Tomo Thompson is Chief Executive of the charity Friends of the Peak District who work to safeguard the landscape of Britain’s first national park. Tomo is a retired Army Officer, with a recent background in business management consultancy. He also enjoys and instructs outdoor pursuits and is an encyclopaedia of knowledge about expeditions, equipment and fine places to unroll your bivvy bag for the night.
I asked Tomo whether the word ‘adventure’ was inappropriate for a career in the military. One similarity in our lives was that military life gives you restlessness and an appetite for uncertainty. Now caring for one of the most beautiful corners of Yorkshire, Tomo believes that a small thing which greatly improves life is to go to the top of a hill, sit down, turn off the phone, accept what the weather’s doing, and accept both how big and how small you are. Wise words indeed.
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SHOW NOTES
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- Say hello on Twitter and Instagram: @al_humphreys
- Tomo is on Twitter.
- Friends of the Peak District on Twitter.
- A video of our curry in a cave.
- The Army was a way to get lots of climbing, walking and paddling expeditions in far-flung places.
- Developmental role of challenging expeditions in the outdoors.
- When you’ve been in put in situations where risk are involved (military / expeditions), you become better placed to deal with risk in normal life.
- One thing that military life gives you is restlessness, and an appetite for uncertainty.
- A small thing that greatly improves life is to go to the top of a hill, sit down, turn off the phone, accept what the weather’s doing, and accept both how big and how small you are.
- Leaving a decision for too long you just stew in it. Don’t stand on the edge of the diving board with your toes over the edge for hours.
- The importance of looking after yourself so that you can radiate that in your engagements with family and friends.
- Therefore self-improvement need not be deemed selfish.
- Goodbye Things – Fumio Sasaki
- How to Connect with Nature – Tristan Gooley
TRANSCRIPT
Below is the transcription of our conversation. It’s done by AI so is perhaps a wee bit ropey here and there. If these transcripts prove sufficiently useful then I will make the effort to clean then up and make them better. Do let me know if you think it’s worth my time to do that. (Or, better still, do it for me…!). If you’d like to listen as you read along you can do that here:
https://otter.ai/s/GV1i7Jf5RWiLUVENvRPC9w
Alastair Humphreys
I think perhaps last time we had a good chat was in a cave. We planned to camp in a cave in the Peak District. And on the way out of town, the delicious smells of the takeaway just seemed more appealing than a Pot Noodle, didn’t it? It did.
Tomo Thompson
Yeah, we come out of Hathersage. And I think we were if I know we were going to go to the supermarket. buy like noodles, noodles or something. And then got the whiff from the curry shop …
Alastair Humphreys
It was fantastic. So when we met then you were working hard. You’re
guiding people and get young people acted outdoors. You’re still doing that. But you’re also now working for friends of the peak district.
Tomo Thompson
It is part of a larger charity called the campaign project rural England.
The our branch of that charity, which is kind of better known, I guess, is friendly, because the was founded in 1924. And essentially, it’s a charity that uses donations and membership charity uses our funds to where we and our members see fit to challenge building and development work on the landscapes of the people from National Park in South Yorkshire that we don’t think are sustainable or right or fit in with what should be doing. I’m not tired of that place. We employ professional campaigners and professional planners, who then go generally go to planning committees all over South Yorkshire and the Peak District and and represent the the opinion of the people or the opinion of the charity. Even, you know, the public to stand up against, you know, unsustainable unsightly housing, a fracking of unnecessary road building, and also increasingly supporting the various efforts around South Yorkshire and the National Park on climate change and aspiration for carbon zero future.
Alastair Humphreys
Again, and this is this is all quite a long way from your early days career of being in the army. And what
Tomo Thompson
actually if you go all the way back, I was thinking of the week and we had that kind of clear indicator that I think it kind of all started for me in a cave Anyway, when I left home in the northeast of England, and I went and lived in Milliken Bolton’s caving in Bordeaux and the Lake District the master of adventure Professor adventure, indeed, and then yeah, did you live in his cave for six, six months, I think in the early 90s. And then in the roundabout, the mid 90s for some reason for what I barely got a career. So I joined I joined the army ended all sorts of Army type stuff and tools
Alastair Humphreys
were regiment to do to join,
Tomo Thompson
oh, say
I did some time in
this, like snakes and ladders, I look at my career as a game of snakes. And I was in the Parachute Regiment, some time in the military intelligence for a short period of time in the role, our medical corps. And then and then I commissioned, I went to centres and then I joined the role signals, and then did some quite tangential stuff on the on the margins of it all signals. And yeah, left in summer 16 after 24 years, I think. And then, three days later, I went I was asked to go back into the reserves to do a thing that opened at the time and did another another year and a bit of that in the reserves. So yeah, until the early this year, sorry, somewhere Western. Okay, so
Alastair Humphreys
but the the main thing I’m interested in through talking to people on this fight trip I’m doing now is the different ways people are going about trying to live adventurously. So, when you were in the army, what did living adventurously mean, back then?
