My venture into the world of security and close personal protection has been an eventful one – nothing spectacular or heroic, but a steep learning curve nonetheless. And my experience in a multitude of security activities over 12 years has led me to where I am today. I give lectures, write training materials, design e-learning content and undertake a whole host of educational tasks related to delivering training for the purposes of being issued a security licence in New South Wales, Australia.

Twelve years ago, you probably wouldn’t have bet two bob on me making it through in one piece, let alone getting to where I am today. Well, I am here to tell you that you should have bet the farm on me – you’d be filthy fucking rich by now!

It all started in 1995. I had just finished a stint working as a pathology courier, driving around to doctors’ surgeries, picking up pathology materials and taking them back to the labs. On the return trip, I would drop off the results. Anyway, long story short, shit happened, and I took my then employer to court for allowing me to be potentially exposed to pathogens. The union was as weak as piss and didn’t defend me, even though I had photographic evidence. I went on stress leave and eventually left the job, and the missus and I ended up moving from the sunny northern beaches of Sydney to a place two hours north on a lake. It was a beautiful spot, but there was one big problem: I had no fucking job. Great!

I applied for roughly 300 jobs of varying types: delivery driver, office clerk, sales rep – hell, I even applied to sell bloody cars! No takers what so bloody ever. Not a single call back. The arseholes didn’t understand common decency.

By that point, I was pretty much all at sea, and I decided to try an advert for security-officer training. If only I had known then what I know now. I rocked up keen as mustard, ready to be the best I could be – sound familiar, anyone? – but I was dismayed to find that I had to fill out reams of paperwork over the course of two days and then sit an exam. Struth, I had been charged up to throw people around and be all Starsky and Hutch on a brother’s ass, but instead I found that I had to do schoolwork. I mumbled under my breath as I found a seat near to someone whom I considered to have equivalent bodily hygiene and prepared myself to be dazzled by the lecturer’s renditions of cop-type stories.

It turned out that the lecturers were in fact actual cops, from the robbery squad of all places, moonlighting at the weekends as instructors. It also became apparent that it was an open-book exam in which you could check the answers. If you could read, you would pass, so to speak – unless you were a complete stargazer!

After passing the exam, I was given a serious-looking certificate that I took to the cop shop, where I filled out some more forms, and, voilà, I was licensed to work. I had a choice of licensed categories I could apply for: static guard, armed guard, bodyguard or bouncer. I figured what the hell and ticked all the boxes. And that was that. I was licensed after just two days’ textbook training. I had no practical instruction and no experience, yet I could legally offer my services to provide the licensed activities listed above! Luckily for me (and for the rest of the free world), I wasn’t satisfied with just two days’ theory and began a quest to find mentors in the business to teach me how the job should really be done.

My search wasn’t always successful. Being something of a rabbit caught in headlights, I was taken for a ride by some bastards, but overall I met and learned from some very switched-on people, many of whom I am honoured to have known, let alone worked with.

At one point, it got to the stage that I had six different uniforms in my car, and I seemed to be continuously wearing a duty belt (fully equipped with holsters, handcuffs and all the ‘works and jerks’), a firearm, dark blue pants, black shoes and a T-shirt. I’d get a phone call and be told what uniform to put on, and off I’d go into the blue yonder. Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, day in, day out. I loved it. I was doing everything a boy could wish for: working with ‘stars’, doing all sorts of covert stuff, getting mentored by the best of the best and loving it. However, there were many occasions when I thought I was centre stage in a Frank Spencer show but still managed to walk away as the ‘hero’.

I remember my first cash-in-transit job. It was a typical day. I was at my boss’s house, all tarted up but with no place to go, when another guard dropped round. We started to have a chinwag, as you do, when lo and behold the phone rang. It was a job: two armed guards were required to transport a consignment of cash from a vault in one bank to another vault in another bank. It sounded simple enough. So, after taking no notes during the briefing, my newly acquired buddy and I jumped into his car and made our way to the job, which was about 40 minutes’ drive away.

