Brian Jacks Book Signing in Pattaya with David Collier at the Canterbury Tales Bookshop

Brian Jacks book signing with David Collier at the Canterbury Tales Bookshop in Pattaya, Thailand. Brian talks about the Munich Olympic games, Superstars and his time in Japan. This video includes a brief appearance by David ‘Ticky’ Donovan.

Brian Jacks is a British and World Judo Champion who won a bronze medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He now lives in Pattaya Thailand.

Brian Jacks’s book ‘Mindset of a Champion and David Collier’s ‘The Gamekeeper are both now available from the bookshop.

176/5 soi Bongkot 6 Moo 9, Pattaya, Thailand. 20150.
Telephone: 086 575 4966.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/YLNwHp7qUGebDHn99

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#brianjacks #pattaya #thailand #davidcollier #bookshop #judo

Good afternoon and welcome to the channel.  I’m Heath, and I’m down in Pattaya today,   it’s been raining, so it’s a bit cooler.  It’s really nice to have some of these   fresher days here in Thailand. Well  I’m down at the Canterbury Tales  

Bookshop where Brian Jacks is having a book  signing. So, I’m just going to hang about,   maybe get a chat with the man, and we’ll see  how this video goes. Thank you for watching. I just want to introduce Ticky Donovan  to everyone. He’s a world champion;  

He was world champion at Karate.  Very, very good old friend and,   uh, he’s a little bit older than  me, about 10 years older than me Okay, while I’m here at the bookshop, I’m going  to have a chat with Dave who is the owner of the  

Bookshop here, The Canterbury Tales. And  actually, he’s just had his book released,   “The Game Keeper”, so that’s available here as  well. So, Dave, what can you tell us about this   book and why did you write it? Um, well,  it’s something I’ve always wanted to do,  

And because if you’ve got a bookshop,  you might as well write a book. And,   uh, I always wanted to get the story  out there, even though it’s fiction. I just basically plotted on with it and got  to the stage where I couldn’t type anymore,  

I had to use talk-to-text, as you know. And, um,  so it all became a bit of a marathon, but I got   there in the end. And there’s 400 pages. It covers  when I was a gamekeeper, then onto the Samaritans,  

Doing the prison work. And the interesting stuff  is the prison work, isn’t it? Absolutely, yeah.   And what went on from there onwards. So, I mean,  it’s no secret Dave has a few challenges in life,   and it’s quite hard to write at some point. So  how did you, when you started writing the book,  

You were able to type and then started to use  voice to text? Yes, so how long did it take   you and how much of it was written by hand and  how much did you need a bit of help? Well, I,  

You know, I mean, I obviously use Microsoft Word,  and that helps a lot. Then I had the book. It   took me four plus years in between, yeah, having  breaks from it and so on, and wondering whether I  

Should add bits or not. So, it took me quite  a while, and eventually, it would have taken   probably five years to complete. Then I had to  have it edited as well. Did you have times when…  

Like, over time, you have times when you actually,  you don’t write for a while and then you write for   a while? Absolutely, yeah, because I have  a thing called Inclusion Body Myositis,   which is nobody has ever heard of, of course,  but it’s a very slow-acting muscle-wasting  

Illness. So, you go through different stages.  And plus, when I was doing the book, you know,   I had a lot of the feelings come back from back  then, and I had a bit of a break, and so it’s  

Not just straightforward as you think, writing a  book, you know, it takes a lot of energy. Okay.   But although you say it’s fiction, it’s actually  based on your life experiences, isn’t it? Yeah,   it, I think the cop-out we used was fiction from a  true story, because you know, you obviously, when  

You’re writing a few things like this in the book,  it might not be a good idea to say that it would   actually happen like that, you know. But it is  nice once you actually get your book in print, it  

Actually is quite rewarding, isn’t it? Absolutely,  see it like this, that’s right. And then we,   you know, we’ve sold over 100 in the bookshop, so  I’m very pleased with it, you know. Okay. Anyway,  

Dave has to go to speak to a few people here, so  thanks for talking to me, Dave. I appreciate it,   and I’ll put links in the description to the book.  Okay, we’re going to have a quick chat with Marc Gingell, who is actually, you actually kind of put Brian’s book together, didn’t you?

Yeah, I’m like The Ghost Writer. Um, I met him, he said  he wanted to write a book, he said he wasn’t good   enough to do it. I said I’d help him as much as  I could, so I did. Okay. But so how long have you  

Known Brian? I met him in 2016 at the end in  October, and he talked about it then, and we   started. We had a book by August 2017. And you’re  writing something else at the moment for someone   else, aren’t you? Do you want to mention that?  Um, yeah, her name’s Stephanie, Stephanie Engle,  

She’s a judo player. I won’t tell you any more  than that, but it’s a really interesting story,   make a great film. Okay, well, thanks Mark, always  good to see you. Thank you very much. Okay.  Okay, I managed to get a moment with Brian; he’s been  really busy signing books. So, Brian, you’re quite  

Excited about the book being out? Yeah, I’m, I’m  really excited about it, basically because uh, the   cover is very similar to the first book we did,  but we’ve changed all the inside of it. And we put  

Loads of new things in, loads of new photographs,  and we’ve more or less rewritten it. And it’s more   stories about things I did in Japan and so on. So  why did you want to because originally it was a  

Hardback, and it was quite a big book, wasn’t it?  So why did you want to do it as a paperback? Well,   I just want more. I mean, it’s easier to carry  around, and it’s just easier for people to read.  

