“Create your own footprints. Don’t follow others”

When former special forces operative Ollie Ollerton first decided to join the forces aged 14, he imagined a utopia that never materialised. And only in his 40s did he realise the image he was chasing had been a projection of society’s expectation.

Ollerton’s journey into the forces was unlike any other. As a curious ten-year-old, he and his brother stumbled upon a travelling circus in Burton-upon-Trent. He ventured into a tent, where a 50kg chimpanzee lurking in the shadows almost tore his arm clean off.

“That attack changed the direction of my life,” he tells Men’s Fitness. “I was always looking to be on that pointy end of danger.” For Ollerton, that ‘pointy end’ became war.

Escape and evasion

At 23, Ollerton found himself facing the final phase of special forces selection: escape and evasion across the Welsh Brecon Beacons. The phase is known