SAS: Who Dares Wins' Jason Fox brings his Embrace the Chaos tour to Scotland

I did expect the bulging biceps, straight-talking and go-get-it attitude that fires his Embrace the Chaos show as he prepares for his Scottish appearances in Glasgow and Edinburgh but alongside that there’s a vulnerable, funny, softer side that these days he’s man enough to reveal.

Now 49, born in Plymouth and raised in Bedfordshire, Fox joined the Royal Marine Commandos at 16 and served for 20 years, involved in counter-terrorism and narcotics missions with the Special Forces before being medically discharged after a PTSD diagnosis. Since 2015 he’s been one of the directing staff on SAS: Who Dares Wins as well as making documentaries on Mexican drug cartels, Afghanistan and an ultramarathon in the Arctic. Authoring four books, including his autobiography, Battle Scars, Fox has been open about his past mental health struggles, and is involved in supporting several charities, co-founding Rock2Recovery to assist returning servicemen and veterans. He’s also rowed the Atlantic, kayaked the Yukon, hiked to the North Pole and most recently completed an ultramarathon in the Arctic, raising money for charity.

Embrace the Chaos, a 22-date tour of the UK, aims to ‘reboot your thinking, rebalance your life and push you beyond your comfort zone’, and is also the title of his latest best-selling fourth book. It sees Fox telling stories about his life and adventures and how he learnt as much from the failures and his mental health breakdown as he has from the military.

I’m already ‘beyond my comfort zone’ as I lock eyes with the shouty ex-Special Forces operator, as a viewer who watches SAS: Who Dares Wins and the celebrity version from behind a cushion as he tells me about the show.

“It’s me bringing to life stories I've experienced, a follow-on from my Life at the Limit show, which was a chronological journey hinged on my mental health experiences but this one's more about lessons I learned within that. It jumps about a bit - more chaotic,” he laughs. “There's a lot of stuff that goes wrong and that helps me tell how I got over it. When you look at those, upon reflection they're normally quite funny, so there's a lightheartedness about it.

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“There are some serious sides as well obviously, but it's me telling those stories, explaining how I learned through them and having a laugh along the way.”

He also takes questions from the audience who ask him “all sorts”.

“There are some bizarre ones and some really good ones. A lot of people ask about me finding purpose again because I went through a phase where I didn't know what it was.”

In conversation Fox’s humour is to the fore, albeit tending to the dark side.

“I personally wanted to call it ‘Remember You Will Die’, a translation of a Latin phrase I love, ‘memento mori’, used by the ancient Stoics to remind people to embrace life because at some point it's all going to be over. So we shouldn't mull over doing stuff too long, we should, a lot of the time, just go and do it. And have a good time.

“People didn't think that was appropriate because it seems a bit negative so we settled on Embrace the Chaos. There are some lessons but also stories I've never told before and I Arctic Adventure features heavily,” he says referring to the 500km, ten-day race through the Swedish Lapland hauling 45kg sledges of survival gear in -25°C temperatures which was captured in a Channel 4 documentary.

Despite being a tank of a human being, Fox insists his show isn’t just for people like him.

“There's something for everyone, serious undertones, good fun and anyone that wants to know what a chaotic life I led, come along and find out.”

He seems very chilled today, is his life still chaotic?

“No. I mean, I throw chaos into it, but not the unwanted kind. I go and do crazy things, like the Arctic race but outside of that, I'm a little bit more controlled in the madness that goes on. I hope.”

So what’s in it for those of us who would never get in the military, never mind attempt a condensed SAS selection course?

“The book itself is just about life. Life is chaotic. If I'm being brutally honest, the stuff that tripped me up when it came to mental health wasn't necessarily my military life because I was taught to be a really good soldier and had a lot of money thrown at me to get me to a point where I was good at doing something.

“But the other stuff that we're all privy to, normal, everyday life, I'd never been taught to deal with. Whether that was having an argument with my partner, having a child that gets sick, not having money to pay for X, Y and Z, getting divorced, all that. That’s what tripped me up. Life is chaotic and sometimes we can't avoid it. So we need to embrace and manage it and not be freaked out.