Did you join it for an adventure?
Tomo Thompson
I think I did join it for an adventure because I am and I had some great opportunities with the reserve what was on the territory long before hand and I need upon kind of trips all over the place. And even when I lived in the Lake District before that, I didn’t kind of realise that you could get kind of qualifications and stuff and actually get paid to take people and actually one of the really potent tools of leadership development in the in the Army’s is what they call of interest training what we call kind of outdoor pursuits. And yeah, I was quite lucky at a fairly Junior rank to go and get some climbing and walking qualifications. And then I was able, obviously, your junior rank is quite, quite difficult to get away on them. But I was able to do in a climate walking paddling trips, courses, expeditions all over the world, which is a, you know, easy to say now at the taxpayers expense. But, you know, I saw some not only operations for the military, but moreover in in some of those memories of being with groups of groups of men and women in some far flung faces and then when I commissioned his kind of leadership role as well and then actually beginning to understand Yeah, that that potency of know the development role of challenge in the outdoors and was able to do quite a few more tips, which was good.
Alastair Humphreys
I remember when I was at uni, and I was trying to figure out what direction I was going to go after uni. I knew I wanted to have some sort of adventurous site what I wanted to try and live a life with adventurous but I wasn’t quite sure how that would look and I remember my first bike trip I cycled around Scotland for a few days I was absolutely knackered never done anything like it alive got completely soaked in my tent cycling past the commando Memorial at spin bridge. And I’m really remember this vividly standing there looking at that Memorial thinking if I want an adventure, that is an adventure, going to join the army and doing something properly mad feels like adventure.
There’s some downsides of space to the to the ruling adventure. There are and there’s a
Tomo Thompson
there’s a book isn’t there? I can’t remember the author. The books called the junior officers reading club. Oh, yes. The brilliant book about the the 99 98% sheer boredom because clearly that you know the the military you know, as an organisation the military can’t be doing amazing exciting adventure things for everybody all the time. And there are very very long periods of boredom and all those kind of those the Fraser kind of Hurry up and wait and sitting on your rucksack and and 100
Alastair Humphreys
times people shooting it.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, there’s always people shooting out you know, you know,
Alastair Humphreys
counts as I mentioned,
Tomo Thompson
it certainly sounds as worse as a kind of formative experience and you know, you times that you’re in the Balkans in Iraq and Afghanistan and you know, various other places I went to that
Unknown Speaker
there
Tomo Thompson
that’s fundamentally I think they when you put yourself in or or put into experiences where risk is involved your you then become perhaps more able to deal with the rest of the risks that kind of life throws up and actually clearly being shocked at the end if you take away the kinetic side of that that the decision making and the response and how you’re going to deal with risk you can you can get quite near to that in you know in the mountains and and get quite new to it on you know running whitewater or or parachuting or climbing or doing a tracking you know, somewhere how’s it is? How’s it going around the world and I was actually responding to some of the
Unknown Speaker
earlier
Tomo Thompson
about ventures climbers that were that were junior officers and senior and seasoned British army that and they’re actually properly kick started the British Army using adventure training is that it’s quite simple really, isn’t it? That you know, if you can get that development very, very close those development benefits by not actually shooting at people I did here I did read once actually, that the Israeli Israelis don’t don’t do a great deal of adventure training because they they actually live fire near their soldiers in recruit training. So they don’t know they don’t have to do adventure stream to get the same experiential learning they just use live rounds, which is which is absolutely not, not necessarily how it should be done.
Alastair Humphreys
And and how does the the all the that spirit of living adventurously from your life in terms of the middle tree or the expedition stuff? how did how did the lessons from that transfer to your more normal life now of working a day job, but still trying to have that adventurous spirit? What What, what does that how’s that transferred into real life?
Tomo Thompson
I think it’s one thing military gives you as a restlessness.
And also a need to deal with.
