Confessions of a Doorman

Robin Barratt

Description

Following on from the success of his best selling book Doing the Doors, doorman, bodyguard, ex-mercenary and martial arts expert Robin Barratt recalls more hard-hitting stories from his frequently violent life on nightclub doors around the UK. Barratt also records a few incredible and often hilarious takes from his time as a bodyguard in France, Russia and the Ukraine. After being sent to clean up one of the most famous nightclubs in Paris, Barratt found himself 'hanging out' with a top Hollywood actor. In the Ukraine he came up against corrupt officials, and in Russia he worked alongside ex-Russian Special Forces. Confessions of a Doorman starts by chronicling his steroid related heart attack at the age of just 43.Describing a lifetime of violence, turmoil and confusion, as well as his controversial opinions on the Security Industry Authority and his thoughts on what makes a first-rate doorman, Confessions is frequently comical, often shocking, occasionally heart-warming and written with Robin's usual style of pace, humour and honest.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 17 avril 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908752536
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
CONFESSIONS OF A DOORMAN
By
Robin Barratt



Publisher Information
First published as an ebook in 2012 by
Apex Publishing Ltd
PO Box 7086, Clacton on Sea, Essex, CO15 5WN, England
www.apexpublishing.co.uk
Digital edition converted and
Distributed in 2012 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2012 Robin Barratt
The author has asserted his moral rights
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition, that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder.



About the Author
Robin Barratt is probably one of the most well-known nightclub bouncers and bodyguards in Great Britain. He started his career in security and protection in the 1980s on the doors in his home town of Norwich and went on to work the doors in towns and cities across the UK including London and Manchester, and even ran the doors of a club in Paris, France. He then attended a six-week Close Protection training course in Hereford, England, and ended up travelling the world looking after the rich (but not so famous). He eventually became the International Director of Training for the Worldwide Federation of Bodyguards up until the year 2000 when it was sold in to an Icelandic subsidiary of Securitas.
Robin started writing in 2002 and in 2004 published his first book Doing the Doors, which is now a genre best-seller. For a while he also published and edited Protection News for the close protection community, The Circuit, an online magazine for the British Bodyguard Association, and On The Doors, the only quality magazine in the world dedicated exclusively to Door Supervision.
As a former doorman and bodyguard, ex-mercenary and martial arts expert, Robin’s life has been a series of unbelievable highs and appalling lows; he has experienced the extremes of violence and aggression, been shot at and stabbed and has metered out enough beatings to last a life-time. Now, after almost twenty years on the front-line dealing with drunks and yobs, gangsters and gangs, he has ‘retired’ from door-work and only does the occasional bodyguarding contract, and is instead concentrating on his writing career as well as developing his new combat and tactical defense academy which sees him is training individuals, security guards, protection specialists, security companies, police and military units worldwide. Robin is currently living in the Middle East.



Author’s Note:
This story is mostly based on events as and when they happened, although in some cases names have had to be invented or changed, and situations and dates altered. There are also some great doorwomen working in the industry, but for ease the term ‘doorman’ and ‘doormen’ have been used to represent both doormen and doorwomen.



