds a week as a captain.

So ultimately my target
was to get to be captain.

'cause I thought, well, you know,
I've not had any money growing up, but

I'll be doing fairly well because he,
you know, he drove a nice sports car.

I think he had a knee type jag
and, you know, and he seemed

to live very comfortably.

So that was always really my
target was to become a captain.

Mm-hmm.

Um, once I transitioned into a
merchant Navy, 1984, I got, I went

to college for six months and I
passed my captain's license test.

So from 1984, I had a license
to captain any ship of any

size, anywhere in the world.

Um.

And at the time the company that
I was working for, which was an

American offshore company, were
desperately short of captains.

Uh, and I got an opportunity to
move from first officer to captain,

working on the old Vig supply boats.

So I took that opportunity, um,
and then I ended up moving from

West Africa into the North Sea.

So I was captain of supply boats
working the North Sea and some of

the most horrendous weather you'll
ever I can imagine, possibly imagine.

And I did that, uh, until, um, about 1990.

But in the interim period of time with
a couple of other guys in Aberdeen,

um, I end and we started our own
company, a marine consultancy company.

Um, and what we were doing was we
were providing, uh, tow masters to

move oil rigs around the North Sea.

So I moved from being captain of a.

I worked as captain on the oil rigs in
the Middle East for a couple of years.

Then I went back to the North Sea
working for my own company with

these, with these two other gentlemen.

Um, and we set the company up and
we, we very, we've become very, very

successful at renting our services
out to move oil rigs around to the

point where we ended up having to
start hiring people to work for us.

So then the company started to grow.

Uh, I think the last, the last job I
did when I was actually working on, on

the oil rig, the big tugs, because I was
moving oil rigs around as a, as a tow

master at the time was probably 1990.

Um, and then there was an opportunity,
um, shortly thereafter to go and

work for a small Canadian oil
company as a marine superintendent.

So, and this was in Aberdeen, so I'm still
working, I'm managing director of my own.

Consultancy company, they
needed a marine superintendent.

So we literally contracted my
services to this small Canadian

company as a marine superintendent.

And that's how I ended up, I
did some work in the North Sea

installing, uh, platforms in the
North Sea oil rig platforms for them.

And they also had a license in Angola.

And that's how I ended up in Angola,
working for them down in Angola, meeting

the, the government officials from Sonal
and doing and doing that sort of stuff.

So I ran that company as managing director
for 13 years until 1998 when I ended up.

As a result of meeting some guys,
funnily enough in Angola, um,

getting an opportunity to come to
Houston and I'd been in Aberdeen

for eight years at that time.

Um, I wanted to take the
company International.

My two partners did not
want to go international.

They wanted to stay in the
uk So we started to come to a

point where we were gonna split.

Um, the opportunity came up for me to
go to Houston, so I ended up going to

Houston as a consultant working for this
Singaporean based company to set up the

business development office for them.

And that was really an opportunity for me
to just simply say, okay, I like it here.

I'm gonna stay here.

They're gonna pay me, well, I'll
leave the UK consultancy company.

I'll just step back, keep my shares
in the company, but not have anything

to do with the day-to-day running.

That's how I ended up in the us

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

Paul Illingworth: So.

Rupert Isaacson: You're talking
about moving, um, all platforms

around and as if that's an easy
thing to do in the North Sea.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: As you said, I've
seen, I've seen what the weather can be.

You talk about not being afraid.

You must have been afraid sometimes in
those storms that the ship might go down.

Not

Paul Illingworth: I was, I, there,
there's a, there was a couple of

opportunities where I never thought
I'd ever see weather worse than that.

And then there was
weather worse than that.

I was never bothered
about a ship going down.

And one of the things I should
probably point out is that, remember

I told you I had an older cousin
who was 12 years older than me.

I also had another cousin that was
four years older than me, Neil,

he was actually on an offshore
supply boat that did go down in the

Mediterranean and he was lost at sea.

Mm.

The ship, the ship just disappeared.

Wow.

And that was in the Mediterranean.

Rupert Isaacson: Wow.

You don't expect to see
that kind of weather.

Paul Illingworth: And, and
I'd been in the Navy, I think

two years when that happened.

And, you know, it, it was, it, it really
brought it home with the vulnerability.

Now, when I was on my own ship as
captain working in the North Sea, we

went out in some horrendous weather.

There was, I remember there
was one Christmas where the

storms were really, really bad.

Um, and I was, I was flown out by
helicopter to a rig, which had broken

a couple of his moorings to try to be
able to, uh, to get some, some, uh, tugs

attached to the rig so we could actually
pull it away from the platform that

it was gonna end up drifting towards.

Um, that was some of the worst
weather that I ever saw when I

was captain on a ship myself.

We went out in Force 10 a
couple of times from Aberdeen.

I was never bothered
about the ship going down.

Um.

Could it have happened?

Yes.

But I think, I guess that I felt that
my superior seamanship skills were

able to deal with anything that the
weather threw out us at the time.

Um, and again, I think I
was, I was very, very lucky.

We never got into a serious situation.

Um, but I mean, I, that there
was a lot of really, really

nasty things happened out there.

I'll tell you what, you know, one
time I was a bit twitchy, I was, one

of the things that I had to do was
move jack up rigs alongside platforms.

Um, and when you're moving a jack
up rig alongside a platform, and

Jack up rig basically is an oil rig.

They work in relatively shallow water
up to about 150, two a hundred feet.

They go deeper now, but
in those days, 152 feet.