Uncertainty is more of a norm in military life. So I am, I still get kind of really frustrated if something odd but if I kind of, if there’s no one certainty coming up in the, in the calendar in the diary, if that, if that kind of makes sense. I think also just, you know, lots and lots of people, the vast majority of us are kind of confined to a nine to five job or something like that. But, you know, you can jump on your bicycle to and from work, and perhaps mix up the way you bicycle doing for the route that you take to and fro work or, you know, discussing the benefits of kind of headspace and open spaces, just try and spend, even if it’s even if it’s open space in in an urban environment is to do that. And then, like lots and lots of people my opportunity to take longer adventures is being and I’ve been decreased over the last couple years. So you just, you were, you know, we’re back into micro adventures and smaller adventures where you just, you know, you you maximise what you can, I’m lucky to live on the,
on the western side of Sheffield. So the National Park is, you know, a couple of kilometres away, say,
oftentimes to you know, to decompress from in a finance and HR and everything in the office is to just take a bicycle into the Peak District or some, you know, some running shoes or, you know, get the train into the, into the heart of the National Park. And, you know, maybe overnight, come back in the next morning, or, or whatever, just just, you’re very seldom now, when I was very lucky in the military to go away for kind of weeks and months at a time on adventure training, especially. So you can’t do that when you’ve got a proper life in a proper job. So you just have to do the best you can in smaller chunks,
Alastair Humphreys
do what you can with what you have, and do it now,
Unknown Speaker
as a result is appropriate. And there is a quote in there.
Alastair Humphreys
So one of the things I’ve been doing, travelling around Europe to meeting all sorts of interesting people anew is
Unknown Speaker
asking them these some questions from my depth playing cards. Oh, well,
Unknown Speaker
interviewing by playing card. So I wondered if you’d mind answering a few of these.
Unknown Speaker
So take your car to the top. Give me Give me your questions on
Alastair Humphreys
Yeah, we’re not playing poker.
Unknown Speaker
Before? Well.
Tomo Thompson
Okay,
Unknown Speaker
if you don’t answer you can, you can ignore them.
Alastair Humphreys
Also, because you’re in the army, if there’s any long words, I’m happy to.
Tomo Thompson
If you asked your child himself who you thought you would be now, would you measure up?
I think I would actually, I one of the last things I did in the reserve army I was very lucky to early last summer. So 2018 I spent five or six weeks in the truth of mindfulness of Cyprus leading leading walks, adventure training versus things and a couple of people back in the UK saw an advert for the people that you’re friends with, which I hadn’t seen but when three or four people send you a send you a dropout rate by email ago, you know, you’d be grateful that you this would be and I was like really anyway that the stars really really aligned and
Unknown Speaker
you know, my
Tomo Thompson
I had the opportunity going as part of the job to go out and try and actively work to protect the landscapes of NP District and conserve your chemistry is being in open space caring for open space is something that you know was cracking when I was six or seven years old I can remember you know, being a bridge in a bar down the Lake District for going home to the northeast and looking across electric Ocean Park and thinking this is just kind of really really great from somewhere that that I’d like to spend as much time as I can and work to work to protect so I don’t think yeah, I think about my my my childhood self looking at what I’m doing now would would would be you know, really kind of quite chuffed what three things would your younger self be proud of?
my military service I think
Yeah, having having
done my bit as it were.
I think also the the base and military and it’s really nice the other places I’ve managed to get to from the plane and you know the the fairly
active adventurous life that I’ve hope I’ve lived
Unknown Speaker
whatever half before the way through it probably 3000 what
Unknown Speaker
I think that’s good. I think you’ve done it probably my
Tomo Thompson
collection of original Patagonia
Unknown Speaker
that’s a good thing.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, next question. Oh, at least race. Oh, good. Well, you’ve been done one.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, no, you can’t do that. Oh, I can’t split the products that will
Tomo Thompson
that says to me, if you please. What’s more thing do you do regularly which greatly improves your life go to the top of a hill. from home it’s often the white edge or stand edge or top of when hill or somewhere in the day when edge last lad and sit down and turn the phone off and you know accept what the weather’s doing. Look out across the skies realise both how big and how little you are in the in this planet and just just there is a headspace thing there i think but but actually just just inhaling open space and countryside and building everything they are things work very nice.
Unknown Speaker
That’s a nice phrase inhaling open space inside another one. Yeah.
Tomo Thompson
advice can you give me so that I look back on my life with satisfaction rather than regrets? So it asked me this is a wise old man is old.
I think just when when opportunities or decisions
in a present themselves.
I was going to say don’t make too too hasty decision but but just just know just make a make a decision on whether that’s whether that’s to do that thing or not to do lots of things, but don’t don’t prevaricate and stew over stuff.