Introduction
Confessions of a Doorman was first published as a paperback in 2006. It was my second book after Doing the Doors. However, even though this Kindle version is published six years later, I have kept the book's original format and text as much as possible, and only changed a few minor things where I think most appropriate or necessary.
Unlike Doing the Doors, Confessions of a Doorman isn’t meant to be purely autobiographical. Instead it chronicles some interesting experiences during my career working the doors, and as a bodyguard in France, the Ukraine and Russia, as well as recounting a few wonderfully fascinating and unique stories from colleagues and friends I have both worked and trained with over the years.
Also, even though things have developed considerably within the security industry over the past six years, for posterity I have kept my original strong and often controversial views on the industry in the UK, and the laws that affected door supervisors, as well as detailing my original thoughts and feelings regarding the Security Industry Authority (SIA). At that time I was one of a very few people who were actually prepared to be outspoken and critical of the security industry and the SIA and, unlike those that relied on the industry and the Authority for a living, I was able to tell it as it is and speak my mind. Ironically, as this Kindle edition is released, there is now talk of disbanding the SIA!
As I hope I did with Doing the Doors, I still want to give those interested in the security industry and this genre of literature, a glimpse of what our world on the doors (and as a bodyguard) is really like. Contrary to popular belief, we are not all twenty stone, muscular, tattooed, shaven-headed thugs, whose sole purpose is to ‘bounce’ punters out of a nightclub. Mostly we are professionals that enjoy the work we do, the environment in which we work and take pride in protecting our customers against the large number of knobheads and arseholes whose only purpose in life is to cause hardship, aggravation and trouble to the innocent. Looking back over my life as a doorman, ninety percent of the time I have thoroughly enjoyed the work I have done and have almost always looked forward to the evening ahead. Of course, like any job, there are times when work becomes tedious and boring, or that you crave for a change - just for a while - but generally my life on the door has been a relatively good life and a life like no other. Working the doors may not be mentally challenging and the job still doesn’t command much status or respect with the general public, but there are few jobs where a typical evening could have you dealing with gangsters and gangs, drunks and drug dealers, female ‘cat-fights’ and male jealousy rages, medical emergencies, fire evacuations, thieves, dishonest bar staff and customer complaints. Although you really did have a bum deal if they all took place in one evening.
Lastly, due to requests and feedback from readers after publishing Doing the Doors, I have also included stories from my life as a bodyguard, specifically in Russia. I have always had an unpredictable, temperamental love/hate relationship with the country and its people, but I adore talking about it and it thrills me when I hear from those who are equally fascinated by this strange and hostile place. Confessions of a Doorman should really have been called Confessions of a Doorman with a few Confessions of a Bodyguard too. Or perhaps not...



In Pain
‘How’s the pain now?’ the nurse asked.
I am lying in the back of the ambulance, staring up at Sophie, my nurse, and the male paramedic, who are both staring anxiously back down at me.
I am forty-three years old, forty-eight hours earlier on the 14th November 2005 on the way home from the gym, I had a heart attack and, because of complications I was on my way to a specialist cardiac unit at Papworth Hospital.
‘Number five,’ I said, lying. When I was first admitted to hospital I was told to gauge any pain I experienced on a scale from one to ten, one being mild discomfort and ten the worst pain I had ever experienced. I wasn’t exactly sure what the worst pain I have ever experienced was, but I wasn’t telling the whole truth when I told Sophie the pain I had in my chest was a number five - it was probably seven or maybe even an eight.
I always thought I could take a fair amount of pain; I have certainly had my fair share of brawls and have been battered and bashed a number of times over the course of my relatively short life - on the streets, on the doors and in the dojo. Taking a piss a few weeks after shagging an African hooker sans condom rates pretty high on the pain scale too, and my experiences during the resistance to interrogation at an SAS bodyguard training course I attended many, many years earlier taught me what real hurt was like, but laying there staring into Sophie’s pretty blue eyes, I could not even remotely recall the type and level of pain I had previously experienced. I could only remember that it hurt, but the pain I was experiencing in the back of the ambulance was horrible and seemed to get worse with every breath I took and jolt of the vehicle as it braked and weaved its way through rush-hour traffic. Sophie looked down at me suspiciously. I didn’t like to complain about pain but, having been in Sophie’s care more or less since being first admitted, she now knew to add on an extra couple of numbers to whatever I told her.
I was strapped tightly to the short and far too narrow stretcher with my legs hanging over the far end and my shoulders squeezed and bunched tightly between the metal rails. I was sure that at any moment the rails were going to explode off their fragile hinges slicing Sophie and the paramedic into pieces - like the scene in director Paul Anderson’s excellent Resident Evil which I had watched a few days earlier, when the elite commando team were sliced to pieces by the laser while trying to enter ‘the Hive’. Brilliant movie, I thought.
My chest was bare except for a flimsy blanket placed over me to keep out the cold November evening. I was attached to numerous electrodes that led up to a small heart monitor balancing precariously on the shelf above me. Personally I had never been in the back of an ambulance - although that wasn’t exactly true for a small number of my opponents - and had always thought they were full of high-tech wizardry and flashing multi-coloured lights but, looking round at the stark interior, it appeared to me that ambulances were just big white empty boxes whose sole purpose wa