LET’ S DO BUSINESS
Yet he talks about those experiences without bitterness. Instead, he traces some of the resilience that would eventually carry him through SAS selection back to those early years- and particularly to his father.
“ You don’ t be a victim,” he says.“ What’ s better than a setback? A comeback.
“ We’ re all going to fail at things and get down, but you’ ve got resilience and you get yourself back up.
“ I do believe my dad taught me a lot of that growing up.”
His father was a man, Downes remembers, who stood up for himself and other people. He was fiercely proud of his adopted country, and that sense of pride passed to his son.
There was another defining characteristic emerging in the young Downes: a fascination with the military.
School held considerably less appeal. He left at 16 without qualifications and joined the Army almost immediately. After training, he entered his local Staffordshire Regiment, where he would spend the next 12 years.
Those years would take him far beyond anything he had experienced growing up in Stoke.
There were three operational tours of Northern Ireland during The Troubles. On his first tour he served in a specialist observation platoon, spending days hidden in hedgerows and derelict buildings monitoring suspected terrorist targets.
He lost a close friend during his time in Northern Ireland.
By 20, Downes had been promoted to corporal, responsible for soldiers who could themselves be older than him.
“ You’ ve got somebody’ s life in your hands,” he says.“ Think of the decisions for a young 20-year-old to make. It can be life and death.”
Then came the first Gulf War. Downes was a corporal commanding men in a Warrior armoured fighting vehicle. For months before the ground war began, they lived together in the Saudi desert, repeatedly drilling for what was coming.
When combat eventually arrived, the preparation mattered.
He remembers hearing rounds hitting the armoured vehicle. He remembers the order to get out. He remembers seeing a fellow soldier killed by an RPG around 50 metres away.
The pressure was real, immediate and unforgiving. But something else had been planted during his earlier career.
Downes had seen SAS soldiers operating during his first Northern Ireland tour. He had become fascinated by the unit and what was required to join it.
By the time he reached sergeant, the prospect of moving towards desk-based roles held little attraction.
“ I thought, whatever you want to do in
life, you’ ve got to train from the top,” he says.“ The tip of the spear in the military is the SAS.”
So, in January 1994, he put himself forward for selection. More than 230 people started. Ten eventually passed- six for the SAS and four for the SBS. Downes was one of them.
KEEP GOING
The physical side of selection was formidable. Candidates spent weeks crossing the Brecon Beacons carrying increasingly heavy loads. They did not know the time limits they were expected to meet. At checkpoints, they were simply given another grid reference and sent back onto the mountains.
The final endurance march covered around 64 kilometres. But Downes says the real test went deeper.
“ It’ s mentally difficult as well,” he says.“ You’ re getting up at 4.45 in the morning when it’ s cold and wet and dark, jumping on the back of a truck, not knowing where you’ re going, sitting there freezing for an hour or two, then jumping off. They tell you where you are and then: go.
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