And it's like, it's, it's a, it's a
triangular shaped rig that has three legs.

It floats with the legs jacked
up, and then you put it to

wherever you want it to go.

And there's normally three tugs attached.

One at one at each corner.

'cause it's a triangle and you move
it where you want to go with the tugs.

And then you lower the legs down.

The legs, hit the sea bed, and they
raise the rig up off, off the sea.

It literally comes up.

So you have a gap between the
sea and the bottom of the rig.

It's called the air gap.

Now, one of the things we had to do
in the southern part of the North

Sea was to actually move these jack
up rigs alongside a fixed platform.

So now you've got something that
is attached to the seabed that

has accommodation on top and
it's got wells going through it.

And the jack up rig has to
go right up close to that.

You jack it up.

It has a drilling deck that then
can levers over the top of the

platform so they can get the
drilling equipment down the well.

You have to move those rigs.

Four to six feet away from the
legs of the fixed platform.

So the accuracy, the way that we do
this is a combination of using anchors

and tugs, but you are literally
moving the rig six inches at a time.

So I'm giving instructions to one of the
tugs to pull six inches in on a toe line.

Another one, pull six inches in here.

That is the most, I won't say
it's scary, it's nerve wracking

because there's no room for error.

Absolutely no.

And the way that we used to tell if we
were in the right place is quite funny.

We have what we called surveyors
on board, and the surveyors

were technical guys, okay?

We didn't have, uh, sat
nav or anything like that.

So in order to tell whether or not we
were in the right place on the platform,

'cause you had to get in exactly the
right place, we'd get two aluminum

ladders, stick them out the back of
the rig with a scaffolding pole going

across and a couple of paint marks.

And when that scaffolding po and the paint
marks touched the legs of the platform,

we knew we were in the right place.

That's how technical,

Rupert Isaacson: that's that technical
and what would happen if you got it wrong.

Paul Illingworth: Uh, you'd end up
hitting the rig would hit the platform

and that was really, really bad.

Because, because, because if you
have make contact with a platform

or the rig, you can't do anything.

You have to pull away.

You then have to, to fly a surveyor
out to survey the rig to make

sure it doesn't have any damage.

You have to get divers to do NDT on the
platform to make sure you haven't damaged

the integrity of the, of the platform.

'cause even if you say, oh, we
just kissed it, we just touched it.

Doesn't matter.

Game is off.

Rig gets pulled away.

Oil company that you're working for
get really angry because you've now

got a rig that's costing them a hundred
thousand dollars a day and it's not

doing anything because you've screwed up.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

And you're doing this in rough weather.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Rough

Paul Illingworth: weather.

Rupert Isaacson: How, how'd you do it?

How'd you do it?

How'd you get that level of
accuracy in rough weather when the

waves are just tossing you about?

Paul Illingworth: Well, I mean.

In the Southern North Sea, the current
is a, is a major issue as well.

So you have to wait for what they call
slack water, which occurs every six hours.

And then there is a, there is a
point with the weather where you

just say, no, we can't do it.

Okay.

But, you know, so there's a maximum
wave height because obviously if you are

moving up and down and you're surging
back and forward, you gotta be really,

really careful with what you're doing.

Um, so you do get to the point
where if the weather's really

bad, you just have to stop.

Okay.

And it's the same in the Northern
North Sea when you're moving

the semi-submersible rigs around
that float and have anchors.

You get to the point where when
the weather, the waves get beyond

a certain height, you just have to
stop, hold position and wait for

the weather to, to calm down a bit.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So yeah, went back to the subject of
fear and you said, you know, it's nerve

wracking that, that that's another whole.

Thing with fear is that, well,
there's fear for your own personal

safety, but then there's also fear.

Paul Illingworth: Fear of damage.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, and
fear of, um, effing up.

Screwing up.

Yeah.

Screwing up.

Yeah.

When it comes down to is
responsibility, like these types

of job that you're talking about,
they're ver they're very difficult.

And you've got to manage
these natural conditions.

You've got to manage groups of
people who are, you know, doing

this stuff, and that there's gonna
naturally be human error in there,

not to mention the weather, you know?

So do you think that, you know,
that's a lot of pressure to handle.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: Do you think that it
really, if you, if you look at where were

the skills that you built to be able to
handle that sort of pressure, um, that you

built them sort of in the paper rounds.

Age 10.

Yes.

Is that, is that where it all began?

Paul Illingworth:
Standing up for yourself.

And, and I mean, it's really just, if
you're gonna take on a job that has

that sort of level of responsibility,
you have got to have a huge

amount of confidence in yourself.

Mm-hmm.

And you know, a as I said, one of the
things that we were doing was we were

hiring people to work as tow masters.

Well, you don't just pull
these guys off the street.

No.

They have got to be trained.

So, um, every single one of
the people that we hired was

a cer, a qualified captain.

They all had captains licenses.

They thought most of them had worked as
captain on supply boats or on big tugs.

They knew what moving all
rigs around was all about, but

you still had to train them.

So if you like, because I had
my own company, I became a

tow master instructor per se.

And.

In order to be able to do, to do that
type of job with a very, very high

level of responsibility, we're, you
know, we're talking about hundreds

and hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of equipment and potential

damage, not necessarily lives at stake.

Because, because it, it wasn't that type
of a job, but you've gotta have a lot of

confidence in yourself and you've gotta
not be afraid of what you're doing in

order to be able to do it successfully.

Right?

And in all, you've also gotta have
the patience and the communication

skills to be able to pass that onto
somebody when you're training them.

