REALITY TV personality turned explorer Mike Laird has been reflect- ing on his ‘weird and wonderful adventures’, 25 years on from his TV debut.
Mike was the only Scot on the ground breaking, year long, BBC reality TV pro- gramme Castaway 2000. The show followed a group of 36 men, women, and children who were tasked with building a commun- ity on the Scottish island of Taransay, three kilometres off the west coast of Harris in the Outer Hebrides with limited access to the outside world and no technology.
Mike, who now lives in Lockerbie, was the sole castaway to spend two Christmases on Taransay but his first festive season on the island didn’t go as planned, he said: “So 12 castaways went on to the island on December 6 1999 but ten of them left to go back home and have Christmas with their families. Two of us elected to stay on the island because we had already said goodbye to our families which was an emotional time, so I didn’t want to go through it again. So myself and this guy called Trevor stayed on the island and celebrated Christmas together on the island on our own.
“The TV company gave us some money to get some special food for Christmas and something to drink. And part of what we got was a turkey, but we didn’t have afridgesoIputinaplas- tic bag and buried it – and Trevor didn’t know this – on Christmas Eve when I dug the turkey up and I opened the bag it had turned green, so it had gone a bit foustie – but we decided to trim it all off and eat it anyway. Need- less to say, both of us were a little bit unwell.”
Although Mike travelled widely before appearing on Castaway 2000, he credits his time on Taransay for taking his adventures ‘up a gear’, replicating the journey of ‘Into the Wild’ shortly after returning from the island.He continued: “The first thing I did when I came off Taransay, after seeing my family, was go to Alaska and re-trace that journey.
“Which was hard and upset my mum quite a lot because it was a fatal journey (for the author) and she was worried, rightly because I didn’t have polar skills back in those days. I was on a wing and prayer, to a de- gree, but obviously I made it there and made it back.
“It can be quite worri- some, but bless them my parents are gone, and the other people in my family have just become accus- tomed to it. A lot of friends just say ‘what’s next? What can you do now? What’s big- ger? What’s harder?”
Mike continued to travel in the years that followed and refers to himself as ‘an experience collector’, de- termined to see and do as much as he can during his lifetime. In his pursuit of new experiences he hiked alone from Pakistan into Afghanistan in 2007 with the hopes of becoming a frontline photographer.
On arriving at a safe house in Kabul, Mike was met with confusion from journalists and military personnel before undergoing a ‘rigorous and ‘pro- longed’ job interview: “I arrived in Kabul with no credentials and I wasn’t working for anyone but I rocked up at the safe house thanks to some introductions I had made along the way and people there said ‘how did you get here? Who are you? Why aren’t you wearing a blue flack jacket that says press? What are your credentials?’
“And I replied ‘I’m Brit- ish, my name is Mike and I’m here. Just because we’re at war doesn’t mean you can’t get in.’
“Then I went through a fairly rigorous interview process because obviously if you’re going to go out photographing the military and you’ve just turned up in a country they do want some assurance that you are who you say you are and you’re not going to be a liability.”
His risky tactic paid off as Mike was approved by the Ministry of Defence and began work as a freelance frontline photographer.
Now 55, Mike has been working a nine-to-five for the past few years, ironically as a risk manager.However, he’s determined to go ‘full steam ahead’ with his adventures again once he retires at 60, adding: “Whilst I’ve now settled into regular life, it’s known to my family and my employer that I will not be working beyond the year of 60, so it’ll be no surprise when I say goodbye.
“I will be slightly slowed in my activities for the next five years but after that it will be full steam ahead at the age of 60.
“There’s always big trips, there’s always new places, if I went to more regular places I think I would per- ish, they wouldn’t be for me, I would die of boredom. If you offered me a free all-in- clusive trip I wouldn’t take it. I’m not adverse to drink- ing a few beers and having a pizza but I just couldn’t do that for my holiday.”
