The one with Simon West, Arwel Richards & Santa Sax

The Chris Evans Show with The National Lottery

Virgin Radio UK

Comedy, Unknown

4.4 • 681 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Royal Engineer Veteran Simon West tells us his story about how the National Lottery funded project Combat Stress has helped him.

Businessman Arwel Richards talks about what to expect from the auction at this years NEC Classic Motor Show.

And to celebrate world saxophone day, Santa Sax pops by to tell us his story and play a tune.

Join Chris and the Class Behind The Glass every morning from 6.30am for laughs with the listeners and the greatest guests. Listen on your smart speaker, just say: "Play Virgin Radio."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Alexa. When I'm in the mood for relaxing, there's only one choice for me. Virgin Radio chilled.
0:10.2	They play songs like this.
0:16.2	And also this.
0:21.4	When I'm going to look I still see. also this. When you need to relax and unwind like me, just ask me to play Virgin Radio Chills.
0:29.7	Our next guest is a Royal Engineer veteran who uses his experience to help others.
0:34.3	Combat Stress is the UK's leading charity for veterans' mental health who have
0:38.5	benefited from £1.2 million of National Lottering Funding. So let's hear all about it from a man
0:45.7	who's simply the best. It's Simon West. Good morning, Simon. Morning, Chris. That was a good
0:53.4	introduction. Thank you for that. You're very welcome. And no one deserves it more than you. That was a good introduction. Thank you for that.
0:55.0	You're very welcome and no one deserves it more than you, that's for sure.
0:59.0	So Simon, first of all, tell us about your military history, will you?
1:02.0	Yeah, of course. I joined straight from school, a young 16 year old in 1984.
1:07.0	And I served about 14 years, just in the 14 years were all engineers in the 80s there
1:13.2	wasn't much going on out in the world if you're unlucky you went to Northern Ireland so I
1:19.1	did that as well and then the initial golf war came around in 1991 in Iraq so I served in that
1:24.8	then went back to Ireland for a few more years and then decided decided, enough was enough. I'd try the big bad wild world after that.
1:31.3	And so what happened next?
1:33.3	I had some good careers, to be honest, yeah. But I knew that something wasn't right. I thought
1:39.3	it was everybody else's problem in the fact that I couldn't understand why people started
1:43.3	work at 9 o'clock and finish at 5 o'clock. That was it. They'd done. While they were sitting at a desk having their lunch, a lunchtime when the phone was ringing next to them. And also why 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, they weren't all down the pub, because that's why I did in the Army. So it's hard. the transition I thought I handled quite well but in hindsight I wasn't very good at
2:02.2	I was nasty I hindsight, I wasn't
2:01.8	very good at it. I was nasty. I was angry. I wasn't a very nice person, and I had a couple
	...

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