“Even though you've not been in the military you're still a human and you can change the way you think. When I left the military I really did struggle and basically didn't employ what I'd learned. It was only through a period of growth and learning that I realised I've been taught a load of stuff that maybe I should re-employ. So I thought about things differently, approached them mentally in a more military way and the book is me putting that down so people can understand it.”

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When I ask what’s the one thing we could all do today to cope with life Fox gives a surprising answer.

“As adults, I think we should lead life more as a toddler. I don't mean soil your pants and stuff, I mean, basically as adults, because we've been through stuff and learned bad habits, we have a tendency to dwell on the past and fret about the future. We worry about it when we shouldn’t. The past is done. We can reflect on it, learn from it, but don't dwell on it. The future is up for debate. It isn't set in stone and we're worrying about something that doesn't even exist, which is ludicrous.

“We should spend more time in the now, which is the only thing that actually exists, and toddlers are brilliant at that. They'll hurt themselves, cry, pick themselves up, crack on and do it again because they're not worried about the future. They live in the now. We should do more of that.”

It was having children - Honor and Amy from his two previous marriages and a baby boy Jack with wife Jules last summer - that taught Fox this life lesson.

“I think definitely it's helped me,” he says. “You observe them and love the presence they have.”

So we should be doing things that kids do, like skipping instead of walking?

“Thing is, everyone would look at you like you're a lunatic, but actually it's great fun,” he says.

From the revelation that Jason Fox isn’t averse to skipping we land at Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, which he has been involved in since 2015. Was he surprised the latest Celebrity series was won by three women, Love Island winners Dani Dyer and Gabby Allen and Australian Olympic swimmer Emily Seebohm?

“No, we've had a few strong women in the past. You open that opportunity to women and they're going to put in a good performance and those three did. They deserved it,” he says.

I tell him that as a viewer I’m more impressed by the women because they face the same physical challenges as the men. Is no concession given to different physique?

“No, it's all the same, the same weight. And then they're all mucking in together.”

Does that make their achievements greater than the men’s?

“I don't know, I think we're all human. I think the men that have been on recently haven't had a strong enough ‘why’ and actually where a lot of them have given up is in the interrogation where it's not about physical presence, it's more about your psychological presence and willingness to go into dark holes. On the last series it was the girls that were willing to stick it out in those dark places. I think they probably had a stronger ‘why’. The guys, as soon as it got to that stage, were a bit ‘I'm not interested’ and fell by the wayside. I think it was a great season.

“It’s swings and roundabouts. Sometimes the guys have a strong ‘why’. This year it's been the girls and it's good to see.”

What about Fox himself, what does he see as his purpose, his ‘why’?

“The overarching purpose is just to have fun,” he says.

To be a toddler?

“Exactly, to be a toddler,” he laughs, “but underneath that, jokes aside, it's to be someone that is happy to champion mental health, talk about it, encourage people to be vulnerable, to understand that it isn't the end if they're feeling low. They can push on and get through it. I think that's my ‘why’.”

Fox has been open about his own struggles in the past. On leaving the military with PTSD he lost his identity and after one of his daughters was born seriously ill and his marriage broke down and he couldn’t pay the bills, found himself standing on a clifftop thinking about throwing himself off. He says if he hadn’t walked away and decided to be honest and talk to people about how he was feeling he wouldn’t be here now.

“I like to think I've had an impact with regard to encouraging people to speak up about their mental health, encouraging them to understand it's OK to feel slightly negatively, that it's part of being human. Hopefully there's been a positive impact from me talking about it.”

“Mental health definitely needs as much time and effort as physical health, but it’s been neglected for a long time.”

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How did he get over his breakdown?

“It was a long slog. There's nothing easy about it, but a big chunk of it was the whole toddler analogy. Not fretting and dwelling on the past and being excited about the future. It was about being honest with myself. For a long period I was in denial and not buying into the fact that there was something that needed addressing, then got to a point where I was like, ‘oh, I'm actually lying to myself’ so I needed to have a word and start being a bit vulnerable.”