Um, that the self-confidence
definitely came, it started.

With me having to go out at five o'clock
in the morning in the UK in the winter

when it was dark on my bicycle and go and
deliver newspapers, and I was delivering

newspapers in the snow and in the rain.

Mm-hmm.

And actually not having that was
probably the most fearful thing.

Uh, you know, as a, a 10-year-old
actually going out in the dark on a

bicycle and having to go onto a house in
estate and walk up people's drives with

dogs barking and deliver newspapers.

Hmm.

And it, it built up a certain amount
of self-confidence, almost to the

point where you think, screw this.

You know, I mean, I can do this,
I can do pretty much anything.

And one of the things I will
say to you is I've never been,

how can I put this?

There hasn't been a situation where
somebody's asked me if I could

do something where I've said, no.

I might have said, I
have to think about it.

And I've done that a lot.

But in most cases, if somebody's
asked me to do something, if I

haven't got the skills to do it,
I can figure out how to do it.

'cause I'm very good
at figuring things out.

But if it's just something that's
completely off, off the wall, then I

would simply say, I'll think about it.

Which just really means no, I probably
won't do it, but I'm gonna think about it.

'cause I like to be able to process
things and, and that really does, it does

come down, there's no doubt about it.

Having that paper round and having to
go out to work at such an early age

was, it was a great character builder.

There's no doubt about that.

And I did that.

I did that every day for six years.

I stopped my paper around the day
I left the UK to join the Navy.

Rupert Isaacson: Wow.

I'm also thinking about, um.

The, you, you talked about communication
skills, and that's important too,

because it's not enough to be
big and tough or even competent.

Paul Illingworth: No.

If you're

Rupert Isaacson: going to manage teams,
you can't be going around scaring

your team because then you, there's
no job getting rather the opposite.

They've got to feel that the
big scary guy has their back.

Um, do you feel, do you think that
the, um, do you think that the

communication skills came with
having to build that rugby team?

Paul Illingworth: Yes.

Absolutely, because I didn't, I didn't
get, learn any communication skills from

being at home with Doesn't sound like

Rupert Isaacson: it.

No, I mean, I, although
your mom sounds very warm.

My, my mom sounds, my mom was

Paul Illingworth: really, really great.

She was, she was a, a great help to
me, but we weren't the sort of family

that we sat around in the evening, if
you like, drinking tea and chatting

about what we did during the day.

Yeah.

That just, that didn't happen.

It was, it was being at school, playing
rugby with the team, with the lads.

They were, you know, they were
the closest group that we had

as any sports team really.

And then taking those
communication skills.

I mean, I was, I was assessed very,
very early on after I joined the Navy

as having, uh, natural leadership.

Qualities because I was able to,
to guide people and I, and I was

able to communicate with people.

So I was actually given the opportunity
to accelerate through the whole Navy

process very, very quickly because I
had that ability to be able to talk

to people, to be able to communicate
and be able to get over what I

was trying to communicate quickly.

Right.

Um,

Rupert Isaacson: so let's
dive back to where we began.

We have this epidemic of young men
who can't get out of the basement,

Paul Illingworth: who

Rupert Isaacson: are maybe doing
playing video games that simulate some

of the adventures that you might have
actually had in real life, um, and

are lacking self-confidence
on a level that is disabling.

What do we do about this?

Paul Illingworth: Uh, that's a 10,
$10 million question, isn't it?

Um, you know, 10-year-old kids nowadays
can't go out and deliver papers.

No, no.

They can't.

It's a different world, you know.

Yeah.

You know, you, you just can't do it.

I mean, you know, when my kids were
growing up, I was, I was, to be quite

honest with you, quite scared of them
even just going and riding their bicycles

in our sub subdivision in Houston.

Sure.

You know, in Houston, you
know, it's as simple as that.

But I think what you've gotta do is,

I think it really comes down to
you've got to take an interest in

something that community is doing.

Okay.

Um, that's interesting.

And, and, you know, that
can be through a club.

Mm-hmm.

YMCA, you know, I, I, again,
it's a Christian association.

I think a lot of people, certainly
where I live, I mean, I live in, in

Texas in what they call the Bible Belt.

I'm not religious person
myself, but I know that.

The young lads I've met here that
do extremely well for themselves.

They are Christians and the
religious, the, the religious side

of things over here, they go to
church, which is a club in effect,

they communicate with other people.

Um, and I'm talking about a lot
of the young guys around here

that grow up on farms or on
ranches and do things like that.

They get themselves out.

They don't get the opportunity
to sit around watching television

or playing computer games
'cause they're out doing stuff.

They're,

Rupert Isaacson: exactly, and I mean,
look, the life that we leave Paul, it's

not, it's not, um, representative anymore.

I mean, you know, no, my kids also
are out on the farm working with

horses and doing stuff and, you know,
um, I don't force them to do it,

but there's just stuff to do, so,
and it's kind of interesting to do.

So why wouldn't you?

Um.

But if you are living in, as you
said, you know, you, you were scared

when your kids were going out in
a subdivision in, um, in Houston.

And that's of course where
most people are is, is in those

types of suburban environments.

And you kids are not
allowed to work anymore.

Um, it's also not terribly is is
less safe now than it used to be.

Um,

but I like what you said about
involvement in community.

Yeah.

'cause if, if you haven't got a
farm or a ranch to be part of, well

that just doesn't exist for you.

But if you're growing up in a,
let's say you're on a housing state

today, in, let, let, let's yeah.

Dial it back to where you were as a boy.