As we were driving along, we got into some serious chinwagging, and it turned out that we shared the same birthday and had similar hobbies. (He was a pom, but I didn’t hold that against him.) Anyway, while we were gasbagging away, both of us forgot what we had been told in the briefing – neither of us could remember the name of the bank we were supposed to go to. The only thing I could remember was the letter of the alphabet that the name of the bank started with. So, when we arrived in the town, we went to the first bank we saw that started with that letter.

Let me set the scene for you: it was 5.45 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, and the bank was closed but the staff were still on site. We knocked on the door. We were dressed in full uniform, complete with ID and guns, looking a million dollars. A member of the staff asked if they could help us, and we responded by saying that we were there for the ‘job’. The woman looked at us in a puzzled fashion and then said, ‘Come in and we’ll sort this out.’ The bank was an old one with no screened counters, and the vault was open. There was money as far as the eye could see. The woman told us to wait and went off to speak to someone. When she returned, she told us that no one knew anything about our job. ‘It’s all right, love,’ I said. ‘I’ll call the boss and see who stuffed up.’ We were then escorted out of the front door and back onto the footpath, where I got on my mobile and rang my boss.

‘Boss, we are here at Bank X, and they reckon they know nothing about our job.’

‘No fucking wonder, brainiac. You’re at the wrong fucking bank.’

I experienced a sudden constriction of my bowel muscles as I anticipated my boss jumping out of my phone and kicking me in the arse. An abrupt disconnection awoke me from my stupor, and we both hurried to the correct bank to start the real job, which was now behind schedule by 45 minutes after we had dicked around in the wrong location to begin with. It could only get better, right? Wrong.

We arrived at the correct bank this time and walked into a branch that was obviously moving, given the boxes and packing material lying around. A very attractive young lady (or so I thought) was on the other side of the counter, folding perforated cardboard packing boxes into shape. ‘I see you have spent time working at McDonald’s,’ I said, trying to be all that. It was then that I noticed her lapel badge: ‘Branch Manager’. Aw shit, not again. How many more screw-ups could I make? Plenty, as it turned out.

The branch manager gave me a stern look and said, ‘Where’s the strongbox?’

‘And what strongbox is that?’ I replied.

‘The one you are going to use to carry the contents of our safe up the street to the other bank?’

‘Oh, that strongbox.’ Nobody had told me anything about a fucking strongbox. ‘We’ll simply use one of your McDonald’s folding boxes,’ I said, suddenly realising what was coming out of my mouth.

‘OK,’ she replied.

The safe was then opened and its contents piled into a box. Anyone who tells you money isn’t heavy is a liar. About $400,000 in cash, cheques and other valuables was to be transferred, and we got ready to walk to the other bank, which was about 800 metres up the street.

‘How are we going to do this?’ the manager asked.

‘Well, we’ll go first, and you can follow at a safe distance.’

‘OK.’

I looked at my partner, and his face told me that he had never done this before either! As we walked out of the front door of the bank, some space opened up between us and the manager, and I said to my mate, ‘If anyone comes within 20 metres, give ’em the stare. If they come within ten metres, rest your hand on the butt of your firearm and give ’em the stare. If, after all that, they are still coming towards us on a mission, shoot the fuckers.’

He agreed that my suggestion sounded reasonable, and we continued on our way. As luck would have it, we arrived at the other branch without any issues whatsoever and surrendered the box to the new safe for storage. Job completed, we both exited stage left and returned to the car. The ride home was somewhat quieter than the ride up. Eventually, we both looked at each other and burst out laughing.

As a footnote to that tragedy, the branch manager actually rang my boss and raved on about how cool, calm and collected we were and that we’d done the most professional job she had ever witnessed from security guards. If only she knew.

My next big adventure brought me into contact with the dizzy heights of stardom and arguably the biggest celebrity of them all: Tom Cruise. It was during the filming of Mission: Impossible II in Sydney that I had one of the funniest cock-ups of my career, although it actually turned out brilliantly. In fact, there were several cock-ups, and not all of them turned out too brilliantly, come to think of it.

