One Year Out

On 29 August 2025, after six years in the RAF, I left the military.

Today marks exactly one year.

I joined as an RAF Photographer and, after basic training and phase 2, my first posting was RAF Lossiemouth before eventually being sent out to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.

I got to see and photograph some pretty ridiculous things over those six years, but I was never particularly cut out for military life. By the end, I knew I wanted out.

It was also at Cosford, while I was training to become a photographer, that I met Bill. He would later join me at Bear&Wolf and is now the co-founder running the company alongside me.

So at least I owe the military that.

Me, on the left, in Saudi Arabia during a large multinational exercise.

Flying straight into a wildfire in Cyprus. I was the first and only RAF photographer to capture a live wildfire from the air.

The exit plan

I was never particularly fond of military life. Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I wasn't really cut out for it.

I don't like being told what to do, especially when I don't understand the reason for it. From the outside, the military looks incredibly well put together. From the inside, if it were a business, I'm fairly sure it would have gone under several times over. Between the work and the culture, I just felt completely wasted.

Photography wasn't new to me when I joined either. I'd already been working commercially with businesses and around marketing for years beforehand, so I never really felt like the RAF had given me this great career I couldn't have had elsewhere.

It was an interesting six years of my life. I met some brilliant people and got to do things I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.

But I don't miss it.

Me, front and centre, with the Cyprus Field Gun crew. I captained the team for one season, and it was easily one of the highlights of my time in the RAF.

I genuinely thought that, a year down the line, I'd have had at least a few moments where I missed the job or the culture around it. That just hasn't happened.

It was while I was posted to Akrotiri that I properly decided I wanted out. Being away made me realise how much I loved Scotland, and I decided that when I got back to Lossiemouth, I wouldn't be leaving again.

So I started working on an exit plan.

That became Bear&Wolf.

When I got posted back to RAF Lossiemouth in April 2025, I still expected to do another three years before leaving. Bear&Wolf was growing, but in my head I had plenty of time to build it into something that could eventually replace my military wage.

It turned out the business needed me a bit sooner than that.

By August, Bear&Wolf needed me full time, so on 29 August 2025 I left.

When the paycheck stops

The strange thing about leaving the military is that even if you don't particularly enjoy being there, it's still scary to walk away from.

It's a very cushy job in the sense that you get a paycheck every month no matter how hard you work, or how hard you don't work. You've also got subsidised housing, so your accommodation is taken care of and so is your wage.

There's a reason so many people struggle to leave. You become quite institutionalised without really noticing it.

I think the reality properly kicked in for me on the first payday after I'd left. For six years, money had appeared in my account on the same day every month.

Then one month it just didn't.

Suddenly, if Bear&Wolf didn't make any money, neither did I.

That was f*cking scary.

A year later, though, I genuinely couldn't picture myself doing anything else.

I have complete and utter freedom. I work to my own agenda and, in the process, I've ended up working with brilliant people and building a small team around me of people I genuinely enjoy spending time with.

We know we're building something worthwhile.

Don't get me wrong, I work harder now than I ever have in my life. I question myself on a weekly basis about whether this was the right move, whether anyone even wants what I'm trying to build, and whether we're actually going to pull off everything we've got planned.

It's a constant rollercoaster.

The difference is that now the good outweighs the bad by a country mile.

Bear&Wolf has basically swallowed my entire life and personality at this point, and I'm all for it. I definitely couldn't go back to the military, and I'd struggle to go and get a normal job now aswell.

Finding my own people

One of the stranger parts of leaving has been realising how quickly that old world moves on without you.

I can count on one hand the number of people from my military life who have genuinely supported Bear&Wolf, shared what we're doing or really taken an interest since I left. There's this strange culture where, once you're gone, you're gone.

I'm not saying everyone I ever worked with should suddenly be buying £450 jackets because I handed my MOD90 back. That would be mental.

But it has made me realise that I don't really miss that world because I've found my own people now.

The Wolf Pack are the ones who turn up.

They're the people who send messages, come to events, travel to the shop, buy the things we make, tell their mates about us and seem genuinely invested in seeing this little company become something.

A lot of them are people I know by name now.

That sense of community is something I never expected when I started Bear&Wolf, and it's probably one of my favourite things we've built.

A recent Wolf Pack meet-up at The Farmer's Dog. Photo: Jack Gray Photography

72 Hours in Shetland

Every now and again, something happens that makes me stop and think about how strange my life has become.

Earlier this year, Lerwick Distillery invited us up to Shetland for Up Helly Aa.

It was me, Bill and Jack Gray. The three amigos.

Up Helly Aa had been on my bucket list for years anyway, so the fact that this little company I'd started had suddenly given us a genuine reason to go there was incredible.

Image Credit: Jack Gray Photography

Throughout the whole trip, we were basically gobsmacked by the fact that this was our job now.

There's a short doc from the trip called 72 Hours in Shetland, and you can pretty much see me grinning like a Cheshire Cat throughout the entire thing.

I think that trip sums up better than anything else why I don't regret leaving.

A year earlier, I'd been expecting to spend another three years at Lossiemouth. Now I was standing in Shetland with Bill, who I'd originally met all those years ago at RAF Cosford, and Jack, one of the people we've met through building Bear&Wolf, because a distillery had invited our company to Up Helly Aa.

How on earth is this our job now?

Somewhere amongst those 72 hours, we also visited Lerwick Distillery and ended up choosing a whisky together.

Which brings us back to today.

Image Credit: Jack Gray Photography

I could bullsh*t you and tell you we'd planned the whole thing beautifully. That we'd deliberately chosen a whisky in Shetland knowing we'd release it exactly one year after I left the RAF.

We didn't.

It's a very happy coincidence.

But I honestly can't think of a better way to mark the first year.

On 29 August 2025, the guaranteed paycheck stopped and I stepped into something where I had absolutely no idea whether it was going to work.

One year later, Bear&Wolf is releasing its own whisky with Lerwick Distillery.

What better way to celebrate one year out than releasing our own whisky?

Bear&Wolf × Lerwick Distillery is available now for £65 a bottle.

Cheers,