I think one of the things that military life
makes you do certainly at the kinetic end of it is you have to do something. Okay.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, you know, yeah, if you doesn’t really matter
Tomo Thompson
what someday I’ll be, you know, just here, but if you know, or the blackout of sketch, whatever it is, but if you stick your head above the trench, and it gets blown off, or whatever, then then something’s got to happen to stop. And if you can’t stick any more heads above the tradition, something has got to got to my experience is that the longer you The longer you leave a decision, or the longer that you you ponder and stress grows by thing about something is just just, you know, just get on and do it. And actually, if you’ve made the wrong one, there’s a benefit in, in, in movement rather than an issue isn’t, then we’ll you know, you’ll begin to move towards whatever it is that you want to make faith in yourself, actually make decisions and then you know, when you jump off, whatever board it is at the swimming pool, the water will eventually eventually hit the water. I saw others standing there your toes over the edge for what seems like I was wondering what’s going to happen here. Thank you.
Little one another Twitter photo of you know, are you doing what you love?
I think right.
Yeah, I’m, you know, I’m very lucky as the charity to to be paid to look after Skeeter paid to look after, you know, the landscapes of South Yorkshire the district, you know, having the opportunity to do that and the depth and breadth of people that, that use those landscapes that work in those landscapes that carefully landscapes is really really in a really, really great thing to be doing. But I also find the time to to get out into
into open spaces, which is which is important.
Everybody has this this great thing that they are proud from the younger this great thing that they envision doing that I think if you if you temper that react with reality, living in it, living on the edge of a great city, having having a job that allows me to be outside quite a lot. Then also having experienced qualifications to in my weekends of things to still do outdoor pursuits now volunteer with people and some not too shabby. Nice, good. Next, another one. Yeah.
What is your favourite failure in life? Why is important?
Unknown Speaker
Okay.
Unknown Speaker
Escape if you want. I think we’ll skip
Unknown Speaker
that. Okay, good. And then
Unknown Speaker
the next.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, well.
Unknown Speaker
It’s good to old man walking past this in matching
Unknown Speaker
chessboard sweaters matching thespian bags and matching red baseball caps. There’s a
Unknown Speaker
storey there isn’t. There is other twins, I think. But they’re still dressed identical aged at
Tomo Thompson
amazing. Oh, man, they look like they should have a TV show.
How would your life be different if you were a millionaire?
Without that was gonna, it probably sounds quite flippant to say that. I don’t think it would. By which I mean, I’m not. I’m not that materialistic. I’m not that money orientated. I try to give original amount of my income to a cause and charities that I support, I would see myself if I was genuinely honestly, you know, given, you know, given a million pounds, I don’t think I’ve changed my car. I don’t think I’ve changed the size of my flat. You know, I don’t think I’ve probably changed where I lived. I might actually spend, you know, slightly cliched, but spend that money on, you know, securing my son’s future and then give a very, very significant amount of it away. I’m at that point in life where I’m trying to and I read a book coming in the author, but that is a Japanese essay, which was turned into a book, which is called goodbye things. And it’s a fairly, fairly savvy sound all the considering how much you own? And you know, how many of everything you own? And actually, what’s your ability to keep hold of them? I think also, you know, as the chief executive, environmental charity, I try not to own or have or do too much of anything and try and minimise my, my footprint generally, I think there’d be quite a few. Probably some service welfare charities and some environmental charities that would benefit considerably if I was given a million pounds to be honest. That’s a good place to be I think. Cool.
Unknown Speaker
Next
Tomo Thompson
what book should I read to make myself more wild bold and curious?
Unknown Speaker
One of the cards just blue white wins pickup
Unknown Speaker
game
Alastair Humphreys
source of books, you are the person who told me about Milliken Dalton in the first place. I his book is lovely. Isn’t that Professor of adventure, but
Tomo Thompson
I was going to say the question as clearly.