I received a call from a guy I knew who told me to get my sorry ass down to Sydney for some high-paying work doing crowd control on a movie set. I grabbed another mate, and we ended up working on the periphery of a shoot in The Rocks precinct of the city.

During the filming, Tom and Nicole were apparently splitting up or something, but don’t quote me on that – I ain’t a columnist. Anyway, word came down that no paparazzi were allowed anywhere near the shoot. My mate and I were at our assigned posts when we heard the head bodyguard screaming on the radio about a ‘pap’ photographer with a telephoto lens, taking shots from the hill just above us. The guard assigned to that location said that there was nothing he could do, as it was public space. The head bodyguard was seething. We decided to head up and see what was happening. My mate was tall – about six feet seven inches or more – and when we arrived on the spot he walked in front, around and underneath the camera to block the photographer’s view – it was hilarious. The photographer sure as shit pissed his pants, because he took off at a great rate of knots. Victory was ours.

Shortly after that, the bosses started to migrate towards us to see who we were and what our story was. We then started to get the cushier jobs and better hours, including overtime rates, because it was obvious that we could do the job effectively and legally. This was uppermost in the film people’s minds, what with the publicity and all.

My first fuck-up happened out the front of a government building they were filming in. They had a movie prop in the form of a sculpture out in front. It was fenced off, and my job was to look after it. One morning, a police security officer from the government building came wandering down to have a look at the sculpture. ‘Excuse me, officer,’ I said. ‘I can’t allow you past this point.’

‘You what?’ she growled.

‘I am sorry, but I cannot allow you past this point,’ I replied. I have never seen such a shade of purple and red before, and the steam coming out of her ears was breathtaking.

‘Do you know who I am?’ she screamed.

‘Yes. It says on your badge that you are a police security officer,’ I replied without emotion.

Out of nowhere, the set manager arrived. ‘What seems to be the problem here?’ she asked sweetly. I was lucky she’d shown up, because in another second I reckon the police security officer would have probably shot me or eaten me whole.

‘I am sorry,’ the set manager cooed, ‘but he is following very strict instructions.’ The police security officer mumbled something or other under her breath as she wandered off, escorted by the set manager to the café cart that had just appeared. This thing was a fucking cake shop on a trolley with everything you could wish for. But we weren’t allowed to touch it, as security was not catered for.

Later that night, the feeling of us versus them (us being security and them being the ‘filmies’, the people wearing tool bags and carrying gaffer tape, running around madly making Hollywood happen) was broken down a little. A filmie was struggling to push a trolley full of stuff up a steep street, and I saw him and gave him a hand. Apparently, up until that point the guards hadn’t lifted a finger to help, so this guy was very grateful, and he introduced me to the people I needed to know. As a result, I soon got to know who was who as far as the filmies went. In terms of food, water, coffee, toilets, etc., I went straight to the head of each queue and got permission for security to have access rights to catering and the like. In exchange, we made arrangements for lines of communication to be set up to assist the caterers and the other site suppliers with access issues and deliveries. I had gone from a guard standing next to a generator five miles from the action to a ‘get things done’ guy who knew all the right people. However, I still got rotated through shitty locations and posts, mainly because none of the others could do the job properly, and the job still had to be done.

One night, I was standing at a shitty position doing access control. It was cold, exposed and I had been dealing all day with bloody tourists with cameras asking, ‘Where Tom Clooooze?’ I was tired and feeling a tad flat. Out of the blue, the head bodyguard came down and said to me, ‘Tom is driving himself to the set and will be coming through here shortly. Don’t cause him any grief. Just let him through without any fuss or hoo-ha. Understand?’

‘Righto. No problem,’ I said.

One of the filmies came rushing past with his ID badge out, and I gave him a wave. A bit later, a couple of lost tourists asked me what was going on, and I told them to move over the road to the viewing area. Then, another filmie came past, so I gave him a wave, too. I then noticed a guy at the bottom of the hill walking towards me. He was wearing a baseball cap, which was partially covering his face. Alarm bells started going off in my head, because he was exhibiting signs of being some dodgy bastard out to knock something off or steal anything not nailed down. To make matters worse, he was sticking to the shadows. Taking into consideration my earlier briefing, perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that I saw a dodgy bastard – not a megastar trying to be low key.

