Becoming a bodyguard? Well, it was better than working in some office!
How a solicitor’s daughter from Clontarf became a trailblazer for women in the world of close protection...
‘My job is to get the VIP out of there’ ‘People presume that I’m a nanny or a PA’
IT was the conversation that changed Lisa Baldwin’s life. Aged 20, she was at a crossroads. Having just missed out on the points to achieve her dream of studying to be a vet, she had opted to try science at UCD instead: but she didn’t like it at all and dropped out after a year. Now she had to decide to do with her life. So, of course, she turned to her dad for advice.
‘I thought, I can’t do an office job. I just wanted to do something physical. My dad asked: “Would you consider the guards?” I said not really. Then he said: “I’ve got a pal, Jim Shortt, who is a bodyguard and has an agency.”
Lisa almost burst out laughing. ‘I said: “I don’t think anyone actually does that, Dad. I’m pretty sure it’s a movie thing.”’
And even if bodyguarding was an actual job, surely it wasn’t something that women did? Least of all petite young women from comfortable middle-class homes in leafy Clontarf? After all, until then Lisa’s life had been spectacularly normal. Her father is a solicitor, and her sister a barrister. She attended Bono’s alma mater Mount Temple and was just an ordinary girl who admits she was ‘spoiled’ at home and ‘liked her luxuries’.
She was a talented athlete, for sure, and had represented her country as a swimmer. In fact, she qualified for the Youth Olympic Games aged 15 and had spent time living and training in Holland and Spain. But that still seemed like a pretty far cry from Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard or Clint Eastwood in In The Line of Fire. And all the real-life bodyguards anyone had ever seen on TV or in magazines were 6ft5 with muscles on their muscles. How could she possibly hope to inhabit that world? Still, anything was worth a try…
So Lisa’s father contacted his old friend Jim Shortt at the International Bodyguarding Association, and he invited Lisa to attend a fiveday course in Croydon, London, to see if she liked it before committing to further training.
‘I was thrown in at the deep end because it was rough,’ she grimaces. ‘I remember driving down this really long dirt track to get to the camp, which was sort of like a scout’s den. We had camp beds which were a canvas sheet that got you off the ground but that was it.
‘Growing up I was spoilt, we always went on holidays to nice hotels and I liked my luxuries so this was my first shock of reality. You’re there training with military men and I was a 20year-old kid. In my head I’m going “Oh Jesus” but the other part of me thought, “Don’t let them know you’re cringing”. I was told to bring a sleeping bag, warm clothes, hiking boots. There was a kitchen, a shower and toilets — that was it.’
The 17 people on that first course included just one other woman. ‘She just did five days and that was the end of her,’ says Lisa, who hadn’t had a chance to strike up a friendship.
Thus she became the only woman who stayed on for back-to-back courses, starting with Defense and Restraint Tactics (DART).
‘It’s a bit of jiu jitsu, a bit of selfdefence. You learn how to deflect someone and restrain them. It’s something you learn but you very rarely have to use. I’m always the number one person with the VIP and my job is to get that person out of there, not to restrain anyone,’ she clarifies.
‘Then we did three days of defensive, evasive and offensive driving, where you’re ramming cars and stuff like that. For me, this was so out of my comfort zone. I was there again with big, military men going, “Yeah, come on!” And I’m there going, “This is so unnatural.”’
Next came a course in bodyguard paramedicine. ‘That’s for if you’re dealing with a more high risk area — ballistic injuries, stab wounds, how to patch people up. We learned about tourniquets and airways — military stuff — but under no circumstances would you be using this unless it’s a matter of life and death.’ Then came firearms training in Slovenia, though only trained police are licenced to carry firearms in Ireland and Britain so Lisa has never used a gun on the job.
‘I would have shot everything, rifles and shotguns, and learned how to deal with the kickback on those. We learned about the accuracy of everything from pistols to semiautomatics. I shot glocks, CZs. They show you how to take out a gun, load a magazine, have your safety catch on, where you’d put it on a holster.
‘Then you’re taught what to look for when dealing with things like snipers, counter-snipers. We did drills where you’d walk with your principal, shoulder them out of the way to take your shot, and move on. It’s not the norm and you’re not going to have that on most jobs.’
It makes you wonder what on earth her family and friends back home in Dublin had to say about all of this.
‘They probably thought I was mad. But I was always a bit of a tomboy so maybe it wasn’t a complete shocker,’ Lisa laughs.
Almost as soon as her training was complete, she was hired as close protection for an Emirati princess living with her family in London, the pair bonding over a shared love of animals. Lisa has usually been hired to protect children and people presume she is a nanny — which is fine by her.