You're in a housing state,
outskirts of London.

Um, what's around you?

There's gonna be

on the bad side, there's gonna
be drugs, there's gonna be.

Gang stuff, there's going to, but
that to some degree was always there.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: On the positive side,
there's going to be kids who are doing

creative things like music, um, perhaps
sport, um, other things like that.

But I think, I like that you put your
finger on something with community

involvement and, and service.

Most people are not gonna be in
a church environment, but it's,

that's a good place to start from.

I think you are now in this
housing estate today in 2025.

As a father of a bo of a 10-year-old boy.

What do you do?

Paul Illingworth: I think what I
would, what I would, what I'd want

to try to do is, um, obviously,
you know, school is community.

Mm-hmm.

And, um.

Not only is school community, but
your neighbors are community as well.

Mm-hmm.

And certainly when my kids were growing
up and, and you know, this wasn't

that long ago, what was important was
actually finding out what the other

kids in the neighborhood are doing.

Where are they going,
where are they hanging out?

Are they the tennis court?

So that the swimming pool, you know,
there are places where they, that

they're gonna go and they're going
to, if you like, group together.

And I don't mean in gangs
or anything like that Yeah.

But just to do, you know, following
their interests, basically.

Interests, you know, do, do you know
any, you've get, I, I just think you've

gotta get the kids out the houses.

Yeah.

That's really what it comes down to.

If you can get, which
means you gotta do it

Rupert Isaacson: with them.

Paul Illingworth: You've
gotta go do it with 'em.

So, I mean, over here, when my kids
were growing up, when my son was growing

up, we did T-ball, we did baseball,
we'd all, I know it's sports again, but

it's very sport orientated over here.

And that's what you gotta remember.

But you know, friends that we have
now, they have girls that are in

gymnastics, that are in swim clubs.

Most of most of the things are
some form of sport orientated.

But I mean, is there anything wrong
with kids getting involved in sport?

I mean, I got involved in sport,
you can't work or you can work,

but you can't work till you're
13 or 14 or even older than that.

But working doesn't really
seem to be the important thing.

I think it's, it's community activities.

And community activities can be sports.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: It
could be stamp collecting.

They could be, well, I mean, I think

Rupert Isaacson: that's the thing.

I mean, so in my case, the kind of nerd
I was, obviously I was riding, right?

But I'm a huge nature nerd.

So for me it would've
been birdwatching, um, uh.

Plant identification, animal watching,
and then from there you get into hiking,

you get into mountaineering, you get into,

Paul Illingworth: exactly.

And that's one of the things I love now.

I mean, you know, I'd rather
be, I'd rather be outside than

sitting here at the moment.

I'd rather be riding my tractor
around riding my a TV, going and

mowing grass, walking with my dogs.

Yes.

You know, and, and that's another
thing that we, we used to do as well.

But you did this with your kids?

I did it with my kids, yeah.

We used to go to the park, we used
to walk the dogs on a regular basis,

teach them things to do with nature.

Mm-hmm.

Um, the problem we have right now,
Ruper, is that you've got kids

that are growing up with parents
that almost grew up exactly the

same way that they're growing up.

Mm-hmm.

Because you had computer
games started in the nineties.

Mm.

They grew up with computer games.

They're now having kids.

So if the, if the parents
don't know to go out.

Themselves and get things done.

Mm-hmm.

And want to stay in the house
and want to watch television.

The kids are gonna be grow
up exactly the same way.

So I, it's really, should our, should we
be dealing with this from the point of

view of what should the kids be doing?

Or should we try, try to educate the
parents in what they should be doing?

I guess

Rupert Isaacson: that's the
other, you know, too, as you

say, like when, when I was a kid.

When you were a kid, um, even like when I
was in the country in England growing up,

that not everyone had a car by any means.

Um, we didn't

Paul Illingworth: have one.

Rupert Isaacson: No.

Um, and I'm talking about also
people that lived like out on

farms, didn't necessarily have cars.

They'd walked to the top of their
driveway, walk to the village, get

a bus or take a bicycle or whatever.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: Um, a lot of places
didn't have electricity even growing

up, I remember on remote farms.

Um, and then of course that will
change somewhere in the eighties.

Um, but crucially, I think that
there was a lot of movement.

You had to move, right?

You, you, you, you didn't have
an option if you wanted to move

yourself from one place to another
to not do it with your body.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Um, okay.

Now this is difficult.

If you grew up in a subdivision that
has no public transport and you are

the only option is cars, um, you might
be able to ride your bicycle around,

you know, the cul-de-sacs or whatever.

But, but as you say, I guess then you
do have things like skateboarding.

You do have things like, but
it's very difficult not to

end up indoors on a computer.

Yeah.

Um, and it's marketed at you and as you
say, with parents who are maybe, you

know, two job parents, um, or single
parent, you know, more than one kid.

But I think you did put your finger
on it when you talked about community.

So the way I would think
about community as tribe.

And, um, as you know, I spent a lot
of time in Africa, um, living with

tribes and my own family's very tribal.

Um, I grew up with a lot of cousins, you
know, southern Africans, um, and there

were always just a procession of cousins
coming through the house from everywhere.

Um, and it was considered normal
that we'd all end up at each other's

places at whenever, and you could
kind of stay as long as you wanted.

It was all right.

You had to muck in, but everyone
was always welcome everywhere.

Um, that level of, so, you know,
and so to some degree we were

all in service to each other.

Right.

