‘It’s a leap of faith’: Ex-forces couple sell home to create Aberdeenshire woodland retreat offering a lifeline to struggling soldiers

For Stu and Pip Wright, doing nothing simply isn’t an option.

In the years since the couple left the forces, heartbreaking reports of former colleagues taking their own lives have been getting more and more frequent.

Knowing action was badly needed, Stu quit his IT job last October and the parents-of-two started work on a retreat for veterans and serving personnel.

And now, from Knockiehill Woodland Centre outside Tarland, they are doing what they can to make a difference.

Their Warriors Woodland camp offers visitors the chance to get some respite from their troubles, bonding with others during back-to-basics workshops.

Stu and Pip believe their free sessions could well be the best way to prevent more tragedies.

In our exclusive interview, the couple reveal:

• What drove Stu to leave his career to take this “leap of faith”
• How Storm Arwen threw their plans into chaos just days after Stu made that fateful decision
• Why they believe their retreats could help deal with a looming mental health crisis in workers on the pandemic front line

Meet Stu and Pip Wright

Arriving at the woods, we are met with the smell of a campfire and the crunch of leaves beneath our feet.

And after that, by Paddington the two-year-old cocker spaniel bounding towards us.

Emerging from the trees behind him comes Stu, Aberdeenshire’s answer to Bear Grylls, who left the forces after 12 years having completed two tours of Iraq and one of Afghanistan.

Mixing us a cup of coffee while checking in on her eight-year-old daughter, Pip seems like any other mum.

In fact, she’s a military legend – as the first woman to ever win the coveted green beret of the elite Royal Marines corps.

It’s a feat only five other female soldiers have managed in the 20 years since.

What makes the Warriors Woodland special is that it’s been designed by veterans in Stu and Pip, who know what makes members of the military tick.

‘It hit home’

For many soldiers, their toughest battles are waged without anyone knowing about them, with veteran choosing to camouflage their pain until it becomes too much to live with.

Gathering around the fire at base camp, a parachute forming the roof above us, Stu and Pip tell us how they want to help.

Stu says: “I lost a couple of pals through suicide, they all had families and it really all hit home.

“It wasn’t necessarily PTSD, there can be anxiety and depression when you leave the military.

“You are leaving a brotherhood behind, and it’s an adjustment.

“They say it takes five years to realise you’re a veteran.

“And if you go into a job that doesn’t have the rewards you are used to, it can be tough…”

Personnel need time to ‘decompress’

It was a snowboarding trip with former forces friends that opened up Stu’s eyes to another kind of therapy – away from the “sterile” environs of GP rooms and counselling sessions.

He explains: “We do adventure training in the military, it’s a massive decompression for the guys.

“And it builds camaraderie and teamwork… I actually met Pip on a military snowboarding exercise.”

They kept doing it for years, even after some more pals drifted away from the military.

‘I took a bit of a chance…’

Stu is from Catterick in Yorkshire, and moved with Pip to Tarland after getting married – she had always wanted to raise her family in the scenic area where she grew up.

They took over the 50 acres of woodland from her parents a few years ago.

Since leaving the Army, Stu had worked in oil and gas before forging his way in IT.

It was after another good pal left too soon that Stu made a life-changing decision…

He explains: “I took a bit of a chance.

“I was in quite a decent IT job at the time, but after my friend Chris took his own life I needed to stop.

“By then I had wanted to get this project up and running full-time for a while, and couldn’t achieve it.

“In October, I resigned from the IT industry.

“We sold our house and started renting so we had the finance to make this a reality.”

Did Pip have any doubts?

She shakes her head.

“He kept telling me more bad news and more bad news…”

Glancing at Stu, she adds: “And I could see what it was doing to you.”

‘I have been in a tunnel with no light at the end’

Pip worked as a forest leader for six years after leaving the Army, witnessing firsthand how being in the wild could reduce anxiety among children.

The therapeutic quality of the great outdoors is something she came to increasingly think about, as the scale of the mental health crisis among veterans became clear.

“Stu was coming to me a couple of times a month saying ‘that’s somebody else who has taken their life’.

“I thought, if this can help young people, it can help veterans as well.

“The reality of things was getting scary, and we just took a leap of faith really.”

And Pip, who has experience of post-natal depression before receiving “life-saving” treatment, is able to offer an empathetic ear to anyone contending with dark thoughts.

The retired major explains: “Being so close to the edge, I have been there.

“I have been in a tunnel with no light at the end, I don’t think anyone could say anything to me that would shock me.”

“But I know people can get through it with the right support.”

