‘You need to know everything – their blood group, clothes size and their problems’
using himself as bait and received an MBE for leading an SAS mission to rescue a British hostage in Iraq.
Since leaving the military he has never been busier. His first novel Call To Kill will be published later this month and he has also been filming the Australian version of Who DaresWin.
The new British series will be one of the last featuring Ant Middleton, who has been dropped from future shows over his “personal conduct”. Middleton, 40, was criticised over hisTwitter posts about protests by Black Lives Matter and the English Defence League, and an Instagram post suggesting he was unwilling to follow some of the lockdown rules.
Announcing it would no longer be working with him, Channel 4 said his “views and values” did not align with theirs. Ant said it had been a “brilliant experience” but he would now focus on other projects.
But Billy is not fazed by the fall out and thinks the show will do well without its original chief instructor. “Nothing shocks me,” he says. “We’ll miss him, but the show is big and we’ll move on. It will be different, but that’s life.The show will be as good and it can always get better.”
Mark lives with his American-born wife, dividing his time between Florida and Herefordshire, home to his five daughters, son and three grandchildren, aged five, four and three.
“When my kids were growing up I was in the SAS. I was away and I didn’t have time, but I love being a grandad,” he smiles proudly. As besotted as he is however, Billy refuses to drop the hard man image, even at home. “The grandchildren are fantastic and of course I’m a softie with them, but I don’t show them that,” he laughs. “I get them out in the woods and away from the TV. I make them do things and they love it.
“But they’re tough little things and they can wrap me round their little fingers. I can shout at them as much as I want and they go, ‘Shut up Granddad!’”
Chips off the old block, by the sound of it.
●●SAS:Who DaresWins airs Sundays at 9pm from May 9 on Channel 4