Rick Brindle

 Download the first of the Cold Steel trilogy for free. When the pirate Blackbeard buried his treasure, he could never have imagined that it would fall to the heavy metal band, Cold Steel, to come looking for it.Cold Steel, high-octane British rockers who came close to legendary status, until the release of their fourth album, when their excesses send them spiralling into terminal decline.Struggling small-time band manager Johnny Faslane, in the right place at the right time, lands the dream job of managing Cold Steel, and then has the seemingly impossible mission of turning the band around.Cold Steel’s singer, Maxwell Diabolo, claims to have a treasure map that he thinks will lead him to Blackbeard’s lost riches. With the band bent on a terrifying path of self-destruction, Johnny wonders if they will even complete the tour, much less get to the Caribbean to embark on a treasure hunt. Against all expectations, the tour ends on a high and they sail halfway around the world chasing a lon

I loved having long hair on so many levels - that's not me in the picture, by the way. Firstly, there was the rebellious thing. Blokes weren’t supposed to have long hair, so straight away you’re flicking two fingers at society, which, when you’re eighteen, is exactly what you want. I also grew up as a military child, so while the rules didn’t strictly apply to me, in a very conservative community, growing my hair long raised eyebrows. Again, when you’re eighteen and developing your own identity, that’s fabulous. Then there were my role models and heroes. I was really into heavy metal at the time, and I still am, aged fifty-four. So for me, having long hair may not have conformed to my parents’ society, or the military one, but it sure as hell fitted in with the rockers, so it felt great to belong with all the metal fans. Amazing. And then there’s the biological clock. It’s a lucky man who can dodge the male pattern baldness and have any choice whatsoever about long hair beyond thir

I was in the RAF Regiment for three years. I served on a Rapier air defence squadron, which meant that aircraft recognition was a big thing. You had to differentiate between hostile and friendly aircraft one hundred per cent of the time. But despite that, could I ever recognise or work out them stupidly thin black and blue shoulder lines that identify air force officer ranks? Could I hell. I really do think they made them as utterly indistinct from one another on purpose. Sure, you could identify the officer easily enough, but working out what all them black and blue stripes meant? From any distance? For-get it! At least the navy ones were gold, and at least the army ranks were easy to see and work out. Still, as long as you slung up a salute, called them either sir or ma’am and didn’t annoy their issue Labrador dog, it didn’t seem to matter that you didn’t actually know what their specific rank was.  Well, it worked for me anyway. Cold Steel on the Rocks We Are Cold Steel Cold Steel a

It's Not For Everyone , Rick's explosive memoir about his own experiences in the RAF Regiment, gets a full-page advert in this month's Fyne Times.  What do you do when your dream job turns into a nightmare? Rick Brindle was a third generation military child. His father and grandfather served their whole lives in the Army, and all he wanted to do was join up. But for Rick it was more than just the job. Growing up on Army estates in Germany, he wanted to keep hold of the sheltered lifestyle that he’d enjoyed all through his childhood. Having left school, and after three years of trying and failing to become an officer in the Army, Rick was still determined to pursue a career in the armed forces. So in 1989 he joined the RAF Regiment as an Airman. Life in the Regiment, though, was a world apart from being a forces dependent, and Rick’s dream quickly became toxic. Facing a culture of bullying, beatings, verbal abuse and sexual harassment, the privileged community he wanted to b