Ex-Marine Monty Halls is used to tough missions — so why is his latest assignment cruising around France and the Netherlands with Ben Fogle?
Commando: Britain’s Ocean Warriors BBC iPlayer
Ed Grenby - 3 February 2023
It’s a sentence that starts strange – then, once Monty Halls gets going with it, turns weirder. “If Ben Fogle and me jumped into a pit together, just wearing our underpants…” begins the ex-Marine, to the sound of a nation’s women licking their lips; “and only one of us could come out alive…” he continues, while Channel 5’s commissioning editors start to prick up their ears, too, “it wouldn’t be me,” he concludes, as the bookmakers rub their hands together excitedly. It is, to be clear, a scenario unlikely to transpire any time soon – but Halls and Fogle are about to go head to head in the somewhat less life-or-death environment of a luxury cruise liner.
As part of P&O Cruises’ “Sail with the stars” programme, Halls, Fogle and travel expert Simon Calder will all be joining passengers on board to recount tales of their past adventures and share their expertise in the fields of wildlife, exploration and the great outdoors. And, insists Halls, Fogle will be the winner on every count: “I’ve done many book signings and things, where I’ve sat there quietly, and at the table next to me Ben’s had a massive queue of people, and I just get his cast-offs. And I wasn’t joking about the fight: people underestimate Ben because he’s [posh], but he’s hard as nails.”
Halls is no pushover himself, of course. His CV includes not just ten years as a Green Beret, but also – as expedition leader, marine biologist and broadcaster – explorations from the Galapagos to the Gulf. Having penned Commando: the Inside Story of Britain’s Royal Marines last year, he’s the man who literally wrote the book on “jaw-dropping heroism”; and as the man who devised the accompanying BBC series (available on iPlayer), he’s one of the few to be let inside the regiment’s inner sanctum, witnessing its tragedies as well as its triumphs. witnessing its tragedies as well as its triumphs. “The series could only have been made by an ex-military person,” he says. “Otherwise it would all be clichés, with big moustachioed Royal Marines running around effing and jeffing.
And that’s not what the organisation is.” His next project is “a circumnavigation of Britain, by sailing ship, to provide a snapshot of our coastal communities in 2023, and of all the challenges they’re facing. The fishing industry has been walloped, plastics pollution is real, sea levels are going to rise 35cm in the next three decades. So we’ll be telling those stories.” If that sounds like a tough watch, though, you can put down that fortifying tot of grog: “It’s actually going to be fairly upbeat. Our coastal communities are pretty robust, pretty tough. They’re used to change, and they’re getting stuck in to address these issues. Plus I’ve only just learnt to sail – I bought this 50-year-old ketch last year – so it’s also partly the story of me setting out in this thing, not really knowing what I’m doing, and learning from people en route. I’ve always driven around in RIBs [rigid inflatable boats] and dive boats, so I thought ‘How tricky can sailing be?’ Turns out the answer is ‘Quite tricky’.
The coast of Britain is 1,900 miles long, and it’s pretty feisty in places…” After that, this summer, it’s straight off to the cruise ship. Won’t he find it a bit tame? “I love these cruises! There’s a perception that cruising’s all tea dances and bingo and bridge, and the first time I went on one I thought it was going to be grim – but actually the people you meet are just brilliant. I did an Antarctic cruise, and everyone was so tough, they put me to shame. The conditions – and the cold – were not easy, but all the passengers would be going out on these shore expeditions, and I was the one staying on the ship, saying ‘I can’t go out any more! I need to just sit down and have a cappuccino.’
”Southampton (where A P&O Cruises holiday starts) isn’t exactly Scott and Shackleton territory, but the ship’s France and-Holland itinerary is anything but dull, insists Halls. “There is no environment on Earth that is tougher than an inter-tidal shore in northwest Europe. It’s like gang warfare in the toughest ghetto of the toughest city, with every creature scrapping every other just to stay alive. Every single thing that lives there has armour, or incredible camouflage, or huge stinging capability, or crushing teeth and claws, or can move like lightning. I love showing them to people. “What I tend to do on these cruises is just grab a group of passengers and say, ‘Look, if you’re interested, let’s go for a little bimble along that beach, and I’ll knock your socks off.’ You give me a honking little gravelly bit of shoreline in a rotten old port somewhere and I’ll show you a good time.” Beat that offer, Ben Fogle.
ED GRENBY
Global Explorers Cruise
19 SEP 2023 | VENTURA N327 | 5 NIGHTS
Lovers of wildlife and the great outdoors can discover intriguing tales of the wilderness from far corners of the globe on the Global Explorers cruise, with adventurer and TV presenter Ben Fogle, travel journalist Simon Calder and Monty Halls, best known for his BBC Great Escape series.