I think I, I wonder if we've lost
the habit of that, so that as you

say, yes, sometimes church, you know,
but, and, and then you moved, you,

you didn't have that growing up.

But when you got to say Houston with
your kids, you saw the value of it.

Why did you see the value of it
when you didn't have it growing

up, and why did you know that that
was something you had to give them?

Paul Illingworth: Well, you know,
I think, to be quite honest with

you, it was, it was a really a case
of what are the community doing.

So, you know, when we first moved over
here and, and started to make contact

with, with local people and, and they had
kids in the subdivision that we lived in,

it's like, well, what are the kids doing?

Oh, they're going down the road
and they're playing T-ball,

they're playing baseball there.

Right, right next to where the house was.

There was, uh, there was a
little sports field there.

Um, and so, you know, we went down
there to see what was going on.

Knew nothing about
baseball T-Ball, you know.

Or any of the sports whatsoever.

Jack, my son was six at the
time when we moved to the us.

My daughter wasn't even born.

She was born a couple of
years after I moved over here.

So, you know, I had a 6-year-old
that would've ended up being

stuck in the house all the time
for didn't do something with him.

And I was, I was working, I
mean, I, you know, I had a very,

very high busy, high level job.

Um, but I had to do something.

So yeah, we would talk to the
neighbors, the neighbors had kids,

find out what the kids were doing.

We used the community, if you like, to
figure out what to do with the kids.

And, and that's what we did all the time.

So your tribe really,
it, it's almost like.

It was a small subdivision
that we lived in.

There was probably only about 20, 25
houses, but that was our community.

Yeah.

And that's plus the fact, you know, that I
would, when I would go to work, I, I, as I

built the business up in Houston and start
to hire people, I'd go to their houses,

talk to their families, what do you do?

You know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Where do you do things?

How I needed to learn how the American
system worked as well as you, you know

this because you came over here and
lived over here for a number of years.

Yeah.

It's very different.

Very different from
being living in Europe.

Yes, it is.

And we, but we've now got to the point 20
years later where you're absolutely right.

There is no public transport.

There is no way of getting around other
than being driven by your parents.

Yeah.

So as a kid, all you do get, you get
put in a car, you get taken somewhere.

Yeah.

You go and do that
activity, you go back home.

And how much of those activities are
related to the actual community that

you live in, and how much are related
to the school is difficult to say.

It's probably more school orientated.

In other words, whatever the school
kids do, that's what you do, but

the kids are being transported
from one place to another.

Yeah.

Um, one of the things that I have
noticed is getting, and I dunno what

it's like in Europe, but is getting
very, very bad over here, is, um,

what I call self gratification.

People are growing up with an attitude
that, um, the world owes them something,

community owes them something, and
they expect to get that out of the

community without really putting
an awful lot back into it again.

Uh, it, it's, it's almost like.

It's a bit of selfishness
to a certain extent.

Um, you know, I've always looked at life
as you get out of it, whatever you put in.

So you've got to be prepared to
put something into life in order

to be able to get something out.

And unfortunately, I think kids today,
particularly in the, certainly where

I live in the US, expects everything
to be handed to them on a plate.

Rupert Isaacson: I mean, I think every
older generation has always said this

about every younger generation forever.

I'm sure

Paul Illingworth: they have.

Absolutely.

I mean, you remember

Rupert Isaacson: your dad
would've moaned at you about that.

Yes.

And my dad and granddad moaned at
me about that, you know, but I think

perhaps each generation is right
in that what they observe is young

people trying to figure it out and.

While they're in that figuring out
process, they get stuff wrong, you know?

Yeah.

And that noise, the older generation,
but I, I do think it's more acute now

in terms of like, so for example, here
in Germany where I am, my kids can

take a bicycle and ride to the store.

They can walk to the store, they
can go and figure out how to do

their own shopping, and they're at
their 10 and eight, and they can do

that, they can do that safely here.

Um, they can walk to their,
uh, grandparents' house.

Um, this is all very normal, right?

They can go down to the creek and play.

Um, and you are not paranoid
about, uh, their safety in the

way that one would be in the USA.

Mm-hmm.

I wouldn't probably let them do it in
the USA unless we were in a very, very

rural area and kind of had control
of the land and the environment.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and.

It is still safer here.

And then you have, you do have
a lot of what are called vet

irons here, which are clubs.

So, um, you know, we're part of a, a right
vet in a riding club, which means that

if we all put our money in, we all have
access to these facilities like arenas

and jumps and things like that, that
we wouldn't be able to put in ourselves

privately, but collectively we can.

Mm-hmm.

But we have to do a certain number of
work hours as well as putting in dues.

We've actually, so the kids have to
show up and, and, and, and there's

work hours for kids in the V Right.

It's not just for the, for the parents.

And then there's nabu, which is our
local nature conservation, and we have

to go out and into the orchards around
here and clean out the owl boxes.

Um, get up a ladder, do that,
deal, scoop out the ship.

But there's interesting stuff in there.

And then you find door mice and you
find, you know, and there is this.

Yeah, I think, I think you
nailed it with community.

Um, it's there, um, people say
it's not as good as it was.

You know, you talk to the old
generation here, they say it's, it's,

Paul Illingworth: oh no,
I'm, it's been eroded, but,

Rupert Isaacson: but it's
still much stronger, I think.

And there's a very good public transport.

So you, you know, we're out here, for
example, Rowan, my 23-year-old son who

you know very well, who's autistic.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

When

Rupert Isaacson: he's in Texas,
he has to drive everywhere

and thank God he can drive.

