SAS: Who Dares Wins host Jason Fox on running from grizzly bears, PTSD and his new tour coming to Yorkshire

Jason Fox is known for TV shows like SAS: Who Dares Wins. Ahead of his first live tour in 2022, he tells John Blow about his journey from elite commands to battling PTSD.
Jason Fox. Picture: Hal Shinnie.Jason Fox. Picture: Hal Shinnie.
Jason Fox. Picture: Hal Shinnie.

Great strides have been made in the public’s awareness of mental health issues, with a particular spotlight in recent years being placed on how younger men are dealing with their own sense of wellbeing.

Jason Fox - a former Royal Marine Commando and Special Forces Sergeant, serving in the Special Boat Service for over 20 years - is an example of a person who once hesitated to share his problems but found that was just what he needed to aid his recovery.

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After being medically discharged from the military, he co-led of Channel 4’s award-winning show SAS: Who Dares Wins, in which people are put through the service’s selection process.

Jason Fox during his time in the military.Jason Fox during his time in the military.
Jason Fox during his time in the military.

He also became a presenter and producer of critically-acclaimed Channel 4 and Netflix documentaries including Inside the Real Narcos - in which he came face to face with druglords and Return To Afghanistan. In addition, he has authored of Sunday Times best-selling books Battle Scars and Life Under Fire – one an emotional memoir and the other recounting the lessons he’s learned during his career.

He’s come a long way from his brief childhood stay in Skipton, where has father ran a garage, and later Keighley, where they were on a farm.

His next adventure, though, is to tour a live show - Life At The Limit - all about his adrenaline-fuelled escapades. The tour stops by various Yorkshire venues in February.

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“I was a bit reluctant if I’m honest because it is quite a daunting prospect,” he says in an interview before Christmas.

But he feels it gives him a chance to bring the two books to life.

It will include stories of camaraderie and how soldiers “laugh at people’s misfortune when they fall into a pit of disgusting sludge, whatever it may be. There might be bits from the expeditions, like capsizing in the middle of the Atlantic, (or) being chased by a grizzly bear in Alaska.”

That doesn’t sound too fun. “No, it was horrendous. But actually, the story itself is hilarious. We just did everything we were told not to, but still escaped.”

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He adds: “I’ve done a lot of Q&As and I say to the people that are running them that nothing is off limits. I’m happy to go down whatever path they want to. That doesn’t faze me, to be honest.

“I learned my lessons from when I wrote the books and recorded the audio – that’s when I did feel a bit uncomfortable because I was sort of exposing a lot, but then I figured at the time, if I’m feeling uncomfortable it is probably a good thing, to be telling the truth.”

Indeed, much of his success has been a matter of triumph over adversity.

Fox, now 45, was medically discharged from the military with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression in April 2012.

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PTSD is still misunderstood, he believes. “Everyone has a Hollywood, generalist view on it where a car backfires and soldiers take cover behind bins and stuff.

“It wasn’t like that at all, I wasn’t having flashbacks or anything. I just felt differently about my job. I’d been doing it for quite a long time in quite a stressful environment. And then all of a sudden, as a person who was in a position that was supposed to be motivating people, I couldn’t motivate myself. I was like, I’m bored of this, what’s all this about?

“And then I had another trip away looming and that felt like a dark cloud, and so it was my mood that changed more than anything. The way I was in everyday life changed,” he says.

“Long story short, I ended up getting medically discharged with PTSD and depression and then I suppose the journey really started because I found myself jobless, feeling a bit worthless and I found myself in a deeper pit of depression and had to work out what that was.”

That didn’t come easily though.

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Fox says: “I contemplated suicide, I found myself stood on top of a cliff. It was then that I had a proper word with myself , like, ‘Right, okay, you’ve obviously got to this point. You can either do what you’re thinking of doing, which is pretty extreme, or you can do what you’ve done in the past and keep fighting, but work out what it is’.”

At that point he became more honest with himself that he had a real issue to face.

“Even though I’d been discharged with the mental health issues, I still was denying it internally to myself.

"And then it was that moment where I was like right, actually own it, and then sort of go on this journey of finding out what it was that I needed to do to get over it.”

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The Yorkshire Post is among the publications and organisations which have been campaigning for better after-care for military personnel in recent years. Fox acknowledges that improvements have been made, but his own discharge was far from positive.

“The network from the military had been cut off really – there was none after I’d left.

“Not through anyone’s fault and not through any organisation’s fault because they always wanted to do their best in whatever is that they do, and obviously this is a few years ago, so they weren’t necessarily in line with where they are now.”

He adds: “It wasn’t that great and I left so then there was none. It was actually a guy that employed me in job that I hated (that helped). It was just a job that I figured I needed to do because I needed a job and he was actually very intuitive and saw, somehow, that I was going through a thing and he offered me the support through the business that I wasn’t actually entitled to because I was a new joiner, but he cut through some red tape as the CEO/MD. That was just out of the kindness of his heart.

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"So I was fortunate and it’s wrong that that should happen. There should be an ongoing level of support, or at least a network that is there for people who come out, and I think it is now to be honest. But my support network came by sheer chance.”

Fox adds that there is a lot more internal and external support now with organisations “striving to put the right procedures in place to look after people”.

“It just so happens that back then they weren’t as progressed as they are now,” he says. “Ultimately, when I got to the point of looking at who I was, (I found that) I am that person that still likes to be excited, and I like to fire off adrenaline. And so what’s the healthier way of doing it? Instead of going to war zones, I set myself goals with expectations, I love the planning and getting all that together and then going out and doing it.”

Life At The Limit with Jason Fox will be at: Kendal Leisure Centre on Sunday February 6; York Barbican on Thursday February 10 ; Yarm Princess Alexandra Auditorium on Friday February 11; Scunthorpe Baths Hall on Thursday February 17; Bradford St George’s Hall on Friday February 18; and Middlesbrough Town Hall on Saturday February 19.

Tickets are on sale now from www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/jason-fox.