Dismay as Storm Arwen blew plans off course

It was just days after Stu decided to dedicate himself to Warriors Woodland full-time that catastrophic storms almost ruined the couple’s dream.

About 150 trees came crashing down across their land, wrecking camps they had just created.

Looking back into the sea of fallen lumber still there, Stu says: “It was a disaster.”

He adds: “That set me back about four months, we had so much to clear to make it safe again.”

However, the couple feel “lucky” that their base camp escaped destruction.

Stu adds: “Other camps we had built literally got destroyed…”

Then, just weeks later, Malik and Corrie blew in and caused more devastation – uprooting dozens more trees.

But the eco-conscious couple pledge that all of the wood will be reused as they rebuild their retreat.

How a chance encounter waist-deep in the Dee helped shape project

The final piece of the Warriors Woodland puzzle is Paul Middlemiss.

Paul, a retired lieutenant colonel, met Stu, a former sergeant, by chance while swimming by the Cambus o’ May bridge.

After realising their shared background, it didn’t take long for them to strike up a bond.

Between the trio, Stu tells me, they have experience of every conflict of the last five decades.

And Paul tells us just how far things have come since his early days in the 1970s.

He explains: “It’s wonderful how things have moved on.

“In my day, any mental health problems were attributed to LMF: lack of moral fibre.

“You were just told to get on with it, sort yourself out.”

Warriors Woodland can offer workshops and retreats for people of all abilities, and Paul’s job as “liaison officer” is to help spread word about the project through his military contacts.

What makes Warriors Woodland work?

Run mostly on donations, Pip and Stu are determined that their not-for-profit venture be available to anyone in need.

Stu says: “People who have been have told us it feels so relaxed, it feels like somewhere they can be themselves…”

Pip adds: “In the military you spend so much time sitting around cooking your scran, looking at the fire and just chatting.

“That is what Stu wanted to bring to this, people don’t feel a stigma here.”

And the workshops “enable people to have the camaraderie and banter” they might be missing out on in civilian life.

Men ‘not wanting to talk’ can be deadly

Stu, who is a bushcraft instructor at the nearby Glendye Estate, firmly believes in the healing power of learning basic survival skills.

Expertly whittling a stick, he explains: “When you whittle, you sit and have a cuppa and someone will start a conversation.

“Then another person will interject with an experience they’ve been through, and so will someone else.

“You’re all looking at the wood, and nobody feels pressured, people can open up on a whole lot of stuff.”

Stu adds: “Men especially still don’t like to talk, we still have some cog in our brain that tells us we must provide and we must achieve.

“And I think that’s how I lost a couple of my friends.”

For visitors needing some professional advice, there is a wellbeing hut where they can speak with local counsellors.

What’s next for Warriors Woodland?

Nestled on the edge of the Cairngorms, there are also plans to offer hillwalking and wild swimming as part of the retreats.

Stu and Pip have even thought of ways “winter workshops” could work.

Ultimately, they would like to expand their sessions to other professions where workers could be battling mental health problems.

Many in social care and the NHS dealt with “a career’s worth of trauma” in the pandemic, and the effects could linger for years to come.

Stu says: “Covid has created a nightmare in terms of our mindset.

“And it could well be at that five-year point where someone is triggered by something and has a flashback.

“We want to provide some early intervention to help deal with that.”

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P&J’s tour of the Warriors Woodland

Clutching a bundle of dried grass, I am trying my best to coax a spark into life by gently blowing in its direction.

For a while, it seems like nothing is happening.

But then, a wisp of smoke grows thicker, and what had been a faintly glowing ember flickers into flame.

It must be something in our genes, dating back to caveman days, as a rush of pride runs through me at having created fire.

Watch as Stu conjures fire from only a few simple ingredients:

We are being given a sample of what people attending the Warriors Woodland can expect.

And there’s much more than just that, with axe throwing available, and various mental and physical challenges.

There’s even the chance to forage for dinner – cooking up a pot of nettle soup on the fire, or baking wild garlic bread.

Family still comes first for Aberdeenshire action man…

But being the north-east’s Bear Grylls isn’t all chopping logs and whispering fire into life.

As lunch-time nears, Pip tells Stu that he has to take their son and his pals into Aberdeen to see the new Jurassic Park movie (it’s a treat for his 10th birthday).

Stu sheepishly admits he’s likely to fall asleep 30 minutes in… But with the few months he’s had, who can blame him?

And he will need the rest – next month he is running the “ultimate endurance challenge” of the Loch Ness 24-hour race, to help raise £5,000 for the project.

You can donate here, and learn more about the Warriors Woodland here.

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