Simon Reeve: I was a suicidal teen. This advice changed my life
Born in Hammersmith in 1972, Simon Reeve had a turbulent childhood and left school with one GCSE. Aged 17, he considered suicide before taking a job as a postboy at The Sunday Times, where he started assisting the investigations team. His 1998 book The New Jackals, investigating the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, led to work as a travel documentary maker and since 2003, he has travelled the world exploring some of the most dangerous and inhospitable countries. He lives on Dartmoor with his wife Anya and their 13-year-old son Jake.
Best childhood memory?
The joy of winning a sandcastle competition on Studland Beach in Dorset when I was about seven or eight. My brother and I and our friend Colin carved this amazing car from sand and we won a choc ice each for our efforts. Studland Bay and those early holidays there still hold a very special place in my heart. It gave me roots and it's a place I still visit today with my own family. It's a bit of a place of pilgrimage for me.
Best day of your life?
The day my son Jake was born. I'd been told by doctors that I was infertile and that my sperm were deformed, which I thought was a bit strong. It was a hammer blow, but I went on a massive health drive and changed my diet and lifestyle dramatically and stopped eating anything that was fun. Over a period of time my wife and I managed to pull it back and my sperm went from being deformed to being viable. By the moment Jake was born, we'd both been through the wringer and although I might not have immediately said, 'you don't know the trouble we've been through to bring you into the world', I might have mentioned it once or twice since.
Best experience while travelling?
When the KGB decided to release us in the middle of the night in Transnistria. We'd been captured by them on the border between Ukraine and Moldova because we'd been creeping through some bushes trying to film a secret Russian military base and they were holding us in their cells. It was looking pretty tricky. But then I told our fixer that my family's only claim to fame is that my mum reckoned we were distantly related to Sir Christopher Wren.
This somehow got translated by the fixer to the KGB that we were in fact minor aristocracy and in some way related to the Queen – and it would bring terrible shame on Transnistria if we weren't released. So the KGB Colonel then jumped out of bed in his pyjamas, and said: 'I'm sorry, there's been a terrible mistake, you're free to go.' It was all very exciting in a very Boy's Own way, especially as it wasn't uncommon for people to get 'lost' in the system there.
Best personal trait?
I'm quite good at wading through lots of information and picking out salient points. That is really useful professionally, but it's also pretty vital personally as a father when you've got to trawl endless review sites to find out which pair of inner soles to buy for your child's trainers. I'm good at sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Best decision you ever made?
Taking my job as a postboy on The Sunday Times shortly after a long period where I'd almost lost hope of ever doing anything constructive with my life. At the time I was suffering a lot of mental health issues. I'd flunked out of school. I had no qualifications. I had no girlfriend, no ambition, no job, no bloody hope. I saw this advert, and something clicked. It was the bottom rung of the ladder, but it was something I could potentially do, and gradually things started to change. I went from being a suicidal teenager to being a junior cub researcher, and then worked my way up to become, when I left, the deputy night editor.
Best advice you've ever received?
Prior to that job I was in a bad way and was on the edge of a bridge at one point, and my brother persuaded me to go and sign on, and the woman at the DHS counter just said: 'Don't think too far ahead. Take things slowly. Take things step by step.' I clung to those words, and they pierced my negative bubble. I interpreted them to mean: 'Don't set yourself unachievable goals. Break things down into component parts', and it transformed me. It enabled me to get a job, to start my life and to become an adult.
Worst childhood memory?
Being clamped down to a bed and being given a lumbar puncture injection into my spine. I just remember pain, pain and more pain. It took four or five people to hold me down as I was thrashing about so much. It was horrendous. I think I'd contracted meningitis, although I've sort of detached the reason for the injection from the actual memory of the pain.
Worst moment of your life?
It doesn't get any worse than wanting to take your own life and that's what I wanted to do on several occasions in my teens when I'd hit rock bottom. We were having a lot of problems at home, and I was having teenage angst with bells on. I couldn't hack school. I had no confidence. I'd gone from being a naughty 10 or 11-year-old boy to being out with my little gang, causing trouble, setting fires, getting into scrapes, being chased by the police and making petrol bombs – proper naughty stuff.
By the time I got to 16 I was really struggling. I'd been carrying a big Rambo knife into school, and I was drinking too much. I'd go to the pub at lunchtime and when I was sitting my first exam I was so overwhelmed by fear and panic I fled and never went back. I was totally lost and found myself on a bridge by the A40 holding onto the railings on the wrong side and I can't really explain why I stepped back, but I did. I went home. I cried myself to sleep again and then, soon after, that advice from the job centre arrived and my road to recovery began.
Worst act of teenage rebelling?
I remember being around the back of Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre. I'd just set off a small homemade bomb underneath a CCTV camera. We were letting off these thick, homemade, customised fireworks, and a policeman came out and, in slow motion, the firework curled and coiled along the ground and hit him. And I didn't feel, 'yeah, I'm gonna get a copper'. I felt like, 'Oh my God'. Police cars swamped the scene and we ran, and somehow didn't get caught.
Looking back on my behaviour now I just don't think I understood consequences. I have sympathy for the kid I was then so I'm not judgemental about the people I meet. I'm more able to recognise that lots of people can make the wrong decisions. That's not to condone it at all but I know bad people can do good things and good people can do bad things. It's not clear cut. It's a spectrum. Even wholesome little kids can do terrible things.
Worst personality trait?
I'm immature and grumpy and a bit stroppy. It manifests itself quite regularly but luckily my family just take the mickey out of me if I'm sulking. It's not something I'm proud of. Generally, if I walk away from situations, I'll very quickly realise I'm being a d---, and I'll go back and say, 'I'm sorry for getting worked up about that', and I apologise.
Worst decision you ever made?
Almost every financial decision I've ever taken. I'm really hopeless with investing. There are a couple of times I've tried over the years, and it's not gone well. My friends have gone, 'Oh, you should put some money into this Tech share', and I wish I'd just said, 'Don't do it, Simon, for God's sake, don't do it'.
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