He will make it whenever you want one book, I’m going to say
anything that
Tristan girly has written? Oh, yeah. But the book that the natural navigator, the book that I recommend to almost everybody, and everybody that I do that I’m lucky enough to kind of work and play with outdoors. Justin was was asked by the school of life in London quite a long time ago to, to write a very small book to kind of, you know, to, to introduce people into the outdoor environment, astral realm, and perhaps change their perspective on it. And he wrote a very, very I, I considered, sometimes I define how long it takes to read a book by how many visits the toilet, you’re required to get the end of it. And a small green book available from the School of Article how to connect with nature, by Justin Dooley is probably, you know, two or three visits so they fits in your pocket, you can read it kind of almost anywhere and all trust and attempts to do in that book is let you begin to understand why what you’re looking at in the natural environment looks that way. And once you begin to do that, and I I read the book 678 years ago, and I must have given away 25 or 30 copies of it. Everything you look at you begin to understand everything better in the natural environment and understand why it’s there. And, you know, back to The David Attenborough quote of people won’t, I’m paraphrasing, but people won’t look after something they don’t understand, and they won’t understand something they haven’t experienced. And in addition to a couple of other books, you know, I think it’d be really great if perhaps was a Kickstarter to get a copy of how to connect with nature into a kind of as many schools and things as we could, it’s really, really easy to read. And there’s just so many, oh, wow, I get it now. moments in the book. And then when you’re driving up and down the motorway, or you’re in a plane, or you’re walking with a sudden the other and you would understand in a landscaping environment and human impact on it and everything else. And it’s not, it’s not preaching anything, it’s just a, it’s like, I’m looking at work of art on a museum wall, and then the curator or the, you know, museums are coming along and I’m just gently beginning to explain the picture to you until, until it kind of makes sense. And I have some great book and I think I’ve genuine also think it’s an important book as well.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, cool. That’s a good suggestion that
Unknown Speaker
makes that read it.
Unknown Speaker
But it says the people listening to this thing, it’s a really good choice because it isn’t, as you said gateway into more things. Okay, next question.
Tomo Thompson
barefoot, a backpacker going past as well across the problems, which is navigating by his phone.
And how long he remain barefoot in the streets of Sheffield. What do you want to be when you grow up as a brilliant
photo majestic on Instagram every now and again just move it away because I think it’s want to sign outside of funding I saw this I don’t grow up. It’s a trap.
Which is really good. What do you want to be when you grow up?
I guess the most important thing is healthy.
There’s a tenement of
Buddhist teaching and body psychology learning I’m not equidistant but something I can really that really charmers with me is that you know, the the, the importance of looking after yourself, more so than, than anything else in your world, because the healthiest, most stable and most happy, most engaging person you are, you’re then able to kind of radiate that in your offerings to the rest of your family, friends, relationships, colleagues, anything else.
Alastair Humphreys
Say so it’s not actually selfish than it says
Tomo Thompson
it’s not selfish in in any way at all. Yeah. And, you know, if you’re, you know, your relationship with partner, wife, husband, school, friends, everything else is is detracted from if you haven’t worked at making yourself the best self that you can be, I think, what I want to be when I grow up, first and foremost, healthy. Secondly, is still still active, active in open spaces, and while space is the ability to, to still get to them and to you know, to walk in them and climb in them and have the bunch of kind of friends and colleagues and, and, and opportunities.
Unknown Speaker
I think all say
Tomo Thompson
on occasion when the weather is really, really rubbish just kind of sat by the fire in one of the classic mountain pubs in Great Britain with my son took me another four years yet, but with my son having a having a beer with him. And yeah, just just doing that thing that I think God’s look forward to where they can kind of have a chat with their chat with their own lab down the pub and have a private conversation. And I was I was in the club Hagen in Glencoe Few days ago. And I just had that kind of thing in my head of, I really want to be here with my son one is old five days, one of the really famous mountain pubs in Britain. I want to be here and building from Gail perhaps also in them in one day was one of them.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, nice. Thanks. That’s a very good answer. Next one.
Alastair Humphreys
We do No, no, no, we’re not doing them all day until I get bored of you, which is, which is which is approaching?
Tomo Thompson
What is enough?
Alastair Humphreys
I sounds like a good final question. What is
Unknown Speaker
deep and philosophical? Because
Tomo Thompson
I’m sort of question either with a question or with the
with the the main word in the question for me.
links back, I think to the previous question of whether it’s
although I don’t think you can have enough health, but certainly
Unknown Speaker
it’s
Tomo Thompson
sufficient amount of those things that are important in your life to bring you health and happiness. I don’t think you can use wealth I’m a great believer in kind of an excess of wealth to be honest with that might sound a bit odd but yeah, just just having enough of those things that you need to to bring your happiness and to allow you to either live the life that you want to live or to be able to kind of move towards doing that. I think a lot of the problems in the world at the moment are
have come about by excess
have a may
be that may be that pollution, be that wealth, be that a whole variety of isms that are that are destabilising society in the planet. And I think
Justin enough, I think is just enough is enough
Unknown Speaker
for them, well, that’s a very nice note to end on.
Alastair Humphreys
Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom. As always, thank you for lending me a warm top. And thank you for my coffee and tea.
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