20 MAY 2023 | VENTURA N313 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL | 7 NIGHTS
Join Jay Blades, Helen Skelton and Ross Kemp for some quality entertainment on board this P&O Cruises holiday to Spain and Portugal. Sailing from Southampton and calling at Vigo, Lisbon, Porto (from Leixoes) and St Peter Port, Guernsey, this is your chance to holiday with the stars!
It’s a sentence that starts strange – then, once Monty Halls gets going with it, turns weirder. “If Ben Fogle and me jumped into a pit together, just wearing our underpants…” begins the ex-Marine, to the sound of a nation’s women licking their lips; “and only one of us could come out alive…” he continues, while Channel 5’s commissioning editors start to prick up their ears, too, “it wouldn’t be me,” he concludes, as the bookmakers rub their hands together excitedly. It is, to be clear, a scenario unlikely to transpire any time soon – but Halls and Fogle are about to go head to head in the somewhat less life-or-death environment of a luxury cruise liner.
As part of P&O Cruises’ “Sail with the stars” programme, Halls, Fogle and travel expert Simon Calder will all be joining passengers on board to recount tales of their past adventures and share their expertise in the fields of wildlife, exploration and the great outdoors. And, insists Halls, Fogle will be the winner on every count: “I’ve done many book signings and things, where I’ve sat there quietly, and at the table next to me Ben’s had a massive queue of people, and I just get his cast-offs. And I wasn’t joking about the fight: people underestimate Ben because he’s [posh], but he’s hard as nails.”
Halls is no pushover himself, of course. His CV includes not just ten years as a Green Beret, but also – as expedition leader, marine biologist and broadcaster – explorations from the Galapagos to the Gulf. Having penned Commando: the Inside Story of Britain’s Royal Marines last year, he’s the man who literally wrote the book on “jaw-dropping heroism”; and as the man who devised the accompanying BBC series (available on iPlayer), he’s one of the few to be let inside the regiment’s inner sanctum, witnessing its tragedies as well as its triumphs. witnessing its tragedies as well as its triumphs. “The series could only have been made by an ex-military person,” he says. “Otherwise it would all be clichés, with big moustachioed Royal Marines running around effing and jeffing.
And that’s not what the organisation is.” His next project is “a circumnavigation of Britain, by sailing ship, to provide a snapshot of our coastal communities in 2023, and of all the challenges they’re facing. The fishing industry has been walloped, plastics pollution is real, sea levels are going to rise 35cm in the next three decades. So we’ll be telling those stories.” If that sounds like a tough watch, though, you can put down that fortifying tot of grog: “It’s actually going to be fairly upbeat. Our coastal communities are pretty robust, pretty tough. They’re used to change, and they’re getting stuck in to address these issues. Plus I’ve only just learnt to sail – I bought this 50-year-old ketch last year – so it’s also partly the story of me setting out in this thing, not really knowing what I’m doing, and learning from people en route. I’ve always driven around in RIBs [rigid inflatable boats] and dive boats, so I thought ‘How tricky can sailing be?’ Turns out the answer is ‘Quite tricky’.
The coast of Britain is 1,900 miles long, and it’s pretty feisty in places…” After that, this summer, it’s straight off to the cruise ship. Won’t he find it a bit tame? “I love these cruises! There’s a perception that cruising’s all tea dances and bingo and bridge, and the first time I went on one I thought it was going to be grim – but actually the people you meet are just brilliant. I did an Antarctic cruise, and everyone was so tough, they put me to shame. The conditions – and the cold – were not easy, but all the passengers would be going out on these shore expeditions, and I was the one staying on the ship, saying ‘I can’t go out any more! I need to just sit down and have a cappuccino.’
”Southampton (where A P&O Cruises holiday starts) isn’t exactly Scott and Shackleton territory, but the ship’s France and-Holland itinerary is anything but dull, insists Halls. “There is no environment on Earth that is tougher than an inter-tidal shore in northwest Europe. It’s like gang warfare in the toughest ghetto of the toughest city, with every creature scrapping every other just to stay alive. Every single thing that lives there has armour, or incredible camouflage, or huge stinging capability, or crushing teeth and claws, or can move like lightning. I love showing them to people. “What I tend to do on these cruises is just grab a group of passengers and say, ‘Look, if you’re interested, let’s go for a little bimble along that beach, and I’ll knock your socks off.’ You give me a honking little gravelly bit of shoreline in a rotten old port somewhere and I’ll show you a good time.” Beat that offer, Ben Fogle.
ED GRENBY
Global Explorers Cruise
TV Talent Cruise
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