But here he takes the trains all over
and he stays in youth hostels and he

explores different cities in, in Europe.

And he can do that because there
is still kind of a, of a system.

Um, but

you, you, when you were a kid, you
didn't have that community involvement.

You had to make it through
that rugby team, right.

You had to manufacture it.

What would've happened to
you if you hadn't done that?

Paul Illingworth: Oh.

I'll be quite honest with you, I
think I would've ended up being a lot

more insular, um, and isolated Okay.

Than, than I was.

I mean, you know, the community I
went, you know, my, my high school

had 600 kids, um, which is nothing
compared to what you have today.

And as you worked your way up through
the years in the school, you almost

got to know everybody in the school.

I wouldn't say you knew everybody,
but you know, you, you, you got it.

It really was being part of the community.

Now, it didn't matter whether you
played a sport, you could be part of

the community by supporting one of the
teams, uh, or just hanging out with

the guys that played in the teams.

If I did, if I hadn't have had
anything to do with rugby, this.

I was involved in a lot of stuff at
school as far as sports are concerned,

because I was a very sporty person.

Now, if I wasn't a sporty person or
for whatever reason I couldn't do

the sport, I think I would've been
a very, very insular type of person.

Um, 'cause I think that's what
made me, you know, I'm quite

gregarious, I'm very outgoing.

I'll talk to anybody,
you know, that mm-hmm.

That has, that has, that's part
of my character that really

built up through those years.

Mm-hmm.

Because prior to going to,
at 10 years old, so, so I, I

wanna backtrack a little bit.

Okay.

So when my father got really, really
sick and the building business started

to collapse in London, um, I was six,
seven years old and we couldn't afford

to live in the townhouse in London.

So, uh, my mother who
had some contacts, um.

Shall we say with the theater people
in London, I'm not gonna mention any

names, but she, uh, she was good friends
with a couple of very famous actresses.

One of the actresses had an old
cottage out in the Hartford sheer

countryside that had no electricity.

It had no water, running water,
just as you were talking about.

And it needed work doing to it.

Well, my dad was able to do some work.

He couldn't do a lot of heavy work,
but he was able to do some work.

We moved into that cottage
and spent three years there.

But I went to a local school
that had 20 kids in it.

So my junior school year Village school,

Rupert Isaacson: right?

Yeah.

Village

Paul Illingworth: school.

Yeah.

20 kids, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And tribe.

So I tribe, yeah.

I spent this little cottage
was in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

With fields all round country.

All round.

I was surrounded by
nature, but it was tribes.

So when we then moved into the council
house in Hoon, which was a lot more urban,

shall we say, than than rural, that's when
I started to get bullied because I wasn't

used to, I didn't know anybody there.

There was no tribe I'd
lost it all completely.

Um, and I was a bit of a loner.

I mean, I really, really was.

It was just me and my sister living there.

My mom and dad didn't know anybody.

They couldn't go out.

They couldn't do anything.

There was no community whatsoever.

So I became,

I definitely did become a loner.

'cause I can remember going
out, what do I wanna do?

Well, I'm gonna go buy some, get some
bicycle parts and build myself a bicycle.

'cause I couldn't afford to buy one.

So I ended up building a bicycle
and then I started to get round.

But then I went into the high school, the
secondary school, and all of a sudden.

I was able to build my own
community there, and that's when

I started to be more outgoing.

So it's very, very easy.

Not you, you've, you've
gotta work on those skills.

I think.

It doesn't come naturally
and it doesn't come natural.

Yeah.

I, I think, I

Rupert Isaacson: think you're right.

I'm sort of thinking back to some
of my own, because as you know, I'm

also very gregarious, but I wasn't
always, and, um, everyone's had

the experience of being bullied and
everyone's had, everyone's had that and

Paul Illingworth: yeah, I

Rupert Isaacson: had to deal with it.

Right.

And, um, there was also, I think, yeah,
a crucial period of learning how to build

community through my love of horses.

And then of course, you, you
find other people that have

that and you share that with us.

It was the local hunt.

Um, because you didn't need
money to be in the hunt.

You know, you, you, you just had
to be part of the pony club, right.

And uh, the pony club let you hunt
for free and subsidized everything

to get people onto that track.

Um, and uh, it was good 'cause it ended
up being kind of a career track for me

alongside everything else I've done.

But it wasn't always like that and I
wasn't terribly well accepted 'cause

I was a London boy not for English.

Like in less coming up through that
and you had to kind of find your way.

Do you think that, um, if the computer
games and that whole thing had been

around when you were a kid on there,
on that estate, would you have

fallen into that trap, do you think?

Paul Illingworth: Quite possibly.

Um.

I can't say no.

Yeah, because, you know, it's,
it's, it's one of these things.

I mean, I think I mentioned earlier on,
you know, I don't sit around watching

television or reading newspapers.

I gave up reading newspapers about 40
years ago when every time I opened the

newspaper, there was nothing good in them.

So I just stopped reading.

Was there anything good in that?

No, I don't think, I don't think
there ever was any, anyway.

Um, you know, and I mean, I would, I would
watch the television really just to find

out what was happening with the news.

And even today, if I watch
television, it's B, B, C, I just

watch B, you know, the B, b, C
news, because I get worldwide news.

I don't get the, shall we say
the American stuff that get

shoved down your throat here.

Yeah.

But yeah, you know.

If there was computer games around.

I mean, I've tried computer games
when my kids were grown up and

they had computer games, but yeah.

But they're just not something that
really, they don't engage me enough.

You know?

