When I was 15 I started at my Local Army Cadet Unit and one of the first things I completed was a survival weekend ! this is where I first really took any notice of the man that stood before me passing on his knowledge to us mere kids, I was fortunate enough to realise that you don't get to meet too many of these people in your life that can have such an impact on how you lead the rest of your life, I sat I listened to what he said and showed us, I did this for a few years in cadets, he saw I was very interested and when the opportunity arose he would encourage me to lead some of the skills we used to go through, as the years went on I had to leave as a cadet and become an adult instructor at this point I was lucky enough to be taken to Hereford and spend weekends at the SAS Survival school based down at Pontrilas think they call it PATA "Pontrilas Army Training Area" now.
Whenever we used to run survival weekends with cadets on the last day we used to get all the kids together and take them to this tree which was very rare to find ! with the fruiting body ! it was all done with a very serious face lol when the kids got near we told them the latin name "Glucose maximus" and to see their faces when they saw the tree with mars bars tied to it was classic.
Sadly he died in 1999 of a heart attack while at work, he had gone back to work at the SAS Base in the Dive cell, His funeral was like a state funeral the church was full at Belmont Abbey with people having to stand outside, it showed what a great guy he was that so many people wanted to pay their respects to him one last time, I consider myself lucky to have met him and will never forget him and the knowledge he gave me and encouragement to go on learning RIP Harry