The dodgy-looking bloke finally made it up to the checkpoint and tried to come past. I asked him where he thought he was going, and he told me that he was going onto the film set. I moved in front of him. ‘Excuse me, sir. Do you have your Photo ID handy?’ I asked.

‘They didn’t give me one,’ he replied.

People will try anything to get into a movie set, so I wasn’t buying this guy’s story for a second. ‘Well, mate, you’ll have to move over there to the visitors’ viewing gallery. Thanks.’ I pointed in the direction of the viewing gallery and was just about to say, ‘What part of “fuck off over there” don’t you understand?’ when the guy tilted his face a little, allowing the light to shine on it. Fuck me. It was Tom Cruise, mega fucking star, known the world over, and I was giving him fucking attitude because he didn’t have a photo ID badge. In my defence, he was considerably shorter in the flesh than his publicity photos suggested.

About 20 minutes later, the head bodyguard came down to my position. ‘Was it you?’ he asked. Considering I was the only fucker at the post, I couldn’t lie. ‘Um, yes, it was.’ I had visions of receiving my DTUM (don’t turn up Monday) notice. But the head bodyguard was pissing himself laughing. I presumed he was some sort of sadistic prick, getting his kicks from sacking me. ‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.

‘Well, Tom appreciates the fact that with almost 50 grand a day being spent on this film, security is so tight that even he can’t get in without photo ID.’ I was waiting for the punchline, but it didn’t seem to be coming. ‘We’ll talk some more tomorrow, but well done.’ Say What? Well done? It turned out that Tom was happy not to be recognised and had a chuckle over it.

That incident meant that I went from doing menial jobs to being responsible for coordinating set lockdowns during filming. I would rush around with two headsets on separate channels and another mike pinned to the lapel of my jacket on another channel. The two headsets were tuned to security and the filmies, and the lapel one was for my ‘response squad’, which would deal with shit if and when it happened. This position gave me the opportunity to talk to the crew, including John Woo, the director of the movie, and I loved every minute of it. At the same time, I always ensured that the guards got fed, rotated and looked after as best as could be expected on such a job. The hours were long, and you were on your feet all day. It could be very boring, but you still had to do your job.

I got some offers of further movie work at the end of the filming, which I was very grateful for, but I declined because of the distance I would need to travel. Nonetheless, I did have fun on that movie set!

Not every job I did was like a scene out of the Keystone Cops, and one in particular will stay with me for the rest of my life. I was sitting in my boss’s office one day when a call came in requesting two armed guards as soon as possible. It wasn’t often that we were told to expedite our arrival at a site, but this was no ordinary job. My boss and I responded to the call and made our way over to the Department of Community Services building. Upon arrival, we were greeted by people who looked very relieved to see us. As we sat down for a briefing, a senior police officer arrived with a folder. What I was about to become involved in would change my whole outlook on life.

The police officer asked us about our firearms and what our status was. I had a Smith and Wesson 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, which held sixteen rounds, and two spare clips, which held fifteen rounds each. It was a beautiful piece of equipment. My boss was old fashioned in his tastes: his was a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum with two spare speed-loaders. I had seen him empty that beast faster than a guy with a Glock semi-automatic and have good grouping at distance. The policeman expressed satisfaction with the equipment and our abilities – we were both members of a pistol club and practised after work on mock buildings with man targets and training rounds. It was the best we could do, given the lack of access to more sophisticated facilities as civilians. I’d always figured that if I was going to carry a gun, I had better be damn sure I knew what, when, how and why . . . and then some. I’d trained with blockages until I knew the motions like clockwork, improved my draw motions and learned the value of maintenance. I was confident and knew that I could face a situation and rely on muscle memory as a natural reflex. I’d grown up with my dad’s old .22 bolt-action rifle and knew what constituted responsible behaviour around firearms, so I guess this was just further training with a different type of tool.