It, it's, it's, it's too
tunnel vision for me.

I like to look at the broader
picture of what's going on around me.

Um, but, you know, it definitely being
able to, to go out and get involved

with community activities Yeah.

Is, is, is, and it is, it
comes back to the tribe.

It doesn't matter what your tribe is.

It can be a subdivision, you know, it can
be a team at school, it can be anything.

But I think tribe is very, very important.

Um, there, there was, there's, there's
somewhere that, that I want to go here

and it's like in, it's, it's in the
back of my mind and I'm just trying

to find the, the right words for it.

But.

One of my most recent experiences
is running the escape room business.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Now, for those of you that may
not know what an escape room

is, I'm sure most people do.

You actually, you don't get locked
into a room and have to escape.

Uh, it's a themed room where there
are puzzles that you have to solve

to work your way through the game.

So it's kind of a game,
it's an interactive game.

And, um, the staff that I had running
the, this business, it, it know it

was a very, very successful business.

We had eight different games
all themed differently.

We had a pirate one, we had a
Scooby-Doo one, uh, we had a

laboratory one, a haunted mansion,
so different types of things.

Almost all the staff that we
employed at that business, and

we had 12 to 15 people were.

Guys and girls that were anything
from high school age that's literally

17 years old through to 23, 24.

So mainly young people that were either
at school or were at college or had

decided not to go to college, but
needed, were looking for another career.

So I had five years of dealing
with people, both guys and

girls of that age group, right?

And so I've got quite a lot of
experience of actually what we are

talking about here to date through that.

Now, the people that we employed, there
were basically three different positions,

but everybody started off as a host.

And as a host, you're, you're
dealing with the customers when they

come in the store, you're talking
to them, you're engaging them.

You have to learn, uh, to
basically explain to them what.

The business is about what the game
is about, that they're gonna play.

And then you help them to go into the
room, brief them going in the room, and

then when they finish playing the game,
you take them out of the room, take a

photograph, say thank you very much.

So it's customer service.

You are teaching people to communicate?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

The other side of the business,
once they've learned all that side

of the business, is going into
the rooms and resetting the room.

So after you play a game,
you've gotta put all the props

and everything back in place.

Okay.

That's attention to detail,
totally different skillset, but

everybody has to learn it and.

Eventually when you're good,
you start to time yourself.

So now you, you're giving yourself
a challenge because you're seeing

how fast you can actually put all
that stuff back in place again.

And there was little competitions
we used to have, and you'd get a

$25 gift card for the fastest person
per, you know, at a certain time.

The next set of skills you learn, when
you learn how to reset the games, you

know, the games, you become a game master.

A game master is like playing a
computer game, but with real people.

You're looking at a TV screen
that has multiple cameras.

You are helping the people in the
rooms, you're sending them clues,

it, you're answering questions.

So it's very, very focused, but
looking like a computer going right.

And you don't run one game at a time.

The game Masters are running
three or four games at a time.

So you may have, you can have
eight people playing a game.

You can have four times eight people,
or 32 people that you're responsible

for making sure they have a good time.

That's what the business is all about.

So where am I going with this?

How do you pick people
that you're gonna hire?

Because you don't hire people
as a game master straight away.

They've gotta learn the business.

It's like starting off as a
deckhand and becoming the captain.

The captain is the game master.

Alright.

So we had to pick people and nine
times outta 10, nine times outta 10,

the people that we interviewed had
no communication skills whatsoever.

They could be 17, 18
years old, high schoolers.

They could be people that
have been to college.

We ha we would interview people
and we do zoom interviews.

We'd interview people that have very good
resumes, five years of customer service.

They couldn't talk to anybody.

I'd do a Zoom interview with people and
ask 'em questions, and they'd just stare

at me like a deer in the headlights.

They had no idea.

Did we hire those people?

Yes, we did, because it's a way
of actually teaching what what we

made them was part of our tribe.

This is where I'm coming with this, right?

Because it was a great opportunity for
us to actually take people from the

outside world, bring them into our tribe,
and teach them skills going forward.

And the ones that succeeded were
the ones that were able to embrace

the, the, the job responsibilities.

We, we hired high school girls that, that
wouldn't say boo to a mouse three months

after coming to work for us, if, you
know, they were literally throwing people

out the door that, you know, somebody
came in drunk on a Saturday night.

That's, that's how good they got because
they got confidence in themselves.

Now there's a point I'm
going here with this.

Okay.

The point is that a lot of the
boys, the boys struggled more with

the customer service side and the
interaction than the girls did.

The girls always seemed to have the
ability to be able to deal with customers.

What did the boys wanna do?

They wanted to become game masters
because they were all gamers and

they wanted Right, that's, yeah.

Yeah.

They wanted to sit in a room on
their own, not have to deal with,

not have to deal with the real
world, but they were very good at

controlling what people were doing.

And they were the best game
masters we had were gamers.

But because we made them go through
the whole customer service thing

and they, once they got to become
game masters, they didn't just sit

there and be a game master forever.

We used to make 'em go back up
front and do customer service.

Okay.

But.

They were also very, very good at
resetting the games 'cause they became

focused on what they were doing.

Rupert Isaacson: This is really
interesting because, um, basically what

you're, you're saying is that Yeah,
something So community involvement,

that is an escape room business.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: With tribe run by
somebody like you who's taught people to

do much more complex and dangerous things
with much high levels of responsibility.

So you're not worried, you, you, you
like, you know, you can get these

people to where they need to go.

And yet at the same time, it's very real.

