Survival expert’s talk at Westbury Festival

ANOTHER big name is set to come to town this summer as part of the Westbury Festival as the TV star, broadcaster and survival instructor, John Hudson, will be holding a talk at the Laverton called Introducing the Survival Mindset on Thursday 27th July at 7.30pm.

John features on the Discovery Channel show, Survive That (known as Dude, You’re Screwed in the USA), where survival experts take it in turns to drop each other in remote parts of the world with no equipment to see how they get on. He is also the British military’s chief survival, evasion, resistance, and extraction (SERE) instructor and author of the UK forces’ manual on SERE.

In his talk, John will explain how the survival mindset works. Using examples from real life, film and literature, John will give an update to the stoic philosophy of life, explaining why the survival mindset ‘gives you wings’. He will share how to train the brain to respond to new situations, through the survival triangle, and our psychological perseverance engine, developing the sort of mindset that allows better decision making under pressure when facing things that seem insurmountable.

In a world that is barraged by information, John will share his thoughts on wellbeing, the importance of getting out into nature, and pressing your own factory reset button. Many people spend their lives cycling from one app, email, and update to the next, constantly refreshing their devices, but not themselves. John will explain how to live well and condition the most important survival tool – a well-stocked brain.

Chair of Westbury festival Ian Cunningham said, “We are delighted to have someone so expert in his field who is recognised around the world as an inspiring speaker – not just for survivalists but anyone who wants to take more control over their lives.

“The only thing that baffled us a bit is why his agent wanted us to include the cost of a hotel room in the booking fee – given that we’d all watched the YouTube clip from Dude You’re Screwed where John’s dumped in a remote part of Alaska (that’s even more remote than West Wiltshire) and, as night falls, calmly builds a bed & shelter, starts a fire (with a lipstick!) then makes himself a nice cup of tea out of bark. Perhaps he needs a hotel room to store his books while he sleeps out on the White Horse?”

The Westbury Festival takes place from Monday 17th July to Sunday 30th July and will feature a variety of different musical performances and talks (including a special school’s visit by Michael Rosen), a history tour of Westbury’s Hostelries, a comedy night with Tom Houghton, The Great Baldini and Tom Veck, and much more!

Visit the Westbury Festival website to view the full programme: www.westburyfestival.org.uk/