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As we pulled up at the big school gates, I saw tears rolling down my dad’s face. I felt confused as to what part of nature or love thought this was a… - Bear Grylls
" "As we pulled up at the big school gates, I saw tears rolling down my dad’s face. I felt confused as to what part of nature or love thought this was a good idea. My instinct certainly didn’t; but what did I know? I was only eight.
So I embarked on this mission called boarding school. And how do you prepare for that one?
In truth, I found it really hard; there were some great moments like building dens in the snow in winter, or getting chosen for the tennis team, or earning a naval button, but on the whole it was a survival exercise in learning to cope.
Coping with fear was the big one. The fear of being left and the fear of being bullied — both of which were very real.
What I learned was that I couldn’t manage either of those things very well on my own.
It wasn’t anything to do with the school itself, in fact the headmaster and teachers were almost invariably kind, well-meaning and good people, but that sadly didn’t make surviving it much easier.
I was learning very young that if I were to survive this place then I had to find some coping mechanisms.
My way was to behave badly, and learn to scrap, as a way to avoid bullies wanting to target me. It was also a way to avoid thinking about home. But not thinking about home is hard when all you want is to be at home.
I missed my mum and dad terribly, and on the occasional night where I felt this worst, I remember trying to muffle my tears in my pillow while the rest of the dormitory slept.
In fact I was not alone in doing this. Almost everyone cried, but we all learned to hide it, and those who didn’t were the ones who got bullied.
As a kid, you can only cry so much before you run out of tears and learn to get tough.
I meet lots of folks nowadays who say how great boarding school is as a way of toughening kids up. That feels a bit back-to-front to me. I was much tougher before school. I had learned to love the outdoors and to understand the wild, and how to push myself.
When I hit school, suddenly all I felt was fear.
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About Bear Grylls
Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls (born 7 June 1974) is a British adventurer, writer, television presenter and former SAS trooper who is also a survival expert.
Biography information from Wikipedia
Also Known As
Native Name:
Edward Michael Grylls
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Additional quotes by Bear Grylls
I was soon discharged from the rehab center and sent back to the SAS. But the doctor’s professional opinion was that I shouldn’t military parachute again. It was too risky. One dodgy landing, at night, in full kit, and my patched-up spine could crumple.
He didn’t even mention the long route marches carrying huge weights on our backs.
Every SF soldier knows that a weak back is not a good opener for life in an SAS squadron.
It is also a cliché just how many SAS soldiers’ backs and knees are plated and pinned together, after years of marches and jumps. Deep down I knew the odds weren’t looking great for me in the squadron, and that was a very hard pill to swallow.
But it was a decision that, sooner or later, I would have to face up to. The doctors could give me their strong recommendations, but ultimately I had to make the call.
A familiar story. Life is all about our decisions. And big decisions can often be hard to make.
So I thought I would buy myself some time before I made it.
In the meantime, at the squadron, I took on the role of teaching survival to other units. I also helped the intelligence guys while my old team were out on the ground training.
But it was agony for me. Not physically, but mentally: watching the guys go out, fired up, tight, together, doing the job and getting back excited and exhausted. That was what I should have been doing.
I hated sitting in an ops room making tea for intelligence officers.
I tried to embrace it, but deep down I knew this was not what I had signed up for.
I had spent an amazing few years with the SAS, I had trained with the best, and been trained by the best, but if I couldn’t do the job fully, I didn’t want to do it at all.
The regiment is like that. To keep its edge, it has to keep focused on where it is strongest. Unable to parachute and carry the huge weights for long distances, I was dead weight. That hurt.
That is not how I had vowed to live my life, after my accident. I had vowed to be bold and follow my dreams, wh
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