Um, and that to my mind is a
very interesting place to end

up in this conversation because
you are, you are in the gaming

world there in subdivision world.

This, these things are happening in
the suburbs, often in strip malls.

Um, I mean they might be downtown,
but a lot of escape malls around,

you know, in, in strip mall land.

Um.

It's tapping into what
that generation knows.

Um, and I'm thinking, you know, one
of the other things that we've often

looked at and and done stuff with with
our autism work is LARPing Live action.

Role play.

Yeah, yeah.

Because it's, it's also, you know,
it it, and that, that world is a

brilliant world, uh, for people that
are sometimes neurodiverse, um, that,

you know, the Ren fare world, the SCA,
those of you dunno, the SCA is Yeah.

Or do a whole episode on the SCA.

It's, it's, it's, that's
a great rabbit hole.

But gaming actually, because
what, what is gaming?

Gaming is.

When you do it live well then you're
back to your rugby team, aren't you?

You're back to community.

You're back to community and, and
having this challenge that you have

to fulfill when then you're back
to the hunting and gathering group.

You're back to the group of lads going
out there with the spear, you know,

and there's an older one trying to
keep them safe, but also enough risk

that they can actually get the kill.

There's the girls out there
gathering and it's very dangerous.

They've got to dodge
lines while they do it.

They've got a track, they've got to know
that this plant is poisonous and looks

exactly like that one that isn't and
beyond absolute high alert with that

while keeping all the kids safe and da da.

Um, all of this takes
a lot of communication.

Communication takes drive.

So it is just really interesting that you,
you ended up actually, I think answering

the question of what, what do we do?

Which is go reach out to an escape
room if, if, if you are that mom

whose son can't come out the basement.

Um, perhaps you could do worse than
to look up who's your local live

action role play group and who's
your It's, it's, I I mean, it, it is,

Paul Illingworth: there is, it's, it's
something that, that escape rooms can

be played by, by kids young as seven
years old and really, really enjoy it.

And we've seen a, over the five years
of running that business, we've seen

multiple families that every time we'd
have a new game, they'd play all our

games, the whole family would come, they
play all our games, we get a new one.

They would hassle us when you open in a
new game so we can come back and play.

You've convinced me, I'm gonna
take my kids to an escape route.

They were, they were treating
it as community, as a child.

Yeah, no,

Rupert Isaacson: you, you've, you've
totally hit the nail on the head here.

I think Paul, because I, I did a, I
did a podcast, um, a few months back

with a, a really interesting lady
called, um, Lainey Liberty, who.

Took a year off to travel with her
son and they just never went back.

And they now run a business together.

Um, and what they do is get, they do
board games, they run gaming cafes.

Mm-hmm.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And it's

Rupert Isaacson: very similar.

It's, it's, it's, it's the same thing.

Yeah.

Paul Illingworth: Yeah.

It's exactly the same thing.

It's getting the kids, you know,
if, if you get kids that, that are

not sporty and there's a lot of kids
that aren't sure, the majority of

them I think are not sporty at all.

And you're not gonna get involved
with that type of community.

Well pick something else.

Yes.

Playing chess, you know,
checkers, board games.

What we do here with friends, you
know, we live in the countryside.

We are miles from anywhere.

Right.

But what do we do Every month?

There's six or eight of us
all get together, couples,

and we play board games.

Yeah.

We sit round, we drink wine,
we play board games, we talk.

It's community.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Lainey convinced me, she said play board
games with the kids if we game changer.

Yeah.

And.

I, I hadn't been, you know, I
thought, oh, I don't need to do that.

You know, we're out with the horses.

We do, and I thought, no, she's right.

And we started and it completely
changed the family dynamic.

Paul Illingworth: Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: It does.

Um, so, so that is, listen
to your Auntie Paul moms.

Yeah.

Um,

Paul Illingworth: there you go.

Rupert Isaacson: Start going to the
escape rooms together and maybe, maybe

your son can escape the room that he's
in, um, and escape into somewhere.

It's gotta start somewhere.

I love that because, you know, you know
me, I'm such a proponent of nature.

Yeah.

Um, but not everyone has access.

And you also know how it is in, in Texas
for example, you've gotta own that land.

There's not much public land out there.

Paul Illingworth: No.

Rupert Isaacson: Um, and it's

Paul Illingworth: also
too hot a lot of the time.

It is too hot Wanna go out, you know, in
Texas, but other places not necessarily.

There you go.

Go find the and only get all Well, you

Rupert Isaacson: answered the question.

I I thought we were just gonna
go round philosophical circle.

But that's so Paul, isn't it?

It's like, well actually
Rupert, here's a solution.

I'm like, well Paul, actually

Paul Illingworth: you have Well the thing
is that if I'd have mentioned that right

at the beginning, you know, they, we'd
have had nothing to talk about for that.

That is true.

For the next two hours.

So there we go.

We got there in the end.

Got an escape room.

Rupert Isaacson: We, alright, well,
I think, let, let's end on that note.

I've, I've got to go get horses
off the hill before it gets dark.

Paul Illingworth: I've gotta
go mo mo mow another 20 acres.

So here we go.

Rupert Isaacson: All right.

In the hot sun.

All right.

The

Paul Illingworth: hot sun.

Rupert Isaacson: Alright.

Paul Illingworth: You take care.

Rupert Isaacson: Alright.

I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm off to
an escape room with my kids.

Paul Illingworth: Alright, good luck.

Alright,

Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna
hit the stop recording.

Cheers.

Bye.

Bye.