Bear Grylls: My festival has axe-throwing. It's safe

Times

9 hours ago

Bear Grylls is never happier than when his boys are throwing themselves out of helicopters, jumping off mountaintops or planning to race across central Asia in an old banger. But when it comes to evaluating the risks teenagers face, there is one environment that gives him the heebie-jeebies: summer music festivals. 'As a parent, sending teenagers off to these festivals is in some ways the most dangerous thing you can do,' he says.
Four years ago Grylls co-founded Gone Wild, a family-friendly celebration of the outdoors that he hopes is the antithesis of certain other festivals, which can become feral in a different, less appealing way.
'It's an adventurous controlled environment. People aren't smashed and fighting,' he says. 'It almost feels like it's the safest unsafe festival, in the sense that you've got kids throwing axes, and everyone's covered in mud and firing bows and arrows and jumping off towers into airbags. So on the surface it looks like a health and safety nightmare, but actually it's super safe and run by highly trained people.
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'I always think most festivals are the opposite: they say they're safe, but actually you get there and think, 'I would not want my teenagers going to this place. This is a nightmare.''
I mention that some festivals popular with teenagers are also a magnet for drug dealers. 'Well, that is the thing. I'm not saying nobody's ever got drunk [at Gone Wild] but it's basically a really safe, fun, outdoor, family-centred, wholesome environment.'
He has three sons with his wife, Shara: Jesse, 22, Marmaduke, 19, and Huckleberry, 16. Have the boys ever been to the sort of festivals parents lie awake worrying about? '[We've had] a few early experiences, a few skirmishes, a few narrow escapes. But actually our eldest is through all of that now and goes, 'That doesn't interest me.' And the youngest one's actually not very interested, luckily. I mean, you can never get complacent with teenagers, can you? So I'm sort of like, 'Let's hope we get through it.' I dare not say anything more!'
A Grylls mantra is: 'Trade screen time for green time' — but he isn't quite ready to sign up to Smartphone Free Childhood's campaign, which encourages parents not to buy a smartphone for their children until they are at least 14. Younger children certainly shouldn't have phones, Grylls says, but a young teenager should be 'their own policeman. You've got to try to empower kids. I'm sceptical of saying, 'You can't do this or that.' Even if you look at drugs, if all you're saying is no, what about saying, 'Is getting smashed really going to benefit your life?' Making them see things for themselves is always a better way of doing it. Kids are so smart. They want empowering rather than restricting.'
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Parents can set an example by being careful about their phone use in front of their children. 'What do they say? Parenting in three words: example, example, example. We've failed many, many times over the years in terms of parenting and in terms of example. But I think [parents should have] the aspiration to communicate over a meal, to never say no to an interaction and conversation with your kids, to say no phones at meal times and try not to have them in the bedroom. Sometimes we'll go away and we'll reach a point where Shara and me or the boys go, 'Everyone's on their phones too much! Stop!' The answer is doing stuff together that's more fun.'
Recently Ben Fogle wrote in The Times about the importance of good role models to counter the kind of toxic masculinity exemplified by Andrew Tate. The A-team of rufty-tufties he would send into schools would include Grylls, Steve Backshall, explorers such as Ed Stafford and Dwayne Fields (Grylls's successor as chief scout), and Ross Edgley, the ultra-marathon sea swimmer.
'I'm a little bit more sceptical about only picking male role models who are adventurous,' Grylls says. 'The male role models and heroes I would be highlighting are people you won't have heard of. Jamie, my neighbour, holds down an outdoor job while bringing up a disabled wonderful son and is always positive and kind: a strong, loving man.
'You don't need to have a beard and climb a mountain to be a man. Manliness is as much about humility as it is about muscles. I don't apologise for wanting to be strong and ambitious and focused and determined and to be a never-give-upper just as much as I don't apologise for crying at a movie and being loving, soft, cosy and kind. These are the light and shade of life.'
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He also suggests we should not underestimate the ability of young men to come to their own conclusions about the people they encounter online. 'We've got to trust young people, who are actually pretty discerning. My boys come across somebody who's cocky and arrogant, none [of them] are going: 'That's a great guy.''
His oldest son, Jesse, is an artist and helps on his father's productions. Marmaduke hopes to join the army after university and Huckleberry is still at school.
