by Dr. Iain
Corness
The chief instructor at Siam Air Sports at Sriracha is
Matt Patrick, a man who has made his life’s work jumping out of
perfectly good aeroplanes that are not on fire. He has done this over
three and a half thousand times, so one presumes he enjoys it!
Matt
was born just outside Glasgow and still retains that very Scottish brogue.
His father had seen very active war service in WWII with the famous Black
Watch regiment, but by the time Matt came along, he had settled into being
a local grocer.
By the time he was a schoolboy, the family were living
on the “bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond” but young Matt was an
average student, who was more interested in sport and playing soldiers
with his mates, than books.
By the time he was 15 years old, his mind was made up.
He wanted to leave school and join the army, just like his father. And he
picked the Parachute Regiment! However, this was not done because of a
love of heights, or an adrenaline rush. Young Matt wanted to get as far
away from Scotland as possible and the furthest training centre for new
recruits was in Aldershot, just south of London, and it was the Parachute
Regiment. “I had no ambition of being a parachutist, I just wanted to
join the army.”
So the fresh faced Matt spent his first couple of years
in what was known as “Boy Service.” He received the princely sum of 10
shillings a week, and by the time he had bought his boot polish and
toothpaste and other incidentals, “I had enough left over for a glass of
orange and a sticky bun at the NAAFI where I watched Top of the Pops!”
He turned 16 when he did his first jump. “You’re
never scared on the first jump. You haven’t got a clue what’s going
on. It’s the second jump that makes you scared.”
After completion of his basic training he transferred
to the Royal Corps of Transport, since he was asked by a rather pretty
lady officer. (Just another example of how women can change a man’s life
forever!)
By the time he was 18, he was transferred to Germany,
still in the transport regiment. It was there that he joined a parachute
club and began his career in sporting jumps, as well as his military ones.
He progressed through the ranks and was approached to be a parachute
instructor, an arduous task which involves both written and practical
examinations.
In the armed forces, there is no stable life where you
have any real sense of permanency. This concept of “permanency”
becomes even more unlikely when you are sent to places where people are
shooting live rounds at you! One of those places was Northern Ireland,
where he did several tours of duty. “It’s very hard walking the
streets with a rifle and live ammunition, in a place where the people
speak the same language as you do. The women and kids spit at you and
insult you, as well.”
By 1997, promoted to corporal, he was transferred to
Cyprus for 2 years, this time to drive articulated trucks for the troops
that were stationed there. However he wanted to go back to somewhere where
he could go parachute jumping. He pestered his superiors for months to get
a transfer. Eventually they relented and he was sent back to Northern
Ireland to be an instructor for the Territorial Army! But at least he
could carry on parachute jumping and organized parachuting displays during
that 2 1/2 year tour of duty.
Again he was returned to Germany where he was promoted
to sergeant and shortly after was sent back to Northern Ireland, for yet
another stint. While there, he helped set up the Student Parachute Centre.
Returning to Germany, and after further promotion (to staff sergeant) he
was sent back to Northern Ireland to run the Student Parachute Centre.
“At last I left the guns and bullets,” said Matt, who did admit that
he’d had a couple of close calls previously.
By now, he was firmly involved with jumping and took
the courses to get the highest qualifications possible in parachute
instruction. With these behind him he was sent to Hong Kong to be the
chief parachute instructor there, giving instruction to ex-pats and
Chinese, as well as the British Army soldiers.
During this 3 1/2 year stint, Matt had his first
experience of Thailand. During 1987 he came to Pattaya for a parachute
competition, which was then followed by another and then he came on
holiday. The old story - the Thailand bug had bitten! But it was not time
to come to Thailand yet. There was a spell in the UK as chief instructor
for the Silver Stars display team before his final discharge from the army
after 25 years in service.
Back in civvy street, what did he do? He became the
chief instructor for a parachute club in Gloucester and then met up with
Ron Loveridge who had plans to start a parachute school in Thailand.
Negotiations began to get it off the ground (or perhaps to get it on the
ground would be more correct), all of which took 8 years, during which
time Matt spent 12 months in Bosnia as part of SFOR (the stabilizing
force).
However, Siam Air Sports is now up and running, an
enterprise within which Matt hopes to train Thai nationals to be
international standard instructors, as well as being a recreation jump
centre for local expats.
For this man, success is, “Enjoying what you’re
doing - and not taking life too seriously.” He intends to keep jumping
“Until I need walking sticks!” and despite having a couple of
“moments” in the air (called “malfunctions”) says that the most
dangerous part of parachuting is driving to the drop zone!
Keep looking up, Matt Patrick might just drop in on you
one day!