The police officer then told us the reason for our attendance. In a nutshell, a guy with a drug habit who lived with his missus and three kiddies had run up a lot of bad debts, and no one would sell to him. His particular choice of slow death was amphetamines, more commonly known as ‘speed’. He’d told his missus to go out and get some for him, but she’d said no, so the gutless freak had poured lawnmower fuel over the three kiddies and threatened to set them on fire unless she did what he’d told her. Somehow, calm had been restored, and the kiddies had survived. It was at that point that Community Services had got involved, rescuing the kids and sending them to a safe house. The gutless freak had then rung up the Community Services office and told them he was going to kill everyone in the office. That’s when we’d been called.

The policeman continued with the briefing by informing us of the following:

‘What the bloody hell am I doing here?’ I thought. ‘Fuck, I knew I should have done the lunch run.’

We spent several weeks playing cat and mouse with this freak, and we ended up having to get vests, as he’d apparently acquired a shotgun and bragged about it to someone who’d spilled to the police, who then told us. The situation was becoming more dangerous, but complacency was starting to set in with the office staff we were protecting. They would congregate in the car park in full view, making them easy targets. One day, I lost my patience with one group who were having a laugh and completely forgetting what was going on. I asked them several times to move into the safety of the building, but they didn’t pay any attention to me. I was getting pissed off, as I didn’t want them to be exposed like this, given what I knew. In the end, I politely advised them that I wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest as a fashion accessory but because a nasty man was threatening to kill them all. As much as it may have been harsh, I achieved what I needed: them out of the line of fire.

After approximately six weeks, we had a meeting to discuss whether we should stand down, as nothing had happened and the enormous cost of having us there was impacting on the department’s budget. This meeting took place on a Wednesday night. It was decided on the Thursday morning that we would stand down on the Friday night and simply be on call if required. On Thursday afternoon at about 5.45 p.m., freak boy was arrested five blocks from the site. He had consumed numerous grams of speed, armed himself with countless knives and was on his way to the office to carry out his threat of killing all the community workers. Two things led to his arrest. One of his friends had seen us at the office, kitted up and looking the biz. When he’d asked someone about us, he’d been told that we were under orders to ‘shoot to kill’ and we had laser sights and stun grenades – pure shit, really. The friend then went back to freak boy and told him all this bullshit in front of freak boy’s mother. When freak boy tooled up and headed for the office, his mother rang the cops, because she figured that we would kill him outright, based on the bullshit she’d heard from the friend.

It took five police officers to take him down and restrain him. When they got him back to the police station, he raved like Charles Manson about how he was going to do this and that. He ended up doing time and getting his comeuppance in jail for the drug debts and for what he had done to his kiddies. Scumbag.

I have one final story to put another grin on your dial. I once did a close protection job for a gay businessman who owned a nightclub and had lots of money. Now, I don’t really care which side of the bed your slippers are on – just don’t think you can put them on mine. Only Mrs Buckwell gets to shag me, lucky thing, or maybe some nymphet who has come backstage for autographs. However, each to their own is my point of view.

My brief was simple: if he picked someone up, I was to go back to the hotel (I had a separate room!) and make sure his wallet wasn’t rolled. Anyway, we were in a nightclub, and there was very little smoke around, as most gay people are health freaks of some kind. My client decided that he was going to light up his pipe. The stuff stank – and I smoke! He was in the middle of the dance floor, trying to be a 20-something in a 50-something body, and started puffing out his rancid pipe stench everywhere. I knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty ending, and sure enough a massive cross-dresser walked up and knocked the pipe flying. The client grabbed me and said, ‘What are you going to do about that?’ He stank of alcohol and tobacco.

‘We’re leaving,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Because you’ve made a lot of people unhappy, and there is only one of me.’

With that, he sheepishly walked outside, hailed a cab and handed me a wad of notes. ‘I won’t need you any further tonight. I am going home to grow up.’ His cab took off, and I never saw him again. I reckon I spent at least the following 20 minutes pissing myself laughing.

You can contact Damien at [email protected]