Grylls has a strong Christian faith and his latest book is a retelling of the life of Jesus, which he hopes will take readers away from 'this sanitised Christmas version of Christ we often have. It is a story that changes and steers millions of lives every day. I want to say why, and why is this relevant today? And why is it still so radical, this message of love your neighbour?'
For Grylls, loving thy neighbour extended to standing next to Russell Brand as the comedian-turned-podcaster was baptised in the Thames last year. This was after allegations of sexual assault had been made against Brand but before he was charged with a string of offences, all of which he denies. Brand became a friend after appearing on Grylls's Running Wild show.
'We're called to love all people, not just perfect people,' Grylls says. 'We should all be doing much more in hospitals and prisons and stuff like that. I don't apologise for doing what I hope was the kind thing to somebody at a humble moment in their life. The easy thing is always to do nothing and never get any criticism for anything.'
We are talking by video call while he is staying with a friend before heading to Norway to start filming the next series of Running Wild with Bear Grylls. He has taken President Obama and the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi into the wilderness and interviewed Volodymyr Zelensky. Could he be about to Trump that this series?
'No, not the president. I'm definitely more nervous nowadays about taking politicians and world leaders. The world is so divided, isn't it? When we took Obama, it was: 'That's epic, you've got the president!' Now you'd instantly lose half your audience when you take a politician. It's a no-win game, isn't it, politics?'
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There was an extraordinary story last year that Grylls was on the shortlist to be the British ambassador in Washington before Peter Mandelson was appointed. Is he disappointed not to be talking tariffs and defence budgets with President Trump? 'I don't look back with regret at things that haven't happened. If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. I think Mandelson's doing a really good job at a really difficult time. I look at our leaders and think they're doing the best they can in a really super-turbulent, tricky, tricky world where whichever decision you make, you're going to get killed for it. It's very tough.'
He was reported to have dined with Nigel Farage last month. 'I'm firmly not entering politics and we're not doing a show together, no.' And you're not a supporter? 'I keep my politics right out of public [view]. That was just a chance meeting, saying hello, a nice ten minutes together and a cup of tea. You've got to listen, and he's a man in the moment. He could well be the next prime minister.'
There was a hairy moment on Celebrity Bear Hunt, an elaborate game of hide-and-seek in Costa Rica that aired in February, when Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen got into difficulty while trying to haul himself out of the sea and on to an inflatable raft. Grylls had to dive in to help him and Llewelyn-Bowen needed oxygen after he was dragged from the water. This was not, Grylls says, the nearest he has come to a celebrity expiring on him. 'I've had a few more close ones, but he was definitely on the edge. We had it well covered. You do have to be careful with water and adrenaline and all of that stuff. He did great. He's such a good guy and he was very grateful.' He doesn't sound convinced that the show, hosted by Holly Willoughby, will get another series soon. 'Some you win, some you lose. We're not racing to do it again.'
Recently my eye was caught by an interview Grylls gave last year, when he turned 50, in which he suggested he was only a quarter of the way through his life. Seriously? 'That's how I feel. I prefer looking at it like that. Stuff hurts, I've got so many old injuries, ever more scars and wrinkles, but it's part of the journey of life.'
This relentless positivity requires fuel. Once a vegan, he is now a ravenous meat-eater. 'Two steaks a day. Lots of eggs. Lots of honey. Lots of fruit. Raw dairy.'
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His recommendations for spending more time outside are perhaps easier to digest. 'Maybe cycle to work rather than drive. Maybe walk the last couple of stops on the Tube. Go for a walk with a friend rather than meet at the pub. Go for a little hike with your family at the weekend. Plan mini-adventures. Plan some bigger adventures. Why not go camping with your family? Why not help with the Scouts? Swim in the sea. So often our gateway to adventure is the willingness to not pick the easy street and sit on the iPad. But you've got to plan it a little bit.
'Adventure is much closer than people think. On Sunday I spent a long time on the grass with the dogs and chatting with the family. And then we looked on a map, found a river and went for a swim. Great!'
Bear Grylls will be at Gone Wild Festival at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, August 7-10, and at Powderham Castle, Devon, August 21-24, gonewildfestival.com