The big, the original one was something like that  thick, as you know. But we’ve cut it right the way   down, took a lot of the things out, and put more  interesting little stories in about what happened  

In Japan and so on. But this actually does, it’s  not only about your TV appearances, this actually   starts off, what age was it when you first in the  book? Well, the age that we talk about first of  

All was probably about eight or nine, right. And  then it goes on to when I went to Japan when I   was 15. I lived in Japan from my 15th birthday.  I arrived there. I don’t know if you remember,  

But in the old days, the plane took off in London  and went to Amsterdam, took off from Amsterdam,   went to somewhere else, and it did about six  hops before it got to Japan. But what’s really   interesting though is like when you went, when  you were 16, it was in those days you couldn’t  

Just text home, text your mom and dad, “How are  you?” You like, so you were really isolated,   weren’t you? You were put in a country where you  didn’t know the language. That’s right. So there’s   more challenges, there were more challenges  back then than there is now. Yeah, I had one  

Phone call a month from my father, and that had to  be booked into the house I was staying. We had to   book it pre-book it and so on. And at that time,  I was, as I said, it was on my 15th birthday, he  

Was sending me £8 a month to live on. Obviously,  it didn’t, it, you know, you can’t live on £8 a   month if you’re 15 years old, you tend to go out  and see something you buy, and you think, “Fudge,  

Fudge, fudge, fudge, I’ve spent too much money,  you know, what do I do, what do I do?” Anyway,   I mean, I got by. And then I went to a modeling  agency to get some modeling work because he was  

Quite good-looking back, back in the day, as you  can see, yeah. But what one thing in your career   that I find interesting is that when you were in  at the Munich Olympics when you won your bronze  

’cause you had all the trouble back then, didn’t  you, the terrorist stuff. So how much were you   aware when you were in the Olympics of what was  going on the political side of, believe it or not,  

The British team were in the block just opposite  where the whole thing happened. But I just won the   medal, and because I was wearing, I think it was  Adidas uniforms or Adidas something, they took us   off to the Adidas camp. So, I wasn’t actually  there when the problem started because I’d won  

The medal; they took us away and, you know, gave  us a congratulations thing and took us here and   that did. So, I wasn’t actually on the site,  but it took place right opposite our building,  

The building we were in. Do you still like watch  Judo events on the TV? Is it still interesting to,   I know you’ve been there and done it, but it’s  in your system, isn’t it? Do you still watch  

Stuff? Um, to be honest, because of this telephone  that we got, I get lots of my old friends sending   me clips of the modern Judo and so on. But is it  different now? Has it changed? It’s not changed;  

It’s just it’s just got more and more, how do  you say it? I don’t know, it’s got more and more   concentrated people, you know, people are training  much harder because there’s money involved in it   now where it wasn’t before. But to be honest  with you, Heath, I’m not interested. I came  

To live in Thailand; fortunately, as you know, I  won the Superstars after I would stop doing Judo,   and the Superstars gave me a completely new lease  of life because I was doing cycling, swimming,   canoeing, and weightlifting, arm dips, and all  this and all these. And I’m a PE teacher; um,  

So it gave me a new lease of life. And as soon  as that happened, I realized that Judo is not   the only thing in the world. So, that’s basically  it, you know, more or less gave it up. I still go  

On the mat now and again, too, okay. Where is your  bronze medal at this moment? Of all my medals,   all my cups, all my trophies are with my son  in England. Gave them all to him, and for his  

Granddaughter, my son, as you know, married a  Thai girl. They’ve got a little girl who’s half   Thai and half English, she’s, um, Millie, she’s  7 years old now. So, and she owns the swimming   pool in my apartments. It’s Millie swimming ball.  Okay, well, Brian’s book is out, I’ll put their  

Links in the description to where you can get a  copy. And Brian, it’s always good to talk to you,   and thanks for taking the time. Thanks for  doing it, it’s wonderful, you’re welcome. Okay,   it’s a pleasure to, that’s going to be the end  of the video now. So, um, thanks for watching,  

Wherever you are in the world. I know a lot  of people comment ask how Brian’s doing;   he’s doing fine. And um, we’re having a good  life here in Thailand; it’s great out here, isn’t   it? It’s fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Okay,  wherever you are in the world, have a great week  

Or a great weekend, and I will see you next time.  Thank you for watching, thank you for watching.