Was the mental health challenge more scary than any physical challenges he’d faced?

“It was. It's not now. I talk about how I feel and give reasons why. But, no, when it comes to being scared of stuff, it's probably stupid things like going out in unironed clothes. I can't think of anything worse.

What?
He’s joking.

“No, no, I'm always ironing,” he says. “Yeah, my missus loves it. She just gives me all the clothes and then I’m like, ‘hang on a minute’. But, yeah, it's a thing.”

So has he ironed the black T-shirt he's wearing today?

“Yeah, I mean, it's been on all day so it's probably lost its sharpness, but it's still faring up well,” he laughs.

Assessing the T-shirt straining over bulging biceps leads to the question of what are his various tattoos.

“I’ve got one here that is a cover up,” he says, gesturing at one arm, “because there was something absolutely terrible underneath that I got when I was 16.”

Which was?

“A Tasmanian devil wearing a green beret with ‘Royal Marines Commando’ written around it. I enjoyed it for a bit, then it had to go. He's still underneath, peeking through.

And what’s on top now?

“Uh, just as bad, looks like a chicken breast but it's supposed to be rips as if my arm's been shredded and the insides visible.” He points at his other arm. “That one is two Spartan warriors to represent the brotherhood of combat I was a part of. And there's a wolverine, which represents part of the unit I was in, and it's also about my brother who was in the Marines as well and we used to see each other in far flung places at dangerous times of our lives, so that's just to remind me we got through it.”

It must have been hard on his mother having two sons out in dangerous places and situations.

“Oh yeah, but we forgot about me mum while we were out there. It's only afterwards I was ‘crikey, what have we put her through?’”

This wasn’t something Fox was thinking about at 16 when he signed up to join the Marines.

“I absolutely tanked school and didn't get anything out of it academically and was getting into trouble. I grew up in Luton, in a bit of a disadvantaged area, and thankfully I had the presence of mind to realise I needed to get out, so joined the military.”

If he could do it all over again, would he?

“Yeah, 100%,” he shoots back. “Loved it.”

Turning 50 this summer, is there anything Fox hasn’t done that he’d like to?

“As in challenges?” he says, ever the adventurer.

As in anything.

“A few things, a stint with my mates, celebrate being 50, surviving, and then spending time with my family. I still go away, obviously, but I like home, spending quality time with my missus and kid.”

Home is in London now, which he finds ‘bizarre’ because he likes the countryside, and Scotland in particular.

“I love Scotland. The Highlands are probably my favourite part, Glencoe and up beyond. I've done some of my harshest training in the military there. It's sort of brutal but amazing at the same time. Beautiful. And the Isle of Skye, I did a fair bit around there. They're my favorite places, but I love all of it. Edinburgh is a great place, Glasgow, it’s all good.

“And my best mate, Aldo Kane [fellow ex-Marine and TV adventurer], is Scottish. We were up in Glencoe at the end of November because it was his wife’s birthday and stayed at the Clachaig Inn. We went up into the mountains, took me little boy in one of those front-loaded baby carriers up into The Hidden Valley. Yeah, it was decent. Loved it.”

I tell him the prospect of bumping into Jason Fox while hiking in the Highlands is slightly scary and he laughs.

“I’d be all right,” he says. “I think some people have the wrong impression of me, but no, I'm just as soft as.”

Finally, what's his personal mantra?

“Just to have fun and live life like a toddler.”

And remember that you'll die?

“Yeah, that's always there.”

In the meantime he will Embrace the Chaos and encourages everyone else to do the same. And if an SAS selection course is definitely out of your comfort zone, remember, Who Dares Also Irons.

Credit: Jason Fox is on tour with Embrace The Chaos until April 9. He will be at Glasgow Pavilion on Monday, 16 March and Edinburgh’s Queens Hall on April 7. Tickets are on sale now from www.jasonfox-official.com