‘When you’re working with children they usually don’t know they’re at risk for anything because their parents don’t want them living nervously. Also, if you’re working on a sensitive job, with, say a businessman who really does not want attention, I could be seen as his PA.
‘A lot of the time we’re brought in as though we’re assistants because people don’t want to draw attention to the fact that they’re being closely protected,’ says Lisa.
‘If someone hires a big bodybuilder it’s really obvious and it draws attention,’ explains Lisa, who is just 5ft3. ‘You can spot them a mile away. That’s fine if you’re Britney Spears and you want attention or Madonna running through Hyde Park with eight bodyguards. But a lot of people don’t want anyone to know they’re being protected. That’s when hiring women can make more sense.’
Perhaps this is the reason why British royals like Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle use female bodyguards — though Meghan’s armed Scotland Yard protector announced this week that she’s quitting.
In 2007, while guarding a princess in the playground of London’s Holland Park, Lisa met another bodyguard — they usually clock each other quite easily — who offered her the exciting job of looking after Penny Lancaster when she travelled to Portofino in Italy to marry Rod Stewart.
‘I was told I’d be looking after Penny, I was her protective escort for when they were on land. The threat for them was they had sold the rights to OK! magazine so they couldn’t let photos of the dress get out before the magazine was released. It was a bit crazy. We had a helicopter come down to try and get a shot so we had to usher her back into the church.’
After her brief sojourn with pop stars, Lisa got back to work with Middle Eastern royals and it was while she was at home in Dublin on a brief break that Lisa met her partner Eddie Rooney in Gibney’s pub, Malahide. Her strange line of work didn’t faze him.
‘He didn’t really have an opinion,’ she says. ‘He was doing his own thing at the time, property developing in
Eastern Europe. He probably thought I was mad but he didn’t show it.’
Now they have a son Leon, eight, whose arrival made his mother reassess her career.
‘It’s a great job if you’ve no family because it’s really antisocial. You could get a call to go somewhere and you’d have to drop everything and run. You can’t make plans — or you make plans and they go out the window. So it’s very tough. I think that’s why it’s better suited to men. And that was portrayed a bit in the recent BBC production of The Bodyguard.’
Of that popular series she complains, ‘it was so farfetched I actually found it quite boring’. Films like The Bodyguard and In The Line of Fire also portray the industry as ‘always male, always bullet catching. Actually the job is the polar opposite of that.
‘It’s all about avoiding, planning, and you’d never knowingly go into situations like they did.’
Though Lisa has never been in what she felt was a dangerous situation, she had to ‘keep my eyes and ears open at all times’, scan crowds for ‘any familiar faces’ and keep in touch with the rest of the team via radio.
Back on home soil, Lisa has had to reinvent herself since motherhood. ‘I lost my identity for a while,’ she admits. But she emerged from that funk to found Cared4Pets and she also runs the Women’s Bureau of the IBA.
‘Basically I’m like an agony aunt for women across the world who want to get into bodyguard work. I’ll find out where they are located and send them to the nearest place for training. Sometimes they ask me straight out, “Can you make money?”’
Well — can you? ‘It’s a tough industry and it’s very cliquey. A lot of people do the training and then say, “Right, where do I work?” It’s not really like that. You have to network, you have to put yourself out there. It’s very tough and it’s not guaranteed work,’ says Lisa, who adds that licencing the industry in recent years has ‘flooded’ the market.
‘Everyone is self-employed so that’s why I think a lot of people end up joining security companies which is completely different to bodyguard work because it’s regular. It’s very hard to get regular work as a bodyguard.’
But still there is a fascination with women taking on such a role. Especially women like Lisa who, at first glance, doesn’t seem to fit the mould. In fact, a fictional book called Winner Kills All by RJ Bailey was released last week and the main character is based somewhat on Lisa.
‘He came over here a couple of years ago and interviewed me and then created a character called Sam Wylde who is quite like me,’ she says.
The book is the first in a trilogy which also includes Safe From Harm and Nobody Gets Hurt. ‘He’s obviously had to hype it up because bodyguard work in general is not that exciting,’ she admits. ‘There’s a lot of sitting around. He’s been approached by a big production company and they’re making a TV series, most likely with a network in the US.
‘Hopefully I’ll be a consultant on the set because I hate inaccuracies. I would be able to say, “That wouldn’t happen!” and “They’re doing that wrong!” I’m pretty excited.’
Ultimately, though, she’d love the show to highlight the real reason women like her make such good bodyguards: they’re not macho.
‘We just have a softer approach,’ she says. ‘I think in conflict management women are a lot better. When there’s any hassle, just the way we manage a situation can be gentler and more diplomatic.’
And who could disagree with that?
‘Bodyguard work is not that exciting’